Okay people, the crew at Monahan's Song are a little stressed. Matthew seems to have our number and we must admit that Jacksonville, Florida has been fortunate in the past in not bearing the brunt of a hurricane. So we have already made a run to the liquor store, so we are ready with our charged ipods, for the storm. But having looked at countless missives in social media about evacuations and trying to get supplies, it gave us an idea. Naturally the Monahan's Song facility and the data that supports it is stored in our secured servers in our base under a volcano. But what songs are appropriate for hunkering down? Let's leave that to you.... We offer this initial entry by The Doors. If you want to submit an entry on Facebook, please share the video so we can watch these before the power goes out!
Ryan Adam's album called Ryan Adams is excellent and there are many nice cuts on the album. "Gimme Something Good", "Am I Safe", and "My Wrecking Ball" are all worth owning. According to Adams, he couldn't come up with a name for the album so just left it at his name. Years from now many people are going to mistake this work as his first album. This is the first all Ryan Adams produced album recorded in his home studio in L.A.
But back to the music...after listening to the album quite a few times, the staff at Monahan's Song keep coming back to his cut "Kim." The guitar work is crisp and clean and feels very original. The song really grabs you when the drums kick in. Don't look too much for clever lyrics on this one. The words convey an immediate and not thought out expression of pain and abandonment. This person who has lost Kim has not sat down and thought this all through yet:
I can't sleep, can't let go Underneath my feet it's miles Nothing, there's nowhere to go With this key, scratched into my arm I spell out your name, it's ringing in my head Like a false alarm As the leaves begin to fall and grey Walking down the street I watched you walk away To be with him Kim, Kim, Kim Oh Kim!
We are not going to do better than Wiki's bio for Adams : David Ryan Adams(born November 5, 1974) is an American singer-songwriter, musician and producer. He is best known for his prolific solo career, and as a former member ofalternative countrybandWhiskeytown, with whom he recorded three studio albums.
He released five albums with the rock bandThe Cardinalsand in 2009 Adams married singer-songwriter and actressMandy Moore. Adams left The Cardinals and announced that he was taking a break from music. He resumed performing in October 2010 and released his thirteenth studio album,Ashes & Fire, on October 11, 2011.[4]The album peaked at No. 7 on theBillboard200. In September 2014, Adams released his fourteenth album Ryan Adamson hisPAX AMlabel.
So while "Gimme Something Good" is already the song leading in play from this album, we highly recommend "Kim". Give it a listen.
Herbie Hancock Here is the story of a great instrumental that changed three times and has been covered by over 200 artists! According to an article by Mike Hobart:
When the American pianist Herbie Hancock was composing the soul jazz classic “Watermelon Man” for his 1962 Blue Note debut album Takin’ Off, he realised that he had presented himself with a problem.
On the one hand, the then 22-year-old wanted to mesh experiences from his own life into his work, and the rolling, rackety sound of a watermelon seller’s horse-drawn wagon doing the rounds of Hancock’s Chicago South Side 1940s childhood was a powerful memory refracted into the tune’s core.
On the other, the image of a grinning piccaninny happy with his watermelon slice was then a horribly dominant racist caricature, and in the rising civil rights temperature of the times Hancock knew the song could misfire.
“So . . . I asked myself two questions,” Hancock later recalled in his autobiography, Possibilities. “Is there anything wrong with watermelons? No. Is there anything inherently wrong with the watermelon man? No . . . By naming my song ‘Watermelon Man’, I wanted to reclaim the image.”
Herbie was asked to fill in for Chick Corea who was leaving Mongo Santamaria's band. and according to Hancock: "Donald Byrd came to one of the gigs and Donald had a conversation with Mongo about the link between African American music and Afro-Cuban music since the roots from Africa were pretty much the same. And Donald asked me to play the song Watermelon Man. So I started playing it and Mongo said, keep playing it. So then he got up on the conga drums. Soon as he started playing, that Afro-Cuban sound fit like a hand in a glove. And one by one, the people in the supper club who had been sitting at the tables talking, one by one, they got up. Pretty soon they were all dancing and screaming."
Mongo Santamaria
Watermelon Man was released as a single from Herbie's first album Takin' Off. The album did not chart, but the single reached #121. His 1973 remake contained on the now famous Chameleon album never charted.
Mongo's Album charted at #63 in 1963. This version of Watermelon went to #10 in the Hot 100, #8 in R & B Singles, and peaked at #3 on the Adult Contemporary charts.
In the opinion of Monahan's Song's staff, we love Herbies original but, nobody remembers hearing it growing up. "Take Five" by Dave Brubeck, yes. "The In Crowd" by Ramsey Lewis? Sure! But mostly we all remember the Mongo Santamaria version which got constant play on mega radio stations like WABC in New York.
As for the 1973 remake of the song on Herbie's celebrated album Chameleon, the synth does not hold up and as stated before, we prefer the original. Another problem is that it takes 1:40 into the song before the slightest hint of a melody shows up.
But decide for yourself. Here are all three versions for your consideration and enjoyment:
Natalie has just announced her new single "Stumble" has been released and ready for download. Staff at Monahan's Song loves the energy coming from this Tampa based 16 year old artist and we are excited for her! Here is the press release. Check out our November interview with Natalie here. She apparently crushed her performance at the Hard Rock in Tampa recently.
