The Plimsouls -- "A Million Miles Away" (1983)

One of the defining bands of the New Wave era, although the closest they ever had to a hit was "A Million Miles Away," one of the poster children for CD collections of the time.

While some New Wave bands added plenty of synths and others did short poppy rock songs wearing skinny ties, the Plimsouls were your way better than average garage rock band, playing mostly minor key dirty rockers with an occasional nod to R&B and soul.

Led by Peter Case (who eventually became a solo troubadour when the band broke up), the Plimsouls stood by the garage rock aesthetic, three guys furiously bashing their guitars amped up into overdrive, a wild and crazy drummer, and a pack of excellent songs either putting down women or madly chasing them.

The Plimsouls' first EP arrived in the mail with an explanation of what plimsouls were -- a type of shoe, although if you Googled the word now, all you'd come up with are band references. LA was pumping out lots of bands with names beginning with the word "The," all crafting catchy three-minute rock songs that were the norm of the period. It got to the point where they were all a blur, record labels spitting them out, and truly there were some gems that would either rally the critics or die under the radar.

That EP, more soul-infused than later material, contained some wonderful songs, like "Zero Hour," "Now,"and "Lost Time," which actually feature R&B-inflected horn sections.

There was an original version of "A Million Miles Away" on Shaky City Records that I remember hearing on Long Island's WLIR-FM radio. Once the band performed the song in the early Nicolas Cage cult movie Valley Girl, they re-recorded it on a bigger budget, and it became part of the outstanding and much darker Everywhere At Once album on Geffen Records. By the time the song broke all over the more adventurous FM rock stations, the Plimsouls had broken up.

A roaring landslide of guitars and a much bleaker view than before made "A Million Miles Away" a perfect fit for Everywhere At Once. Case's songwriting had definitely taken a turn towards the skeptical and pessimistic:


Friday night I'd just got back
I had my eyes shut
Was dreaming about the past
I thought about you while the radio played
I should have got moving
For some reason I stayed.

I started drifting to a different place
I realized I was falling off the face of your world
And there was nothing left to bring me back.

I'm a million miles away
A million miles away
A million miles away
And there's nothing left to bring me back today.

I took a ride, I went downtown
Streets were empty
There was no one around
All the faces that we used to know
Gone from the places that we used to go.

I'm at the wrong end of the looking glass
Trying to hold on to the hands of the past and you
And there's nothing left to bring me back.

I'm a million miles away
A million miles away
A million miles away
And there's nothing left to bring me back today.


Primo garage rock with a spike of nasty -- "The Oldest Story In The World," "My Life Ain't Easy," "Play the Breaks," "Inch by Inch" and a cover of The Rare Breed's "Beg, Borrow and Steal." Timeless and real rock music -- and the album is still in print!

Here are the official video for "A Million Miles Away," a live concert video of the earlier "Zero Hour" and a homemade one of "Now" from the same original EP.

The hit songs from Hair

With the hype of the 40th anniversary of the "Summer of Love" behind us -- Woodstock nostalgia getting the lion's share of it -- and the revival of Hair a success, it's time to take a look at this groundbreaking musical.

Not that it was a very successful "hippie" musical that featured a bit of nudity and went on to win all kinds of awards. It was the last Broadway musical that spawned Top 40 single cover versions, in this case, four of them, all in one year. Talk about endless free built-in saturated AM radio marketing for your show.

Think back.. how many musicals produced big hit songs in the rock era? The Jackson Five had a minor ride with its cover of Pippin's "Corner of the Sky." Bar mitzvah DJ's love spinning "Seasons of Love" from Rent, but it's never made it onto the Billboard charts. After Hair, you'd have to go back to 1972 for the cast of Godspell and "Day by Day" (also written by Pippin's Stephen Schwartz). Since then... nothing.

It's a tribute to composers James Rado, Gerome Ragni and Galt McDermott that they not only created a musical that would still resonate after all these decades, but one that would be the blueprint for classic songs that truly represent the pop-making machinery of the era. The show went so well when it first appeared off-Broadway at the Public Theater in 1967, that by the time it reached Broadway two years later, these cover versions were primed to go right to the radio.


THE 5th DIMENSION -- "AQUARIUS/LET THE SUNSHINE IN" (1969)

The quintessential big LA pop production, the 5th Dimension already had two big cover version hits behind them, Jimmy Webb's immortal "Up Up And Away" and Laura Nyro's "Stoned Soul Picnic" ("Can you picnic?"). Their producer Bones Howe came up with the ingenious idea of seamlessly splicing two Hair songs together, literally and figuratively, each in different keys and rhythms and turning it into one cohesive single. You can read more about how it call came together from this article in Mix magazine.


THE COWSILLS -- "HAIR" (1969)

The Rhode Island-based bubblegum group which was the inspiration for the TV show "The Partridge Family" seemed awfully square to be swimming in the hippie pool. But they did it once in 1967 with "The Rain, The Park And Other Things" (which I wrote about here) and then again with this pretty faithful cover version.


THREE DOG NIGHT -- "EASY TO BE HARD" (1969)

The threesome who made an entire career of brilliantly picking the right songs written by soon-to-be famous composers and rearranging them took on this ballad as their followup to their debut hit, "One."

OLIVER -- "GOOD MORNING STARSHINE" (1969)

William Oliver Swafford took one of Hair's goofy touchy-feely tunes to the top with lots of jangling tambourines, sparkles and bangles. Who can forget lyrics like "glibby glub glooby/nibby nub nooby/la la la lo lo/sabba sibbi sabba/nooby ana nabba/lee lee loo loo/tooby ooby wala/nooby ooby wala/early morning singing song!"

