Welcome to the Laptop Sessions for Tuesday! Today, I bring you yet another new band to the Sessions. Well, it’s not a “new” band by any means, but we’ve haven’t done them before: The Temptations!
This song is also in contention for the longest song title award. I’ve always liked this song, but for some reason it moved its way quickly up my list when I thought of it one night and learned how to play it.
Temptations songs are a bit harder to do, like the Beach Boys, because of their usual harmonies, but it’s fun to take a song that has so much more production and make it into a solo performance. That, in my opinion, is what makes the Laptop Sessions so unique.
Over the next few weeks, it’s going to be my focus to do as many new bands as possible. I still have a couple of songs in the reserves to get to first, but look for a wide array of new artists to come!
Okay, really obscure territory here on the music blog.
When my family was getting into the music of the Byrds back in 2000, we really went head-first and listened to every album they made throughout the 60s. Some were better than others because you could tell they were doing a lot of growing up, musically. Plus, many of their later-60s songs were very drug-tinged.
After Gene Clark left the band in late ’65 or early ’66, the band came out with one of their worst efforts, “5D”. I still liked most of the songs, but the playing was sloppy and they were high as a kite.
When we got to the superb “Younger Than Yesterday” LP (on Jim Fusco’s list of “Albums You Should Listen To”), I instantly gravitated to the songs of young Chris Hillman, bassist for the band. He is an amazing bass player, mostly because he was an accomplished mandolin and guitar player, so he took his soloing skills over to the bass for the Byrds.
I love his voice- it’s just so natural. There’s no weird accent. He doesn’t say the words in an odd way. He just sounds good, you know? His voice is nice and clear and I was happy that he was getting a chance to write more music for the Byrds. And, like in most bands, the songwriter usually sings his own original songs, so I was happier the more we listened to Byrds songs.
He wrote some of my absolute favorites: “Thoughts and Words”, “Have You Seen Her Face”, and “Time Between”, just to name a few. I plan on doing all of them in the future.
But for now, I give you this song off of “Younger Than Yesterday”, “The Girl With No Name”. It was a lot of fun to play and is a very short song. It’s funny that such a sweet sounding song was probably still influenced by drugs. I’m just guessing here, but “The girl who had no name” could mean a couple things: For starters, maybe this lady lived on one of those hippie communes where they said, “Hey man, why do I need to be labeled with a name? Can’t I just BE?” That’s a possibility. The other possibility, to me, could be that Hillman just didn’t bother asking for a name. Whether he was under the influence of something that impaired his judgement at the time is something only he can attest to.
I think the Byrds are a great band to do acoustic cover song versions of. Their songs had an interesting style. You could almost tell that they wrote their original songs on acoustic guitar and then found a way to translate them into the psychedelic sound of the time. “The Girl With No Name” is pretty straight-forward, so my acoustic version here for the music blog stays true to the original. That’s another reason why I love doing the Laptop Sessions video blog. In addition to reimagining popular songs acoustically, I like taking obscure songs and playing them for the world. They’re great songs and they deserve some fresh attention.
I’m gearing up for next week’s big “#1 Week”, in which (other than Original Wednesday) we’ll be playing only cover songs that hit Number One on the Billboard charts. Stay tuned for other great specialty weeks of cover song music videos coming soon, too!
Hello and welcome to another Jim Fusco video podcast! I’ve been working on my new album, “Halfway There”, and thought I would give an update on my progress while also talking about how I go about developing a song.
I think there’s some interestig tidbits in here about my creative process, which differs GREATLY from my friends’ creative process.
I’d love to hear comments about how you work out songs and your thoughts of how I’m approaching songwriting!
Well, in the world of Moody Blues songs, it doesn’t get much more popular than “Nights in White Satin”, written by the great Justin Hayward.
I wanted to do this classic song for the Laptop Sessions music video blog because I thought it would translate well to a solo acoustic performance. I hope you like my whistling flute solo! 🙂 I wasn’t gonna do it, but Chris and Becky egged me on, and I think I nailed it!!
I love the vocal exercise this song presents and I’ve always thought that Justin Hayward has one of the best singing voices ever. He’s also one of the greatest songwriters ever and can play an amazing guitar. As with most of my favorite musicians and songwriters, Justin Hayward doesn’t get the credit he deserves for his incredible talents. His acoustic guitar work on songs like “Question” haven’t been reproduced since. And his electric guitar work gets almost no attention, even though it’s amazing. Have you heard the guitar on “Story in Your Eyes”? It’s face-meltingly awesome! The tone he gets and his style of playing belie the calm and proper British personality he portrays. Well, even if Justin Hayward (or the Moody Blues as a band, for that matter) doesn’t get the credit he/they deserves, I’m still glad I can share some of his greatness with you, my loyal Laptop Sessions acoustic cover song watchers.
So, this is a high bar to rise above, but I’m such a big Moody Blues fan that I know the song backwards and forwards. It would be great to record a version of this someday, but honestly, how can I improve upon perfection? I think I’ll stick to classic songs like this on solo acoustic guitar for my posts here on the music blog.
Enjoy today’s Session and make sure to come back for a Super Saturday appearance from Chris!
