Retro Groovin'

The term "Retro" with reference to art or fashion has in recent years, infiltrated our vocabulary.

To hipsters, and anyone trying to sell you something old, retro is cool.

Like your granddaddy's tweed blazer from an age when tailors took pride in every garment they created, and things were not yet mass-produced by robots in China, retro is ostensibly superior.

So what does that say about retro music? Are we talking about "oldies", or a new genre unto itself?

My research led me to the consummate funnel of all modern verity and wisdom: Wikipedia. To paraphrase the "pedia", Retro is "a culturally aged style or trend from the overall postmodern past, that has since become the norm

once again." It goes on to say, "It generally implies a vintage of at least 15 or 20 years."

Not so much about music, but luckily I have a gift for metaphoric translation, so please allow me to elucidate, and if you pay attention, you might find common musical ground between the generations.

Everything is interesting when it's new; Art, fashion, cars, puppies...all eventually lose their lustre when familiarity rears it's tedious little head. We move on to newer things, scoffing at the overexposed banality we left behind, until we discover one day, that we've been scoffing for 15-20 years. Then a torrent of nostalgia motivates us to proudly profess our "guilty" pleasures. We say, "Damn it, I like Boy George, and I don't care who knows it!", and begin belting out the chorus of Karma Chameleon. I caution readers to avoid having this epiphany at a

biker bar. A gay bar is fine.

In any case, a good song is an eternal gift. It can eventually seem dated, but just as a fashionable person can integrate vintage clothing into their modern style, so can an artful musician breathe new life into a classic, or take a previously unsuccessful song, and give it wings. Moreover, a good song-smith can create original music employing a retro mode of expression.

Since the 90s, we have seen an influx of artists who pay hommage to the greats gone-by with elements of their vintage style fused with original modern music. Harry Connick Jr. swooped in with Sinatra-like vocals, while Brian Setzer, Cherry Poppin' Daddies, and Squirrel Nut Zippers saved Swing music from extinction.

The artists below are those that have risen to prominence through a style that appeals to the listener for its hybrid of familiarity and originality. The penultimate compliment to the long-forgotten innovators of any genre, is not to mimic, but to perpetuate by turning their legacy into something new.

Here are some that do it well:

Adele: Everybody knows her now and she is barely 23 years old, but the force is strong in this one. While

extraordinarily unique, her tone conjures images of old songstresses like Nina Simone and Etta James. Her music is fresh, and her style is timeless. She will be around long enough to become the comparative standard for the next generation.

Aloe Blacc: A rapper and musician in several groups for the better part of a decade, he finally shed his anonymity this year with his solo debut, Good Things. You've probably heard I Need A Dollar, and thought you were listening to Bill Withers or Billy Preston. Aloe could easily be mistaken for a one-hit wonder if not for his artistry, vocal prowess, and commanding presence. For further proof, I recommend Loving You is Killing Me (Seriously, you will thank me), and for kicks, his Spanish rendition of John Legend'sOrdinary people.

Amy Winehouse: Long love-line, short lifeline. Her presence was brief, but her legacy ample. Despite calling to mind jazz and R&B legends of yesteryear, both male and female, her sound was never dated. In fact, the traces of hip-hop and funk in her music distinguished her from others who seem to counterfeit the genre. Hers was never disingenuous, and always massively appealing.

Cee-lo Green: Green possesses an old-school R&B flavor in his voice, and alludes to a similar influence in his music. During a recent guest spot on the NBC series, Parenthood, Cee-lo records his interpretation of Erma

Franklin's original version of the Janis Joplin hit,Piece of My Heart... and it smoked. He has an organic soulfulness to his vocals that I liken to Stevie Wonder or Sly (of the family) Stone, and that is some lofty praise. I refer listeners to his 2004 album entitled Cee-Lo Green... Is the Soul Machine, or his 2007 Gnarles Barkley album, St. Elsewhere.

Erykah Badu: Badu pioneered the "Neo-soul" genre, and earned the monniker "First Lady of Neo-Soul" with her Baduizm CD in 1997 (Not just anyone is granted their own "izm"). This hot-lipped babe burst onto the scene so fiercely with her Billie holiday-meets-Foxy Brown style, that we forgave her for wearing those garish head-wraps. We may even forgive her for the 3 children she bore to Andre Benjamin (of Outkast), Common, and D.O.C. respectively. Not because each has a different father, but because she named them Seven Sirius, Puma Sabti Curry, and Mars Merkaba Thedford. As Ms. Holiday once said, "G-d bless the child".