The musical impact of filmmaker John Hughes

While there is no question the the late filmmaker John Hughes touched many lives with his stories of teenage angst (The Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink, Sixteen Candles, Weird Science, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Some Kind of Wonderful) and equally adult angst (National Lampoon's Vacation, Planes, Trains and Automobiles, Mr. Mom, She's Having A Baby), you can't discuss Hughes legacy without talking about the music.

As great as the scripts, pop music was almost like another character in these films. For a guy who had already been in the ad industry and working his way through his 30's, Hughes had an amazing knack for touching what was on the minds of kids 15 years younger than him.

I remember that like author Stephen King, Hughes said he wrote his scripts accompanied by different popular bands at the time. He seemed particularly taken by the English punk and new wave bands, and their music was featured prominently on the soundtracks. A no more direct example of his obsession was Hughes naming his Molly Ringwald/Andrew McCarthy/Jon Cryer love triangle vehicle Pretty in Pink after the classic loud and charging Psychedelic Furs song that helped bust open English new wave into the US. As a matter of fact, Hughes helped break other English acts here on these shores, crossing over to Top 40 success.

The film's soundtrack albums were like guided tours to the best and sometimes obscure New Wave and post-punk bands of the 80's, with contributions from New Order, Pete Shelley, Suzanne Vega, INXS, Echo & The Bunnymen, The Thompson Twins and The Smiths.

So here is a musical video trip to the excellent popular and influential songs, almost entirely handpicked by John Hughes for his films:

NATIONAL LAMPOON'S VACATION (1983) -- Written by John Hughes

Lindsey Buckingham's 2-minute pop pleasure "Holiday Road."


THE BREAKFAST CLUB (1985) -- Written and directed by John Hughes

Scottish band Simple Minds broke through the American market with "Don't You (Forget About Me)." The story goes that lead singer Jim Kerr was reluctant to record the song because the song was not written by the band, but was coaxed by his label A&M to do it. I'm sure he was glad he changed his mind -- it became the band's signature song and their biggest hit.


WEIRD SCIENCE (1985) -- Written and directed by John Hughes

The second A&M cult band to take the magic Hughes ride was Oingo Boingo, led by future soundtrack composer Danny Elfman. Their Devo-ish title song featured the band's trademark multi-layered percussion and mallets, off-kilter vocals with some early sampling ("She's alive! She's alive!" from Bride of Frankenstein) and a hyperactive beat that made the band a one-hit wonder. All that percussion lent itself to a ready-made 12" remix single at the time.


PRETTY IN PINK (1986) -- Written by John Hughes

You can't talk about this film first without acknowledging the fantastic title song, which actually came out five years before this movie debuted. One of the Psychedelic Furs' first singles, "Pretty In Pink" had that hard-hitting snare blast intro and then walls of roaring distorted guitar riffs, and the unmistakable slurry sneery voice of Richard Butler. Here's their 1986 Top of the Tops performance.


The film's biggest hit, however, was the breakthrough of synth poppers OMD (formerly Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark) and their "If You Leave." Thankfully, the duo was just hitting its stride when this took them over the fence, and they didn't miss a beat with more excellent songs to follow, although none as big as this one.


Leave it to Hughes to dream up this memorable scene when Duckie (Jon Cryer) skids into the record store, doing an amazing lip synch to soul legend Otis Redding's "Try A Little Tenderness" to try and win Molly Ringwald's heart.


FERRIS BUELLER'S DAY OFF (1986) -- written and directed by John Hughes

In the ultimate hooky movie, Hughes dug up Swiss electronic group Yello's leering "Oh Yeah," which ended up on a million TV shows, films and commercials afterward until it wore itself out.


The movie's penultimate scene, of course, was Ferris (Matthew Broderick) crashing a mid-town Chicago parade and leading the marching band and dancers in a memorable version of "Twist and Shout."

Philip Oakey and Giorgio Moroder -- "Together in Electric Dreams" (1984)

Here's a one-off collaboration that thankfully actually led to a full album afterwards and it was quite ideal. Moroder did a spectacular job producing Blondie's "Call Me" for the American Gigolo soundtrack, and then went off to join David Bowie for the aforementioned theme from Cat People.

It was truly inspirational that the lead singer of the Human League, Philip Oakey, hook up with Moroder to create one of the great synth pop singles of the early 80's for an entirely forgettable movie. At the time, a comedy about a love triangle between a boy, a girl and a personal PC probably seemed very "cutting edge," and you could stuff it with all kinds of hot New Wave acts on the soundtrack, but the only thing worth remembering is the sort-of title song.

Oakey had one of the unmistable voices of the new wave era, if you think back on all the Human League hits. Really a blueprint for what characterized many lead vocalists those days -- disaffected, not a hell of a lot of range, yet able to carry a memorable tune. The Human League was all about mopey pop tunes covered in synths, so it was a true stroke of genius to pair him with the man who basically turned synthesizers and drum machines into disco classics.

As noted with my Bowie entry, Moroder's songwriting style was always very simple, truly in the Europop tradition that gave us groups like ABBA. No fancy chords or tricks. It was all about the irresistable froth melody. So imagine that Oakey voice from "Don't You Want Me" surrounded on beds of analog and digital synthesizers, pushed by a fast galloping drum machine, singing as sugary a dance confection as "Together In Electric Dreams." In a nod to the two female members of Human League, Moroder even soundalike women singers echoing the end phrases of each verse.

