Your Faith Healer

 Song 842: This week the playlist focuses on I’m Your Witchdoctor by John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers, written by John Mayall, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. Understanding that the holiday that marks the final day of this month will arrive in 20 days, it seems appropriate to feature a musical claim about being someone's magical healer. About a year and a half after the Fab Four rocked my world in February of 1964, this other British fellow began claiming to have mystical healing ability! While I could enjoy hearing him make that claim, I had difficulty over my attraction to the devil's music and the disapproval of those sounds expressed by my parents and grandparents, particularly when the singer seemed to openly admit his connection with the top wicked spirit!  He let us know that he got his voodoo from the birds and the bees, and my folks could have believed that he really did have the power of the devil, though I personally tried to avoid that thought!

Do Not Dread the Exterminator

 Song 841: This week the playlist comes around to (Don't Fear) the Reaper by Blue Oyster Cult, written by Murray Krugman and Sandy Pearlman, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. Fifty years ago, when the fall season arrived in the Windy City area, an indigo shellfish clan began suggesting to radio listeners that they should avoid the anxiety caused by thoughts about potential demise, and as a young adult male with high testosterone levels, I could strongly agree with that melodic suggestion! During the warmer months of that year I had considered possibly hitching to the West Coast, but I decided as the fall started to unfold that I would put off the CA excursion for another couple of years. Then, in July of 1978, the door was open and the wind appeared, so I stretched out my thumb westward, and fairly soon I got the rides, so when I looked backward, I said goodbye!

Donate Some Passion

 Song 840: This week the playlist puts the spotlight on Gimme Some Lovin’ by The Spencer Davis Group, written by Steve Winwood, Spencer Davis and Muff Winwood, and you can find a cool YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. Sixty years ago, around the time I began my sophomore HS year, I started hearing an anthem emerging from the radio speakers about a guy demanding some affection, and it didn’t take long to learn the chorus and sing along. At the time, I had a few friends who might have experienced some discomfort from the warmer temperatures, but that heat did not bother me, so I never felt that the place where I hung out was on fire, though I did understand that some friends often did feel that way. About a year earlier, the young female who had previously captured my imagination had moved with her family to California, so I never saw her again. While I did still enjoy the company of other attractive females in my age range that I shared spaces with at our high school, it would take about a year-and-a-half after this hit before I met another one who triggered a feeling in me that made me want her to gimme gimme some lovin’!

Moving Hip Felines

 Song 839: This week the playlist features The Alley Cats Of Swing by Dire Strays, and you can find a cool YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. I just found out about this entertaining excursion today, and I soon decided to add it to my favorite song collection. Back in January of 2020 I featured as song 496 the Dire Straits ride that it parodies and you can connect to that blog here. When growing up in the 1950s and 1960s, I had a few friends and relatives who had feline or canine companions, and I would have liked to have a furry friend at home, but the family could not allow that, due to certain health issues. For my adult life, I did get to share a living space with a special pet a few times and I always appreciated having such a housemate! A decade ago, I had the pleasure of adopting a pretty kitty who has strictly nine lives and she is often playing rhythm and swing! 

Mistaken Part of the Color Spectrum

 Song 838: This week the playlist puts the spotlight on Wrong End of the Rainbow by Tom Rush, written by him and Trevor Veitch, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. During the summer of 1970, I listened a lot to that Taylor guy's Sweet Baby James LP, and when the autumn arrived and I returned to Northwestern University, I began to add more singer/songwriter 33s to my collection. That fall I heard a couple of tracks on my favorite local FM station from an interesting Tom fellow that got me to add a pair of his albums to my stack, including the one that featured this misdirectional conclusion. At the time, I did not do as many performances as he did, so I did not get to experience a rainbow life from show to show, but when I developed a romantic connection in that era, fairly soon I also lost my love, so I certainly did come to understand the sad shade of a smile!

Necessary Liberty

This week the playlist showcases People Got to Be Free by The Young Rascals, written by Felix Cavaliere and Eddie Brigati, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. Around this time of year 58 years ago, as I got ready to begin my senior HS year, I began hearing a group of youthful tricksters spreading the radical idea that all members of human civilization worldwide deserve independence and sovereignty, and I certainly agreed with that moving perspective. Even though my parents and grandparents did not approve of the devil's music, if they had heard me singing along with this anthem when it emerged from a radio speaker, I think they would have expressed agreement with the basic idea repeated in the chorus, and I feel certain that I would remember such an incident if it had happened! For most of my life, I have understood that Love can move a mountain and make a blind man see, and while I would like to see Peace in the valley now, I also understand that a certain group of powerful figures do not want the train of freedom to arrive any time in the near future.

Sweet Container

 Song 836: This week the playlist applauds Cookie Jar by Joe Canzano, who also wrote the song, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. Seven weeks after my previous personal friend song post, this week's tasty ride comes from a fellow who was one of my neighbors when I lived on the NJ farm in the 1994-1996 period that appears in my song video As Long as Merle is Still Haggard (which you can hear and see on YouTube by clicking on the title). I had known him a few years earlier when I resided in Brooklyn, and we did have musical exchanges a few times when he became one of my songwriting buddies. He gave me a copy of his CD Riot On Spaghetti Drive, which features this tune, when he released it about a year after I moved to that NJ farm. While in the past my sugary dreams had gone too far, I did come to understand then that it could get tough for me to get my point across, but I decided to continue trying to do so anyway!