Download Instrumental if you like…    This takes me right back to the mid-seventies.  The band I was in started performing “How Deep is Your Love” ten seconds after it was released in ’77.  I loved it mostly because the Fender Rhodes piano pretty much carried the tune – aside from the vocals, of course.  I, personally, think this is the best love song ever written.  The lyrics are beautiful: “I believe in you/you know the door to my very soul/you’re the light in my deepest, darkest hour/you’re my savior when I fall”.  After all these years and having played it a thousand times, I just realized it could easily be a religious song.  I think I may have just had an epiphany…

Of course you know that the Bee Gees  had a huge number one hit with this tune and won a Grammy for “Best Performance” in 1977.  But it all started with an early morning recording studio encounter between Barry Gibb and keyboard player Blue Weaver.  Barry already had these lovely lyrics in his head.  All he needed now was the music.  That particular morning Barry asked Mr. Weaver to “play the most beautiful chord you know”.  Weaver immediately went to an E flat Major seventh chord with an added 9th (try it you’ll like it –  just put an F on top of the 7th chord).  The melody line just seemed to magically flow from that one chord.  And aren’t we all thankful for that?

On December 25th, 1977, The Bee Gees topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart with this masterpiece. For the ten weeks prior to that date, Debbie Boone had carried number one with a song called “You Light Up My Life”.  Oddly enough, this was another tune that could easily be regarded as a hymn.  The coincidences in life are fascinating, are they not?

Download Instrumental    This song was released in 1984 – the absolute lowest point in my life. It helped me get through it all and I will forever be grateful for that.

Ya gotta love Phil Collins.  English singer, songwriter and drummer extraordinaire.  All that talent wrapped up in one guy.  In 1979, he was weaning himself away from the band Genesis but not entirely by choice. His personal life was in shambles after his wife and kids left for parts unknown.  He spent that lonely time at the piano writing one song after another. All of this misery went onto his first solo album “Face Value”, released in 1981.  We’re not exactly talking about the most happy-go-lucky album ever written, but it was brilliant.  He penned one piece titled “How Can You Sit There”, but it didn’t make the album for some reason.  On the back burner it went.  When he was approached three years later to write a song for the movie “Against All Odds”, Phil reworked “Sit There” to fit the context of the film.  Voila!  His first solo #1 hit.

The opening piano chords are beautiful, introducing the mournful first verse.  The second verse brings in soft guitar and strings behind the vocal, then builds with drums into the chorus.  I put a backup vocals track in (the ahhs) so you solo performers out there can do it with all the intensity that should be there.  At the end – those same soft piano chords hover around his last words “take a look at me now” then strings swell and take it out.  Genius!

Every time I hear this tune, it takes me to another time and another place.  Maybe that’s a good thing… I don’t know.

Phil Collins in concert:

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=against+all+odds+song+facts&view=detail&mid=02F6BD90D89713C7B59A02F6BD90D89713C7B59A&FORM=VIRE

Download Instrumental   Has anybody noticed that the older Paul Simon gets the more he looks like Jimmy Buffett?  Just sayin’…

Many of Simon’s songs are just plain nonsensical. If you’re looking for deep, dark meanings in the lyrics, forget about it.  This is one of those tunes.  Personally, the lyrics to a song are the last thing I listen to when I first hear it.  I’m searching for “the groove” – that mysterious combination of chords, bass and beat that make you tap your feet and pay attention.  Once I decide I like the music, then I give the words a listen.  I’m usually disappointed, but who cares as long as that lovely “groove” is there.

“Me and Julio (Down By the Schoolyard)” is a story (I guess) about two young lads who commit some sort of crime, though we’re never sure what.  “Mama Pajama” (his mother?)  uncovers their dark deed and runs to the police station to report the crime.  Nice.  The father was pretty ticked off too – “Oy, if I get that boy, I’m gonna stick him in the house of detention”.  Even nicer.  The boys are later arrested (thanks, Mom) but released when a radical priest intervenes on their behalf.  Really.  In a Rolling Stone interview, Simon is asked what crime mama saw because the whole world wants to know.  Paul replied, “I have no idea what it is.  Something sexual is what I imagine, but when I say ‘something’, I never bothered to figure out what it was.  Didn’t make any difference to me.”  Mr. Simon knew he had that perfect groove going for him and the lyrics didn’t matter.

The fun begins with two acoustic guitars providing a crisp rhythm throughout the song.  The drum track helps emphasize that rhythm but not overpowering the guitars.  The bass is just there. And I used a sax as a solo instrument instead of whistling (whistling is irritating).  When we perform this one, I like a stronger, more definite beat than Simon used, so I took some liberties with the drum track.  It’s more danceable.  Notice the two-bar drum rift toward the end – big fun.  Groovy.

Download Instrumental   How many songs have been written about birds?  There’s “A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square”, “Fly Like an Eagle”, a jazz tune simply called “Birdland”, “Eye On the Sparrow”, “Bye, Bye Blackbird”, and not to forget “Free Bird”.  And there are dozens of others.  But the king of them all is our boy “Rockin’ Robin”.

