SUNDAY BEST: THE UNTOLD STORY OF ED SULLIVAN

For twenty-three years, "The Ed Sullivan Show" was the popular destination for millions of Americans every Sunday night to be entertained by some of the greatest musical acts of all time on television. It was this program that brought the seductive swagger of Elvis Presley into people's homes and helped jumpstart the British invasion by being the first to introduce The Beatles and other English acts to these shores, creating a heated frenzy amongst teenage girls and helped inspire some young boys to want to play rock & roll when they grew up.

But there was something else that this variety show did that was daring and far-reaching. "The Ed Sullivan Show" would feature African-American musicians performing on the show regularly, at a time when this concept was not widely acceptable. The host fearlessly held firm to his belief of having the best talent on his show despite concerns from the show's producers and threats from sponsors. The riveting Netflix documentary, "Sunday Best: The Untold Story of Ed Sullivan", directed by the late Sacha Jenkins, reveals how this television pioneer was responsible for helping to shift the culture by showcasing these incredible artists in a way that revealed not only their prestigious abilities but their humanity.

Born in Harlem at the turn of the 20th century, at a time when the neighborhood was largely made up of Irish, Jewish and Italian immigrants, Sullivan came from a family that loved music; performing, singing and listening. He was also a natural athlete in school, excelling at playing football, baseball, basketball and track. It was around this time when Sullivan played these sports with Black athletes in the area, never believing that were inferior players and always treated them with respect.

Beginning his career as a journalist, Sullivan wrote a sports column for several newspapers throughout the city. While working for the New York Daily News, Sullivan was dispatched to writing a column, "Little Old New York", which focused on gossip involving Broadway shows which he knew very little about at the time. But he would thrive, moving to radio and producing vaudeville shows to become a powerful force in entertainment news.

In 1948, Sullivan was hired to host a weekly television variety show on CBS, "Toast of the Town" on Sunday nights. Critics were not kind and Sullivan himself would admit he was a bit stiff and uncomfortable in those early days as the master of ceremonies. Yet audiences were drawn to him, appreciating him for his average guy appeal and discerning eye for selecting top talent to appear on the program. Officially renamed "The Ed Sullivan Show" in 1955, Sullivan brought to the show the very best of classical, rock, country, world and Broadway.

But the focus of "Sunday Best" is the impact the show had for the numerous African-American performers that made appearances from the very beginning. Sullivan first had on performers who had appeared on vaudeville (Pigmeat Markham and Bill "Bojangles" Robinson) and popular entertainers of the day (Louis Armstrong, Pearl Bailey, Nat King Cole, Sammy Davis Jr.). He would later have the early appearances of now legendary soul performers (Jackie Wilson, Fats Domino, Ray Charles, James Brown) and virtually every artist who had recorded for Motown, most notably the Supremes who appeared on the show seventeen times. He treated each of these performers like he did with any of his other guests, offering a firm handshake or a kiss on the cheek which was considered highly controversial at the time. Sullivan received plenty of pushback by several Southern CBS affiliates voicing their concerns of having so many Black acts on the show. He always made it very clear that they did not have to air his program if this was a issue for any station. And throughout the entire run of "The Ed Sullivan Show", there were never any cancellations.

Jenkins, who died from complications of multiple system atrophy back in May, has made a brisk and compelling film that highlights the importance of what Sullivan had done by supporting and nurturing these African-American performers. Harry Belafonte, Motown founder, Berry Gordy, Smokey Robinson and Dionne Warwick are just a few who share warm remembrances of their time participating on the show. And while Sullivan did have a reputation for being petty and vindictive if he felt that his guests did not follow his guidelines or disrespected him, "Sunday Best" keeps the genial host in a positive light.

Here are the full performances of sixteen of the artists that appear in the documentary from "The Ed Sullivan Show":

SLY LIVES (AKA THE BURDEN OF BLACK GENIUS)

The question is asked in "Sly Lives", the follow-up to musician-turned-filmmaker, Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson's Oscar-winning documentary feature, "Summer of Soul (...or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)" on the legendary musical creator, Sly Stone; "Is there a burden on Black Genius?". It is answered by many artists who appear in this riveting film like Chaka Khan, George Clinton, D'Angelo, Andre 3000, Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis who all tend to agree that when you put art out into the world, there is an intense pressure by success which can be even more stifling than a fear of failure. They also agreed that Stone, a free-spirited prodigy, was an important and highly influential visionary who kicked down the racial, gender and musical barriers that had been long held-up in society. He would go on to pay a heavy price for his rewarding sonic disruption, although some of the trauma may have been self-inflicted through his struggles with lingering drug addiction. Yet his profound musical legacy has continued to endure and thrive.

Born Sylvester Stewart, he first got into music performing with his family as a gospel group in church after migrating to the Bay area from Texas. As a child, he became proficient at playing several instruments, effortlessly mastering the keyboards, guitar, bass, and drums. Stewart went on to become involved in a mixed-race, doo-wop singing group, the Viscaynes in the early 1960's, finding some local success. After later becoming a DJ in San Francisco at KSOL where he played soul records while occasionally mixing in some British rock, Stewart got the opportunity to produce for Autumn Records, making records with San Francisco-area rock bands such as The Beau Brummels, The Mojo Men and The Great Society that featured Grace Slick in her first band.

This lead to the forming of Sly and the Family Stone, a racially integrated, mixed-gender band who performed what would become known as Psychedelic soul, a merging of funk, rock and r&b. After an indifferent reaction to their debut album, Sly and the Family Stone broke through with their follow-up release, "Dance to the Music" in 1968 with the title track reaching the top-ten on the pop charts. More hits followed; "Everyday People", "Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)", "Everybody Is a Star", "I Want to Take You Higher", "Family Affair" with a highlight being an electrifying live appearance during the summer of love at Woodstock.

This sudden success brought problems to the band with creative and personal friction between the musicians and far more prevalent drug usage. But it was Stone's increasingly erratic behavior that would eventually drive some band members to leave the group. And while they would usually be replaced, largely for touring purposes, Stone began to perform most of the instruments and vocals himself during the recording of new music.

Fast-paced and visually arresting, "Sly Lives" reminds us of what a musical anomaly Stone was as an artist at the time. Fearlessly challenging the convention of genres, he was unmotivated by chasing fame, only making music that truly inspired him. Sly and his band were officially together for about seventeen years but really only had almost a decade where they were productive creatively as a musical outfit. But what they were able to accomplish during that explosive period was absolutely innovative and breathtaking.

NEW MUSIC FILMS

LADY GAGA

Lady Gaga had released her sixth studio album, "Chromatica" in May 2020, which also happened to be right in the middle of a worldwide pandemic. At the time, it didn't seem like a great plan since she was unable to properly promote or tour for the album. But this record proved to be very helpful during this stressful period of time, offering pulsating dance grooves with the song lyrics providing some much needed themes of unshakable optimism and a pursuit of healing. Gaga was finally able to hit the road two years later with the Chromatica Ball, a twenty-date, all-stadium concert tour that took her across the globe.

Now "Gaga Chromatica Ball", the concert recorded during the stop in Los Angeles at Dodger Stadium, has premiered on HBO and MAX on May 25th. This filmed live show covers the entire two hour concert with visual interludes directed by Nick Knight. I have to say I'm surprised that "Chromatica Ball" bypassed the possibility of a theatrical release, especially since Gaga has just of a rabid fan base like Swift and Beyoncé who I'm certain would have turned out to pay to see this performance on the big screen. Anyway at the end of the program, there is a plug announcing that new music from Gaga is on the way.



CYNDI LAUPER

With her thrift store attire and neon colored hair with one side of her scalp shaved off, most people didn't know what to make of Cyndi Lauper when she first appeared in the music scene. But once she revealed that formidable voice with her 1983 debut album, "Girls Just want To Have Fun", Lauper would become greatly admired for her style and talent.

Since the success of the dance-punk title track (which has since gone on to become a girl-power anthem) and the follow-up single, "Time After Time", a moving ballad that became her first number one hit, Lauper has continued to astonish with not only her music but even some acting appearances, winning an Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress In A Comedy Series in 1995 and a Tony Award for writing the original score for the musical, "Kinky Boots".

The now seventy year old artist is the focus of a new documentary, "Let the Canary Sing" from filmmaker, Alison Ellwood that began airing on Paramount+ on June 4th. The film explores her emerging from a scrappy New York performer to a quirky pop music star to an outspoken activist who has been a long-time ally to the LGBTQ+ communities, aggressively pushing for greater inclusion and acceptance.

Lauper has just announced she's about to embark on The Girls Just Wanna Have Fun Farewell Tour to begin this fall, stating she wanted to properly thank her fans for sticking by her all these years while still in good shape.

