Classic rock, pop, and soul songs from the '60s, '70s, and '80s
Classic rock, pop, and soul songs from the '60s, '70s, and '80s
Today’s classic song featured in the movie The Big Chill of the day is “Ain’t Too Proud to Beg” by the Temptations. This song was featured in what may be my favorite scene in the whole movie, when the gang is working together to clear the table and clean the kitchen after eating dinner. It’s a fun scene, perfectly choreographed…
Yesterday’s classic song of the day had everybody dialing “Beechwood 4-5789” (which is actually 234-5789). Today’s phone number-related song changes the first digit from a “2” to a “6” and gives us “634-5789,” a big hit for legendary soul singer Wilson Pickett. “634-5789” was written by Stax Records stalwarts Eddie Floyd and Steve Cropper. You know Eddie Floyd as a…
Today’s classic song of the day with a phone number in the title is “Beechwood 4-5789.” Back in the days when there were fewer people, fewer phones, and therefore fewer phone numbers, local exchanges were known by their letters rather than their numbers. Take the first two letters of the word and that’s your exchange prefix—which you could translate into…
Today’s classic song of the day is “Oh Girl” by the Chi-Lites. This single, released in March of 1972, went all the way to #1 on the Billboard Hot 100, Cash Box Top 100, and Billboard’s R&B chart. Billboard named it the #13 song for all of 1972. “Oh Girl” was written by Eugene Record, the Chi-Lites’ lead vocalist. Released…
Frequent readers of this blog know that I occasionally like to highlight obscure 1960s R&B singles that never made it big on the charts but were later somewhat revived by England’s Northern Soul scene. Today’s classic song of the day is one such obscure tune, “Do It” by Pat Powdrill. This track, released in 1966 on the equally obscure Downey…
All this week we’ve been looking at socially relevant songs from the late ’60s/early ’70s by prominent soul artists. So far all the tracks have been by Motown or Motown-adjacent (Freda Payne, with “Bring the Boys Home“) artists. Today we step away from the Motor City and venture to the recording studios of the West Coast with Bobby Womack and…
Your classic sweet soul song of the day is “Until You Come Back to Me (That’s What I’m Gonna Do),” by Aretha Franklin. This song was just one of Aretha’s many hit songs, peaking at #3 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #1 on the R&B chart in early 1974. Aretha Franklin had a ton of Top 40 singles in…
Your classic instrumental of the day that also had a hit version with lyrics is “Grazing in the Grass.” The original instrumental version was by Hugh Masekela and the subsequent version with lyrics was by the Friends of Distinction, and they were both top ten hits. Unlike the classic instrumentals of the day for the the past few days, which…
Your long-forgotten classic soul song of the day is “Tell Me, Baby,” by Karmello Brooks. It’s a terrific tune that is just about as obscure you can get—and I love it. “Tell Me, Baby” was released in 1966 on Milestone Records. It was the B-side of an equally obscure tune titled “You’re Breaking My Heart.” Neither the A or the…