Speaking of jazz singers who kill it, Esther Phillips is on here with a masterful version of the cheesy early 70s pop hit "Alone Again (Naturally)". The original is here as well, by Gilbert O'Sullivan. His hit gained new notoriety in the early 90s when he successfully sued Biz Markie for sampling it, changing sampling laws forever. In addition to these two versions, I have a nice reggae cover by The Now Generation.
The other set of songs that repeats: The Police ode to prostitution "Roxanne" and The Bee Gees disco smash "You Should Be Dancing" are here separately and together in a mash up by DJ Zebra called "Roxanne You Should Be Dancing".
Squeeze is here with a stripped down live version of "Take Me, I'm Yours". I included a cover of The Wipers' "Doom Town" by Born Dead Icons last December. Here is the original, which is great but the cover is even more ferocious. Speaking of ferocity, JJ Fad's "You're Goin' Down" takes apart rival female rapper Roxanne Shante, who gets her turn with "Bite This".
I have Peggy Lee here twice with two very different musical partners. First, a mash up of her "Fever" with Iggy Pop's "The Passenger" called "Passenger Fever" by Go Home Productions. I've been on an Al Jolson kick recently and found an album of duets he did with a wide variety of performers. From that, "People Will Say We're In Love" with Peggy Lee is very sweet.
Rockin' out: "I Love Rock N' Roll" by Joan Jett and the Blackhearts was an anthem for my 6th grade class. And for rock in general. From the same era, hard core punk band Fear's "I Love Livin' In The City". Fear was John Belushi's favorite band. Shortly before he died, he agreed to come back and host Saturday Night Live on the condition that they would perform as the musical act. Also here, Johnny Thunders with a love letter to heroin, "Chinese Rocks". It was actually written by Dee Dee Ramone and Richard Hell, but it was always associated with the doomed Johnny Thunders. Maybe he and Esther Phillips shared a needle?
Pure Essence was a very obscure 70s r&b band who recorded only two songs. "Third Rock" is one of them. I love its Sly Stone vibe. Another great 70s r&b song is the Rose Royce ballad "Wishing On A Star", which gets a nice acoustic reading from Paul Weller on one of his BBC sessions. He changes the original lyric from "in the game of love you reap what you sow" to the more explicitly apologetic "in the game of loving you I was slow."
I think the next 3 songs go particularly well together. "Rains On Me" by Tom Waits is a non-album track from his late, scratchier-voiced period. Blind Willie Johnson ups that ante with "Bye And Bye I'm Goin' To See The King". The King, Elvis Presley, is here with his song from the movie King Creole, "Crawfish". I've heard there's a Johnny Thunders cover of this that I will have to track down some day.
The last song not mentioned yet is Kool Moe Dee's vicious hip hop classic "How Ya Like Me Now?". I was reminded of this song earlier this week when the newly appointed, and black, chairman of the Republican National Committee quoted the title when suggesting how much he was going to spar with Obama. Great. Just when this country desperately needs to work closer together and bag all the partisan crap, the guy who popularized "Drill, baby, drill!" at the Republican Convention is now lamely quoting hip hop lyrics to antagonize our President.
"How ya like me now?" Not much.
