The All New Music Tag Reboot!

John Anderson - Seminole Wind

 

Etta James & Dr.John - I'd Rather Go Blind



Music Industry, this is real music, not the junk you pass for music.

 

Well...I just had to...one of my favorites
(I'd rather go blind runs a close second)
At Last - Etta James

 

Wyatt, you were reading my mind. It is one of my favorites as well and truly a classic song.
Let us continue a little while with Etta...

Etta James: "Ain't That Lovin' You Baby"
New Era Club (Nashville, 1963)



Real music for real people!

 

Etta James - Merry Christmas Baby

In the spirit of things

 

you sexy thing

 

Tears of a Clown Smokey Robinson and The Miracles

 

As much as I like The Miracles, I'm in a more 80's mood.
Tears for Fears - Shout

 

Phoebe Snow-All over

 

O.K. we have let this one go for a week now. So considering the last song was from Phoebe Snow, and it is Christmas time. We should work on that theme for a while.

Two for the price of one!

Charles Brown: Merry Christmas Baby & Please Come Home For Christmas



How many blues artists remained at the absolute top of their game after more than a half-century of performing? One immediately leaps to mind: Charles Brown. His incredible piano skills and laid-back vocal delivery remained every bit as mesmerizing at the end of his life as they were way back in 1945, when his groundbreaking waxing of "Drifting Blues" with guitarist Johnny Moore's Three Blazers invented an entirely new blues genre for sophisticated postwar revelers: an ultra-mellow, jazz-inflected sound perfect for sipping a late-night libation in some hip after-hours joint. Brown's smooth trio format was tremendously influential to a host of high-profile disciples -- Ray Charles, Amos Milburn, and Floyd Dixon, for starters.

Classically trained on the ivories, Brown earned a degree in chemistry before moving to Los Angeles in 1943. He soon hooked up with the Blazers (Moore and bassist Eddie Williams), who modeled themselves after Nat "King" Cole's trio but retained a bluesier tone within their ballad-heavy repertoire. With Brown installed as their vocalist and pianist, the Blazers' "Drifting Blues" for Philo Records remained on Billboard's R&B charts for 23 weeks, peaking at number two. Follow-ups for Exclusive and Modern (including "Sunny Road," "So Long," "New Orleans Blues," and their immortal 1947 Yuletide classic "Merry Christmas Baby") kept the Blazers around the top of the R&B listings from 1946 through 1948, until Brown opted to go solo.

If anything, Brown was even more successful on his own. Signing with Eddie Mesner's Aladdin logo, he visited the R&B Top Ten no less than ten times from 1949 to 1952, retaining his mournful, sparsely arranged sound for the smashes "Get Yourself Another Fool," the chart-topping "Trouble Blues" and "Black Night," and "Hard Times." Despite a 1956 jaunt to New Orleans to record with the Cosimo's studio band, Brown's mellow approach failed to make the transition to rock's brasher rhythms, and he soon faded from national prominence (other than when his second holiday perennial, "Please Come Home for Christmas," hit in 1960 on the King label). Occasionally recording without causing much of a stir during the '60s and '70s, Brown began to regroup by the mid-'80s. One More for the Road, a set cut in 1986 for the short-lived Blue Side logo, announced to anyone within earshot that Brown's talents hadn't diminished at all while he was gone (the set later re-emerged on Alligator). Bonnie Raitt took an encouraging interest in Brown's comeback bid, bringing him on tour with her as her opening act (thus introducing the blues vet to a whole new generation or two of fans). His recording career took off too, with a series of albums for Bullseye Blues (the first entry, 1990's All My Life, is especially pleasing), and more recently, a disc for Verve.