Moroder always liked a rock guitar cutting through the keyboards (remember Jeff "Skunk" Baxter's turn on Donna Summers' "Hot Stuff?"), so they come piercing through here with the melody over the intro and then really phased out and distorted during the break.

I only knew you for a while
I never saw your smile
'Til it was time to go
Time to go away (time to go away).
Sometimes it's hard to recognise
Love comes as a surprise
And it's too late
It's just too late to stay
Too late to stay.

We`ll always be together
However far it seems.
(Love never ends)
We`ll always be together
Together in Electric Dreams.

Because the friendship that you gave
Has taught me to be brave
No matter where I go I`ll never find a better prize
(Find a better prize).
Though you're miles and miles away
I see you every day I don't have to try
I just close my eyes, I close my eyes.

We'll always be together
However far it seems.
(Love never ends)
We'll always be together
Together in Electric Dreams.


When "Together In Electric Dreams" became a smash, it was a no-brainer to do an entire album together, and apparently, the duo completed it in fairly quick time. The first side of the record was all segued together, creating 15 minutes of non-stop danceable synth pop. I remember that a couple of the tunes were single-ready and ripe for 12" remixes, like "Electric Dreams."

The album eventually came out on CD, but is long out of print. However, if there's anything you should look to download is the "Together In Electric Dreams," which still is unforgettable to this day. Here's the official video, with scenes from the movie, and obviously shot around San Francisco.

David Bowie -- "Cat People (Putting Out Fire With Gasoline") (1982)

David Bowie, like Elvis Costello, has a long career of "hit and run" collaborations with other talented artists. He dueted with Mick Jagger on the overblown cover of "Dancing In The Street," dropped into Queen's "Under Pressure," let Chic co-founder Nile Rodgers produce him on Let's Dance, and did a memorable turn with jazz guitarist Pat Matheny on "This Is Not America" from the soundtrack of The Falcon and The Snowman.

However, if there was one joint venture that I wish had extended to a full album was this one with pioneering disco synth producer/songwriter Giorgio Moroder, who is best known for his work with Donna Summer.

The theme song from director Paul Schrader's weird, kinky thriller, Cat People, blended the off-kilter lyrical and vocal touches of Bowie with the simple chords and pumping synths of Moroder, packaged in an arrangement straight out of the latter's playbook: start nice and slow (remember Summers' "Last Dance?"), and then kick it in full speed, layers of keyboards pouring down, female background vocalists tearing it up at the end.

Bowie always had a knack for turning a phrase, and he packs two: "You wouldn't believe what I've been through!" and "it's been so long!"

Schrader's movie was a modern update of Val Lewton's 1942 horror film, except he kicked up the sex and the violence. Schrader introduced the world to Natassja Kinski, as a peculiarly hot chick who may, just may, turn into panther after she has sex, and have an incestuous relationship with her brother, played by Malcolm McDowell.

So if you're going to have something as twisted as this, Bowie would have to be your man. The video clip below pretty much explains why Bowie, this song and the film were perfect: it's the opening of the film where you are introduced to this race of people who are somehow related to felines in a sexual way... lots of mist... a female led to a mystical sacrificial tree... and Bowie's croon, set to a tribal beat before jumping into the second faster part of the song.

Nobody Does It Better: The James Bond Theme Songs From Best to Worst

AS HEARD ON NPR'S "ALL THINGS CONSIDERED"

With "Quantum of Solace" opening this weekend, this is a timely opportunity to evaluate all the James Bond theme songs from best to worst.

Performing the title song to a James Bond movie used to be a musician's badge of honor, and many of them became hits. However, starting with the film "License to Kill" in 1989, not only did the hits dry up, the songs almost uniformly stunk. Yes, the opening credit visuals that accompanied them were still stunning and the movies they went with were almost always excellent. But that musical badge of honor didn't mean anything if they didn't deliver the goods.

The James Bond franchise is very special, but certainly one of the main contributing elements has been the music. Never has there ever been such a long series of films so closely aligned with the style and output of one composer, the brilliant John Barry. The producers lucked out with the English jazz trumpeter and orchestrator, who had such an individual style, emphasizing big brass stabs, swinging jazzy chops, and a penchant for blending major and minor chords for stark effect over three decades.

Most of Barry's theme songs (which he co-wrote with different lyricists) were either big sassy numbers like "Goldfinger" and "Thunderball" that became stylistically dated as the 70's rolled on, or straight-ahead pop ballads like "You Only Live Twice" and "We Have All The Time In The World." He collaborated with rock artists on two theme songs, imparting his signature brass hits on "A View To A Kill" and "The Living Daylights," although the Pretenders did two very cool numbers on the latter soundtrack, which flew under everybody's radar. Three of Barry's theme songs were sung by histrionic Welsh belter Shirley Bassey: "Goldfinger," "Diamonds Are Forever" and "Moonraker." Most Bond title songs have never "rocked."

Barry pioneered the use of signature themes in all his Bond scores, long before John Williams did the same for all the Star Wars and Indiana Jones flicks. The surf guitar of "The James Bond Theme" is as instantly recognizable as the Coke logo. That minor chord pattern in the same theme was dipped into a number of his future scores and songs, and ripped off blatantly for the guitar lick in Johnny Rivers' "Secret Agent Man."

