All our times have come.....Come on, baby, don't fear the reaper... Diamond life, lover boy-oy, He moves in space with minimum grace and maximum joy.. (I did this in two-part harmony with a total stranger at our lab's Department Picnic Karaoke contest...) Pretty Ballerina! Big Mick, that reminds me of the only time I got to here Leo Kretzner (Lap dulcimer player extraordinaire) in concert - his encore was "Just Walk Away, Renee" and a Motown song, both of which really, really worked on dulcimer! I went to hear Richard Thompson doing his "1,000 Years of Popular Music" concert this week. It was Thompson, Debra Dobkin on drums and Judith Owen (AKA Mrs. Harry Shearer) on sultry vocals. They started with "Summer is Icumin In" from a 13th century setting, then a Scottish version of "The Cruel Mother", an aria by Henry Purcell, an English carol from the 1700's, Gilbert and Sullivan, etc - but the fun started for real when they got to the twentieth century... Drinkin' Wine, Spoh-di-oh-di, Please Don't Play A-11, Cole Porter, early Beatles, Sun Records rockabilly, the Easy Beats only hit (Friday on My Mind), the Kinks, a Prince number (Thompson referred to him as "that little purple dude from Minneapolis") and, as his piece d'resistance, a Thompsonized version of Britney Spears' "Oops, I've Done It Again". It was a great show -they played for two hours straight, then did another six songs in two encores (he even got the audience singing along with "Sam Hall"). The only kind of music out-of-bounds for this show was Thompson's own material - they didn't do any of his songs. This show was an excellent example of how familiarity with lots of different musical styles and songs can enrich a musician's song-writing and/or instrumental performance. Thompson and the ladies were obviously having the time of their lives, and their skill and enthusiasm made it fun for the audience, too. So, while we joke that knowing all these pop songs is a "Guilty Pleasure", I somehow suspect that there's a spark of our love of all the music we gobbled up over the years shining in the songs we sing now...
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