Jon Stewart & Why It's Not Too Soon To Discuss Gun Control In The States

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So Fox News said it's too soon to talk about gun control in the States....and yet, turns out it's not too soon to discuss whether costumes should be banned from cinemas.  Despite there always being a multitude of reasons for why things like the Colorado shooting take place, now is very much the time to discuss gun control. Why is America so reluctant? As usual, Jon Stewart nails it:



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Barry Gibb At The Grand Ole Opry - The Top 10 Bee Gees Country Songs

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A few hours ago the last surviving Bee Gee, Barry Gibb, walked off the the most hallowed stage in country music, the Grand Ole Opry. He performed three songs alongside country star Ricky Skaggs and received a standing ovation. As far as late career moves go, this is a home-run for Gibb. No other A-list artist like the Bee Gees has been so wrongly pigeon-holed to one genre (disco) in the eyes of lazy journalists, that to remind (or to educate) people of the wider legacy of the brothers Gibb is always welcome.

The late Robin Gibb was often sensitive to the word "disco," rightfully biting back at interviewers that the Bee Gees were always about so much more than that word. And they were. You don't sell 220 million records and write 21 different US or UK number one hits if you only deal in one genre. Of note though is that even if the word almost became dirty, particularly in the States, is that Barry Gibb recently said disco is only a bad word if you weren't the group everyone most associates with it. As far as beautifully cool, totally accurate, back-handed self-back-slapping goes, that claim deservedly takes the cake.

Perhaps that was a sign of acceptance. Yes indeed, people made fun of disco and once upon a time, for a combination of factors including not just over-saturation but also implicit racism and homophobia people burned so-called "disco" records. But after all these years, who is more revered by both the public and critics: the Bee Gees and Donna Summer, or Styx and the Sex Pistols? Prog-rock and punk might've been cool, but in the grander scheme of things, album sales were drastically minuscule in comparison and the songs have not stood the test of time anywhere near as well as the likes of How Deep Is Your Love or I Feel Love.

All that to one side, Barry Gibb is rightfully held aloft as not just arguably, but statistically, the second most successful popular songwriter of all time after Paul McCartney. And being that he has just performed at the Grand Ole Opry, here is my Barry Gibb / Bee Gees country top 10:

Islands In The Stream (US #1 - the biggest country hit of all time for Kenny Rogers & Dolly Parton - from Eyes That See In The Dark)
Rest Your Love On Me (US country #1 for Conway Twitty, written at the height of the disco era)
Don't Forget To Remember (UK#2 from the Cucumber Castle album)
Sweetheart (UK top 30 hit for Englebert Humperdinck, originally from Cucumber Castle)
Come Home Johnny Bride (a dark horse of a song from a dark horse of an album, 1973's Life In A Tin Can)
Marley Purt Drive (my standout song from the stunningly eclectic Odessa from 1969 - inspired by The Band)
Give Your Best (pure country & western, so much so few casual Bee Gees fans can pick this as the Gibbs - also from Odessa)
Buried Treasure (featuring the Gatlin Brothers, this is another standout from the Kenny Rogers album Eyes That See In The Dark)
South Dakota Morning (a gentle country ballad with a sweet melody, from Life In A Tin Can)
Come On Over (US top 30 hit for Olivia Newton-John, originally hidden on the blockbuster Main Course album that introduced Jive Talkin' to the world)

Being that I've already featured Marley Purt Drive on The Roxborogh Report, I've decided to go for South Dakota Morning for my YouTube clip. Enjoy:

Barry Gibb At The Grand Ole Opry - An Emotional "How Can You Mend A Broken Heart"

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Barry Gibb at the Grand Ole Opry

Barry Gibb: "He brought me through the darkness and I'm smiling."

After much speculation about what three songs Barry Gibb would perform in his debut appearance at Nashville's Grand Ole Opry, he showed what has always been the case with his writing: that a great song is a great song. It doesn't matter if it is pop, rock, R&B, disco or country. And more than that, as I mentioned to one of the people who commented on the last blog entry, a great song is also genre-bending, which is why both How Can You Mend A Broken Heart and To Love Somebody were right at home at the Opry.

