NEW SOUNDS

TINASHE

After over twenty years in the music business and releasing seven studio albums and several mixtapes, Tinashe has not really had the proper breakout that I think she actually deserves. Raised in Los Angeles, the pop-soul artist has gone through the entire gamut in a pursuit of a music career: being a member of a girl group, self-releasing music as a solo performer, signing to a major label, achieving a few charting songs, departing from a major label and independently releasing her music. With her latest album, "Popstar", Tinashe truly lives up to this title with a winning and self-assured collection filled with hyperpop, propulsive dance beats and some spirited hip-hop. It seems clear that she more than ready to go to the next level.





MIRANDA LAMBERT

Over the last twenty-five years, Miranda Lambert has worked her way up to a successful career as a popular and prolific country music performer. This year, she was a part of Ella Langley's second album, "Dandelion" as a co-producer and a co-writer of Langley's wildly successful hit single, "Choosin' Texas". Now Lambert has released her tenth studio album, "Crisco" and she is expanding her sound a bit with touches of disco and '70's country-rock influences. While always planning to strictly stick to her musical roots, Lambert was intrigued to explore a more dancing swing to some of her songs and teamed with Jesse Frasure to co-produce this project. Chris Stapleton duets with Lambert on "A Song to Sing", Langley appears on the track, "Snakeskin Boots" and there are covers of Jim Croce's "I'll Have to Say I Love You in a Song" and Roseanne Cash's crossover hit, "Seven Year Ache".





And here are some recents singles from Harry Styles (who is near the end of his thirty date residency in New York at Madison Square Garden), Lisa, formerly of Blackpink (with a tribute to the "Pulp Fiction" director) and the new release from Tate McRae.

RANDOM SIGHTS + SOUNDS

Here are a few interesting new songs out at the moment: After dealing with some personal issues he went through last year, Lil Nas X has returned to music with a new song, "World's Greatest!", an uplifting anthem dedicated to his late mother, Tameka Hill; Soulidified, a classically styled, boy band formed on the Netflix reality series, "Building the Band" have dropped a new single, "Man Ain't Me"; Remi Wolf, the alt-pop performer from Palo Alto, has her third album, "Mud" due out shortly and the latest single, "I Won't Cry", a retro-soul ballad, has been released; Cardi B has provided a song, "Don't Chart" for the upcoming "Grand Theft Auto VI: The Album"; Dawn Richard, the Danity Kane pop singer turned neo-soul artist, has a new single out, "Only Fans" from her upcoming album, "Creole Culture" and the Rolling Stones continues to attract some impressive star power with Alexander Skarsgård starring in their latest music video, "Mr. Charm".

The singer/songwriter, Duncan Sheik has died on September 17th. He had begun his career as a rock musician before transitioning into an award-winning composer for motion pictures and Broadway musicals. Sheik passed away from cardiac arrest in New York City at the age of fifty-six. 

Born and raised in New Jersey, Sheik would split his time there and North Carolina after his parents separated. As a child he learned to play the piano and later the guitar. By the time he was a teen, Sheik would perform with fellow high school students in a cover band. Following his graduation from Brown University in 1992, he moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career in music.

After playing guitar for a few bands and making some connections, Sheik was signed to Atlantic Records and his self-titled debut, which he wrote all of the songs and featured production by Rupert Hine, was released in 1996. The first single, "Barely Breathing" became a big hit, peaking at number sixteen on the Billboard Hot 100 chart (staying on the chart for an impressive fifty-five consecutive weeks) and earned Sheik a Grammy nomination for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance. While this would remain his only significant commercially successful song, Sheik would go on to record nine studio albums throughout his career with his final album was "Claptrap" in 2022.

In 2002, he would begin to expand his musical horizons by composing original music for the stage, television and cinema. He would team-up with Steven Sater to create the coming-of-age rock musical, "Spring Awakening" which made it to Broadway in 2006 and went on to win eight Tony Awards including Best Musical and its original cast album received a Grammy Award.

And Rosalind Ashford, one of the founding members of the popular Motown girl-group, Martha and the Vandellas, passed away on September 15th at the age of eighty-three. Passionate for music, Ashford was heavily involved in choir groups in high school as well as singing in her church. She became a part of an all-female act, The Del-Phis in 1957 where they performed at local parties and high school functions, By 1960, Martha Reeves joined the group and they managed to get signed to a label associated with Chess Records, recording a few singles that didn't go anywhere.