Three times during the Sean Connery/Roger Moore/Timothy Dalton era, the Bond assignment went to different composers and two of those title songs were smashes too. Famous producer George Martin scored "Live and Let Die" so it was inevitable that Paul McCartney did those opening honors, while Bill Conti (best known for the "Rocky" theme) did "For Your Eyes Only." When they hired 80's hitmakers Narada Michael Walden, Jeffrey Cohen and Walter Afanasieff for the "License To Kill" theme song, it understandably bombed along with its pedestrian Michael Kamen score, beginning a still-standing dearth of title song hits.

What makes a good James Bond song, as opposed to just any other song? It has to be seductive, with the sort of "spy"-type arrangements and chords that acid jazz musicians have appreciated for years. Some bombast falling just short of annoying. Lyrically containing those existential "live" and "die" themes that preoccupy the movie titles themselves. Honoring the John Barry tradition of jazzy horn stabs would be admirable.

I've heard the Alicia Keys/Jack White duet "Another Way To Die" from the new film. It has a few of the Bond song trademarks -- darting horns, deep mysterious piano notes, and the word "die" in the title. However, there's a lot of semi-rapping and shouting, not much melody at all, and it takes over 40 seconds to get started. I'll take a pass on this one, unfortunately.

People are always arguing over and listing their favorite James Bond movie, actors, villains and stunts. But I don't recall a ranking of those nearly two dozen theme songs, so here's my totally opinionated evaluation, from worst to best, with links to each title sequence.

20. "Die Another Day" performed by Madonna: A plum assignment handed to the globally famous musical chameleon and she blew it big time. Released the year before her inferior "American Life" album, Madonna foresakes the memorable dance beats of her "Ray of Light" hit for jagged samples and a forgotten thrown together mess. So much for banking on what the producers were hoping would be a sure thing. Totally ridiculous S&M inquisition video too.



19. "License To Kill" performed by Gladys Knight: Sampling the horn hook from "Goldfinger" (and paying the original composers the royalties too), the songwriting team behind 80's Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey, Aretha Franklin and Starship hits forces poor Motown great Glady Knight to grumble in a low register and spend a lot of time groaning "Uh-huh" and "license to kill!"





18. "The Man With The Golden Gun" performed by Lulu: The corniest title song ever composed by John Barry matched this equally silly film. Sample awful lyric: "His eye may be on you or me/Who will he bang?/We shall see!" Somebody dragged obscure English 60's pop sonstress Lulu out of the mothballs in 1974 to sing this one. Not worthy of John Barry stature by any means. The Alice Cooper song of the same name was far better.



17. "The World Is Not Enough" performed by Garbage: Current Bond score composer David Arnold has yet to create a good title song to this day. Trying to turn Garbage lead singer Shirley Manson into a chantreuse was a huge mistake and this sounds nothing like the crunchy grungy rock of Garbage. This is a very ordinary song, far from the standards of what a Bond title tune should be.



16. "Tomorrow Never Dies" performed by Sheryl Crow: One would have hoped this could have been a rocking Bond theme song with Crow in place, much like what I anticipated from Garbage. Instead, Crow rolls out an unmelodic swaying ballad which just comes and goes with no notice, much like "The World Is Not Enough."




15. "Moonraker" performed by Shirley Bassey: Coming on the heels of Carly Simon's enormous 70's contemporary pop hit of "Nobody Does It Better," pulling Bassey out for one last glitzy over the top rendition felt like the franchise took one step backwards. While the song was bonafide John Barry, with those delicately placed strings and his trademark major-minor chord transitions, it was not one of his best and too Las Vegas-y to make it up the charts.

14. "You Know My Name" performed by Chris Cornell: Finally getting close to the mark, new Bond score composer David Arnold joined forces with great rock baritone Cornell for something that sounds, well, James Bond-ish. Charging distorted guitars, rising strings, a pounding sense of desperation, and a real rock song melody. Appropriate that it appears in the film series' recent return to old school form.



13. "For Your Eyes Only" performed by Sheena Easton: Notable for being the only Bond title song where the artist actually appeared in the opening credits, "For Your Eyes Only" was a nice smooth pop ballad with a good hook and a babe on the vocals. Very synthetic and perfect production values.



12. "Goldeneye" performed by Tina Turner: Many surprises here. Turner was made for singing a Bond title song and it's a revelation that it took until 17 movies for somebody to come up with that idea. Give all the credit to writers U2's Bono and The Edge, along with urban producer Nellee Hooper, who created all the earmarks of danger and mystery: finger snaps, a bursting brass riff, a choppy rimshot-driven drum loop, and low pizaccato strings evolving to the romantic undertones that had been missing for so long.



11. "All Time High" performed by Rita Coolidge: Thankfully not using the title "Octopussy" anywhere in it, Barry swung for the adult contemporary radio format fences and got himself a huge hit. You know it's Barry by the giveaway string arrangements. This was Coolidge's last chart-topper, as it came at the end of a run of successful soft rock covers ("We're All Alone" and "Higher and Higher").



10. "Diamonds Are Forever" performed by Shirley Bassey: For Sean Connery's last Bond venture, Barry put a little more swing into Bassey's bellowing ("Diamonds are forever, forever, forever"), some blatant sexual innuendo ("Hold one up and then caress it/Touch it, stroke it and undress it"), a dose of guitar wah wah, and plenty of seductiveness.




9. "Live and Let Die" performed by Paul McCartney & Wings: A truly bizarre song for the Bond genre, employing McCartney's tried-and-true "three songs in one" gimmick (see: "Band On The Run," "Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey"). The lyrics are utter nonsense, and there's much ado going on with big orchestra runs with chase scene riffs, with that dramatic unexpected minor chord ending.


