Landslide

Posted by Dave Zobrist on

th    Every now and then (not often) a song comes along that just takes your breath away the moment you hear it.  You file it away under “best ever” and it haunts you the rest of your life.  You’re walking along the beach and that same melody comes drifting across the sand from an outside cafe.  Or you hear another artist cover it and you think “I like the original better”.  But it’s always out there somewhere, lurking and waiting to pounce – bringing back perhaps bittersweet memories or just a reminder that you used to be younger.  “Landslide” is just such a song.

Stevie Nicks wrote this during a time in her life when she wasn’t sure what direction to go.  She and guitarist Lindsey Buckingham were having trouble in their relationship and Polydor Records had dropped their album BuckinghamNicks.  Stevie visited a friend in Colorado (Aspen, of course) and wrote the lyrics while taking in the beauty of the state through a living room window.  Years later in an interview, she commented, ” looking out at The Rocky Mountains pondering the avalanche of everything that had come crashing down on us…. at that moment, my life truly felt like a landslide in many ways”.

Buckingham and Nicks went on to join Fleetwood Mac and vaulted the band to the top of the charts with Rumors – the best album of all time.  This song has been performed at every one of their concerts since then and we do it on every job ourselves.  Since there isn’t any keyboard part, I cue up the sequence for Karen, then  I go sit in the crowd and listen to her perform it… still takes my breath away.

Crazy

Posted by Dave Zobrist on

th25OLI37E  Download Here    She died in a horrendous plane crash at just 30 years old.  Patsy Cline, born Virginia Patterson Hensley in September of 1932, was part of the early 1960’s Nashville Sound – which was a subgenre of country music, replacing the honky-tonk style of the ’50s.  She was known for the intense emotion she put into a song, and for her rich contralto voice.  When she was 13, she was hospitalized with rheumatic fever.  “The fever affected my throat and when I recovered I had this booming voice like Kate Smith”.  Kate Smith wishes…

Patsy’s string of hits began in 1957 with “Walkin’ After Midnight” and ended in 1963 with “Sweet Dreams”.  This song, “Crazy” was somewhere in the middle of all that and is still a crossover standard today.  You’ll hear it performed at the finest night clubs and in the lowliest of local “dives”.  I found this sequence hidden away on an obscure website and thought it most closely resembled the original recording.   I had to completely redo the piano track, but the rest of it was near perfect.  I used a tenor sax on the lead line as it sort of mimics her sultry voice.  Here’s to Patsy Cline – taken away from us much too soon.

Boot Scootin’ Boogie

Posted by Dave Zobrist on

thGD1DJ3RJ   Download Here    Break out your cowboy hat and boots, jump in your pickup truck, and head for that place “stuck out in the woods” and dance your little heart out.  I’m not a big fan of country music, but I dearly love to perform this song.  I’ve played a few “honky-tonks” in my time and this tune always goes over well.

In the early ’90s, line dancing was huge!  Whenever one was requested (usually demanded… about one in the morning), we always broke out “Achy Breaky Heart” – a song I despised the minute I heard it.  The words achy and breaky should not be together in the same sentence.  Anyway, suddenly Brooks and Dunn had a hit with “Boot Scootin’ Boogie” and it became THE song for a line dance.  I was so grateful to those boys.  No more Billy Ray Cyrus nonsense.  We also use “Pink Cadillac” as a line dance, but that’s another story.

This one isn’t the easiest to sing.  I have trouble cramming the words “I’ll have a shot of that redhead yonder looking at me” in the space of just 4 beats, but in a honky-tonk, at one o’clock in the morning – nobody cares.

 

Devil with a Blue Dress On

Posted by Dave Zobrist on

Devil_with_a_Blue_Dress_by_SkipM    C’mon – you know you can sing this! Go to the Pop/Rock list, download the MP3 file with no lead line, stick it in your car MP3 player, turn up the volume, and SING!!!!  Nothing like flying down the highway dancin’ in your seat and screaming like Mitch Ryder!

Smile

Posted by Dave Zobrist on

thGTW94791   This song can be a terrific closer for the night.  You always want to send your crowd home with a smile on their face… and what better song than this?

It was composed by Charlie Chaplin for his 1936 movie Modern Times.  Originally an instrumental soundtrack for the movie, it was released in 1954 by Nat King Cole with wonderful lyrics – “You’ll find that life is still worthwhile – if you’ll just – smile”.  The MP3 and midi files (without the lead line) are on the Pop/Rock list.

September 4th is my mother’s birthday.  She always had one of her great smiles for me – no matter what.  Today, give a stranger one of your smiles – it might be the only sunshine he sees all day.

