Too much music, too little time! :D

Hi everyone, I’m posting one day late from my initial intention, but better late than never! As some of you may know,yesterday was the 40^th anniversary of Elvis (do I need to say it?) Presley’s passing. According to an Associated Press video on YouTube, it was the biggest turn-out yet at Graceland, for an anniversary. I was thinking that the legend of Elvis had much time to grow, gaining more fans that weren’t even born when he passed. Yesterday, I got to experience once more, some of my best Elvis memories. As a child, Elvis movies were a ritual at our house. Back then, when TV stations used to close up shop at a certain time and film marathons were a special event. Turner Classic Movies had an Elvis film marathon yesterday and I allowed myself, along with taping a couple more movies I didn’t have yet, to just enjoy watching my favorite movie because it was on. Now I agree that many, including my favorite, are just an excuse to watch Elvis sing in any kind of situation. However, despite the cheese factor, you can not deny that there is something absolutely magical and spellbinding about Elvis breaking into song in the middle of a movie. My favorite movie is “Spinout”. I’ll spare you the details, because they’re really not important. To begin, here is the theme song of that movie:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnRu8CtIbjA

One of the fun elements of a lot of Elvis movies were the party songs, Elvis singing surrounded by pretty dancing girls and here’s a good example of that, from the same movie, Elvis singing “Beach shack”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLhrbqLBq4w

Now, for my favorite part, the beautifully executed, gorgeous control and tone, with a vulnerability that makes you weak in the knees and your hair stand on end song, one of my favorite Elvis ballads, a stand-out, that could have and should have been number 1 forever, Elvis and “Am I ready”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpIN2oqMF54

This is another one I put in the “if you’re not moved by it, check your pulse” category... :D Thanks very much for coming along down Memory  Lane or Lonely Street with me. :D I hope you enjoy. Thanks for reading and listening, sincerely, Sylvie <3

Hi everyone, today is news day on this blog and I am so thrilled and basically beside myself happy to be able to share, that just about an hour ago, on "Live with Kelly and Ryan", Kelly Ripa announced that Ryan Seacrest will be returning as host for a new season of "American Idol"!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=boSM1EoPF1M

Hi again everyone, the next song I want to share with you is a couple of years old, but due to my limited pop radio listening, it passed right by me. It’s a song by this British band called Labrinth and it’s called “Jealous”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50VWOBi0VFs

A beautiful, sad heartbreak song that came to my attention through a series a videos I was checking out, following a suggestion from my fratello, which I’ll elaborate on in a future post.  In any case, I do hope you enjoy this one in the meantime. Thanks very much for reading and listening, sincerely, Sylvie <3

Hi everyone, today, I want to make 2 unrelated posts. First, I’m going to share a link to a song I had frankly completely forgotten a bout. I found a snippet of it on an old tape recently. I frankly wonder how this duet came to be, but considering that the 80s were a timewhere all kinds of unlikely duets would happen, this was business as usual. So here goes, a duet between Stevie Wonder and Julio Iglesias, (Enrique’s dad for the younger crowd) and the song is called “My love”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OXVnsPC0gg

Not a bad song, though more novel than interesting, but I hope you enjoy it none the less. Thanks for reading and listening, sincerely, Sylvie <3

Hi everyone, following the reminder of a beautiful old motto of mine I heard on the radio, I’ve decided to put a smile on my blog today. :D Rummaging through YouTube recently, I found this unknown song, by an unknown-to-me artist and it made me smile. The artist’s name is Kina Grannis and the song is called “Valentine”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=183&v=PhiOZBzLl7A

I haven’t really looked her up, I just wanted to enjoy the moment she made me smile, I hope you enjoy. Thanks for reading and listening, sincerely, Sylvie <3

Hi everyone, I was listening to Ed Sheeran’s “Divide” again yesterday, after I’d re-read the Billboard article I had posted. The article lists “What do I know” as the closest song (musically) to “Love yourself”. I don’t know why Ed didn’t include LY on his album as he intended, but I guess I prefer the message of “What do I know” anyway. Here it is:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6B9J3lEyffA

Now, back to my favorite, “how would you feel?”, I realized yesterday that the reason I think I latched on to it so quickly, is that it had a familiar, comfortable feel to it. I had not realized it before, but it has a really close sound to Van Morrison. Seriously, it sounds to me like the lovechild of “Have I told you lately”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J789GId1kaY

...and “Crazy love”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeE7BOLB8Jc

...which is, a beautiful thing! :D  It’s nice to be able to scratch 2 more songs off my “I can’t believe I never posted this!” list. Thanks very much for reading and listening, sincerely, Sylvie <3

Hi everyone, no music for this post, but I have a bit of news. Olivia Newton-John will be on the cover of People magazine, not sure if it’s today or next Friday. She only released a statement and no interview, but according to this article:

http://people.com/celebrity/olivia-newton-john-breast-cancer-totall...

