I think Katy Perry is adorable. I find Madonna repugnant. But Katy hopes that she will “evolve like Madonna”. I hope she doesn’t.

“Legendary Lovers” is from 2013 but you might not be performing it yet because the song has a little too much curry in it.  The Eastern Hemisphere influence makes for a hard sell in a nightclub venue.  I’ve reworked the mix to make it more (ahem) palatable.  Not to worry, the sitar is still there.

Unfortunately, if you close your eyes, you can easily hear Madonna doing this song.  Even so, grab the midi from the Pop/Rock list.

Beyoncé – arguably one of the sexiest women on the planet (you won’t get an argument from me) – released this song in 2011, but it screams 1980’s to me (maybe that’s why I like it).  Every sequence I could find WAAAAAY overdid the brass, so I toned it down considerably.  Download it off the Pop/Rock list and cancel the lead on track 4 if you’re going to perform it.

This squirrely-looking character is, of course, Sam Smith – winner of a Grammy this year for Best New Artist. Hmmmmm… how did THAT ever happen? Seems ol’ Sammy boy here woke up one morning and decided he liked Tom Petty’s “I Won’t Back Down” so much he’d just slow it down, write some new inane lyrics, and release it with an arrangement that sounds like somebody pounding on an old piano in their garage. Perhaps Best New Plagiarist should have been the award. ‘Course, who am I to say? When’s the last time I won a Grammy? Uh…. never.
If you simply MUST perform this song, it’s on my Pop-Rock list…. for some reason.
A source known as envanligfjant did this incredible explanation of how it happened:

This one’s a classic B.B. King number. It’s a standard slow blues, but the lyrics are priceless. The man doesn’t want a “soul” hanging around his house when he’s not home and his “baby” is there by herself. Apparently, she can’t be trusted – no visits from her sister, or mother, or even a doctor if she’s feeling a little sick – “you just suffer ’til I get home”. Nice.
Download the midi sequence from the “Blues” list…

My own romantic notion of the music business includes a smoky nightclub at 2 in the morning, dry martinis, bouncers at the door, and a sultry female singer on a small stage with a 5-piece jazz band. In my 30 years in the business, I’ve performed with just 4 female vocalists (we used to call them “chick singers”). All 4 were sweetheart and I always much preferred the ladies to male vocalists. They were all gorgeous and had singing styles like Julie London, Anita O’Day, or Sarah Vaughan – at least, that’s what I did my best to turn them into.
If this is your style, you simply HAVE to do a song called “You’d Be So Nice to Come Home To”. It’s a Cole Porter tune from some movie in 1943. Dinah Shore had a hit with it which you wouldn’t like, and Diane Keaton massacred it in a Woody Allen movie. But the three singers I named above had versions that were just plain sexy. You can view the Anita O’Day version below. The sequence on my list includes the mandatory muted trumpet solo which, for some reason, all other sequencers refuse to add. If you’re gonna do it, do it right! It’s in my Jazz & Swing category…
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=you’d+be+so+nice+to+come+home+to&FORM=VIRE1#view=detail&mid=077193FB13513C8BFF5C077193FB13513C8BFF5C

  I used to make fun of this song. I mean, really, ” a hunka-hunka burnin’ love” is just a ridiculous lyric. But then I ran across this video of Elvis doing the song with a really hot band and it took on a whole new context. That stupid line is still in there, but the man carries it off somehow. Turns out, Elvis didn’t like the song either and you can sorta tell that in the video – none of his usual enthusiasm.
But maybe you don’t want the dynamics of screaming guitars and pounding drums behind you while you’re performing the song. Maybe your style or venue requires a more subdued version with piano as the primary instrument. I’ve got a midi just for you on the Pop/Rock list. You’ll still have a driving good song, but without the noise behind you. And you can forgo the hunka-hunka if you want.
I credit the lovely Dorothy Zobrist in Gulf Shores, Alabama (a HUGE fan of Elvis) for knowing that the video below was his Hawaii concert in January of 1973… she notes that he designed the outfit himself.
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=burning+love&FORM=VIRE5#view=detail&mid=A8A3F4C665F8A4B793BDA8A3F4C665F8A4B793BD

Julian “Cannonball” Adderley (alto sax) was born in Tampa, Florida in 1928. In high school, he managed to get stuck with the name Cannonball because of his voracious appetite – derived from the word “cannibal”. I was hoping for a more fascinating reason but… it is what it is. While living in New York in the 1950’s, he walked into the Café Bohemia one night, saxophone in hand (he was afraid of someone stealing it). Oscar Pettiford’s group was performing and they asked him to sit in because their sax player was late. Such was the beginning of his prolific career in the “hard bop” entertainment field of the 50’s and 60’s.
The song “Mercy, Mercy, Mercy” was written by his piano player in the Cannonball Adderley Sextet. It was an unexpected crossover hit – sailing to #2 on the pop charts. “The Buckinghams” from Chicago put lyrics to the song and had great success with it in 1966. I’ve got their rendition on my Pop/Rock list for all you singers – including a sweet sax solo in the middle. Be sure to dedicate it to Cannonball when you do it.

I ran across a video with Donald Fagan and Walter Becker (Steely Dan) explaining how and why they wrote the song “Home at Last”. It’s off the Aja album and is based on the epic novel The Odyssey – where Ulysses is trying to get “home at last” from the Trojan War – but the gods are constantly screwing with him. Steely Dan up until that time had been just another pop band putting out quirky, engaging little tunes – “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number” and “Pretzel Logic” for example. But “Aja” recreated them as cult legends with rock, funk, and jazz influences – especially the song “Home at Last”.
It’s on my Pop-Rock list and the link to Fagan and Becker explaining the song is below. If you can, you should be doing this song.
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=home+at+last&FORM=VIRE5#view=detail&mid=A562D7E167D17265657CA562D7E167D17265657C