Paul Simon – Not a Happy Camper

Posted by Dave Zobrist on

paul-simon    Let’s put it this way… you won’t go to a Paul Simon concert and hear him sing “The Happy Song”… ever.  He’s a very sad, serious man – but a genius nonetheless.  Just review some of the lyrics he’s written:  “When you’re weary – feeling small”, “Cecelia, you’re breakin’ my heart – shaking my confidence daily”, “I wish there were something I could do to make you smile again”,  ” Now I sit at my window and I watch the cars – fear I might do some damage one fine day”, “I never worry, why should I – it’s all gonna fade”.  These are not the thoughts of a guy who gets out of bed each morning with a spring in his step and a smile on his face.

And then there’s this song – “Slip Slidin’ Away”.  It boasts a cast of characters who are very unhappy with their lives:  a man who worries mightily about losing his wife, a woman desperate to shed a boring marriage, a divorced father trying unsuccessfully  to communicate with his little boy… well, you get the picture.  Classic Paul Simon….

This one isn’t for every singer or every venue.  If you choose to perform it as a solo act, try to concentrate on the unique rhythm track and the almost choir-like chorus.  Pretend it’s a happy song, even though the lyrics scream “lonely and dejected”.  It’s on the Pop/Rock list without the lead line.

The last verse is especially compelling:  “God only knows – God makes his plan – the information’s unavailable to the mortal man”.  And then, finally, “We work our jobs – collect our pay – Believe we’re gliding down the highway – when in fact we’re slip sliding away”.  Sobering thought, that.

Johnny B. Goode

Posted by Dave Zobrist on

th0BWF4RK1    I first played this song back in the 70’s (yes, the 70’s – good times). I was in a band that performed a variety of music, but I always looked forward to that part of the evening when we trotted out this Chuck Berry tune. We had a drummer who could sing it like nobody’s business and I loved the piano licks. Big fun.

Berry wrote the song in 1955, but didn’t record it until I was 8 years old (I’m pretty sure he was waiting for me to be old enough to appreciate it).  He admitted that it was partly autobiographical – first using “colored boy” in the lyrics but then changed it to “country boy” to make sure it got played on the radio.  “Johnny B. Goode” is one of his most famous songs and is considered to be one of the most recognizable in music history  (it’s that guitar intro).  It is ranked as number seven on Rolling Stone’s list of “The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time” (not that I read that liberal rag anymore).

This is the arrangement we use today.  I’m using a sax on the vocal lead so you get an idea how to sing it (you might be under 30).  I usually cut the piano track and play it myself…. it’s still huge fun.

Ob La Di, Ob La Da

Posted by Dave Zobrist on

Ob-La-DiOb-La-DaC    I’m not a big fan of the polka.  As a kid, accordion was my primary instrument and polka requests were common… too common.  But, of course, it was an accordion after all.  By the time I was 14 I felt like if I played “Beer Barrel” or “Clarinet” one more time I’d just crawl away into a hole somewhere.  But my Grandfather Zobrist loved polkas – and I would have played anything for him.  Once I put the accordion away for good and took to piano, I vowed never to do another polka.  I kinda felt that way about waltzes too.

But, of course, that didn’t work out.  There are still folks out there who love polkas.  Since I’m of German-Swiss descent myself, I can spot ’em coming a mile away.  But we try to steer them toward this song by The Beatles.  “Ob La Di, Ob La Da” is a happy tune that lends itself to dancing the… you guessed it… the POLKA!  Paul McCartney wrote it in his usual irreverent style but John Lennon “loathed” the song (he was much too serious).  I like it myself, mostly because I don’t have to roll out another beer barrel… unless somebody insists, of course.

On your next gig, try using this Beatles tune as a substitute for that German dance.  It’s a lot more fun and the lyrics are downright cute.  I’ll bet even Grandpa would tap his feet on this one…. but then he would have said “now how about a real polka, boy”.  (sigh)

Dream a Little Dream of Me

Posted by Dave Zobrist on

d37a37838e26b68788910bcdc908a846    Anybody remember a television series called The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet?  Well, the star of the show, Ozzie Nelson (Oswald George Nelson), was the first to record “Dream a Little Dream of Me” in 1931.  There have been some 60 versions of this song, but by far the best was Mama Cass in 1968.  Years later, she said in an interview that she tried to do the song as if it were 1943 and she’d just been handed a brand new song – “I tried to sing it like it was the first time”.  She even did her own whistling toward the end of the song.

I heard an arrangement I really liked a few years ago and set about creating a sequence just like it.  We got pretty close actually.  You can grab the backing tracks off the Jazz list on the right.  If you click above, you can hear Karen doing our arrangement- I guess the 61st version.  She didn’t whistle a note, however…. we let the Yamaha do that.

Paper Moon

Posted by Dave Zobrist on

Paper Moon 9    “It’s Only a Paper Moon” was written in 1933 by one Harold Arlen. He composed it for a really crappy Broadway play called The Great Magoo.  The play had such poor reception that the song fell away into oblivion.  But its lasting fame came from recordings by popular artists covering it during the World War II era – people like Ella Fitzgerald and Nat King Cole.  You can find the download on the Jazz/Swing list on the right.

If you want to do the long legato intro just shoot me an email and I’ll send that version to you.