KYLIE MINOGUE

Kylie Minogue has been a major worldwide pop star since the late '80's who has gone on to sell well over eighty million records. But it's taken until last year with her dance hit, "Padam Padam" for Minogue to be truly appreciated here in the US with the Australian singer winning her first Grammy Award for the song. To help celebrate Pride month, you will be able to catch the live concert special, "An Audience With Kylie" on Hulu beginning on June 5th. This show was performed at the legendary Royal Albert Hall in London back in December, with an audience that included some star-studded attendees, where she performed her greatest hits and songs from her latest album, "Tension". Here is a clip of Minogue performing live from the program one of my all-time favorites from her, "Love At First Sight".

And Minogue is also featured on the just released single from the masked country artist, Orville Peck. Slightly changing musical directions, Peck has also brought in dance music DJ, Diplo on the track, "Midnight Ride" a dance song that still has some twang, which will be featured on his upcoming duets album, "Stampede". The single made it's premiere live by Peck and Minogue during her set at Outloud Festival at WeHo Pride last weekend.

RANDOM SIGHTS + SOUNDS

While she has spent much of her time recently working on her popular daytime television talk show, Kelly Clarkson has certainly not given up on her music career. Even on the program, the first "American Idol" winner devotes some time to allow herself an opportunity to sing with her Kellyoke segment where she puts her spin on classic songs. But Clarkson has announced that new music is on the horizon.

For her upcoming tenth studio album, "Chemistry", Clarkson dives into all of the experiences you can through in a relationship; from the blissful beginning to the devastating end. Using her own marriage and bitter divorce as inspiration, Clarkson began work on this project two years ago, writing close to sixty songs. She states that the writing was helpful for her, allowing all of the complicated emotions she was going through to be expressed, and hopes the album will be of aid for anyone who is going through challenging times. Two singles have been released, "mine" and "me" as Clarkson didn't want just one song to represent the entire album.

Clarkson will be out promoting "Chemistry" (due out on June 23rd) with a ten-night Las Vegas residency at the Bakkt Theater in Planet Hollywood from July 28th to August 19th.

When Donna Summer first emerged with "Love To Love You, Baby" back in 1975, this sexy dance ballad punctuated by erotic moans would create a cultural shift on what was acceptable to be played on pop radio. She would follow this international smash two years later with "I Feel Love", another global sensation that effectively used synthesizer loops to create a new, influential sound that helped lay down the foundation of what would later become electronic music. These tracks (which also includes the disco version of "MacArthur Park" and "Last Dance") would help Summer achieve the crown of "The Queen of Disco" but she was determined to prove she had much more to offer than just dance music. Summer would go on to amass thirty-two charting singles in the US that ranged from pop, rock and r&b, selling well over one hundred million records worldwide.

Sadly, Summer passed away in 2012 but her incredible legacy will be celebrated with a new documentary, "Love To Love You, Donna Summer" by the Oscar-winning filmmaker, Roger Ross Williams and Brooklyn Sudano, one of Summer's daughters. The film takes an in-depth, personal look into Summer's life and career with photos, home-video footage (much of it never before seen) and interviews with "Love To Love You, Donna Summer" making its premiere on HBO on May 20th.

And this year's Eurovision Song Contest is over with a new winner crowned. Held in Liverpool, UK with thirty-seven countries in competition, Swedish singer, Loreen won for "Tattoo" becoming only the second contestant to win twice (she previously took the giant mic statue in 2012 for her song, "Euphoria") and giving Sweden another victory with a total of seven wins, tying Ireland. Finland's Käärijä came in second with "Cha Cha Cha" while Noa Kirel from Israel with "Unicorn" came in third. This European pop music contest is a very popular event with an estimated one hundred and eighty million viewers tuning in to watch this three-day competition.

Now Eurovision hasn't made much of an impact here in the States over its sixty-seven years, even with ABBA, Celine Dion, Julio Iglesias and Olivia Newton-John going on to great success after appearing in the contest but that has changed recently. It might have begun with the 2020 Netflix musical-comedy, "Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga" with Will Ferrell and Rachel McAdams which helped bring attention and create interest for this contest to American audiences, especially when the actual Eurovision had to be cancelled that year due to the COVID lockdown.

THE 50 BEST MUSIC DOCUMENTARIES OF ALL TIME

Music has always played an important part in cinema since the very beginning of the industry. The early films were silent but were accompanied by a pianist or even, in some large cities, a small orchestra in theaters. When recorded, synchronized sound began in 1927, it was a game-charger for the movies and the first sound feature film released, "The Jazz Singer" was, not surprisingly, a musical.

