A few years ago “Lady Blackbird” (aka Marley Munroe) burst onto the Jazz scene. When she was a child her parents listened to artists like Stevie Wonder, Chaka Khan, Kool and the Gang and gospel singers like Andraé Crouch. When her mother realized Marley could sing she used to follow her around with a tape recorder. She has kept all the tapes of her as a small child singing and reciting various songs and nursery rhymes.
Marley got her start by performing at family gatherings, church, funerals, weddings, fairs and even sports events. At age 12 she traveled back and forth to Nashville after signing with a Christian record label and, as a teenager, she toured the U.S. performing in arenas with Toby Mac from “DC Talk.”
Before starting her career as Lady Blackbird, Marley Munroe explored other musical styles, eventually finding her Jazz-tinged calling as Lady Blackbird. Her debut single, Blackbird, a cover of a 1963 song by Nina Simone about the struggles of being a black woman, was released in May 2020. Her 2021 debut album, Black Acid Soul, received many 5 star reviews and she recently won ‘International Artist of the Year’ at the “Jazz FM Awards.”
Lady Blackbird’s latest single release, Woman, is new this week on RadiJohan.
Less than a year after their most recent album, A Bit of Previous, Scottish band “Belle and Sebastian” have released another new full-length 11 track effort called Late Developers. The band were formed in Glasgow in 1996 and their previous albums have been particularly successful in the UK where they’ve also scored a number of hit singles. They also received an “Outstanding Contribution to Music Award” at the UK’s “NME Awards” in 2014.
Late Developers is Belle and Sebastian’s 12th studio album. The album’s lead single, I Don’t Know What You See In Me, is new this week on RadiJohan.
This week in 1969 Rolling Stone magazine’s front cover featured an article on “groupies,” a term used for the ladies who hang out at the stage door hoping for some intimate interaction with the band. Some sources have attributed the coining of the word to The Rolling Stones former bass player, Bill Wyman, during the group’s 1965 Australian tour. However Wyman has said he and his band-mates used other “code words” for women on tour.
For a more detailed understanding of the “Groupie” phenomenon please watch the video below.
“Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds” are an English Rock band formed in 2010 after Noel Gallagher’s departure from “Oasis.” The band have released three studio albums, all of which topped the UK Album chart. Their forthcoming new album, Council Skies, is due out in June. Noel Gallagher stated:
Renowned American composer Burt Bacharach has passed away at the age of 94. The author of songs such as “Do You Know the Way to San Jose” and “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head” reportedly died of natural causes with his family by his side.
Bacharach began his career as a songwriter in the 1950’s and became Hollywood icon Marlene Dietrich’s pianist, which shot him to fame. The songwriter and pianist scored dozens of hits in his decades-long career, many of which he wrote together with Hal David (1921-2012). Bacharach and David met Dionne Warwick in 1961 and she had 39 of her hit singles penned by the musical duo. Bacharach also worked with big names like Aretha Franklin, Dusty Springfield, Tom Jones and Elvis Costello. Many others covered his songs, including Elvis Presley, the Beatles, and Frank Sinatra.
The legendary composer was a frequent guest at the White House, whether the president was Republican or Democrat. He scored 73 Top 40 hits in the United States and 52 in the United Kingdom over the decades. In total he composed more than 500 songs, won six Grammys and three Oscars.
“Riverside” was formed almost by accident when two of its members listened to the band “Marillion” on a car stereo back in 2001. The friends both played in heavy metal bands at the time but had a common interest for progressive rock. They decided to get together with another mutual friend, who owned a studio, to start experimenting with progressive rock.
‘Friend or Foe?‘ is Riverside’s new single from their latest album, ID.Identity, the band’s 8th studio album. Riverside’s Mariusz Duda commented:
“One of its strong points is the lyrics which talk about how we’re perceived by others, especially these days, when pretending to be someone you’re not on social media has become the norm. Can we still be ourselves or do we have to keep adapting to the requirements of new algorithms? Perhaps we’ve already lost our identities and we’re only waiting for instructions from a Siri or Alexa?“
‘Friend or Foe?‘ by “Riverside” is new this week on RadiJohan
This week in 1979 “Blondie” topped the singles chart in the UK with Heart of Glass. Featured on the band’s third studio album, Parallel Lines. The song was originally called ‘Once I Had a Love’ and was inspired by The Hues Corporation’s disco hit, Rock the Boat. A 12-inch single version of “Heart of Glass” was first released in December 1978. Some radio stations in the United States were reluctant to play the song because of the “pain in the ass” lyric, so an edited 7-inch single was released in January 1979. The original album version was released as a single in the UK where the BBC bleeped out the word “ass”. Lead singer Debbie Harry told The Guardian:
“At first, the song kept saying: ‘Once I had a love, it was a gas. Soon turned out, it was a pain in the ass.’ We couldn’t keep saying that, so we came up with: ‘Soon turned out, had a heart of glass.’ We kept one ‘pain in the ass’ in – and the BBC bleeped it out for radio.”
Heart of Glass was a mega hit around the world and, apart from topping the chart in the UK, also made number 1 in the USA, New Zealand, Canada, Switzerland and West-Germany.
On the 7th of february 1985 New York’s Mayor “Edward I. Koch” proclaimed Frank Sinatra’s New York, New York the city’s official anthem, although it was never actually made official.
The song was written and performed by Liza Minnelli in the movie of the same name in 1977. In 1979 it was recorded by Sinatra for his album Trilogy: Past Present Future (1980), and became closely associated with him as one of his signature songs. It made the Top 40 in the US and some European Countries and reached Number 4 in Ireland and Number 2 in Canada.
New York, New York was Frank Sinatra’s last hit song.