March 28, 2008 Earworm

Madonna's "Crazy For You", a one-off licensing deal with Geffen Records was at number one the week of May 11th, 1985 but the folks at that label had high hopes for another single that was debuting that week: "Ways To Be Wicked" by Lone Justice. It may have been written for, and turned down by, Stevie Nicks but Tom Petty found the perfect voice for his song in what sounded like a combination of the daughter of Brenda Lee and little sister of Rachel Sweet.

An appearance on SNL where Maria McKee screamed and spun like a Tasmanian Diva left all that saw it speechless and sure that they'd just witnessed something miraculous but the band never made the leap to the big pop success their label envisioned. A second single, "Sweet, Sweet Baby (I'm Falling)" - one of this typer's favorite records of all time - fared even worse than "Ways" and when the time came to record a second album, "Shelter", the band was basically no more.

Maria McKee is still going and other than the label driven first solo album, she's not made a bad record yet.

Happy weekend!

March 26, 2008 Earworm

There has always been something about the sound of Brenda Lee's voice that I find comforting, something that my multiple viewings of the menacing "Joy Ride" still can't erase. As a youngster, I would watch my mother find that same comfort as she drifted off into her reveries whenever one of Brenda's songs would come on; singing along as though she, too, was on a stage somewhere and baring her soul in her own private drama.

"Johnny One Time" will always come to mind if I am asked to name a favorite, but I would probably argue with myself about it afterward because it sure is hard to pick just one. By 1969, Brenda was well passed her peak on the pop charts and "Johnny One Time" was an obvious attempt at recapturing some of that glory. With its Jim Webb-like strings recreating a casual wind blowing through her hair, she details the list of crap some wide eyed innocent will hear pouring out of Johnny's mouth as he angles for "that special love you're saving". The strings continue to calmly blow but you can feel a storm brewing and little acoustic ticks and tricks whiz by and still you listen, barely noticing that the storm is in our narrator's voice. Never yelling, always polite, but becoming harder with each chorus, "...did he tell you that the special love you're saving will disappear in flames of shame like mine...", wringing out the word "mine" until it resembles the exact emotion she needs to share.

For all of its beauty and power, "Johnny One Time" would stop just short of the top 40, and aside from three further singles that barely bothered the top 70, Brenda Lee's pop career was finished. However, she remains an icon of the more innocent days of rock 'n' roll when it was not yet too far from its country roots and for some of us, the voice of Little Miss Dynamite makes the world a better place.