8. "Nobody Does It Better" performed by Carly Simon: A perfect 70's hitmaking machine behind this huge pop hit -- composer Marvin Hamlisch and lyricist Carole Bayer Sager, cranking out a fluffy concoction that transcended the Bond movie into a popular catch phrase of the era.







7. "From Russia With Love" performed by Matt Munro: There's something truly Rat Pack-ish about this song, as you can almost picture Sinatra belting this one out in a nightclub. With Lionel Bart's dashing playboy lyrics ("From Russia with love/I fly to you/Much wiser since my goodbye to you/I've travelled the world to learn/I must return/From Russia with love") and the Slavic tack piano effects, this was the series' "Strangers In The Night."




6. "A View To A Kill" performed by Duran Duran: This is the first Bond song that actually "rocked" and did it very successfully. The New Wave stars collaborated with Barry on a horn-hit filled 80's-styled danceable rock tune with those immortal words: "Dance into the fire/The fatal kiss is all we need!" Crunching heavily-compressed power guitar chords and funky little Strat licks, those immortal Bond minor chords simmering underneath, Duran Duran and Barry's joint venture still sounds well today, especially to 80's nostalgia fiends.


5. "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" performed by The John Barry Orchestra: The title theme of a movie full of "only's" -- the only film to star George Lazenby as James Bond, the only film directed by renowned editor Peter Hunt, and the only film to have an instrumental title sequence. If you thought the James Bond theme itself was wicked, this came in a very close second. Oozing cool, Barry's composition sounds like the best action chase music from the late 60's, building horns, changing keys, and a fuzzy harpsicord-sounding Moog synthesizer running down the twisting baseline.


4. "Thunderball" performed by Tom Jones: The Welsh singing god of the 60's rips his shirt open once more in this bombastic ode to the man who "runs while others walk." Surrounded by a maximum horn riff as beguiling as the one Barry created for "Goldfinger," I can always picture the silhouetted female scuba divers from this film's credit sequence. You've got to hand it to Mr. Jones when he used every ounce of air in his lungs when he explodes with that last "Thun-der-bal-l-l-l!"


3. "The Living Daylights" performed by a-ha: I have great love for this song which went nowhere in the US but of course was a huge European hit. The Norweigian synth pop group collaborated with Barry, like Duran Duran, and produced the sleeper of the whole bunch. As I wrote back on this blog in December 2007: "a truly compelling title song, with tricky key changes, wide open production, a veritable mix of dark Europop and John Barry snazz... Heavily treated electric guitars, hard acoustic guitar strums at emphatic parts, galloping drums with suddenly building snares, twinkling synths, a distorted sax solo, and the falsettos and harmonies of the group itself. John Barry comes in loud and clear with his trademark brassy blasts during the intro and the chorus. Listen for the in-time horseshoes when the song settles in about halfway through before that dirty sax solo."


2. "Goldfinger" performed by Shirley Bassey: The flagship Bond song -- huge, pompous, and mysterious. The blueprint for all future lyricists assigned to focus on a villian as their subject. Parodied and worshipped, Barry's masterwork came in the third Bond film, where he was allowed to step out for the score from beginning to end. Where did he come up those chords for the words "Goldfinger" -- an F major leading to a D flat? Hats off to lyricists Anthony Newley and Lesley Bricusse for coming up with the phrase that he had such a "cold finger." My God.



1. "You Only Live Twice" performed by Nancy Sinatra: This movie and song had a profound effect on me in 1967, as it was the first Bond film I saw in a theater, in this case, the Green Acres Theater in Valley Stream, Long Island. The combination of Sean Connery machine gunning around in that flying Little Nellie, bodies flying through the air from explosions inside the empty volcano crater, exotic Japanese women, and spaceships eating other spaceships was mesmerizing. But that song -- Nancy Sinatra's sexy voice mysteriously floating through the classic Barry melody, with those endless major/minor chord switches, the downward cascading strings, and the Asian influenced xylophone notes, accompanying the literal explosions of chrysanthemum color of the Maurice Binder-designed credits. I never get tired of this song and I knew I was justified when I heard Coldplay perform it live on the b-side of a CD single I bought in the UK several years ago.


SPECIAL MENTIONS

Although these songs were not the "title" theme songs, they were prominently featured on the soundtracks and I consider them very worthy and prime additions to the Bond genre.

• "We Have All The Time In The World" performed by Louis Armstrong: The very last performance from the great jazz trumpeter, the song has great simplicity and poignancy that reflects the ironic jarring ending of "On Her Majesty's Secret Service." Armstrong enunciates every syllable delicately while Barry's swirling strings hit you right in the gut.

• "Where Has Everybody Gone?" and "If There Was A Man" performed by The Pretenders: These are two treats on soundtrack of "The Living Daylights," true collaborations between Chrissy Hynde and John Barry. The former is a snarling Bond-ish rocker with mocking open trumpets and switchblade guitar work, while the latter is one of the most beautiful ballads ever to appear in a 007 movie.
  

Isaac Hayes -- "Theme From Shaft" (1971)

I had Isaac Hayes' "Theme From Shaft" lined up to do at some point, but his sudden death today at the age of 65 prompted me to post this tonight in his honor.

While most people under the age of 30 probably know Hayes best as the voice of Chef in the Comedy Central cartoon "South Park" and his song from the show "Chocolate Salty Balls."