Their luck changed when they managed to perform background vocals on a couple of Marvin Gaye's singles, "Hitch Hike" and "Stubborn Kind of Fellow". This lead to Reeves (who was working as a secretary for Motown at the time) and the girls recording a demo for Mary Wells titled "I Have to Let Him Go". Motown head, Berry Gordy liked what he heard and offered the group, now called Martha and the Vandellas, a recording contract in 1962 and released this demo as their first single.

Six of the group's songs reached the top ten on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart and thirteen of their songs reached the top twenty on the Billboard R&B singles chart which included the hits "Heat Wave", "Come and Get These Memories", "Dancing in the Street" and "Nowhere to Run". Ashford would stay with the group until 1969. She would get married and work at the Michigan Bell Phone company. Over the years, Ashford would occasionally perform with former members of the Vandellas for concert tours.

FREDDIE JACKSON (1956 - 2026)

Freddie Jackson, the soul balladeer who enjoyed success throughout the 1980's and 1990's, has sadly passed away on October 5th, three days after his 70th birthday. The performer had been dealing with chronic kidney disease and had been on dialysis.

Born in New York City. Jackson began his career as a child singing in his church's choir at the White Rock Baptist Church of Harlem. During his time there, he would meet Paul Laurence, who would later go on to become Jackson's record producer and songwriting partner. After finishing high school, Jackson would perform with Laurence's band, LJE before heading to the West Coast to try his luck there. He did join a soul group, Mystic Merlin and did some recording work with them but eventually headed back to New York.

Jackson recorded some demos with Lawrence while singing back up for Melba Moore during her concerts. He was eventually signed with Capitol Records in 1984 with his debut, "Rock Me Tonight" was released the following year. The album was an immediate success with the title track spending six weeks at number one on the r&b chart, followed by "You Are My Lady" which also went to number one on the soul chart and crossed over to the Billboard Hot 100 chart, making it to number twelve. Two more singles, "He'll Never Love You (Like I Do)" and "Love Is Just a Touch Away" also reached the R&B top ten and the album, "Rock Me Tonight" would sell over a million copies. Jackson's follow-up album, "Just Like the First Time" would continue his charting success with the number one r&b hit singles, "Have You Ever Loved Somebody," and "Jam Tonight".

Jackson's next album in 1988, "Don't Let Love Slip Away" enjoyed some success with the singles, "Hey Lover" and "Nice 'N' Slow" but following his 1990 release, "Do Me Again", the singer was no longer reaching the charts. Jackson would continue to perform and record with his last studio album, his fourteenth, was "Love Signals" in 2018.

SONGS IN THE KEY OF LIFE: THE 50TH ANNIVERSARY

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the release of Stevie Wonder's groundbreaking and still influential eighteenth studio album, "Songs in the Key of Life". After a string of highly successful and critically acclaimed albums which included "Talking Book", "Innervisions", and "Fulfillingness' First Finale", the immensely popular, Wonder was burnt out and really feeling ready to call his recording career a day, largely because he had been making music professionally since he was eleven. But the then twenty-five year old artist, whose contract with Motown was up, would end up changing his mind. Although there was high interest from several other labels, Wonder would wind up signing a far more lucrative contract with Motown in 1975. This new seven year contract would give him thirty million dollars upfront, 20% of the royalties, ownership of the publishing rights and most importantly, complete artistic control which was extremely rare with the label.

A year later, Wonder went to work on this new project and would ultimately release this double album on September 28, 1976. This collection featured seventeen songs which focused on a wide range of subjects like love, romance, parenthood, inequality and racial discrimination. With musical contributions from Herbie Hancock, George Benson, Minnie Riperton and Deniece Williams, "Songs" would have four singles released including the number one songs, "I Wish" and "Sir Duke", a track that pays tribute to jazz legend, Duke Ellington who had just died in 1974.

Other highlights from the album that received extensive radio airplay include "Love's in Need of Love Today", "Knocks Me Off My Feet" and "Isn't She Lovely", a song that surprisingly wasn't actually released as an official single since Wonder refused to trim the over six minute track but was still so popular that it wound up charting, reaching number twenty-three on the Adult Contemporary chart. "Songs" would spend thirteen weeks at number one on the Billboard 200 Album chart, was the second-best-selling album of 1977 in the US and would have sales of five million copies worldwide. And "Songs in the Key of Life" would win Album of the Year at the 1977 Grammy Awards, making this his third win in the category ("Innervisions" and "Fulfillingness' First Finale" won in 1974 and 1975).

To celebrate this remarkable musical achievement, Wonder will be taking "Song in the Key of Life" on the road with the entire album performed at each stop of the tour. The "Songs" 50th Anniversary concerts will begin in Europe in October before heading to the US in November and finishing in Los Angeles on December 19th. There has also been a new recording released, "Songs in the Key of Life: The EP" which features four outtakes from the original album recording sessions: "It's Easier" "My Life Story of Love" "I Can See the Sun in Late December" and "I'm Into Livin'".