Barry performed those two songs with country star Ricky Skaggs as well as a third number When The Roses Bloom Again (a Johnny Cash song). To Love Somebody has always been a soul song, famously written with Otis Redding in mind, but it transfers to country perfectly in the same way that a country song like Jim Weatherly's Midnight Train To Georgia morphs easily into a soul song in the hands of Gladys Knight and the Pips.

How Can You Mend A Broken Heart was arguably always a country song. The original didn't twang like country but its gorgeous melody and direct, rather than esoteric, lyrics of younger days and not foreseeing the sadness of days ahead are pure Nashville. Again though, a great song is genre-bending - just go back and listen to Al Green's scorching soul cover.

I'd made a list of my top 10 Bee Gees country songs in the last entry, but with Barry performing the two songs mentioned, it's got me thinking of how many other Bee Gees songs would translate to a more country arrangement. Undoubtedly Massachussetts would be on that list, so too Maurice Gibb's much-loved solo single Railroad.

It's the beauty of the Gibb catalogue that it is so vast and so varied. You can dip into 1974's Mr Natural for lesser known country / soul gems like Lost In Your Love as well as the album the brothers wrote for Kenny Rogers in 1983, Eyes That See In The Dark. I had two of the songs from that album in my top 10 Bee Gees country songs, but they aren't even my top two songs on that album! I left them off the list because they were less "country" sounding, but as said, limiting a song or songwriter to one genre is stifling. Those two favorites are You And I and Hold Me. For much the same reasons that How Can You Mend A Broken Heart is a timeless song which appeals to lovers of both country and soul, I'd make the same argument for these two songs.

So here is not one, but three videos. Firstly, it's Barry live with Ricky Skaggs at the Grand Ole Opry on probably the most touching version of How Can You Mend A Broken Heart I've ever seen him perform. The first few minutes is Ricky and Barry discussing the loss of brother Robin and it really seems like Ricky has taken Barry under his wing and the emotion of it all is there for all to see. For Barry to say that Ricky had "brought me through me through the darkness and I'm smiling," sums up the heart and humility that defines Barry not just as a songwriter, but as a man. And videos two and three are Barry's demos for Kenny Rogers of You and I and Hold Me.

Why Aren't The Commodores In The Rock 'n' Roll Hall Of Fame? - Their Dirtiest Song

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At the moment I'm collaborating with my old buddy Ronald LaPread on a couple of projects which I can't yet announce, but as with many things in life, I have my fingers crossed and will work hard to do all I can to make them happen. Regardless, I'm indulging in one of my favourite past-times which is listening to old Commodores albums. For those who don't know, Ron was the bassist in the Commodores from 1969 until his departure from the band in 1986 when he fell in love with an Iranian / Kiwi and moved to New Zealand. He's been here ever since and for the last 10 years we've been friends, even hosting an award-winning radio show together All About Soul for a couple of years.

There are many reasons the Commodores were Motown's biggest selling band of the 70s and 80s, but at the forefront was that they were six guys who could all write. Unlike most Motown acts, the Commodores didn't rely on ace songwriters like Holland / Dozier / Holland, Ashford & Simpson or Norman Whitfield to give them their hits; they did it themselves.

With six songwriters, one who'd go on to become one of the greatest popular songwriters of the 20th century (Lionel Richie), the Commodores spurred each other on to be better. As a result you had the famous Lionel Richie ballads like Easy and Three Times A Lady, but also the Southern funk of Ron in songs like Look What You've Done To Me, Gimme My Mule and Fancy Dancer, plus gems like Milan Williams' Wonderland, Patch It Up and Machine Gun, Thomas McClary's Slippery When Wet, High On Sunshine and Celebrate, William King's Lady You Bring Me Up and Funky Situation and Walter Orange's Nightshift.