However, in the early 70's Hayes reached the pinnacle of the music world with his breakthrough soundtrack to the movie "Shaft," which was pretty much the blueprint for all the blaxploitation movies that followed it. More than the music, Hayes represented an unusual, sexy and magnetic figure for the the black power movement, enough so that his follow-up album to the Shaft soundtrack was a double album called Black Moses.

Even before Shaft, Hayes and his partner David Porter were one of the ace in-house songwriting teams at Stax Records, penning such hits as "I Thank You," "Soul Man" and "Hold On I'm Comin'" for Sam and Dave. When he stepped out as a solo performer, he first made his mark on his album Hot Buttered Soul, which was an early landmark in the "quiet storm" genre. The cover unveiled the trademark Hayes appearance: lots of gold chain jewelry, sunglasses, many colored flowing robes, and a closeup photo of his very bald head. The album contained epic slowed-down versions of Bacharach and David's "Walk On By" and Jimmy Webb's "By The Time I Get To Phoenix," with all kinds of soft strings and horns, electric piano chords, and Hayes' deep bass oozing voice.

Both "Shaft" the movie and Hayes' soundtrack were landmarks in many ways. In a first for a mainstream Hollywood movie, the black man was the hero front and center -- a handsome New York City black private detective played by model Richard Roundtree not taking any gruff as he tried to find the missing daughter of a mobster, make love to his girlfriend, and bully his way around Italian gangsters. With "Shaft" being such a success, it opened the doors for many other "blaxploitation movies" like "Coffey," "The Mack," "Trouble Man" and "Cleopatra Jones."

For the musical score, Hayes had a double-album tour de force of jazz ballads, bluesy riffs, and gospel preach-alongs, many with those unmistakable vocals, eventually winning an Academy Award. "Cafe Regio's," named after the Bleeker Street joint in Greenwich Village, was a superb jazzy instrumental, prominently featuring a bouncy octaved guitar lead. Another instrumental, the short "Shaft's Cab Ride," was used in WCBS-TV News' commercials.

"Theme From Shaft" was the big hit, a four-minute mostly instrumental journey through the urban jungle, mostly built on two chords, the wah-wah guitar up front in the mix and the pounding hi-hat rhythm keeping pace with John Shaft's on-screen plow through the streets of New York. Hayes' sparse call and response lyrics with the female singers were pretty straight forward: you don't mess around with Shaft.

Who's the black private dick
that's a sex machine to all the chicks?
(Shaft!)
You're damn right!

Who is the man
that would risk his neck for his brother man?
(Shaft!)
Can ya dig it?

Who's the cat that won't cop out
when there's danger all about
(Shaft!)
Right on

You see this cat Shaft is a bad mother...
(Shut your mouth)
But I'm talkin' about Shaft
(Then we can dig it)

He's a complicated man
but no one understands him but his woman
(John Shaft!)


When Hayes went to pick up his Academy Awards, it was an unforgettable sight -- imagine a huge bald black man covered in colorful robes, gold chains hanging around his neck and across his bare chest, gleaming sunglasses on his face, something that the mostly white Hollywood had just never quite seen before.

Here are a four great videos as a tribute to Isaac Hayes and his classic Shaft score. First, Hayes performing the song live in 1973, accompanied on stage by the Reverend Jesse Jackson. Then a wonderful behind the scenes video of Hayes teaching his band "Cafe Regio's" and "Theme From Shaft" and if you want to see how black studio musicians dressed and played at that time, well, there you go, with the funky clothes, cigarette dangling from their mouthes. Then a three minute trailer with numerous scenes and gunplay from the movie and Hayes' score ("Shaft! Hotter than Bond! Cooler than Bullitt!"). Finally, the classic opening credit scene from the film.

Curtis Mayfield -- "Move On Up" (1970)

Hard to believe that the first time I heard this 8-minute cooking jam from one of the great black power singer/songwriters was five years after it had come out, on the soundtrack to a low-budget sketch flick called "The Groove Tube."

By the time I hit college, there were two cheap-o R-rated comedy movies which parodied TV shows, commercials and popular movies that played the midnight circuit -- "The Groove Tube" and "Kentucky Fried Movie." Groove Tube's memorable opening was in two parts, the first parodying 2001: A Space Odyssey, and the second was a loony sketch involving a hitchhiker getting picked up by a hot babe on a California highway and then chasing her through the woods in a twisted version of "The naked Prey" -- all of it done to Mayfield's "Move On Up." There was nothing on screen remotely connected to ghetto struggles or black liberation... it just had a kickin' percussion-driven groove that made for good editing and fast pacing.

Some years later, I tracked down a used vinyl copy of Curtis down on St. Marks Place and played "Move On Up" at many parties. I loved Mayfield's Superfly soundtrack album, and I can still recite the lyrics to most of those songs today. But "Move On Up" was his extended party theme, something where everybody can join in with that killer minor key horn hook.

Hush now child,
and don't you cry.
Your folks might understand you
by and by.
Move on up...
towards your destination.
You may find
from time to time
Complications.

Bite your lip
and take a trip.
Though there may be
wet road ahead
You cannot slip.
Just move on up...
and peace you will find
Into the steeple
of beautiful people
Where there's only one kind.

So hush now child
and don't you cry.
Your folks might understand you
by and by.
Just move on up
and keep on wishing.
Remember your dreams
are your only schemes.
So keep on pushing
Take nothing less -
not even second best
And do not obey -
you must have your say
You can past the test

Move on up!


This song reminds me of many of War's early 70's jam songs, where it was all live, analog, warm and deep. Mayfield's gorgeous falsetto told many tales of hard times and pushing ahead, building on his body of similar themes with The Impressions ("People Get Ready," "We're A Winner," "It's Alright").