This song was recorded in 1958 by Bobby Day, whose real name was, appropriately, Robert Byrd.  It was written by a chap named Leon Rene under the pseudonym Jimmie Thomas.  Makes you wonder what they called each other during the production of this classic piece.  “Hey Jimmie, I mean Leon, I don’t like this line”.  “Well, Bobby, I mean Mr. Byrd, stuff it – sing it anyway!”  Would have been confusing, I think.

Bobby Day (or whatever) had a number one R&B hit with this one almost as soon as it was released. In the next two decades, “Rockin’ Robin” was covered by such artists as Chuck Berry, Gene Vincent (remember him?), and Cliff Richards (I’ll bet you really don’t remember him).  The song sort of languished for 14 years before one Michael Jackson got ahold of it in 1972.  Suddenly it was all fresh and new – Jackson really did put his mark on it.  Many people think he wrote it and sang it first.  I guess you have to be of a certain age to know it was done long before Michael Jackson came on the scene.  I, fortunately, am of that certain age.

My arrangement draws closely from the Jackson version.  It’s livelier and just more fun to perform.   I never liked flutes doing the “birdie” parts, but you have to use them – what other instrument sounds remotely like a bird?  I just think flutes in a rock’n’roll song don’t belong – takes away from the meat of the thing.  I daresay Ian Anderson would disagree.

 Download Instrumental   The first sound you hear in this tune is a “recorder”.  As far as I know, this is the first rock song to feature this flute-like instrument.  It introduces the first four bars of “Hitchin’ a Ride” and then pops in and out throughout the whole piece.  I think it sets the proper mood for a guy who’s setting out on the road with no money – hitch hiking his way home to his “baby”.  The lyrics say it all:  “A thumb goes up, a car goes by/it’s nearly one A.M. and here am I/ hitchin’ a ride”.  What fun… right?

We used to do a dance called the “hitch hike” – inspired by the song of the same name by Marvin Gaye.  You extended your thumbs and skated across the floor like a drunken hippo.  If you’ve ever seen a hippo on skates, you know what I mean.  Anyway, it was a really dumb dance but oh, so popular… for awhile.  I was pretty glad when it went away about a year after Gaye released the song, but then the dance came back with a vengeance when a British group called Vanity Fare had a hit with “Hitchin’ a Ride” in 1969.  It was one of those things that just wouldn’t go away…. much like Hip-Hop.

I took some liberties with the original arrangement – adding more piano and a little brass – just to make it slightly more palatable to today’s audience.  However, if you’ve always liked this song,  I’m about to ruin it forever for you.  While working through the instrumentation, I realized that this could be a (groan) polka.  I’m sorry, but if you listen to it with that rhythm in mind  – it works.  Soooo… if you get a request for (groan again) a polka, maybe you can trot this out there just for fun.  It beats “Beer Barrel” every time.

  Download Instrumental    Oh, sure… she’s got that sultry “I just got outta bed’ voice that defines so many of Fleetwood Mac’s songs, but I don’t much care for Stevie Nicks. There, I said it…. and social media will rip me a new one.   I have my reasons and they certainly don’t have anything to do with her voice – she can sing anything, any style, anytime.  If your voice doesn’t come close to sounding like Stevie, don’t even think about using these backup tracks.  It won’t go well for you.

“Gypsy” pretty much defines who Stevie Nicks is as a person and as a performer.  She wrote the tune as a tribute to the time she shared with Lindsey Buckingham in the early days of their career.  They were a duo – Buckingham Nicks – they were lovers, and they were each other’s greatest enemy.  Their relationship eventually turned toxic, but Stevie longed for the days when they had nothing – living in a one room apartment, sleeping on a mattress on the floor and taking any crappy gig they could get and releasing a horrible album.  She fancies herself a “gypsy” – living carefree and cavalier, not answering to anyone or making excuses for her lifestyle.  She was happier then, she knows, but she also knows she can never go back there.  Fame and Fortune have changed all that forever.  But that doesn’t stop her from holding on to that “gypsy” persona that started her on this journey in the first place.  That’s what this song is all about – harking back to what once was but knowing it will never be again.  I think we’ve all got a little gypsy in us.

So why don’t I like this woman?  Well, she does something that drives me crazy.  She dances… constantly.  I’ve seen Fleetwood Mac in concert on three different occasions – once even springing for front row seats.  Her gyrating onstage made it difficult to appreciate the music.  I like to watch lead guitar players – I’m envious.  But every time Lindsey would go into a solo, there’s Ms. Nicks buzzing around him like a bewildered bird – arms flailing, tambourine raised high, and spinning like a top – blocking any view of fingers moving swiftly over a guitar neck.  She dances like – there’s no other way to describe it – a crazed GYPSY.  And Lindsey Buckingham doesn’t talk about his long-ago relationship with Nicks (poor guy has his own major issues now, bless his soul).  But Stevie talks about it incessantly.  It’s the classic “poor, pitiful me” routine.  That gets tiresome after awhile, Stevie.  Give it a break.  You’re rich and famous and oh, so talented.  Let it go.  Go back to being a gypsy – just tone down the dancing… please.