...People seems to have spoken to her husband John Easterling about her situation and I’m guessing they’re embroidering around it. However, I have found a very informative article about her metastatic breast cancer here:

http://people.com/celebrity/olivia-newton-john-cancer-experts-battl...

In a nutshell, the prognostic is encouraging, due to the fact that the initial bout was so long ago, plus, it’s very localised to a bone in her lower back. We are all the way with you and behind you Olivia! God bless. Thanks for reading, sincerely, Sylvie <3

Hi everyone, I have a very special entry for you today June 7, which would have been Dean Martin’s 100^th birthday. I was introduced to him, at an auspicious time in my life, by a passionate soul who couldn’t post on here. :D  As usual, I started my quest for knowledge with my 3 faithful friends: the library, Wiki and YouTube. Browsing, I’ve realized that one person’s “Greatest hits” or “Best of” is another man’s “2 best-selling + tunes that didn’t”. Learning about an artist, it can be confusing, which is why I rely on my friend Wiki. Dean, known to many as Dino a/k/a the “King of cool”, had a long, varied and prolific career spanning 5 decades, working on stage, movies and television, so it would be difficult to encapsulate it in one post. I’m generally a “voices” person, but I was told Dino, with the little he had, knew how to use it. A YouTuber summed it best in saying: he was the best without trying. As some people are known to be natural beauties, I think Dean’s voice was a natural beauty. According to Wiki, Elvis Presley adored him and modeled his “Love me tender” after Dean’s vocal style. Speaking of which, here’s Dean’s 1952 version of a well-known Elvis song, “A fool such as I”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8JlZrjkWXI

Ah man, seriously, how gorgeous is that? All right, on to the music!For startters, it would be unthinkable to do any kind of essay on Dino without mentioning at least the 2 following songs. First, here’s the song I got to appreciate thanks to the movie “Moonstruck”, the perennial favorite, “That’s amore”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnFlx2Lnr9Q

I’ve heard Dean say in an interview that he didn’t really like that song, because it had silly lyrics. When asked, in 1984, what he thought was the secret of his own success, he swore he had no idea. :D  Now second, Dean’s hit signature song, written almost 20 years before he recorded it, without chart success by many others including Sinatra, with my favorite “Dream with Dean” version  of it, here is “Everybody loves somebody”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIoUx_WyB24

Apparently, Dean had sung it in 1948, on both the Bob Hope and Martin & Lewis radio shows. The cool thing about the song is that in August 1964, it knocked the Beatles’ “A hard day’s night” off the #1 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. I love the Beatles, but you have to admit, that was kind of miraculous at the time. :D Throughout his career, Dean filmed several movies in which filmmakers found various ways to incorporate his singing. Here’s a random one, from the movie “Money from home”, during his Martin and Lewis stint, with the wonderful song “I only have eyes for you”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-qXwTmqvTI

He recorded and had much success withItalian, French and even Spanish songs, which I’ll explore in a future entry. However, if one is in dire need, from his 1962 “Dino latino” album, here is the prescription-strength charming “Besame mucho”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9MdTJh6m-U

He truly had, the perfect blend of charm and vulnerability, added to His delicate delivery, with his sweet little shy vibrato among other things, but here’s, to me, the perfect example of less is more, a truly magical song, “Goodnight my love”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59CXOS2q0Fk

I discovered, going through his discography, that he re-recorded some of his songs throughout the decades. For instance, my ultimate favorite of his, was recorded at least 3 times: in 1957 on “Pretty baby”, 1973 on “You’re the best thing that ever happened to me” and on his 1964 “Dream with Dean” LP, dubbed “The intimate Dean Martin” (best album to harmonize to BTW), the song “I don’t know why (I just do)”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QpPnvJTLGKE

Now to underline his lengthy TV career, I recently found this little gem, from his “Dean Martin variety show”, from 1972, his duet with my dear Olivia Newton-John, “Just a little lovin’/True love” :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9MdTJh6m-U

Dean had a pretty successful TV career with both his variety show and his “Celebrity roast” series and slowed down recording music throughout the 70s and only recorded 1 LP in the 80’s. He still sounded great though, judging by this beautiful 1982 rendition of “Young at heart”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YU1up2III0

I’ve chosen to only write about his career, because his personal life had its peaks and valleys and I wanted to celebrate the best part of him today. You might think, from the links I’ve shared, that he was only a crooner, but perhaps I’ll share his various fassets at another time. In closing, the last song I’ll share is one that I feel embodies some of his most wonderful qualities and it’s going out to my fratello, the instigator of this wonderful lifeline for me. From his 1969 LP “I take a lot of pride in what I am”, the O.C. Smith popularized and Bobby Russell-penned song “Little green apples”  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YU1up2III0

I’ve never heard a version of this song I didn’t like, but if this isn’t the most perfect one ever, then God didn’t make the little green apples... :D Thank you very much for indulging me in scratching the surface of the phenomenal body of work of this timeless icon of modern music. Happy birthday caro Dino and God bless. thanks for reading and listening, sincerely, Sylvie <3