Random acts of music

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Canadian twins Tegan and Sara are 20 year veterans of the music business and have managed to do it very much their own way. Even their highly successful pop songs of the last few years were very distinctly them. Their next album is due in a couple weeks and from the early releases, it's vintage T&S.


 
Rocker Eddie Money had a long career, starting to perform in the late 60s and hitting his peak in the eighties. Songs like "Take Me Home Tonight" and "Baby Hold On" became part of the soundtrack of the late 70s and 80s. Eddie passed away last week at 70, felled by esophageal cancer. RIP.

Some of the songs that made him famous:



 
Confirmation that Ocasek died of natural causes. He suffered from heart disease and emphysema. His longtime musical partner Benjamin Orr, who co-founded The Cars and other bands with Ric, died of cancer in 2000 so The Cars are now a piece of musical history (Ocasek did do one reunion and new album after Orr's death).

Drive was one of Orr's contributions to the band, but it had a major role in Ric's life: The woman in the video is model Paulina Porzikova, who became Ric's wife for 28 years. They separated a couple years ago but she was the one who found him on the weekend so there must have still been some kind of relationship there.


 
Faouzia continues to work on her planned first album. She dropped a new track and video today and ... Wow. That voice.

 
And from a young relative newcomer, we move to one of the greats. At 51, Celine Dion still shows them how it is done. This is one of three new singles she dropped today, written by contemporary songwriters David Guetta, Giorgio Tuinfort and Sia but very much in the mold of the songs that made Celine famous.

 
Brandi Carlile singing Joni Mitchell seems like a dream combo. Yet, she says in her intro that she wasn't that impressed with Mitchell's music when first introduced to it by producer T Bone Burnett and that it was her wife who finally got her to give it another look. Now she rates A Case of You as one of the 3 greatest songs ever written ( Hallelujah and I Will Always Love You are the other two).

 
Like many, I first encountered composer and multi-instrumentalist Mike Oldfield through his brilliant instrumental work Tubular Bells. However, he did put out a lot of other music, including some really good pop-rock songs. One of the best, and the most successful, was Moonlight Shadow from his 1983 album Crises, which I owned back in the day. This live version from 2006, however, kicks things up a couple notches and I love it even more than the original, if that's possible.

 
Supergroups happen when a bunch of established musicians get together to collaborate. The Travelling Wilburys (Roy Orbison, Tom Petty, George Harrison, Jeff Lynne, Bob Dylan) is classic example. The Highwaymen (Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Kris Kristofferson) was another.

Highwomen is a supergroup consisting of Brandi Carlile, Maren Morris, Amanda Shires, and Natalie Hemby that riffs off the latter example. I only know the first two members (Brandi is favorite of mine in fact), but listening to the quartet in action, the results are impressive. Here they are live in studio with their cover of a Fleetwood Mac classic.

 
I have posted Voctave before. This performance adds an orchestra and choir to their already powerful vocals. And apparently their next album is going to be symphonic.

 
Here’s some civil disobedience, all in good fun - thinking of you @Ritafee :giggle: I want to live in a world where there’s no disapproval or fear of some people borrowing the piano and randomly having a good time in public. That was great! I love moments like this. I’ve been fortunate enough to find quite a few in real life.

 
This is Ashley Stevenson. She’s a subway busker in Chicago. Most of the gifted people in this world aren’t famous. I love magic like this in ordinary settings...sad so many don’t even notice it.

 
Shoshana Bean is, perhaps, not the best-known singer out there. She is, however, a Broadway veteran with shows like Wicked, Hairspray, and Waitress under her belt. She also records original and cover material and tours in concert. Here, she sings the wonderful anthem "This Is Me" from The Greatest Showman, which she did the original demo for (fellow Broadway star Keala Settle sang it in the movie). It's a stripped back version and dancer Travis Wall works beautifully with Shoshana in the video.

 
Not every pop song lends itself to a choral performance, but (as Choir! Choir! Choir! proves over and over) a surprising number do. "Africa" by Toto may be one of the best of that bunch. This is the second choir I have heard do this lovely setting with the storm effects. The other is probably somewhere on here as well.


I am just getting into Perpetuum Jazzile so expect to see more from them.
 
One of the things I love about the musical Les Miserables is that it is one of the most operatic stage musicals. It is a big dramatic story told in broad strokes with music that is bold and powerful. This performance of Bring Him Home by tenor Alfie Boe, who starred in Les Mis for a time, really brings that home.

 
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