Janelle Monáe: Discovered by Big Boi (of Outkast), this phenomenal 26 year-old somehow managed to fly under the radar for 5 years until 2010's hit, Tightrope. If scientists were to clone and blend the rhythmic DNA of Michael Jackson, James Brown, Lauryn Hill, Prince and Lady Gaga, we might end up with something resembling Janelle. Like most geniuses, she is eccentric, and has created an alter ego named Cindi Mayweather. Cindi is a messianic female android in some neo-orwellian version of earth's future, a concept that Monáe plans to turn into a movie and graphic novel. And I'm exhausted just from writing this blog.

John Legend/The Roots: They should be 2 separate items, but I would inevitably have to mention their collaboration album, Wake Up. The Roots have been regaling us with their funk-infused brand of Hip-Hop since the early '90s, and Legend materialized in 2004 with the Donny Hathaway-esque ballad, Ordinary People. The offspring of this alliance is a CD rife with vintage Philly and Motown R&B, even covering the likes of Marvin Gaye and Teddy Pendergrass. The Roots, who are now the house band on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, have gained respect by merging '70s soul to Rap without compromising the urban sensibility of the music. John Legend is a talented star with a throwback vibe that belies his years. I simply saw this album as a peanut butter cup. Both are great alone, but together... downright decadent.

Michael Buble: Some say he's a white-washed version of the real deal because he rose to stardom on the coattails of the artists he covered. Okay, I was the one that said it but that was before he showed that he could write his own music, and creatively re-invigorate obscure classics for a new audience. Furthermore, as much as I loves me some down-home, rough-edged, dirty rhythm & blues, I'm also a sucker for a well-produced, mid-tempo, finger-snapping, Vegas lounge love song.

Norah Jones: No doubt the daughter of Ravi Shankar was granted both the genetics and the exposure of musicality from her embryonic beginnings, but damned if she isn't the subtle kind of sexy that keeps me interested

long after her contemporaries have been muted. The fact that she debuted on the Blue Note Record label seems fitting given her retro-jazzy influence. She invokes the spirit of greats like Dinah Washington and Ella Fitzgerald, but is an accomplished artist in her own right who need not (and does not) live off covers alone. Easy to enjoy for the casual listener and music afficionado alike.

Raphael Saadiq: This multi-faceted musician was 1 of 2 Wiggins brothers in the 90s R&B group Tony! Toni! Toné!, but he changed his name to Raphael Saadiq so that he could never be confused with anyone else (He and Englebert Humperdinck). The best story I found was of his audition to play bass in Sheila E's band. He got the gig, and went on tour... with Prince... just before his 18th birthday! Saadiq's devotion to the vintage soul of Motown and Staxx records is so strong that the release of his 2008 album, The Way I See It, included in addition to the traditional CD, a collector's edition box-set of 45s (I just lost everyone under 35). This album honors those styles so authentically, that my cousin refused to believe the songs were not remakes, even though every single one was an original Saadiq production. There's a lot more where that came from in Saadiq's past and future.

I can go on to praise singers like Joss Stone, or go further back to Sade, but my mission is only to provide the spark. If you appreciate vintage jazz like Sarah Vaughan and Louis Armstrong, or classic soul singers like Sam Cooke, Otis Redding, and Al Green, but you think those days are gone, think again. The spirit lives on, and the music is being handed down to your children.

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One-hit Wondering

Everybody loves those silly one-hit wonders. There are some good ones, and some really, really bad ones. Some are released expressly for stand-alone novelty successes, and some decent musicians stumble upon a hook by accident, while other commercial artists wisely produce them for money beneath the veil of a pseudonym.

