Showing posts with label Soul Music. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Soul Music. Show all posts
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Sunday, September 12, 2010
You're My First, My Last, My Everything
We were married, on our 25th Anniversary of being a couple, in Vancouver B.C., on the roof of a building with a beautiful view of that singularly striking skyline. Our dear friends from Seattle- Ken & Eiric (this summer they celebrated 24 years) stood up for us. We wrote our own vows & had not shared them with each other. We became teary eyed when, independent of each, we both quoted the same song lyric as a section of each of our pledges to love each other forever.
That song lyric was from You’re The First, The Last, My Everything by 5 time Grammy Award winner Barry White, known for his rich bass voice & romantic image. White's greatest success came in the 1970s as a solo singer & with his Love Unlimited Orchestra, crafting many sexy hits of soul, funk, & disco songs that I used for background music for seduction & sex. A worldwide favorite, White had many platinum albums & singles, with combined sales of over 100 million, & he helped get me laid countless times. Thanks, Barry, I needed your assistance.
Barry White left this world in the summer of 2003, just when I needed him the most. Today marks the 66th year of the day of his birth.
These are just a few of the vintage photographs of male couples from my collection of 100+. I love to study them & wonder about the subjects. I make up names & back stories for them, click on an image to enlarge:
My first, my last, my everything,
& the answer to all my dreams.
You're my sun, my moon, my guiding star.
My kind of wonderful, that's what you are.
I know there's only, only one like you
There's no way they could have made two.
You're, you're all I'm living for
Your love I'll keep for evermore.
You're the first, my last, my everything.
In you I've found so many things,
A love so new, only you could bring.
Can't you see if you,
You'll make me feel this way,
You're like a first morning dew on a brand new day.
I see so many ways that I can love you,
'Till the day I die...
You're my reality, yet I'm lost in a dream.
You're my first, my last, my everything.
I know there's only one, only one like you
There's no way they could have made two.
You're my reality.
But I'm lost in a dream,
You're the first, you're the last, my everything.
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Will It Go Round In Circles? Born On This Day- September 2nd... William Everett Preston
Billy Preston was one of the greatest keyboard players in pop music, & probably the greatest session player of the modern era. Preston is one of several people sometimes referred to by outsiders as a 5th Beatle. At one point during the Get Back sessions, John Lennon actually proposed the idea of having him as the "5th Beatle" (Paul: “It was bad enough with 4 Beatles”) Preston first met The Beatles in 1962 while part of Little Richard's touring band, when The Beatles manager- Brian Epstein (who was gay) organized a Liverpool show, which The Beatles opened.
They would meet again in 1969, when The Beatles were on the verge of breaking up while recording the last album to be released, Let It Be (they would later record Abbey Road which was released before to Let It Be). George Harrison had quit & walked out of the studio & gone to a Ray Charles concert in London, where Preston was playing organ. Harrison brought Preston back to the studio, where his keen musicianship & gregarious personality calmed the tension, & recording continued.
Preston was a child prodigy on piano & organ. By the age of 10 he was performing in the bands of gospel singers Mahalia Jackson & Andrae Crouch. At age 12 he began a side career acting, & appeared in the film St. Louis Blues, playing blues composer W.C. Handy as a young man. In the 1960s he performed with Little Richard & Ray Charles. In the mid-1960s, he was a regular on my much loved musical variety series- Shindig! as a member of the show's house band. Preston collaborated with & recorded with: The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Band, Nat King Cole, Barbra Streisand, Little Richard, Eric Burdon, Ray Charles, George Harrison, Elton John, Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan, Sam Cooke, Sammy Davis JR., Aretha Franklin, the Jackson 5, Quincy Jones, Mick Jagger, Sly Stone, Johnny Cash, Neil Diamond, Red Hot Chili Peppers & Ringo Starr. He played the Fender Rhodes electric piano & the Hammond organ.
Preston was the very 1st musical guest on the 1st show of a brand new TV show- Saturday Night Live (along with the still closeted- Janis Ian. He wrote Joe Cocker’s biggest hit- You Are So Beautiful, Me & Mrs Jones (which is in my repertoire...always a hit in my act) & he had a string of solo & duet hits in the 1970s that were so infectious that I can still hear the groovy hooks: Outa-Space, Will It Go Round In Circles, Space Race, one of my favorite songs of the era- Nothing From Nothing, & the duet with Syreeta Wright- With You I’m Born Again (which I want to be sung at my wedding to James Franco).
It was well known in the music industry that Billy Preston was gay, with a penchant for young male hustlers. He died at age 59, in 2006, of complications of malignant hypertension.
He had a very distinctive & recognizable keyboard style.I was always a very big fan of his work as a session player & solo artist. Here is a zany coincidence with me & Billy Preston : Preston began his recording career as a solo artist with the 1965 album- The Most Exciting Organ Ever, the very same year that I released my 1st single, the swingin’- Steve’s Most Exciting Organ...Ever!.
Are you able to resist this song?
They would meet again in 1969, when The Beatles were on the verge of breaking up while recording the last album to be released, Let It Be (they would later record Abbey Road which was released before to Let It Be). George Harrison had quit & walked out of the studio & gone to a Ray Charles concert in London, where Preston was playing organ. Harrison brought Preston back to the studio, where his keen musicianship & gregarious personality calmed the tension, & recording continued.
Preston was a child prodigy on piano & organ. By the age of 10 he was performing in the bands of gospel singers Mahalia Jackson & Andrae Crouch. At age 12 he began a side career acting, & appeared in the film St. Louis Blues, playing blues composer W.C. Handy as a young man. In the 1960s he performed with Little Richard & Ray Charles. In the mid-1960s, he was a regular on my much loved musical variety series- Shindig! as a member of the show's house band. Preston collaborated with & recorded with: The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Band, Nat King Cole, Barbra Streisand, Little Richard, Eric Burdon, Ray Charles, George Harrison, Elton John, Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan, Sam Cooke, Sammy Davis JR., Aretha Franklin, the Jackson 5, Quincy Jones, Mick Jagger, Sly Stone, Johnny Cash, Neil Diamond, Red Hot Chili Peppers & Ringo Starr. He played the Fender Rhodes electric piano & the Hammond organ.
Preston was the very 1st musical guest on the 1st show of a brand new TV show- Saturday Night Live (along with the still closeted- Janis Ian. He wrote Joe Cocker’s biggest hit- You Are So Beautiful, Me & Mrs Jones (which is in my repertoire...always a hit in my act) & he had a string of solo & duet hits in the 1970s that were so infectious that I can still hear the groovy hooks: Outa-Space, Will It Go Round In Circles, Space Race, one of my favorite songs of the era- Nothing From Nothing, & the duet with Syreeta Wright- With You I’m Born Again (which I want to be sung at my wedding to James Franco).
It was well known in the music industry that Billy Preston was gay, with a penchant for young male hustlers. He died at age 59, in 2006, of complications of malignant hypertension.
He had a very distinctive & recognizable keyboard style.I was always a very big fan of his work as a session player & solo artist. Here is a zany coincidence with me & Billy Preston : Preston began his recording career as a solo artist with the 1965 album- The Most Exciting Organ Ever, the very same year that I released my 1st single, the swingin’- Steve’s Most Exciting Organ...Ever!.
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