Song Of The Day by Eric Berman – “Saddle Up The Palomino” by Neil Young American Stars And Bars was one of Neil Young’s most patchy albums, but that’s not because the material on the record is lacking. Quite the contrary, the songs are pretty much top notch throughout this “Whitman Sampler” of styles and sounds. However, the record does seem to get unfairly knocked for several reasons… For one, the record was recorded in several sessions between 1974 and 1977 with different lineups. This approach to recording doesn’t lend itself to a consistent listening experience. The entirety of the first side was recorded in April of 1977 with Crazy Horse and The Bullets (Frank Sampedro, Billy Talbot,...

  Song Of The Day by Eric Berman – “Jumping Jack Flash” by Ananda Shankar East certainly met West on Ananda Shankar’s eponymously titled first album from 1970. Ananda Shankar was first exposed to Western sounds when he traveled with members of his famous family, as they performed on concert stages across America during the 1960s. Shankar’s father was the Indian choreographer, Uday Shankar, while his more-famous uncle was the master sitar player, Ravi Shankar. Although, he Ananda also became famous for playing sitar, he did not study under his uncle, but rather studied traditional Indian music with Lalmani Misra at Banaras Hindu University. The concept for his debut album was simple, meld Western rock sounds with the traditional...

  Song Of The Day by Eric Berman – “Waters Of March” by Art Garfunkel Art Garfunkel certainly missed his calling during his post Simon & Garfunkel solo career. If ever an artist was better suited to cut a Bossa Nova album with his gentle, smooth voice and octave range, it was Art Garfunkel. Proof positive is his recording of the Antonio Carlos Jobim classic “Waters Of March” from his second solo record, 1975’s Breakaway. “Waters Of March” was written by Antonio Carlos Jobim in both English and Portuguese (“Águas de Março”) and appeared on his 1973 album called Jobim. Although, the Bossa Nova craze was in the early 1960s, the song has since become a standard part of...

  Song Of The Day by Eric Berman – “Dance At The Gym” from the Original Soundtrack of “West Side Story” – Leonard Bernstein & Stephen Sondheim Broadway musicals don’t get any better than this! You can keep your Andrew Lloyd Webber with his one song per musical, Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim were the real deal! And their musical, West Side Story, has never been bettered. West Side Story was one of the first musicals where dance played as important a role in story development as dialog. The choreography was expertly done by Jerome Robbins, who also choreographed the Broadway stage version. Robbins was fired from the production before it wrapped due to it going over budget. The...

  Song Of The Day by Eric Berman – “Cosmic Convoy” by Todd Rundgren & Utopia If it had come out when it was recorded, it would have been met with shrugs, or even worse, total disdain. Instead, except for those lucky few who could afford an expensive Japanese import box set, we’ve had to wait 36 years for it to finally get a legal release, and then only in the U.K.  However, if you’re a fan of Todd Rundgren and Utopia, then it was totally worth the wait. Disco Jets was recorded in 1976, directly after sessions for the album Faithful. The album found Todd Rundgren with his head firmly in the past, giving half the tune stack...

  Song Of The Day by Eric Berman – “Bardo” by Todd Rundgren I’m kind of stuck in the middle of a Todd Rundgren jag at the moment. And if you’re a Todd fan, there are many reasons to be excited. With the recent releases of not one, but two new live recordings of the classic albums Todd (originally released in 1974)and Healing (1980) both from his recent tour, plus the belated appearance of the 1976 Utopia album Disco Jets, I guess I just can’t seem to get enough of that Todd stuff. It’s led me to revisit some albums from his catalog that I haven’t heard in a while. Once such album is his 2008 album, Arena, which,...

  Song Of The Day by Eric Berman – “Make It With You” by Bread To some, Bread’s brand of soft rock was nothing more than insipid drivel. To others they were purveyors of well-crafted, easy listening staples that provided some of the greatest guilty pleasures to be heard on AM radio during the early ‘70s. To me, their songs were minor annoyances that didn’t make me rush to change the station when they used to pop up on the radio, but now their heavenly brand of melody-driven soft rock provides a welcome dose of nostalgia for the wonder years every time I hear them. When they released their first eponymously titled album in 1969, the band consisted of...

  Song Of The Day by Eric Berman – “Come On Get Happy” and “When We’re Singing”– by The Partridge Family The Friday nights of my wonder years would have never been complete without The Partridge Family. The Partridge Family TV show was based on the real-life family group, The Cowsills, who had hits in the 1960s with “The Rain, The Park and Other Things” (1967) and “Hair” (from the musical of the same name, 1969). The Cowsills were originally slotted to play themselves in the series; however they weren’t trained actors, so the decision was made to put a TV group together. Shirley Jones, who played the group’s mother (Shirley Partridge), was already a well-established actress and a...

  Song Of The Day by Eric Berman – “Mamani” by Letta Voices like Laura Nyro’s only come around once in a lifetime…or so I thought… So, while listening to a compilation of David Axelrod’s 1960s productions, my ears perked up when I heard the sound of Letta Mbulu’s voice. At once, I knew I needed to hear more and learn more about whom this afro-pop princess is, and discover as much of her music as possible. But first, I’ll digress…David Axelrod is a composer and producer, best known for working with Lou Rawls and Cannonball Adderly in the 1960s while employed by Capitol Records. Letta Mbulu was introduced to him by Cannonball Adderly, who had seen her perform...

    Song Of The Day by Eric Berman – “Hit Or Miss” by Odetta Odetta! Voice of the Civil Rights Movement? Roots mama? Gospel great? Soul queen? Hip hop hottie? The answer, of course is yes! Actually, most people don’t remember who Odetta was. But if you are of a certain age (which is certainly older than I am) and was a fan of folk music, Odetta was your hero. She was an activist, actress and an influence on any folk singer worth his weight in salt…including Dylan, Baez, Belafonte, Ochs, Neil and numerous others. She was in the thick of things, right there at the March onWashingtonin 1963. Martin Luther King dubbed her “The queen of American...