Here’s a link to Genghis Cohen

Admission – $8.00 (A bargain!!!)

Sedaka and I wrote “Solitaire” in 1971. It was one of the first tunes we wrote together and was not very well received by the folks at Don Kirshner Music, our publisher at the time. There seemed to be a general lack of faith in the song’s potential “earning power,” the feeling at the company being that we had written a “nice” song and that we would be better served devoting our efforts to writing hits. Yet, here I am, four decades and at least 47 cover recordings later, talking about what is, essentially, the most covered song that Neil and I have ever written.

At the beginning of this article I promised to keep the chattering down to a minimum and I’ve fudged on that promise a little but, before closing, I would like to emphasize one thing:

There would be no history of “Solitaire” if not for the melodic virtuosity of Neil Sedaka. Regardless of what you may think of this particular style of music, he is a true genius of the genre and artists would not have lined up in droves to sing and play his wonderful melodies were it not so.

I think the guy is long overdue for a spot in the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame. But that’s another story . . . for another time.

And now, as promised . . . “Solitaire” – A Cover Story

Vocals

• Neil Sedaka
• The Carpenters
• Sheryl Crow
• Elvis
• Andy Williams
• Clay Aiken
• Westlife
• Rachell Ann Go
• Jane Olivor
• Nana Mouskouri
• Sissel
• Patricia Paay
• Simon Gallaher
• Tommy Fleming & The Irish Orchestra
• Jann Arden
• Glenn Yarbrough
• Brett Smiley
• Cor Meibon Llanelli Welsh Male Choir
• The Wimbledon Girl Singers

Instrumentals

• Richard Clayderman
• The Elevator Troubadors
• Newell Oler
• Simply Saxophone
• Stan Whitmire
• Salsa Rosso
• Soft Rock, Inc.
• Panpipes

And More

• Johnny Mathis
• Shirley Bassey
• Petula Clark
• Brass Band De Bazuin
• Serge Nelson
• The Cory Band
• Tony Christie
• Lena Martell
• Ray Conniff
• Anita Lindblom
• Vince Hill
• Vic Damone
• Lenny Dee
• Happy Organ
• Norrie Paramor
• Gianni Dei
• Billy Vaughn
• Norman Candler
• Johnny Dorelli

It’s hard not to imagine Donny trying to cut a deal with the Grim Reaper for another ten years of life. Donny loved the deal. Donny loved the hype and he loved celebrities and turning talented young people into celebrities.

The walls of his office, located 28 floors above the corner of 6th Avenue and 56th Street were lined with photos of Donny, schmoozing with every celebrity known to mankind. He was like a great big kid about it, full of energy and enthusiasm for every person he knew and every project he set his hand to and, if you were one of his projects, and he believed in you, it was impossible for you not to believe in yourself.

When the first album I recorded for Donny went from the presses straight to the bargain bin at Sam Goodys and I thought my career in the music business was over, Donny took me aside, laid an avuncular hand on my shoulder and said, “Don’t worry, kid . . . you’re gonna do great.”

And then he pointed Neil Sedaka in my direction and, sure enough, I did great.

Of course, Donny will be remembered for The Archies, for the Monkees, for Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert, for Little Eva and The Locomotion, for Goffin and King and all the great writers he discovered and nurtured, but I will always remember him for his generosity, his enthusiasm and his passion. His presence in the world had a great and lasting impact on my life and I will remember him with the love and gratitude he most assuredly deserves.

Yet, the common space we share with our brother and sister Americans, the well from where we draw our inspiration and that feeds our creative spirit – that well has been tainted with hatred and it is incumbent upon us not to succumb to craziness, that we hold on to our reason and not hate back.

If you pray, by all means pray for those who were gunned down but, more importantly, look within yourself to find the love that fires the furnaces of your craft and art and start spreading that love around.

Watching them, one could get the idea that birds are not nice people. They are constantly bickering with each other, fighting over food, mates and territory. They eat their neighbors’ kids or sneak their eggs into another bird species nest, or eat each other.

But they’re not people. They are birds and they behave the way birds are supposed to behave, doing whatever is necessary to sustain their kind.

And they are exceptionally beautiful and they fill the air with a glorious symphony of songs, hoots, whistles and chirps. I could spend hours watching them cavort and carry on, and I often have, binoculars in one hand, iPhone birding app in the other, trying to differentiate between House Finches and Purple Finches or which species of Hummingbird that was that went whizzing by at just under Mach One.

But this isn’t a bird watching blog or a nature site – it’s about songs and music and so . . . let’s consider for a moment that birds have not only managed to populate our shrubs and patios but our popular culture, through the vehicle of the popular song.

