Today is Sam Cooke's Birthday! He would have been 79 years old today and would have probably been a bigger legend than he is now. He was a singer, a songwriter, record label CEO, publishing company owner, entrepreneur, Civil Rights defender (refused o play at segregated shows), one of the first black performers at the Copacabana and one of the few black men of that time to be involved in the business side of the music industry. So, let us listen to and celebrate the beautiful music he left behind as a birthday present to him:
Happy Birthday Aaliyah! In memory of one of the most talented singers that was in R&B, I will play some of of my favorite songs from her. If Aaliyah was still alive today, I feel that she would have been just as big or even better than most of these girls out here right now, in both music and film. So, here is to what could have been. Enjoy and let us celebrate her life today! We Miss You!
If Your Girl Only Knew
The One I Gave My Heart To
One In A Million
4 Page Letter
One In A Million Remix (feat. Ginuwine and Timbaland)
Hot Like Fire (feat. Timbaland and Missy Elliot)
Got to Give It Up (feat Slick Rick) Remake of Marvin Gaye song
Last night at 9:59 p.m., one of the greatest Soul legends of all time and one of the men probably responsible for the conception of thousands, Teddy Pendegrass, died at the age of 59. Starting his career as a drummer for The Cadillacs, Teddy eventually became the lead singer of Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes (which formed from The Cadillacs) and had as string of hits, including "Wake Up Everybody," "If You Don't Know Me By Now," "Bad Luck," and "I Miss You." Later, Pendergrass had a solo career in which he also was popular with hits like "Close the Door," "Turn Off the Lights," "Love T.K.O.," and "I Don't Love You Anymore." Teddy was known to have sold-out concerts with only ladies in the audience (that is how sexy he was). However, in 1982, Teddy was in a car accident which left him paralyzed from the waist down. After the accident, he became an advocate for the paralyzed and created the Teddy Pendergrass Alliance. He continued singing until his retirement in 2006. In the summer of 2009, Teddy Pendergrass's health was deteriorating. He was hospitalized for a month at Philadelphia's Bryn Mawr Hospital, suffering from colon cancer surgery complications (result from his paralyzation). Yesterday, he succumbed to it.
Teddy Pendergrass brought so much love to all our lives. His song with Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes, "Wake Up Everybody" is a song that is for our times and is probably as important of a song as Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On." May he rest in peace and let us always keep him in our hearts. As Raphael Saadiq said, he is a legend and legends never die.
Tonight on PBS, Passing Strange, the 2008 Tony Award-winning musical, will be making its broadcast debut tonight at 9 p.m. (or on Friday at 2 a.m.). The film was directed by Spike Lee and according to PBS, "Passing Strange is the semi-autobiographical story of a young black man who leaves behind his middle-class, church-ruled upbringing in mid-1970s Los Angeles to travel to Europe in search of his artistic and personal identity, or what he calls “the real.” There he finds he can exploit a “South Central” persona, playing the cool, black expatriate-musician who speaks for his people. Picaresque misadventures with sex, drugs, politics and art find him in a far-out Amsterdam and a hyper-militant Berlin. But in the end, he discovers that cultural complexity—and hypocrisy—are not limited to middle-class African American life, and that while to him art may be more real than life, only love is truly more than real. Co-starring with Stew as ‘Narrator’ is an extraordinarily talented ensemble cast, featuring DeAdre Aziza, Eisa Davis, Colman Domingo, Chad Goodridge, Rebecca Naomi Jones, and Daniel Breaker as the story’s central character, ‘Youth.’"
I hope you enjoy!
For more information, check here: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/gperf/episodes/passing-strange/preview-the-rock-musical/903/
Hey guys! After a long period of absence (I blame school and finals), I am back! To start of the new year, I will give you a preview of the long awaited documentary about Sam Cooke, Crossing Over, which will be premiering tonight on PBS at 9 p.m. (or Wednesday at 3:30 a.m.). It has been over 45 years since Sam Cooke was fatally shit, but he still lives on as one of the founders of Soul music and one of my favorite singers of all time. Even his song " A Change is Gonna Come" was a theme song for the recent Presidential campaign and election of Barack Obama. Since the documentary took 12 years to complete, it is also a memorial for artists like James Brown, Billy Preston and Lou Rawls, who were interviewed for it. So, I hope you enjoy this because I know I will and keep a look out for my tribute to Sam on his birthday, January 22nd.
For more on it, check out an article on the documentary at Soul Bounce:
