THE FIRST TIME: PART TEN

'WHAT'S THE 411?" - MARY J. BLIGE (1992)

Mary Jane Blige was born in 1971 and raised in the Bronx, New York. She was the second of four children with her mother, Cora who was a nurse and her jazz musician  father, Thomas who taught Mary how to sing.

After dropping out of high school at seventeen, Mary went to a mall in White Plains and recorded an Anita Baker song at a recording booth. The cassette was passed by a friend of Mary's mother to Jeff Redd, an artist with Uptown Records, a label known for hip-hop and r&b. Redd forwarded the tape to the president of the label, Andre Harrell and he arranged a meeting with Mary.  He signed her to his label in 1989 and she became the label's first female artist.

At first, Mary was only used as a background vocalist for the established artists on Uptown which included her singing the hook on Father MC's 1990 hit, "I'll Do 4 U". In 1992, Mary finally began recording her debut album with an A&R executive with the label, Sean "Puffy" Combs.

The album, "What's The 411?" was released later that year and the first single, "You Remind Me" went straight to number one on the r&b charts. The next single, "Real Love" is the song that brought Mary to the attention of the general public where it not only topped the r&b charts but it went to number seven on the pop charts. There were three more hit singles released including Mary's remake of the 1975 Rufus & Chaka Khan classic, "Sweet Thing". The album would go on to sell over three million copies in the US alone. Because of this success, Sean Combs anointed Mary the "Queen of Hip-Hop Soul".

She has made numerous film and television appearances over the years including getting a role in the forthcoming film of the hit Broadway musical, "Rock Of Ages" and the lead in a film about the life of singer Nina Simone.

Mary J. Blige has recorded nine studio albums with her tenth due to be released later this year. She has won many awards during her career including nine Grammy Awards and has sold over fifty million records

Mary has been married to Martin Kendu Isaacs, a record executive who is now her manager, since 2003. She also received  her GED in 2010.

This is Mary J.'s first big hit:

"Real Love" - Mary J. Blige ( 1992)


"BOY" - U2 (1980)

Fourteen year-old drummer, Larry Mullen, Jr. posted a note on his school notice board looking for musicians to form a band in Dublin, Ireland in 1976. Six young men answered the ad and Larry accepted them all. The group included Adam Clayton on bass, David Evans and his older brother, Dik on guitar and Paul Hewson on lead vocals/guitar. The boys knew they weren't great musicians but because of the popularity of many punk rock bands, they felt it wasn't necessary for success but two of the guys dropped out after the first few rehearsals anyway. The group settled on the name, "Feedback" and tried doing cover songs. but soon realized that they were better doing their own material.

By 1977, the band had changed it's name to "The Hype" and soon came to the idea of a four man group since they didn't need three guitarist which included singer, Paul Hewson. Dik Evans was amicably forced out of the band. Paul Hewson became professionally known as "Bono" which was shorten from the Latin phrase, "bonavox" which means "good voice" and David Evans took on the name, "The Edge" which Bono would call him, "Dave Edge" because he was on "the edge of things".

The group finally settled on the name "U2" and were shocked to win a St. Patrick's Day talent show in 1978. The prize was cash and studio time to record a demo. The band completed an EP called, "Three" in 1979 but it was only released in Ireland. It did get some radio airplay and later that year, U2 played their first concert outside of their home country in London but they didn't receive much attention.

U2 signed with Island Records in 1980 and later that year they released their first album, "Boy". The first single, "I Will Follow", written by Bono as a tribute to his mother who passed away when he was fourteen, brought U2 their first success in the United States where the song went to number twenty on the rock charts. It created some buzz for the band and U2 went on tour there where their performances were rough but well received.

The band's next album, "October" was released the following year and was less enthusiastically received. The songs were much more heavily spiritual which was due to Bono, The Edge and Mullen joining a Christian group that caused some conflict for them being involved in a rock band. They considered leaving the band but managed to work things out and U2 went to work on their next album,  "War" which was released in 1983. The album became their first number one in Britain and went to number twelve in the US and the first single, "New Year's Day" became their first big pop success. The album also included one of their first political songs, "Sunday Bloody Sunday" which was about the 1972 incident where British soldiers killed unarmed Northern Irish protesters. "War" would go on to sell over eleven million copies around the globe.

U2 have released twelve studio albums to date, won twenty-two Grammy Awards out of thirty-four nominations, more than any other rock band and they have sold over one hundred and fifty million albums including twenty-five million alone of their 1987 classic, "The Joshua Tree (Remastered)". U2 were inducted in to The Rock And Roll Hall of Fame in 2005.

Have a listen to the first U2 single:

"I Will Follow" - U2  (1980)

Here is the music video of U2 with Mary J. Blige doing a duet of the band's song, "One":




"CAN'T TAKE ME HOME" - PINK (2000)

Alecia Moore was born in Doylestown, PA in 1979. She was inspired as a child by her father, Jim who sang and played guitar, to want to become a rock star.  As a teenager, Alecia wrote poems and lyrics to help express her feelings and joined a band in high school called, Middleground. The group disbanded shortly after losing a contest but she later formed her own r&b group called Choice with two other female singers. They made a demo and it made it to L.A. Reid, the head of LaFace Records. He was impressed and signed Choice to the label in 1995.

Choice stayed with the label for a few years but not much developed and the group disbanded in 1998. L.A. Reid was still interested in Alecia and signed her as a solo artist. She changed her stage name to Pink, after the character, "Mr. Pink" from the 1992 Quentin Tarantino film, "Reservoir Dogs (15th Anniversary)".

Pink's debut album, "Can't Take Me Home" was released in 2000. The first single, "There You Go", written by Pink along with Kevin "She'kspere" Briggs and Kandi Burruss (of "The Real Housewives Of Atlanta" fame), peaked at number seven on the Billboard Hot 100 Charts. Her next song, "Most Girls" did even better, reaching number four on the charts. With this success, Pink was asked to open for N'Sync for the American leg of their tour and her album sold over five million copies around the world.

Pink was also asked to participate on a cover of the song, " Lady Marmalade" for the soundtrack for the 2001 film, "Moulin Rouge" along with Mya, Lil' Kim and Christina Aguilera. The track, which was produced by Missy Elliot, went to number one on the charts, won the MTV Video Award for "Video Of The Year" and the group received a Grammy Award for Best Pop Collaboration With Vocal.

Although Pink achieved the success she was seeking, she was not happy. She had no desire to became a pop star like Britney Spears and wanted to be taken seriously as a musician and have more control over her music. She met with Linda Perry of one of Pink's favorite bands, 4 Non Blondes and together they worked on Pink's next album.

That album, "Missundaztood" was almost not put out by the label because L.A. Reid thought it was too much of a radical departure from her last album and he was not sure it would sell. Luckily he came to his senses and it was released in 2001. The record's sound was much more pop/rock than the contemporary r&b/hip-hop of the first album. The first single, "Get The Party Started" went top five around the world. Three more hit singles were released and the album sold thirteen million copies worldwide.

Pink has completed five studio albums as well as her recently released hits collection, "Greatest Hits... So Far!!!" that featured two new songs, "Raise Your Glass (Explicit Version)" and "F**kin' Perfect (Explicit Version)" that both became top ten hits.

Pink met motocross racer, Carey Hart and they married in 2006. After a brief separation in 2008, the couple reconciled and are about to become parents with the baby due later this year.

Here is the song that introduced this artist to the world:

"There You Go" - Pink (2000)

MY TUNE OF THE DAY

There has been a lot of fuss over the outrageous antics of Lady Gaga with all of the crazy costumes and her image but long before her was Miss Grace Jones.

Outlandish, fearless and definitely dancing to the beat of her own drum, Grace Jones cleverly used her androgynous looks to provoke people's narrow ideas of beauty, gender and sexuality. I saw her at the Hollywood Bowl in 2009 while she was promoting her latest album, "Hurricane" and at the age of sixty, she was still rocking it and knows how to put on a stage show.

The music of Grace Jones is not as easily digestible as Gaga and is certainly more of an acquired taste but I love her unusual, slightly masculine sound. She successfully remade some great rock songs such as Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers', "Breakdown", Roxy Music's, "Love Is The Drug", The Pretenders' "Private Life" and The Police's "Demolition Man" and made them all sound fresh, original and distinctly Grace Jones.

"My Jamaican Guy", a song that she wrote, is one of my favorites songs:

"My Jamaican Guy" - Grace Jones (1983)

And as a bonus, here is Miss Jones in action, from her 1982 music documentary, "One Man Show" that is part concert and part music video which was directed by her one time lover, artist Jean-Paul Goude:

HOT AND FRESH OUT THE KITCHEN

"OH LAND" - OH LAND

I first became aware of Nanna Oland Fabricius or as she is known professionally, Oh Land by seeing the music video of her single, "Sun Of A Gun" on the NewNowNext Music channel and I loved her sunny pop sound.

This Danish musician began as a ballet dancer but an injury put an end to her career and she turned to music. Oh Land has just released her second recording, the self titled, "Oh Land" and her first here in the U.S.

Here is my favorite song from the CD:

"We Turn It Up" -  Oh Land

Enjoy the quirky video for "Sun Of A Gun" where Oh Land got to utilize her dancing abilities:



"ALL YOU NEED IS NOW" - DURAN DURAN

Duran Duran has returned to the music scene with four out of the five original members along with their thirteenth album, "All You Need Is Now".

The record was produced by Grammy Award-winner, Mark Ronson and he has stated that he wanted to bring the band back to their more avant-garde style of their first couple of albums. He has done that but also brought Duran Duran right in to the present.

This is a great track from the new release:

"Girl Panic!" - Duran Duran

"LATE NIGHTS & EARLY MORNINGS" - MARSHA AMBROSIUS

Marsha Ambrosius began her music career as one half of the British r&b/hip-hop duo, Floetry along with Natalie Stewart. After releasing two successful albums, "Floetic" (2002) and "Flo'Ology" (2005), the group separated. Ms Ambrosius was briefly signed to Dr. Dre's label, Aftermath Entertainment but left in 2009.  She worked as a singer and songwriter with a variety of r&b and hip-hop artists, including Alicia Keys, The Game and Jamie Foxx  before signing with Clive Davis and his, J Records.

Her first solo project, "Late Nights & Early Mornings" has just been released and it has not only topped the R&B charts but it debuted at number two on the Billboard Top 200 Album chart. I really enjoyed her work with Floetry but I'm not at all impressed with her new album. It's too ballad-heavy with a collection of fairly standard r&b songs that I had difficulty telling apart.

This is the first single from the album:

"Hope She Cheats On You (With A Basketball Player)" - Marsha Ambrosius

"WOUNDED RHYMES" - LYKKE LI

"Wounded Rhymes"  marks the second  collection of music by the Swedish songstress, Lykke Li. The album was written and recorded while she lived in Echo Park (my neighborhood), outside of Los Angeles.

Although, Lykke Li was surrounded by California sunshine, the record still maintains a dark and moody feel that is occasionally colored by classic pop styling. She continues to expand her musical sound while sticking to the themes of the sadness, pain and anger that can come from sex and love. While not everything worked for me on the album but, I find Lykke Li to be one of the most compelling and fascinating artists making music today.

This is one of the tracks that I liked from the new album:

"Love Out Of Lust" - Lykke Li

I love this video for the first single, "Get Some":



"LIGHTS" - ELLIE GOULDING

This twenty-four year old British singer/songwriter released her first album, "Lights" in 2010 in her home country where it debuted at number one and sold almost over 40,000 copies in it's first week. The record had four hit singles and by the end of the year, the album was re-released as "Bright Lights" with six new tracks including her version of the Elton John classic, "Your Song" which went to number two on the UK pop charts.

Finally, the U.S. edition of "Lights" has just came out that includes songs from both of the previous albums. This version is full of some great pop songs but she might get lost in the shuffle with this recent wave of British female vocalists invading these shores.

"Starry Eyed" is a fun track from the album::

"Starry Eyed" - Ellie Goulding

MY TUNE OF THE DAY

I was out doing my weekly grocery shopping at Trader Joe's, when this song came on in the background that made me stop in my tracks. It took me way back to when I was a young kid. I really loved this song, I hadn't heard it in many years and I had to have it.

There was one slight problem, though. . . I had no idea who sang it, let alone, what the actual name of the song was. So, I went to Itunes and started plugging in possible song titles in the "search "engine in the hope that I would be successful. After less than five whole minutes, I finally found it.

The song, "Don't Pull Your Love", recorded by the oddly named act, Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds,  reached number four on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1971. The group would chart again one last time with the number one hit, "Fallin' In Love" in 1975 (I need to get this song too).

Have a listen to this:

FOCUS ON: QUEEN

Queen was a great rock band, no doubt about that but what made them great was how they added a little something extra that made their music much more exciting, powerful and memorable than your average rock song. The band, made up of Brian May on keyboards/guitar/vocals, Roger Taylor on drums/vocals, bassist, John Deacon and lead vocalist, Freddie Mercury, were open to using any form of music, combined with traditional rock guitar and layered vocals to help make their own fresh and distinctive sound. Queen never worried about following any rules and would wind up paving the way for other artists to feel free to open up the idea of what rock music could potentially be.

Brian May and Roger Taylor first performed together along with Tim Staffel as singer and bassist in the blues-rock band, Smile in 1968. Staffel attended art college with Freddie Mercury, who was then known by his real name, Farokh Bulsara and he became a fan of the group. Smile toured throughout London before signing with Mercury Records where the band recorded several singles.

Tim Staffel decided to leave Smile in 1970 to join another group and Bulsara soon joined the band as lead vocalist. They changed the name of the group to Queen and Bulsara, now known professionally as Freddie Mercury, helped encourage the band to move away from traditional blues-rock and to be more experimental with their sound. While performing on stage, they used different bass players before settling on John Deacon in 1971 to join the group before the recording of their first album.

After several delays, Queen finally released their self-titled debut, "Queen" in 1973. While it received some critical acclaim, the album sold poorly. The group's second album, "Queen II" in 1974 fared much better, reaching the top five in the UK and the lead single, "Seven Seas Of Rhye" went to number ten on the pop charts.

By the release of their third album, "Sheer Heart Attack" later in 1974, Queen moved more towards a traditional rock sound and finally found success outside of England. The first single, "Killer Queen" went to number twelve in the US on the Billboard Hot 100 Charts as well as the album reaching that same position.

With their new found fame, Queen toured the world to sold-out shows that included elaborate costumes and a dramatic stage show filled with lights and visual effects.

In 1975, Queen released, "A Night At The Opera", an expensive production that features diverse musical styling and experimentation. One of the highlights of the album was the song, "Bohemian Rhapsody" written by Mercury that was very unusual because of it's incorporation of a ballad opening, an operatic middle section and a hard rock guitar closer. The main resistance to having this song as a single was it's length. It was over five minutes long which was unheard of at the time but Mercury refused to have it edited down. The song was leaked to a radio station in it's complete form, ultimately becoming a smash hit, with it going to number one in several countries and it is one of Queen's most popular songs.

Throughout the rest of their career, the band continued to experiment by mixing together a wide variety of musical genres such as ragtime, gospel, world, folk and funk with their rock sound to make very distinct Queen records. Queen would have many more hit songs that have become rock anthems including, "We Will Rock You", 'We Are The Champions", "Another One Bites The Dust" and "Under Pressure", a duet with David Bowie. They also created the music for the soundtrack of the 1980 film, "Flash Gordon".

By 1988, many people were alarmed by the gaunt appearance of Freddie Mercury. There were rumours going around that he had AIDS but he denied this, claiming that he was simply just overworked. He continued to work with his band on two more albums, "The Miracle (1989)" and "Innuendo (1991) when on November 23, 1991, a statement was released that confirmed that Freddie Mercury did have AIDS. He died the next day due to complications from the disease. A tribute concert was held in his honor in April of 1992 at London's Wembley Stadium. It was attended by 72,000 fans and raised over twenty million dollars that went to several AIDS charities.

The surviving members of Queen continued to perform together either by sharing vocals or using guest singers. In 2004, Brian May and Roger Taylor teamed up with Paul Rodgers, lead singer for the rock bands, Free and Bad Company, to form a group called Queen + Paul Rodgers. John Deacon decided to retire and did not participate on the project. The group toured for a year and released an album, "The Cosmos Rocks (Amazon Exclusive)" in 2008 before splitting up amicably.

A rock musical was produced using the music of Queen titled, "We Will Rock You" opening in London's West End in 2002. The show became very successful and has been staged in many cities around the world. A feature film is in the works, to begin possibly later this year, about the forming of the band and may star comedian, Sacha Baron Cohen as Freddie Mercury.

Queen recorded fourteen studio albums, had eighteen number one singles and sold over one hundred and fifty million albums across the globe. They were inducted in to The Rock And Roll Hall of Fame in 2001.

Here are a few of my favorite Queen songs:

Killer Queen - Queen (1974)

Somebody To Love - Queen (1976)

Bicycle Race - Queen (1978)

Don't Stop Me Now - Queen (1979)

Another One Bites The Dust - Queen (1980)

Queen decided to make a video of  "Bohemian Rhapsody" in 1975 to help promote the song and it is considered to be one of the first "true" music videos:



This is an odd little video for the song, "I Want To Break Free", which features all of the band members in drag. Why? Well, why not?:

MEET CLARE MAGUIRE

Who exactly is Clare Maquire?

She is a twenty-three year old British singer that I have been really digging lately.  I find her such a breath of fresh air in these days of  pop singers whose voices are so manipulated that they barely sound human. I love her dark, moody and soulful vocals that takes me way back to the eighties, when Annie Lennox ruled the charts.

Ms Maguire has released her first song last year in the UK, "Ain't Nobody". with the latest single, "The Last Dance" in which Maguire was inspired to write the day after the death of Michael Jackson, and her debut album, "Light After Dark" both being released at the end of February there.

While both songs are currently available in the US on Itunes, there is no word on an exact release date on the album stateside but hopefully we won't have to wait too long. I really can't wait to hear it. I think Clare Maguire is a great artist and I really hope she becomes a great success worldwide.

Here is the music video for her the song, "The Last Dance" which shows that's she's got just as much style as substance:




And as a bonus, have a listen to her first single, "Ain't Nobody":