I've said it before, but how this band isn't in the Rock 'n' Roll Hall Of Fame makes zero sense. Alongside the number one hits and sell-out tours (first black act to sell out three consecutive nights at Madison Sqaure Garden), you have a startling diversity of music that puts them amongst the most versatile bands to ever dominate the charts. Few other acts have moved as seamlessly between as many genres as the Commodores. Just think of the country of Sail On, the funk of Brick House, the soul of Just To Be Close To You, the dance-pop of Lady You Bring Me Up, the funk-rock of Slippery When Wet, the quiet-storm of Zoom, the gospel of Jesus Is Love and the adult-contemporary soul of Nightshift.

The lazy narrative of the Commodores is that they started funky and went progressively ballad-heavy. The truth is that the Commodores were always funketeers, just as they always had a way with the love-song or the socially conscious message-song. What happened was that as the years went on, it became apparent that the songs best suited to mass radio play were the Lionel Richie ballads. That meant that the casual fan or the critic who couldn't be bothered actually listening to their albums didn't realize that there was funk and soul on every single one of the more than dozen Commodores albums.

This narrative also tended to downplay the simplistic brilliance of Richie's songs. Three Times A Lady and Still might be romantic ballads, but it's not as if by virtue of singing a ballad you are guaranteed a number one hit. I would argue these songs had just as much X-factor as any other mammoth hits of the time by the likes of the Bee Gees, Fleetwood Mac, Donna Summer and the Eagles. To be blunt, you only have to listen to the Commodores own aimless Only You from the Richie-less album 13 in 1983 to realize the difference between a ballad that grabs you and a ballad that doesn't. The beauty of so many of the best songs, whether ballads or up-tempo, is that they sound simple, though only a rare few of us can write them. At their best, their were six Commodores who had this ability.

So with that in mind, here is the latest Commodores song I can't get out of my head. Baring in mind this is a band whose back catalogue I know back to front, therefore making a new discovery near-on impossible, I've gone for one of any number of songs which blow my mind. However, intimate knowledge of the band to one side, it's fair to say this song initially passed me by and I can't quite believe it. Written by the late Milan Williams, who so often brought out the best, most expressive version of Lionel Richie, this is just about the dirtiest (in a good way) the Commodores ever got. It's another thing I love about this band, that they can be as carnal as this, just as they can be as overtly spiritual as songs like Jesus Is Love. It's a dichotomy which has always existed more easily in black music. Here are the Commodores at their best, this is X-rated Movie, from 1978's Natural High (and to reinforce their diversity, this was the same album that featured Three Times A Lady).

Valerie Adams Upgraded To Gold - Steve Winwood Writes A Song For Her

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Valerie Adams

If you're taking a drug that naturally forms only in pregnant cats, which when used on humans is known to make them not only much stronger, but more masculine, the least you could do is make sure your hair-style doesn't look like bad mens cut from the 80s. At least make it a good mens cut from the 80s. And as much as there are people saying the cheating Belarussian shot-putter just demoted from the Olympic gold in favour of our own Valerie Adams shouldn't be ridiculed for her looks, just her actions, Nadzeya Ostapchuk did herself no favours.

Nadzeya Ostapchuk

To be blunt, jokes about Val having to compete against Welsh rugby players and the kid from Two And A Half Men are not nearly as bad as blatantly cheating on the world's biggest stage, the Olympics. Plus she genuinely does look like the kid from Two And A Half Men, thanks in part to the self-incurred changes in her body from being a drug cheat. From that angle, she should be ridiculed for her looks because they are something she helped create through unethical means, not something she was born with. Val might be a big girl, but her femininity has never and will never be questioned.

Nor should her patriotism. Valerie Adams is someone who wears her heart on her sleeve and while that might occasionally rub people the wrong way, she should be lauded for not just her extraordinary success in her sport, but her devotion to her country. What was one of the first things she said after finding out she'd been upgraded from the silver medal to gold? That she couldn't wait to sing the national anthem and watch the New Zealand flag rise.

Good on you Val, well deserved and can't wait to see you do it again in Rio in four years time. Let's make sure they fill the form out properly next time too. Here is a song Steve Winwood has just written about Val's gold medal, a song simply entitled Valerie.*

*This song wasn't actually written about Valerie Adams, though was a massive hit in the 80s. Younger audiences might know it better in its sampled form as the dance hit Call On Me by Eric Prydz.