PARTY

Another song from Troye Sivan's upcoming new album, "She's The Best" has been released. Utilizing a sample from Madonna's 2000 hit, "Music", "Party" is all about hanging out with some good friends and having a wild soiree. The song, with spoken-word from Sivan over a progressive beat, is a fairly standard house-pop track but it's the music video that actually leaves a real impression. Beginning with narration provided by actor, Sir Ian McKellan, the rousing clip (directed by Gordon von Steiner who did the singer's previous video for the title track) is a queer, medieval-set romp with Sivan as a knight with lust in his heart and ready to tear up the dance floor. This is an expensive looking video and highly sexually charged, helping to elevate this single to make "Party" appear far more intriguing.

WESTSIDE WHIMSY

Days after announcing the news on social media, Jhené Aiko unexpectedly released her fourth studio album, "Westside Whimsy". It's been six years since her last album, "Chilombo" and this latest collection by the neo-soul vocalist (which this title was also the name of her personalized smoothie that had been available at the luxury grocer, Erewhon) continues her musical journey reflecting back on her life, relationships and growing up in Los Angeles. Working with an army of producers (which includes Fisticuffs, Boi-1da and PartyNextDoor), Aiko has twenty tracks of smooth, laid back, hip-hop fueled, r&b that features some guest appearances from some well-known so-Cal artists, Ab-Soul, Tyga, Larry June, OHMA and Kendrick Lamar. Here are a few of my favorite songs from the album:

RANDOM SIGHTS + SOUNDS

It's hard to believe but it has been twenty years since the release of Beyoncé sophomore album, "B'Day" and to celebrate, the artist has just delivered "B'Day: 20th anniversary edition". This collection has remastered the original album and features nineteen additional tracks with remixes and previously unreleased bonus songs that includes "Morning Dew (Donk)" and "Can I Watch You" with Pharrell. But what is most noteworthy about this edition is that Beyoncé is leaning even heavier with Spanish-language songs with "Amor Gitano", a duet with Alejandro Fernández, "Cuerpo Tumbao (Get Me Bodied)" with Maluma (and samples Celia Cruz’s "La Negra Tiene Tumbao") and a new version of "Irreemplazable (Como La Flor)" that samples vocals from the late "Queen of Tejano Music", Selena.







Some new sounds I'm enjoying includes Adéla, the singer, songwriter and dancer from Slovakia, who has just released her debut album, "Prima" and the latest single, "Nicole Kidman" pays homage to the Oscar-winning actress; Chlöe and Timbaland have dropped another song from their upcoming collaboration with "World on Fire"; the British nu-disco band, Jungle has just released their fifth studio album, "Sunshine" and a single, "Come Back To Me"; Luca is an emerging artist bringing a vintage soul vibe into his music and the latest single from the Harlem-born, twenty-three year old performer is "Sympathy", Rising British artist, Charlie Jeer has teamed with fellow Brit singer/songwriter, Cat Burns for a guitar-driven song, "Small Talk" and Victoria Monet has revealed another song from her upcoming album, "Juicy"

And I will close by paying tribute to Cassandra Wilson, the distinctive jazz vocalist who transcended the sound by blending blues, country, and folk music into her work, has sadly passed away on September 1st at the age of seventy. Born in Jackson, Mississippi, she began her musical journey studying classical music and learning to play the piano, clarinet and guitar as a child. While attending college, Wilson would spent her nights performing with R&B, funk, and pop cover bands. Wilson moved to New Orleans after graduating and emersed herself in the jazz scene there before moving to New York in 1982. This was when Wilson would truly begin to develop her style as a singer by becoming one of the founding members of the M-Base collective where they expressed a new way of creating jazz music. In 1986, Wilson recorded her debut album, "Point of View" which included a few original songs she wrote or co-wrote. But is was her third album of standards, "Blue Skies" that helped gained Wilson some notice and helped her get signed to Blue Note Records in 1993. Her debut on the label, "Blue Light 'til Dawn" was Wilson's true breakthrough, a collection of originals and intriguing covers that included the Monkees, Joni Mitchell and Hank Williams, that gave her critical and commercial acclaim. Her follow-up, "New Moon Daughter" in 1995 would reach number one on Billboard Jazz Album chart and win her the Grammy Award for Best Jazz Vocal Performance. Wilson would release "Traveling Miles" in 1999, a well-received tribute album to Miles Davis, who was one of her greatest influences, with music inspired by his artistry.