Here's the story of a man named Rostom Sipan Bagdasarian, who was a pianist, singer, songwriter, actor and record producer in desperate need of a better stage name. He chose David Seville, which barely even contains any of the same letters (and that's a considerable amount of letters). In 1958, he invested in a V-M tape recorder that allowed playback at different speeds (cutting-edge technology at the time). His hit song, Witch Doctor (ooh-ee, ooh-ah-ah, ting-tang, walla-walla, bing-bang) marked the first time the world had ever heard that squeaky, high-pitched sound (but apparently not the last). Who would have thought that stumbling upon that little nugget would forge the beginning of a prosperous career? That winter, he released the now "classic" Chipmunk Song (Christmas Don't Be Late) and a new sensation was born. He even won two Grammy Awards that year. Since then, as the owner/uncle of Alvin and the Chipmunks, he has earned a fortune from records, TV shows, and movies. Witch Doctor is still considered a 1-hit wonder.

As far as I am concerned, a one-hit wonder is a song by a singer or group that did nothing else, like Rupaul or Los Del Rio who we can thank for the @#$%^&* Macarena.

If a group is popular among it's followers and releases records that sell, but just don't make the mainstream American charts, are in my humble opinion, not one-hit wonders. Otherwise, the Grateful Dead, Jimi Hendrix, and Janis Joplin would all be on the list. Most of their songs were never top 40 hits, but they sold outstandingly for decades, and are considered rock classics.

So why is it that whenever it is the subject of an MTV, Much Music or VH1 special, I find myself yelling at the TV set, upsetting my wife and dog?

For one thing, Americans (bless their hearts) are a little megalomaniacal, and oblivious to "foreign acts". Now, I'm all for dismissing David Hasselhoff as an artist, but when Tom Cochrane makes the list for Life is a Highway, because it's his only song that made the U.S Billboard charts, it gets silly. There are other nutty examples like Layla, recorded under the name Derek and the Dominos, but who everyone knows is Eric Clapton.

Some of the artists that occupy these lists gain international fame with some catchy earworm that is in no way indicative of their overall repertoire, and can come to define them unjustly.

Stevie Wonder is obviously a prolific artist, but if one more person alludes to his body of work by the song, I Just Called to Say I Love You, I may end up in jail.

Here are some of the songs I discovered on a number of lists with which I disagree. These acts stand accused as one-hit wonders, and sadly, they have only me to defend them.

Baha Men - Who Let the Dogs Out:This addicitve hit eclipsed all of their other work, and while it may have been their highest charting hit, it's arguably not their best. This group of Bahamian men (hence the name) have been around for 20 years making music in their "Junkanoo" style. As a DJ, I used to play Best Years of Our Lives (featured in the movie Shrek), and if you have kids, they will know many Baha Men songs from the popular Disney Mania albums. They won the Nickelodeon Kids Choice Award in 2 different years, and someone has the nerve to call them a 1 hit wonder? What's next, Sharon, Lois and Bram? Raffi? Will these people stop at nothing?

Chris De Burgh - Lady in Red: Seeing this on a VH-1 show really offended me, and I am not even British. This guy had several classic albums, and was renowned as a brilliant musical storyteller in the 70s and 80s with songs like; Spanish Train, Patricia the Stripper, The Traveller, Don't Pay the Ferryman, and more. Now, this lyrical and orchestral wizard is to be pigeonholed for life because of one weak, sentimental moment during which he wrote this sappy ballad? Whoever that "Lady" is, she owes us all an apology.

Cliff Richard - We Don't Talk Anymore: I found this one on-line, and gave the writer a (small) piece of my mind. This is categorically untrue. Cliff Richard hit the U.S. charts several times (including a forgettable duet with Olivia Newton-John in the 80s), but he was huge in Britain and Australia throughout the 60s. He was even known as the British Elvis. This alleged "one hit" is a corny, easy listening tune that represents neither his style nor his stature. He owns the definitive version of the oft-covered, Devil Woman, and he was known to me for other songs even as a child. He has had so many successful records over the decades that Wikipedia has a separate page just for his discography. Need I say more?

Crash Test Dummies - Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm: VH-1 named them for this, their only U.S. hit (which they almost deserve for not coming up with a better title), but here in Canada they had 7 or 8 hit songs in the 90s. While not a huge fan, I'll be damned if I am going to let VH-1 misrepresent our home-grown talent.