In 1941, war weary Brits assured us that there would be Bluebirds over the white cliffs of Dover and we believed them because the message came down to us in song. In the 60s, Buffalo Springfield asked us to listen to their Bluebird laugh . . . and we did.

The Beatles aviary has a Blackbird singing in the dead of night and in 1926, songwriters Ray Henderson and Mort Dixon bid their Blackbird bye-bye and created a timeless standard. Neither song, however, specifies what kind of Blackbirds these might have been, Red-winged, Common or otherwise, but pop songs have a tendency to be very short on details about this kind of stuff.

Seales and Crofts asked just the opposite of their fine feathered friend, the Hummingbird, imploring it  not to fly away. Fat chance. Those guys never hang out for very long. Hummingbirds will generally hover for a few seconds to suck nectar out of a hole in a plastic flower and . . . pfffft, be gone in a flash.

Steve miller wanted to fly like an eagle, Prince documented, in song, what happens when doves cry, the Carpenters wanted to know why birds suddenly appear, Mick Jagger tried to convince us that he was a little red rooster, too lazy to crow for day, Elton John sang about Swallows and Sycamores playing in the daybreak and Inez Foxx wanted to tell everybody that “he”  was going to buy her a Mockingbird and if that Mockingbird didn’t sing, the mysterious “he” was going to buy her a diamond ring. A word to Inez – forget the bird, take the ring, honey.

I want to stop here, for a moment, and talk about my favorite bird, the Mockingbird. Sometimes, on nights when there’s a full moon and all the other residents of Bird Land are safely perched away and asleep, Mockingbirds will sit up in a tree and sing the most beautiful and complicated riffs you ever heard. They are the Charlie Parkers of the avian world . . .  little, feathered Toots Thielemans, bending notes, trilling and arpeggiating all the magic and mystery of life in one of the great displays of musical virtuosity in all of nature.

Birds are ubiquitous. They inhabit the wilds and nestle under the eaves of our homes and live in our popular culture in song after song. The songs here are only the few that I could immediately remember. If you have a favorite song with a bird in it, drop me a line in a comment or, better yet, you could TWEET me! @codysan.

Goodnight bird brains!

Starlee Kine is an American public radio producer and writer. Her work has been featured on This American Life and Marketplace. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times Magazine. She is the co-creator of the Post It Note Reading Series in Brooklyn.

In this story, which originally aired on NPR’s This American Life in August of 2007, Ms. Kine talks about what makes a great break up song and details her efforts to put her break up with her boy friend into song, seeking advice from break up song expert, Phil Collins.

Besides being heartbreakingly funny, this piece offers an honest look at the way songs affect our lives and details, quite accurately, the progression from emotion to final recording, that is such an integral part of the songwriting process. It also played a large part in inspiring me to do this blog thingy. Did I mention it’s really funny? I did? Well, maybe it’s best if I just shut up and let Starlee have center stage for the next half hour. Enjoy!

Listen toStarlee Kine’s “Break-Up Song” Starlee Kine’s “Break-Up Song”

Another cool thing about songs . . . they give us an excuse to dance. Imagine how stupid you would look bopping around to nothing but silence, but call up Wild Cherry’s “Play That Funky Music” on your iPod and you become a one person dance party. Tired of dancing by yourself? No problem. Songs make it easy to find other people to dance with and all that dancing begets sex and sex begets the need for more sex and more dancing and more songs.

And the need for more songs begot the music business . . . but I don’t want to talk about that.

Let’s talk about the people who create and perform the songs that have become such consequential threads in the fabric of our lives. Let’s talk about Joni Mitchel and Bob Dylan and Paul Simon and James Taylor and Lennon and McCartney and all the folks who raised the popular song to an art form. While we’re at it, let’s not forget Leiber and Stoller, Goffin and King, Sedaka and Greenfield, Holland, Dozier and Holland, Smokey Robinson, Marvin Gaye and all the wonderful writers and performers who built upon the great, pop traditions of George Gershwin, Cole Porter, Rogers and Hammerstein, Harold Arlen, Yip Harburg and on and on and on.

No matter where or when I reach into the well of possibilities that is the history of the American popular song, whether it’s Joni Mitchell’s “Judgement of the Moon and Stars,” “Hello Young Lovers” from The King and I, Big Momma Thornton singing “You Ain’t Nothin But A Hound Dog,” Paul Simon’s “Fifty Ways To Leave Your Lover,” Cole Porter’s “Every Time We Say Goodbye” . . . I always manage to retreive something wonderful.