Song highlight: after soloing and just letting the percussion and horns carry the beat, the song pauses for a split second, and the horns do sort of a fake major chord coda. You think it's over and them wham, the drums come whirling back in by themselves, lots of cymbals and snares, with the bass and guitar following in a simmer.

Yes, this is old school, but crank this at the right time in a club or party, and the place goes into a frenzy.

Lucky you, here is the famous R-rated opening sequence for "The Groove Tube," followed by all eight-minutes of "Move On Up," and then Mayfield performing the song live in concert.

CURTIS MAYFIELD "move on up"
Uploaded by siegfried1budoka

Nilsson -- "Everybody's Talkin'" (1969)

Truly out of another time and era, "Everybody's Talkin'" is closely aligned with the film it came from, Midnight Cowboy, that the song evokes such clear emotions from this classic late 60's John Schlesinger film about loners scraping by to make it in New York City.




Certainly the first five minutes when short order cook Joe Buck (Jon Voight in his film debut) leaves his town in the middle of nowhere, Texas to take a bus to Manhattan and make a living as a hustler. He walks the streets of the city looking out of place yet not out of place at all in a fine cowboy hat and boots, a grinning picture of blond charisma through the bustling avenues. He's checking out the sights, especially those fine rich women on the East Side, ready to use his best pick up line to get a transaction going. He walks by what seems like passed out body in the front of Tiffany's and wonders why nobody is stopping to see what's wrong with this poor fellow.

Many people think its was Nilsson who wrote "Everybody's Talkin'," but it was composed by folk singer Fred Neil and recorded by Nilsson for his 1968 Aeriel Ballet album. The original single flopped but was later picked up for the Midnight Cowboy soundtrack, where it was rediscovered and became a top 10 hit. Although this was the world's first vocal introduction on a mass basis for Nilsson, he was always a terrific songwriter and at the time, Three Dog Night was about to release its first smash, a cover of Nilsson's "One."

The beauty of "Everybody's Talkin'" is its carefree, hit the highway no matter where it goes feel. The signature major-major seventh introduction on the banjo has this down-home flavor, the bass easily going up and down on that root chord, the train motif brushes on the snare, and a rather striking George Tipton orchestration with high strings staying on one long note for most of the choruses.

The Midnight Cowboy producers couldn't have picked a better opening song, one that conveys wanting better things somewhere else, not listening to anybody else but yourself on the journey to that place...

Everybody's talkin' at me
I don't hear a word they're saying
Only the echoes of my mind.

People stopping staring
I can't see their faces
Only the shadows of their eyes.

I'm going where the sun keeps shining
Thru' the pouring rain,
Going where the weather suits my clothes
Banking off of the North East wind
Sailing on summer breeze
And skipping over the ocean like a stone.


I remember hearing the song for the first time, captivated by the above elements, but truly moved by Nilsson's voice. He was gifted with some true emotion in his delivery, and while he put it all into the song, there was something eccentric about the wordless middle part of the song. He "woah- woah- woah" the verse melody in what would become his trademark"melodic whine," for lack of a better description. He held one note towards the end of the part, and after a decade of on the mark crooners, you couldn't help but shiver at the unusual timbre of Nilsson's tone. This is also the only part of the song that the strings go into lower octaves.

When you hear the music in the film's early sections, the mix is different from the single. Nilsson's vocals are a different take, most noticeably at the song's end. The first video is taken right from Midnight Cowboy's opening credits, and then below, a great black and white video of Nilsson lipsynching to the song on the West German TV show "Beat Club."

The Gin Blossoms -- "Til I Hear It From You" (1995)

Every once in a while, a truly great power pop song actually does make the charts, somehow breaking through whatever the musical fad is of those times. And that song is so good, it defies whatever obstacles may surround it.

By the time the soundtrack to this film came out, the Arizona-originated Gin Blossoms already had a head of steam from their happily titled New Miserable Experience. That album had three FM radio favorites -- "Alison Road," "Found Out About You" and "Hey Jealousy." While the grunge movement was in full swing, these guys lightened it up with jangling electric guitars, sweet harmonies, and the emotional swagger of lead singer Robin Wilson.

The Gin Blossoms had the luck of contributing "Til I Hear It From You," co-written with singer/songwriter ace Marshall Crenshaw, on the soundtrack of Empire Records, a movie that opened dead on arrival. As a matter of fact, I don't even remember it opening at all in the New York area. It was notable for featuring babe-on-the-rise Liv Tyler, and directed by Alan Moyle, who had also done the same duties for the 1990 cult Christian Slater pirate radio/teen flick "Pump Up The Volume." Empire Records was the last of a dying breed, the "teens rebel against the big corporate giant and finally win" film. Yet, one of my former employees once told me this was her favorite film.

While the Empire Records soundtrack had the usual mix of name artists (Evan Dando, Better Than Ezra) and no names (The Ape Hangers? The Cruel Sea?), "Til I Hear It From You" burst out so hard and fast that when it was announced it was from the soundtrack of Empire Records, people probably asked "What movie was that?"

When you bring along Marshall Crenshaw to be your co-writer, you know you're upping the songwriting ante. As great a songwriter as he is, nobody would ever confuse him for pop songwriting machine Diane Warren. This song may have been Crenshaw's highest-charting success as a songwriter.