Divinyls - I Touch Myself: A popular group with a hot female lead finds success in a song about her pleasuring herself? D'ya think they had a plan? What surprises me more is that North-Americans had already forgotten their 1985 hit, Pleasure and Pain. That detail notwithstanding, their fans from down-under showed their love with over a dozen hits in a 15 year span. Despite experiencing immeasurable turnover among musicians, founding members Christina Amphlett and Mark McEntee were around for all of them. If you're interested, check out I'm Jealous, and their cover of Roxy Music's Love is the Drug.

Edie Brickell and the New Bohemians - What I Am: I can't make much of a fuss about this since her subsequent albums little commercial success, but there were some good tracks on that same Shooting Rubberbands album. Circle was one of my favorites and was also a moderate hit. On the other hand, this one album enabled her to meet, marry, and have a child with the legendary Paul Simon, so we award her points for that.

Frankie Goes to Hollywood - Relax: Even if you disregard their 2nd album with hits Rage Hard and Warriors of the Wasteland, They are still not 1-hitters. That first record, Welcome to the Pleasuredome scored a hit with the title track, Two Tribes, and the eerie ballad, The Power of Love. If you ask me, the real culprits were those darned "Frankie Say... Relax" t-shirts that conditioned everyone to believe it was their only hit. Oh and yes, the original t-shirts read "Frankie SAY...", not "Frankie SAYS...", probably because the Frankie in question is the band, and therefore plural, but who knows?

Gary Numan - Cars: Great song, but he also charted in 1979 with Are 'Friends' Electric?. Despite being really weird, Numan had a large and loyal following. He scored a handful of hits in the early 80s including We Are Glass and I Die, You Die (a real spirit-lifter). More importantly, to refer to him as a 1-hitter is to unjustly ignore his contributions to New Wave, Punk and Electronica. He experimented with different genres in the 90s, and while none were commercially succesful, those albums were well-received by critics and devotees.

Inner Circle - Bad Boys (a.k.a. the theme from COPS): VH-1 listed this, but the band has been around since the early 70s with hits in the Carribean and the U.K. Most of you are probably more familiar with their other hit, Sweat (A La La La La Long) which hit the top of the charts everywhere but the U.S., and I am not sure why. Either way, they don't belong on these lists.

The Knack - My Sharona: Technically, they were a 1-album wonder, because Get the Knack was a good record. The project spawned another hit with the song Good Girls Don't, but few seem to remember that. Still, I admit that this one is not worth putting up much of a fight about, because despite their 2nd album selling marginally well, the only song anyone ever wants to hear is still... My Sharona.

Lenny Kravitz - It Ain't Over Till It's Over: Lord have mercy! Wayne Jancik included this in his Billboard Book of One-Hit Wonders. Granted, the book was published in 1999, and Jancik's criteria was strictly cracking Billboard's Top 40, but that is neither an excuse nor does it disprove my point. Lenny Kravitz had already made a name for himself before this song, but convincingly more by the time the book was published. Even in 91, if that was the first you heard of Lenny, then you were in pre-school, and not a very cool one.

Sir Mix-a-lot - Baby Got Back: His inclusion on a "1-hit" list implies that Sir Mix-a-lot only "mixed-a-little", but that is not the case. Despite the success of his catchiest, but least serious tune, he was a legitimate rapper in the late 80s before the cruise ships got wind of diddy in 92. Then, in 1996, he released his 5th album, Return of the Bumpasaurus which featured the single Jump on It, a popular tune that is still played at parties and sporting events, but never really made it into the mainstream charts.

Spandau Ballet - True: Now, I'm not saying I want to sit through a concert, but they were definitely not a one-hit wonder. I know this because my high-school girlfriend used to make-out to the song, Gold. I know I was at least one of those guys. That's right, Spandau Ballet made my "sex soundtrack". I am not ashamed. Some of you have Lionel Richie, Barry Manilow, and 99 Luftballons in yours. The important point is, they had around 10 hits including Round and Round and Only When You Leave.

Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch - Good Vibrations: Oh who are we kidding? This is the mother of all one-hit wonders. Even Mark Wahlberg is embarrassed by this sound-stain. I just threw it in there to see if you were still paying attention.

This list could be much longer because many of the acts deemed to be one-hit wonders do not deserve the classification. In most cases, the song they’re most remembered for is not their best, but it's usually the one that gets in your head and stays there. Unfortunately, often, you really wish it wouldn't.

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