Monthly Archives: September 2010

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Song of the Day #802: ‘Every Little Kiss’ – Bruce Hornsby & The Range

Unlike Eric Clapton, Bruce Hornsby is an artist I know I’m missing out on. For whatever reason he just never made it on to my radar but I’ve loved everything I’ve heard from him over the years.

He’s one of those songwriters whose music is so layered and interesting that I could see listening to it without vocals. He combines jazz, blues and pop forms as effectively as anybody out there.

And that’s not to discount his vocals and lyrics. On the one full album of his I own — his debut, The Way It Is — he tells tales of the downtrodden with a novelist’s eye and sings them just beautifully.

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Song of the Day #801: ‘We’re All the Way’ – Eric Clapton

Up next in the Aged White Rocker series is Eric Clapton. Apart from acknowledging Clapton’s guitar god status, I haven’t really given his career much thought or attention. I can probably count on one hand the songs of his I know well.

I don’t know if this disconnect represents a massive hole in my music collection or if Clapton just isn’t my cup of tea. I do know that I very much like the one album of his I won, Slowhand. It’s not something I listen to very often (ok, I’ll be honest, I probably haven’t listened to it in its entirety in more than a decade) but revisiting it for this blog I recognize it as the classic 70′s rock album it is.

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Song of the Day #800: ‘Into the Mystic’ – Van Morrison

My next installment in the greying white guys series is Irish legend Van Morrison. Morrison has put out 40 albums but I own exactly one of them.

Actually, I own two if you count my wife’s copy of 1997′s The Healing Game. I’m not really sure where or why she picked that one up but it features a couple of nice songs.

The other album is, of course, Moondance. That 1970 classic is among the finest albums ever recorded, 40 minutes of pure perfection. Some would say Astral Weeks is Van Morrison’s masterpiece, but I never got into it after trying hard for a few listens. No, Moondance is the one.

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Song of the Day #799: ‘You Love the Thunder’ – Jackson Browne

Somewhere Dana is bursting with excitement as Jackson Browne finally finds a spot in the Song of the Day series. And before song number 800, no less!

I scanned my iTunes collection recently to see which big names had yet to be featured on the blog and was intrigued to find five who all fit a similar mold, demographically if not musically. This week I’ll highlight the music of five white guys in their 60s (actually, I believe one is in his mid-50s).

Apparently I’m musically biased against the segment of the population that runs just about everything else.

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