Hunkering Down Greatest Hits

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 Adams: "Kim" (2014)

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!

Parts of this song remind us of a more lilting version of "Allison Road" by the Gin Blossoms (written by Robin Wilson), which was featured in Monahan's Song on 9/11/13.

Our research finds that none other than Johnny Depp does some lead on this track. Listen for it at about 2:20 into the video below. He has played on stage live playing "Kim" several times with Adams.

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 of alternative country band Whiskeytown, with whom he recorded three studio albums.

In 2000, Adams left Whiskeytown and released his first solo album, Heartbreaker, to critical acclaim. The album was nominated for the Shortlist Music Prize. In 2001, Adams released the UK certified-gold Gold, which included the hit single, "New York, New York".

He released five albums with the rock band The Cardinals and in 2009 Adams married singer-songwriter and actress Mandy 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 the Billboard 200. In September 2014, Adams released his fourteenth album Ryan Adams on his PAX AM label.

So while "Gimme Something Good" is already the song leading in play from this album, we highly recommend "Kim".  Give it a listen. 

Mongo Santamaria: " Watermelon Man" (1963), Herbie Hancock: "Watermelon Man" (1962) (1973)

                                                       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 Claro's New Single "Stumble" Just Released!

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.

Our Interview With Natalie Claro, New Talent From Tampa!

Natalie Claro is a 15 year old singer, songwriter, dancer, and musician who has created a "career in [a little over] a year" (-TBO newspaper). She is now co-producing her own music to create her very first single that is set to release in January 2016, alongside a music video.

Her songwriting skills developed at an early age, at just 10 years old she was already writing full-length songs that were played with her piano. Now she has composed an entire album that she plans to consist of many original and new ideas to present to the world; 100% ready to be produced.

The staff at Monahan's Song loved this young talent from Tampa and we were happy to catch her performance in Jacksonville. We took a little time to interview her:

What was the first song you learned and sang on guitar

I'm like 60% sure that it was a Justin Bieber song when I was in 4th grade. 

Who were/are your greatest influences on your playing?

Michael Jackson, twenty øne pilots, Paramore, Zella Day, Elvis, Amy Winehouse.

You are young in terms of the industry, but what advice would you give to someone trying to catch on?

Always be yourself and never give up. If you try to create an image out of yourself that isn't you, people will know and nobody will be happy. Music is about originality and creativity ya know? Just stay true to your style and your art and everything will fall into place I promise.

Never give up, some of the biggest stars out there today took years and years just to get their first songs out. I hope nobody ever feels defeated. Big goals take big steps. Big steps take time. So we can just take a huge promise, if I wont give up, you can't either!! Just keep swimming, swimming, swimming.

How would you describe your music, and how would you say it differs from others?

My music is kind of all over the place, which is something I'm really, really proud of. I have a lot of unheard music from not being able to provide the sound I want just acoustically (which I must say is super frustrating) but from what I have prepared, none of them really sound alike. I think that's what will make me stand out, that I can go from Rock to R&B to soul to well yeah anything. I love too many genre's of music just to stick to one I'd be too sad to just play one.

Of all the songs you currently play, which is your favorite and why!

Baby Bug, my original. So far it's everyone's favorite and I think it's because of the dramatic build throughout the whole thing. It's my favorite because it tells a story about a struggle I had when I was younger. In middle school I didn't really have any friends and people would always tell me I'm worthless and not cool and basically anything a pre-teen girl would hate to hear.

I talk about myself in third person, and refer to "baby bug" as "you" rather than "I". I just love that because I feel like any listener can relate. They can put themselves in that place and feel as if the songs lyrics are speaking directly to them, reminding them that no matter what you're going through, or what is making you feel like you can't accomplish anything, it's wrong. It's perfect I'm always up for motivating people and people are always up for motivation haha. Music is great.

www.NatalieClaro.com

https://www.facebook.com/natalieclaromusic

info@natalieClero.com

Personal Manager: 747-200-4914

Tour Manager: 646-930-4244

James Brown: "Try Me" (1958)

"Try Me" was originally named "Try Me (I Need You)" when James Brown and The Famous flames recorded it in 1958. "Please, Please, Please" had been their first hit in 1956. Try me charted in the Billboard Hot 100 and became a number one hit on the R & B charts as well.

James Brown had lost the original members of his group with the exception of Johnny Terry. He took on Little Richard's former back-up vocalists and kept going. Try me was suggested by someone Brown met in a nightclub and he asked his guitarist and singers to work on it. He took full solo credits however.

Try me Try me
Darlin tell me
I need you
Try me Try me
And your love will always be true
Oh I need you (I need you)

"The Godfather of Soul",  founding father of funk and "Soul Brother No. 1.",would become known as a tireless, electrifying live performer who the Rolling Stone would name as #7 in their 100 Greatest Artists list. The crew here at Monahan's Song of the Week will never forget his performance in the concert film "The T.A.M.I. Show" released in 1964.

A biopic. "Get On Up" was released in 2014 to great acclaim. It was produced by Mick Jagger.

"Mr. Dynamite", would eventually place 16 No. 1 hits on the R & B charts, and set a record for the most songs on the charts that did not make it to the top slot. He is a member of the Rock and Roll and Songwriters Hall of Fame respectively. He died of heart failure on Christmas Day 2006.

He would be married four times, fight drug addiction and have many a run in with the law.

But the time of "Try Me" was all before that. Brown referred to it as a pop song. There is great feeling in his vocals...

Los Lonely Boys: "Heaven" (2004)

A quick one today boys and girls. "Heaven" is an amazingly strong number from Los Lonely Boys, a self declared "Texican Rock" band. The song was written by brothers Henry, Jojo and Ringo Garza, who are heavily featured in the songs video. 

The song did extremely well and would make it to number 16 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart, and reach number one on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart. "Heaven would also go on to win a Grammy in 2004, Many think the song contributed mightily for their self-titled record going multi-platinum. 

Wikipedia mentions AllMusic reviewer Thom Jurek, who described the song as "infectious" and draws comparisons to the music of Freddie King,Stevie Ray Vaughan and Los Lobos. He goes on to state that "Heaven" is "a single in the old sense of the word: killer hook, easy groove, a slippery but unmistakable bridge with a beautiful vocal to boot -- all coming in under four minutes. I don't think we could top that description. 

Vamonos!

Save me from this prison
Lord, help me get away

Cause only you can save me now
From this misery

I've been lost in my own place
And I'm gettin' weary
How far is heaven?

Enjoy this Texas gem!