Liner Notes 2023

My your holidays be filled with joy and Limoncello!

Here are this year’s liner notes - my thoughts on different songs, sometimes it’s the backstory on the song, other times it’s why I connected with this song this year, sometimes it’s just a cheer for the song!

Click Here or on the picture to return to the mix itself.

Of special note this year my great nephew Lukas Niswonger and his sister Mia Niswonger are in a band called Ladder. It’s good stuff - check them out here on Spotify.

Falling

Alicia Keys - Okay - wake up, we are off and running

It Ain’t Necessarily So

Aretha Franklin - Okay, let’s get our opera on! I don’t think of this as opera either but Gershwin wrote Porgy and Bess as an opera. Summertime is clearly the biggest song from this play but It Ain’t Necessarily So deserves it’s props as well. Some folks may not like the way it pokes fun at fundamentalist religion, but the bigger concern is how racist Porgy and Bess plays out 88 years after it was originally produced. The story is classic but the setting and characters are stereotypes of their time which is not easy to take these days. There are productions out today with black casts so I think it deserves recognition for it’s intent and the power of its music and story. And it can’t be all bad if Aretha Franklin covered it.

Superstition

My hope is that Stevie Wonder in his prime singing about how Superstition is used to hold black people down can help at least as a partial antidote to any concerns over the issues with Porgy and Bess.

S.O.B.

This is the last song I added to this year’s mix - I felt the mix was just one irresistible song short and if this one from Nathaniel Ratliff & the Nightsweats doesn’t get your toes tapping it’s time to check your pulse, in fact, it may be too late.

Black Magic Woman

Fleetwood Mac – Before there was Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham and super double platinum sellers there was Peter Green, arguably the best blues guitarist of ‘em all. Before there was Santana, there was the original Fleetwood Mac version of “Black Magic Woman”.

Oye Como Va

This song follows “Black Magic Woman” on Santana’s amazing Abraxas album. I guess pretty much everyone knows who Carlos Santana is but if you want to understand why his merging of latin music into rock and roll is so cool take a listen to this album.

Fly Me to the Moon

Yes, this voice is familiar, Astrud Gilberto, the wife of Joao Gilberto is the woman who sang “The Girl from Ipanema” on the famous “Getz / Gilberto” album by Joao Gilberto and Stan Getz. She has such a lovely and specific voice - works well with this song.

Free Ride

This song from The Edgar Winter Group holds an oversized place in my brain - catchy guitar licks, fun vocals - it kinda has everything including two amazing guitarists Ronnie Montrose and Rick Derringer who also produced the album. I don’t know which of them plays what but it’s good.

In Heaven

My son Alex turned me onto Vulfpeck several years ago and I've been a big fan ever since. This one is a great song and there is a very fun video with the whole band in robes in a very large steam room with an unimpressed sleeping dog.

Gun

Gil Scott-Heron is one of my absolute all time favorites. It’s sad to think how relevant this song written in 1981 is today. And without Gil Scott-Heron, I’m not sure you would ever get De La Soul or the next song here…

Eye Know

Sampling both Steely Dan and Otis Redding (who actually gets a writing credit on the song) this song from De La Soul is a delight and a treat.

21st of May

A Christian Radio Host named Harold Camping predicted the “the rapture” was coming on the 21st of May 2011, and that the world would end 6 months later. He had enough of a megaphone that this got some attention including some billboards in LA. Sean Watson of Nickle Creek Saw one of these billboards in LA on the 20th of May and was struck not surprisingly, at the idea that the end of the world was going to start tomorrow. That night he did his best to get in the head of Mr Camping and this song is the result.

Jambalaya (On the Bayou)

Hank Williams is quite the icon in country music and deservedly so, this is my favorite of his songs. It’s so sweet and innocent.

Closer

The Chainsmokers and Halsey Another one that is here just because it’s a good song, no big backstory from me on this one.

Home

Okay - this one is by my son so yeah, I do have a backstory here. My son Alex Ball recorded an EP in his apartment during COVID. This song is a gut wrenchingly sad song about lost love. The video that goes with this song is as charming and fun as it is sad.

Meet Virginia

I found this interesting take on what Pat Monahan and Rob Hotchkiss of Train were thinking about when they wrote the song. This tracks well with the official video they made when the song was released. It consists of a waitress in a diner that Pat is clearly quite fond of. It’s about not fitting in and feeling trapped and how hard it can be to be different. There is one specific and fun detail in the Wikipedia description - “wears high heels when she exercises” was a reference to the girlfriend of one of the band members who was roped into playing softball while still in the dress and heels she was wearing at a wedding shower.

Suavecito

Malo, Going to high school in the 70s there was a moment where this song dominated the FM airwaves and really just life and everything all around. I have no problem with that as it’s a wonderful groove and something you can listen to over and over and over. (at least I can!)

What’d I Say?

I am old enough and lucky enough to have seen Ray Charles live when he played at a place called “The Saddle Rack” in San Jose. It was a hell of a show with a full band and the Rayettes his quartet of back up singers.

I Want You, She’s So Heavy

This suite of two songs interwoven together is the finale of the second side of Abby Road the last album recorded by the Beatles. It’s such a crazy song, simple blues with simple guitar from John Lennon, mixed with crazily produced orchestral madness from Paul McCartney.

Come Monday

A sad nod to the passing of Jimmy Buffett. This was his first big single and it’s such a sweet and sentimental song, a perfect coda for this year’s mix.