Anyone that knows me can tell you that I’m a huge music fan. I love all kinds of music, and I’m not partial to any one type or style. My musical tastes are so diverse that I often catch grief from my friends for liking what they might consider “odd” types of music. Simply flipping through my CD case would quickly expose my vast musical interests, as you’d see CD’s from performers such as Judas Priest, Britney Spears, The Rolling Stones, Weezer, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Snoop Dogg, Merle Haggard, Saliva, Johnny Cash, Christina Aguilera, Kiss, Beyonce’, Neil Diamond, Santana, Willie Nelson, Frank Sinatra and a plethora of others. I’m not ashamed to admit that you’d also find a couple of polka compilations, as well as a yodeling CD or two (yes, I LOVE yodeling music!). I guess I never really fell into that “one genre of music fits all” mold, as I just simply like a good tune.
Back in the 1990’s, I had amassed a pretty awesome collection of great musical performances on a single VHS tape (remember those?). Unfortunately, the tape was accidentally used to record a seasons worth of Seinfeld episodes, and my great performances were lost forever. Sniff. Well, that is until I discovered
YouTube.com a while back.
YouTube.com isn’t just for viewing videos of dogs on skateboards, but can also be an incredible place to be to find rare clips and performances of nearly any entertainer you could ever imagine…..which leads me back to my old VHS tape. One of the best performances on my tape was of Whitney Houston singing a song called
“This Day” (click on the song title to view). Thank goodness, someone else must have liked it too and posted it on
YouTube.com! I don’t care what style of music you like or dislike, if Whitney’s voice and singing on this gospel-type performance doesn’t move you, you’re either deaf or dead!
And speaking of gospel-type songs, if you didn’t catch Kelly Clarkson’s performance on the “American Idol Gives Back” show a couple months ago, you should check it out. While Kelly doesn’t have the pipes that Whitney has, she does a beautiful job with a song called
“Up to the Mountain”. The fact that Jeff Beck is playing guitar for her adds an extra touch of class to the performance.
Maybe my friends and me are weird or something, but we’ve often had the conversation of “If you were stranded on a desert island and only had one CD to listen too, what would you choose?” Given my various musical tastes, I always have a really hard time with that one. Over the years, I think I’ve narrowed it down to Santana’s “Zebop”, The Beatles “Abbey Road”, or ANY album by Pink Floyd. Now, if I was asked the same question, but only had one
song to pick, I think I’d pick the song “Mother” by Pink Floyd. No matter how many times I hear that song, the guitar work and melody simply give me the goose bumps. My buddy Dave and I have been known to play “Mother” at full volume a dozen or so times in a row while sitting around a campfire after downing a few Beam and Cokes. And once again,
YouTube.com can give you a couple versions of this song as well. The first link below is from the most recent Roger Waters tour, and is quite a performance. Although David Gilmour isn’t there to play the lead, the guitar player with the band respects the original recording and plays the lead flawlessly. The second link below is the same song, but recorded by the original band members in 1980. OMG! Was that really 27 years ago!?!? It's another great performance.
2007 Pink Floyd "Mother"
1980 Pink Floyd “Mother”I could ramble on forever listing links to great performances I’ve found, but you’d have more fun going to
You Tube.com and searching around to find whatever it is that moves you. And if you find something you think I’d like, please send it my way!
G’night G’Town!
Music knows no frontiers. It is free all-where. It’s contribution to emotional integration, Human and divine, can never be fathomed. ~Chin Moy
