Tampa Calling

I wasn’t really sure what to expect going into Friday’s concert at Mahaffey Theater featuring an un-costumed, un-amplified-to-11 Christopher Guest, Michael McKean, and Harry Shearer. Maybe I was thinking too hard about it? After all, when you go see a band, they play their songs.  When you go see a comedian, he does his material. With Guest, McKean, and Shearer, reality lay in between — a hilarious, two-hour multimedia jaunt down memory lane complete with stories, clips, and songs predominantly from two classic film satires about seemingly disparate genres of music. Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s a continuation of my “Top 10: Depressing Christmas Songs.” Because, truth be told, I still ain’t feeling too damn cheery this time of year. But, y’know, happy holidays!

1. “Christmas Card From a Hooker in Minneapolis,” Tom Waits
Killer line: “I’ll be eligible for parole come Valentine’s Day.”

2. “Blue Christmas,” Elvis Presley
Killer line: “Youll be doin all right, with your Christmas of white, but I’ll have a blue, blue blue blue Christmas.”

3. “Christmas in Washington,” Steve Earle
Killer line: “If you run into Jesus, maybe he can help you out.”

4. “A Long December,” Counting Crows
Killer line: “I guess the winter makes you laugh a little slower.”

5. “Same Old Lang Syne,” Dan Fogelberg
Killer line: “She gave a kiss to me as I got out, and I watched her drive away.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Isn’t this the way the Internet works: Without even trying, you occasionally stumble upon something wonderful.

I’d never heard of or even heard Timi Yuro before today. But as I was perusing a Beatles set list from 1963 that had been posted online, I noticed a song titled “If You Gotta Make a Fool of Somebody” a version of which was recorded by James Ray, a soul singer who died shortly after finding some success in the early ’60s. While I sought out Ray’s version of the song, I happened upon a recording by Timi Yuro on YouTube.

I was duly impressed by Yuro’s brassy, soulful vocals, and so I ended up listening to her other recordings, many of which were standards of the day: “All Alone Am I,” “Cry,” “I’m Sorry,” to name just a few.

According to Yuro’s entry in Wikipedia, she was Morrissey’s favorite singer, and counted Elvis among her biggest fans.

Yuro released her last album in 1984, Timi Yuro Sings Willie Nelson, which was produced by Nelson. Take a listen to one of her lovely duets with Willie, “Did I Ever Love You.” Yuro died of throat cancer in 2004. If you don’t already know of her, take the time to discover a stunning talent.

The Material Girl recently surpassed The King of Rock ’n’ Roll on the list of most Top 10 singles with her ditty “4 Minutes,” reports Billboard.com, giving Madonna 37 to Elvis Presley’s 36. Justin Timberlake is featured on the Madge number and Timbaland co-wrote it, which means the track could have been a smash for just about anybody — even Elvis , whose resurrected vocal worked nicely for the hit 2002 Junkie XL remix of his song “A Little Less Conversation.” But I digress. The point of this blog post is to see if anyone would pick Madonna over Elvis on a list of most important pop stars of all time. Consider:

• Cultural impact: Elvis came first, started rock ‘n’ roll (if you believe the simpletons writing such nonsense), influenced everyone from Dylan to The Beatles, altered history, etc. But it took the Material Girl to destroy the double standard applied to women, who were allowed mostly to only be girl-in-a-cage sexy before the whip-wielding Madonna came along.

• Sex symbol: Both were the most sexually brazen artists of their era. Both were hot. Seriously. Young Elvis might have been the sexiest man to ever walk the earth other than maybe a young Marlon Brando. Madonna wasn’t born with his natural beauty, but she’s known how to work it, and keep her body immaculate, since the get-go, making many adolescent boys like me stay up late into the morning in the 1980s hoping to catch her latest video on MTV.

• Vocal talent: Elvis is about 100 times better than Madonna as a singer. There’s no debate on this one. If you think Madonna can hold her own with Elvis in the vocal department it might best serve you to jam pencils in both ears.

• Songwriting: Despite what the crooked, Colonel Parker-dictated songwriting credits might read, Elvis, by most reports, never wrote a verse. Madonna, on the other hand, has played a significant role in the songwriting and production of her entire output. For instance, she wrote or co-wrote every track but one on her 1983 self-titled debut album. Yeah, her new disc, Hard Candy, relies on more outsourcing than perhaps any release in her career, but at age 49 she’s allowed to let some young bucks lend a hand. (Presley was dead at age 42).

Madonna vs. Elvis: Most important pop star?