Tag Archives: Bruno Mars

“Sign, Sign, Everywhere A Sign” & A Song

Posted in Flea Market Finds, Music, Vintage Finds by

Hello, friends!!!

How was your weekend?  Did you catch the 60th Grammy Awards last night???  Huge night for Bruno Mars.  Emmylou Harris & Chris Stapleton sang a beautiful version of “Wildflowers” together as a tribute to Tom Petty.  I loved Donald Glover a/k/a Childish Gambino’s performance.  I adored him on “Community” and since then his career in both acting and music has exploded.  He won the Grammy for Best Traditional R&B Performance for his song “Redbone”.  It was well deserved, as that song has all kinds of old school 1970’s soul feels to it.  Swoon.

If you have loved antiques & flea markets as long as I have, you know that signs are a huge collectible.  Store signs, street signs, building signs, etc., are in huge demand.  While I do not own any myself (still on the hunt for the right one for me), I do love admiring them whenever I come across ones I find really interesting.  Most of the ones I like are too big to hang in a normal size house, so by taking pictures of them I can bring a piece of their beauty home with me.

The first time I saw this one with its individual letters, I spent over 30 minutes shooting it from different heights and angles for the right effect.  This was just outside the Delaware Water Gap.  Unfortunately, I have never been around at night to photograph it all lit up.

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Vintage soda signs are some of my favorites.  I spotted the two below in Pennsylvania.

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Old store signs have so much character.  I spotted this beauty in Kentucky.

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The signs on sides of buildings which are made part of the structure itself are like early graffiti experiments, except they were not free hand.  I really love this type of graphic.  I saw this in North Carolina.

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Now for our song of the week.  I loved seeing U2 last night  and it had me thinking about the great messages in so many of their songs.  One that has resonated a lot for me over the years is 2000’s “Walk On“.

It is a great reminder that who we are is unique, and the moments we have in life are ours, no matter how much others try to take them away from us or rewrite history about them.  I love these words:

“Walk on, walk on
What you got they can’t steal it
No they can’t even feel it
Walk on, walk on…

Walk on, walk on
What you’ve got they can’t deny it
Can’t sell it, or buy it
Walk on, walk on”

I do not own the rights to the music.  I am just sharing some things that I love with you   🙂

Until next time, happy digging!!!

 

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Valentine’s Day Music Countdown: Song #10

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The next song on my list is dedicated to my mother who was a big fan of the singer in the #10 spot on my countdown.  His dance moves on stage earned him the nickname “Mr. Excitement” by some and “the black Elvis” by others. But make no mistake:  This man had a voice like no one else before or after him.  The singer?  Jackie Wilson.  The song?  “(Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher & Higher”.

Reaching #6 on the charts in 1967 & written by Gary Jackson and Carl Smith, rumor has it that Wilson recorded the vocal track for this song in one take.  If that is true, it is an incredible testament to his magnificent voice and talent.  He had an astonishing 47 R&B hit songs from 1958 to 1973.  They ran the gamut from ballads to dance tunes to true soul numbers. He was so popular overseas in 1963 that the Beatles opened for one of Wilson’s shows.

“Higher & Higher” is as close to perfect as a song gets, from its perfectly delivered lyrics, to its great impossible-to-sit-still-to-so-get-up-and-move beat, to the incredibly pristine horn arrangements, to the fantastic bass line, to the polish of the entire production. There are not too many love songs like this one, probably because there are not too many performers like Wilson.

His exuberant stage performances were copied by the likes of James Brown, Michael Jackson and Bruno Mars, to name a few.  But no matter how great his dance moves were, nothing compared with the range, power, intensity and considerable passion of Wilson’s voice.

Sadly, that voice was silenced in 1984 when Wilson was just 49 years old.  He became incapacitated after suffering a heart attack on stage in 1975 and spent his remaining years in a nursing home.  As was unfortunately common practice in the early days of Rock & Roll, Wilson died virtually penniless due to the machinations of his record company and manager.  The end of Wilson’s story is one of the saddest in music history.

He was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1987 by Peter Wolf of the J. Geils Band.

Notable covers of “Higher & Higher” have been done by Dolly Parton, Rita Coolidge, and Rod Stewart.  But my favorite cover is by one of my heroes (and future husband, if God is listening), Bruce Springsteen.  He started playing this song live with more and more frequency in the last decade, usually as one of his encores.  He and the E Street Band gave it everything they had in this clip from one of their shows in 2009.

Enjoy!!!