In his last years, Brown finally received at least a portion of the recognition he deserved for so long as a genuine rhythm and blues pioneer. But the suave, elegant Brown was by no means a relic, as anyone who witnessed his thundering boogie piano style will gladly attest; he returned in 1998 with So Goes Love before dying on January 21, 1999.

by Bill Dahl Allmusic.com
http://www.allmusic.com/artist/charles-brown-p291/biography


Charles Brown (September 13, 1922 – January 21, 1999), born in Texas City, Texas was an American blues singer and pianist whose soft-toned, slow-paced blues-club style influenced the development of blues performance during the 1940s and 1950s. He had several hit recordings, including "Driftin' Blues" and "Merry Christmas Baby".[1]

In the late 1940s a rising demand for blues was driven by an increasing white teenage audience in the South which quickly spread north and west. Blues shouters got the attention, but also greatly influential was what writer Charles Keil dubs "the postwar Texas clean-up movement in blues" led by stylists such as T-Bone Walker, Amos Milburn and Charles Brown. Their singing was lighter, more relaxed and they worked with bands and combos that had saxophone sections and used arrangements.[2]

As a child Brown demonstrated his love of music and took classical piano lessons. Early on, Brown moved out to Los Angeles, where the great influx of blacks created an integrated nightclub scene in which black performers tended to minimize the rougher blues elements of their style. The blues club style of a light rhythm bass and right-hand tinkling of the piano and smooth vocals became popular, epitomized by the jazz piano of Nat King Cole. When Cole left Los Angeles, California to perform nationally, his place was taken by Johnny Moore's Three Blazers, featuring Charles Brown's gentle piano and vocals.[3]

Brown signed with Aladdin Records and his 1945 recording on that record label of the bestseller, "Driftin' Blues", with a small combo was a typical club blues song. The single was on the U.S. Billboard R&B chart for six months, putting Brown at the forefront of a musical evolution that changed American musical performance.[4] His style dominated the influential Southern California club scene on Central Avenue during that period and he influenced such performers as Floyd Dixon, Cecil Gant, Ivory Joe Hunter, Percy Mayfield, Johnny Ace and Ray Charles.[3]

"Driftin' Blues" was the first of several hits. Brown subsequently released "Get Yourself Another Fool", "Black Night", "Hard Times" and "Trouble Blues", all major hits in the early 1950s on such labels as Modern Records as well as Aladdin.[1] He was unable to compete with the burgeoning rock and roll sound, though he maintained a small and devoted audience.

Brown's approach was too mellow to survive the transition to rock's harsher rhythms, and he faded from the national limelight. His "Please Come Home for Christmas", a hit in 1960 on the King Records remained seasonally popular.[1] "Please Come Home for Christmas" sold over one million copies by 1968, and was awarded a gold disc in that year.[5] During the 1960s Brown recorded a couple of albums for Mainstream Records.

In the 1980s he made a series of appearances at New York's club, Tramps. As a result of these appearances he signed a new recording contract with Blue Side Records and recorded One More for the Road in three days. Blue Side Records closed soon after but distribution was picked up by Alligator Records. Soon after the success of One More for the Road, Bonnie Raitt helped usher in a Charles Brown comeback tour.[6]

He began a recording and performing career again, under the musical direction of guitarist Danny Caron, to greater success than he had achieved since the 1950s.[1] Several records received Grammy Award nominations.

He is a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame,[7] and received both the National Endowment for the Arts' National Heritage Fellowship[8] and the W. C. Handy Award.[9]
Brown died of congestive heart failure in 1999 in Oakland, California,[10] and was interred at Inglewood Park Cemetery, Inglewood, California.[6]

Background information​

Birth name: Charles Brown
Born: September 13, 1922 Texas City, Texas, United States
Died: January 21, 1999 (aged 76) Oakland, California, United States
Genres: Blues, R&B
Occupations: Singer, pianist
Instruments: Piano
Years active: 1945–1998
Labels: Aladdin Records, King Records, Ace Records, Bullseye Blues, Verve Records


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Brown_(musician)

 

Dexter Gordon..."Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas" This is my favorite Christmas Carol to play..I love the channel (bridge), makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand-up...

 

Bells?

Frank Sinatra - I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day

 

Orla Fallon - I Saw Three Ships

 

Amos Milburn - Christmas Comes But Once A Year



http://oldies.about.com/od/theculture/a/christmas26.htm

 

I LOVE NANCY !!! As a child I loved her...As a teenager I wanted to play music with her...As a young man I wanted to marry her...LOL

 

A lot of men did. She was a very beautiful woman even into her sixties she still remained gorgeous.