"Til I Hear It From You" was the Byrds reborn, more of those jangling guitars in a G-Em-Bm-D pattern and a straightforward catchy chorus based on the simple C and D chords. These guys were going for nothing less than the motherlode hit, doing the old pop trick of repeating that melody hook again and again and again. Even the instrumental break had the guitars playing the chorus melody line note for note behind an erupting marching snare drum volcano. And at the end, layered harmonies over and over that descending G chord pattern in the chorus.

Looking back, you'd have to say wow, what a miracle that a song like this crashed through the charts at all. Grunge still had rock and roll on the public's mind, and they sure did like it with their pop hooks (see Third Eye Blind's "Semi-Charmed Life"), before it all gave way to boy bands, rap and hip-hop.

Bizarro band note: I thought I heard singer Robin Wilson say he now lives in Valley Stream, Long Island?

Here's the international non-Empire Records video of the Gin Blossoms'"Til I Hear It From You."

A-ha - "The Living Daylights" (1987)

Twenty years ago, A-ha recorded what I think is the last great James Bond title song. "Goldeneye" was good, a potent combination of Tina Turner singing U2's composition. But it was the unlikely synth pop group from Norway who really pulled off a truly compelling title song, with tricky key changes, wide open production, a veritable mix of dark Europop and John Barry snazz.

For many years, Bond title songs were memorable ballads sung by Matt Munro ("From Russia With Love", Nancy Sinatra ("You Only Live Twice"), Louis Armstrong ("We Have All The Time In The World"), Carly Simon ("Nobody Does It Better"), Rita Coolidge ("All Time High") and Shirley Bassey ("Goldfinger" and "Diamonds Are Forever"). Tom Jones added some histrionics for "Thunderball" and Lulu's "The Man With The Golden Gun" was so-so, even it picked up the pace. McCartney's "Live and Let Die" was a good pop song, but nobody would ever say it "rocked." It was not until Duran Duran entered the picture with "A View To A Kill" (1985) that the drums really exploded, the guitars slashed and the sampled brass popped.

With full permission now to get fast and loud, A-ha put their own Europop twist on the title song.

If you live in the US, you remember A-ha has the three good looking guys who starred in one of MTV's truly pioneering videos in their song "Take On Me." But if you have lived in Europe and the UK, you know that A-ha has been a pop supergroup for years, with high charting albums and greatest hits collections.

For this film where Timothy Dalton did the Bond honors, A-ha had to merge their distinct synthpop sound with famed series composer John Barry, not an easy task. I reckon it would take a couple of listens to "The Living Daylights" for one to realize there's a lot of cool little things going on in this Cinemascope sounding song, a wonderful mix of sound elements to make this a repeater.

Heavily treated electric guitars, hard acoustic guitar strums at emphatic parts, galloping drums with suddenly building snares, twinkling synths, a distorted sax solo, and the falsettos and harmonies of the group itself. John Barry comes in loud and clear with his trademark brassy blasts during the intro and the chorus. Listen for the in-time horseshoes when the song settles in about halfway through before that dirty sax solo.

Instead of some of the ballads Bond fans have been treated through over the years, "The Living Daylights" is pure musical adrenaline for rocketing down the highway.

The Four Tops - "Are You Man Enough?" (1973)

The Isaac Hayes soundtrack to the original Shaft movie was an instant classic, still fantastic to enjoy to this day. Since the movie was a hit, MGM was going to milk that black detective franchise for everything it was worth... which was not much.

The first sequel, Shaft's Big Score, did respectable business in 1972, but by the time it staggered to 1973 with Shaft in Africa, the box office wasn't coming in like it used to. Each sequel was sillier than the last, and this one was thrown together fast for a quick buck that never came.

At this point in the 70's, the Four Tops had left Motown, where they had earned their bread on classics like "Sugar Pie Honey Bunch," "Reach Out I'll Be There," "Standing In The Shadows Of Love" and others. They were now recording with ABC's Dunhill Records, which teamed them with songwriters Dennis Lambert and Brian Potter and producer Steve Barri. In retrospect, you wouldn't believe how many pop hits these guys cranked out, from the insipid (Coven's "One Tin Soldier"), to slick (Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds' "Don't Pull Your Love") to cheesy (Glen Campbell's "Rhinestone Cowboy").

Lightning struck again for this match-up, as they cranked out more soulful hits, like "Keeper Of The Castle" and "Ain't No Woman (Like The One I Got"), all using the careful wah-wah guitars and late Motown-era strings (think The Temptations' "Papa Was A Rolling Stone"). So it was natural for Shaft in Africa's producers to have them come up with a song for the film's opening credits.

Even if this film was unintentionally hilarious (and you'll see what I mean below), the song was killer -- same production style as their other hits, ear-grabbing opening with heavy beat kick drum, clavinet and tuned congas, feeling like a private dick film already. I loved the solo handclaps before the chorus, a great device to build up tension waiting for that part.

"Are You Man Enough" asks if you're ready to play tough as Shaft:

Are you man enough?
Big and bad enough?
Are you gonna let 'em shoot your down?
When the evil flies and your brother cries
Are you gonna be around?

I've got some real treats for videos below. First is the Shaft in Africa trailer, and like the one I posted for Trouble Man, it's blaxploitation jive talk through and through. Next is "Are You Man Enough" over the opening credits. Finally, and this has to be seen to be believed, a scene from Shaft in Africa where Shaft's car is running over these ridiculous looking assailants in some of the worst, yet most hilarious stunt work you'll ever see

Shaft in Africa "trailer"
Uploaded by gregwallace

Shaft in Africa Four Tops Intro
Uploaded by TroubleMan00