Over time, documentaries were made about music and the gifted artists who created these sounds. In recent years, this has exploded with a large number of movies about musicians, well-known, obscure or forgotten, in all genres have been filling cinemas and streaming channels.

Vulture has put together a list of fifty of what they consider to be the best music documentaries of all time. First putting these selections together in 2015, they have updated this listing to include recent releases. These movies (which include a few concert films) are all important and fascinating documents. There are films which deeply explore what has made many of these popular musicians so vital; highlight professionals who had assisted singers and musicians with their careers and reveal talented artists who never had a real opportunity to shine in their lifetime yet remain highly influential.

Click below to read the article:

The 50 Best Music Documentaries of All-Time

RANDOM SIGHTS + SOUNDS

Darren Hayes first began his career as part of the Australian pop duo, Savage Garden with Daniel Jones, who found immediate global success with their self-titled debut album in 1997. "I Want You", "To the Moon and Back", and "Truly Madly Deeply" were hit singles from the record and their follow-up album, "Affirmation" brought them even more popularity with "I Knew I Loved You", a worldwide smash. However by the end of 2001, Savage Garden was no more. Hayes continued his music as a solo artist, releasing his first album, "Spin" in 2002. After his follow-up album, Hayes parted ways his major label, Columbia Records, later forming his own label, Powdered Sugar in 2006.

It was during this period that Hayes began his process of coming out as gay, beginning a relationship with Richard Cullen although he did not reveal any of this publicly at the time. The couple married in 2013 and announced their happy union to the world. With his fifth studio album, boldly titled, "Homosexual", the now fifty year old performer proudly proclaims that he no longer feels any shame for who he is with the goal to reclaim the word from something viewed as negative. This dance-pop album is filled with the type of love songs that Hayes had written since the start of career yet they are told from a point of view involving maturity, honesty and newfound joy. Here are two songs from Hayes' new album and one of my favorites from his time with Savage Garden with the video featuring Kirsten Dunst (!) as Hayes' love interest:

A "new" song from the original line-up of the rock band, Queen has just been released. Originally recorded back in 1988 during the sessions for their final album together, "The Miracle", "Face It Alone" features Freddie Mercury's singularly passionate vocals on this mournful ballad. This song came to be heard only by accident as band members, Brian May and Roger Taylor had found the tape recently but it was in such bad shape that they thought it could not be salvaged. But they did give the track to an engineering team who were miraculously able to piece the song back together. This really is an amazing song (recorded while Mercury had been diagnosed with HIV and in failing health) and it's really great to hear this band together again.



Here is a collection of some new songs I'm loving right now:

In 1990, Sinéad O'Connor, the Irish rocker with the shaved head, was a rising pop star, in part due to her wildly successful cover of Prince's song, "Nothing Compares 2 U" which was enhanced by the music video, played in heavy rotation on MTV, that featured a close-up of the emotive singer shedding actual tears while performing the ballad. But that momentum began to slow down first after she refused to have the American National anthem played before her concerts (enraging Frank Sinatra) before coming to crashing halt after her 1992 television appearance as the musical guest on "Saturday Night Live". O'Connor performed an a cappella version of Bob Marley's "War", then tearing up a photo of Pope John Paul II to protest his silence on the sexual abuse of children in the Catholic Church. This act outraged many people at the time and even though she would be vindicated for her actions years later after the Church acknowledged the abuse, O'Connor's career, while she continued to make music, would not really recover.

The fascinating documentary, "Nothing Compares" by Kathryn Ferguson explores O'Connor's life before this troublesome incident, allowing for some explanation for behavior many might consider strange and erratic. She grew up in an abusive household as a young girl in Ireland who later suffered extreme trauma while staying at the Magdalene asylum for over a year as a teenager. Music was where O'Connor found solace and after the drummer for the band, In Tua Nua heard her sing, he had her record a song with the group. Although they decided she was too young to join their band, O'Connor was determined to continue on a music career, placing an ad in a rock magazine and meeting musician/producer, Colm Farrelly who would help her form a band and inspire her sound that would lead to her debut album, "The Lion and the Cobra" in 1987. O'Connor did not participate with this film, with Ferguson using off-camera interviews with people who had worked with the singer, previous interviews and plenty of performance footage by O'Connor to help shape the documentary. And you will not hear "Nothing Compares 2 U" in this film, just outtakes from the music video, as the estate of Prince would not allow the song to be used, most likely due to some of the unpleasant comments O'Connor had said about the late singer over the years.