Yes, this is disco. Are you supposed to hate it? Or think it is silly or laughable? Ah, the seventies, a unique period of time. I love all the different eras of music, they each have their unique qualities. I loved so much dancing to disco when that was fashionable in that era. It was cool to "have the music never stop" thanks to the DJs blending songs from one record player to the other, controlling the mood, sending a thrill through everyone's body as the song was expertly changed. It was a happy time, and maybe even an innocent time, at least from this current perspective.
Then music changed and before we knew it, what came in were various forms of electronica when the music was more serious, powerful, and the medium seem to overtake the various individual artists who didn't seem to have albums of their own, but loaned their talents to larger, DJ-controlled collections. By then, the DJs became the artists, populating their albums with individual contributions that told the story the DJ wanted to impart. No longer was a "song" the item, but it was an entire non-stop album that was it. I admit, that far superseded for me the fun and innocence of disco, now I was soaring off the floor out of my mind and body in an ecstasy of house and other forms of music in dance clubs and outdoors at raves, which was my favorite. I loved it loved it loved it, and I even called in and was recorded on a radio program in Los Angeles specializing in electronica, presenting a counter to the fears of frightened parents who thought their children should be banned from such dangerous bacchanals, music induced, not alcohol induced, although there were those taking "love drugs" such as ecstasy, about which I will only say I never experienced, the music and the atmosphere of a rave was enough to fill me up.
Going back and listening to disco, I am surprised how beautiful the music is. I don't think I ever viewed it from that point of view at the time. Funny how things change.
New York--I guess people either love it or they hate it, nobody seems neutral about it. It's at once a wondrous place and very hard place. I thing either way, you can't help but be affected to the core of it. None of the singers of this song I selected for today were native New Yorkers, but neither was I. The Lopez sisters were from the Virgin Island. Do they score points for coming to a new country? I think they do.
As for me, New York was the first place I had my own apartment after the dorms of college. I had packed up my car with some belongings and drove alone across country from California. I had booked a week in a flop house with a hot plate a block away from the Port Authority Bus Terminal. I chose to arrive like an immigrant, by boat. I drove my car onto the ferry boat from Staten Island, passed and saluted the Statue of Liberty, and arrived in Manhattan down around the congestion of Wall Street. Boy if that wasn't like arriving into a maelstrom! It was a cacophony of eternally honking yellow taxi cabs!
Weeks later, I had sublet an apartment in the Upper West Side (which still remains one of my favorite places I ever lived, even though it was very small), my apartment was at the front top of a four story renovated brownstone walk-up with a nice bay window that went across the width of the front of the apartment. I rented by the month an under ground parking space in a brand new luxury condo tower for my car up the block from my apartment--my car lived better than I did! I felt like a real New Yorker when I got New York license plates for my car. (Opening a bank account took much longer.) I only used the car to go somewhere else when I wanted to escape the city--to Long Island, across the George Washington Bridge and up the Palisades Parkway to upstate New York, or to Connecticut, etc. The first time I voted for President was in New York.
So I relate to New York, it became part of my mind, body, and soul, even though I ultimately moved away from there, but I am eternally thankful for my experiences there. New Yorkers are survivors, and I think of them now when they are still having a tough time with this virus and while it looks like some Americans are thankfully going to be released from LockDown, it seems that New Yorkers can't see the light at the end of that particular tunnel. Hell, here in Los Angeles it does seem all that much better, and so many other places around our country and around our planet are still worried about all of that. My best hopes are going to everybody everywhere.
So I think it might be helpful to go back to a more innocent time and take to heart an anthem of another disco singer, Gloria Gayner, whose anthem was "I will survive!"
On today's musical selection, there are some wonderful visuals, so please enjoy that as well as the music!
23. Song name: Native New Yorker (Video)
Then music changed and before we knew it, what came in were various forms of electronica when the music was more serious, powerful, and the medium seem to overtake the various individual artists who didn't seem to have albums of their own, but loaned their talents to larger, DJ-controlled collections. By then, the DJs became the artists, populating their albums with individual contributions that told the story the DJ wanted to impart. No longer was a "song" the item, but it was an entire non-stop album that was it. I admit, that far superseded for me the fun and innocence of disco, now I was soaring off the floor out of my mind and body in an ecstasy of house and other forms of music in dance clubs and outdoors at raves, which was my favorite. I loved it loved it loved it, and I even called in and was recorded on a radio program in Los Angeles specializing in electronica, presenting a counter to the fears of frightened parents who thought their children should be banned from such dangerous bacchanals, music induced, not alcohol induced, although there were those taking "love drugs" such as ecstasy, about which I will only say I never experienced, the music and the atmosphere of a rave was enough to fill me up.
Going back and listening to disco, I am surprised how beautiful the music is. I don't think I ever viewed it from that point of view at the time. Funny how things change.
New York--I guess people either love it or they hate it, nobody seems neutral about it. It's at once a wondrous place and very hard place. I thing either way, you can't help but be affected to the core of it. None of the singers of this song I selected for today were native New Yorkers, but neither was I. The Lopez sisters were from the Virgin Island. Do they score points for coming to a new country? I think they do.
As for me, New York was the first place I had my own apartment after the dorms of college. I had packed up my car with some belongings and drove alone across country from California. I had booked a week in a flop house with a hot plate a block away from the Port Authority Bus Terminal. I chose to arrive like an immigrant, by boat. I drove my car onto the ferry boat from Staten Island, passed and saluted the Statue of Liberty, and arrived in Manhattan down around the congestion of Wall Street. Boy if that wasn't like arriving into a maelstrom! It was a cacophony of eternally honking yellow taxi cabs!
Weeks later, I had sublet an apartment in the Upper West Side (which still remains one of my favorite places I ever lived, even though it was very small), my apartment was at the front top of a four story renovated brownstone walk-up with a nice bay window that went across the width of the front of the apartment. I rented by the month an under ground parking space in a brand new luxury condo tower for my car up the block from my apartment--my car lived better than I did! I felt like a real New Yorker when I got New York license plates for my car. (Opening a bank account took much longer.) I only used the car to go somewhere else when I wanted to escape the city--to Long Island, across the George Washington Bridge and up the Palisades Parkway to upstate New York, or to Connecticut, etc. The first time I voted for President was in New York.
So I relate to New York, it became part of my mind, body, and soul, even though I ultimately moved away from there, but I am eternally thankful for my experiences there. New Yorkers are survivors, and I think of them now when they are still having a tough time with this virus and while it looks like some Americans are thankfully going to be released from LockDown, it seems that New Yorkers can't see the light at the end of that particular tunnel. Hell, here in Los Angeles it does seem all that much better, and so many other places around our country and around our planet are still worried about all of that. My best hopes are going to everybody everywhere.
So I think it might be helpful to go back to a more innocent time and take to heart an anthem of another disco singer, Gloria Gayner, whose anthem was "I will survive!"
On today's musical selection, there are some wonderful visuals, so please enjoy that as well as the music!
23. Song name: Native New Yorker (Video)
Artist: Odyssey:
Lillian Lopez, Louise Lopez, Tony Reynolds
Song writers: Sandy Linzer, Denny Randell
