THE GREATEST LOVE

Normally I would not have considered writing about this song, except for the fact that Story of Songs has a fan. "The Greatest Love of All" is her favorite song, which she's mentioned to me, Twice. She'd like for us to do a story on this. The fact that she's from France sort of had something to with it as well. Now that we live in the age of Obama and we want people from other countries to like us. I suppose you could say this is my feeble attempt at that concept.

It's actually an interesting story. It was written by Michael Masser and Linda Creed and recorded by George Benson in 1977 for a Muhammad Ali biopic called “The Greatest.” The movie did not do well. We found out that it's not easy to play yourself in a movie. Even a charismatic figure like Muhammad couldn't do it. I guess it does take talent to act. The song, however, did reasonably well. It went to number two in the R&B charts.

Linda Creed was diagnosed with breast cancer at age 26, but kept on writing while fighting it. She helped write several of The Stylistics greatest songs, including "Bet You by Golly Wow" and "You are Everything." Her favorite song that she wrote, however, was "The Greatest Love of All." About a month after getting radical mastectomy, she was hired to write a song. That's when she wrote it. Linda was concerned about losing her life and leaving her one year old daughter at a young age. The lyrics reflect this concern.

Almost ten years later, Whitney Houston wanted to record “The Greatest Love of All” for her first album. Clive Davis, the founder of Arista records, didn't want her to do it. Michael Masser eventually persuaded Clive to let her. It turned out to be a good thing because Whitney Houston's version became a real hit in 1986. It was number one on Billboards music chart for three weeks. In fact Whitney's first tour was called the Greatest Love tour. Sadly, Linda was not around at the time. She died weeks before the song reached number one after a ten year battle with breast cancer.

In 1987, Gordon Lightfoot filed a lawsuit naming Michael Masser, among others. The lawsuit claimed that Michael stole part of the melody from his song "If You could read my mind". The case was settled out of court. Michael publicly apologized. Interestingly enough, Gordon didn't file a lawsuit when George Benson recorded it.

The video to the song has Whitney singing in an auditorium. There is a little girl there with other kids and I imagine that little girl turns into Whitney because at one point they walk towards each other and merge as one. It's a powerful song and Whitney has a powerful voice. At the end, Whitney walks over to an older lady that looks a bit like Dionne Warwick and they hug. That would've been a good move if she is Dionne Warwick, because they are cousins. “Greatest Love of All” has become a standard song for auditions and for good reason. Whitney's voice is a measure by which other singers compare their voices.

MORE WOODSTOCK

>So given that it was the Woodstock Festival's fortieth anniversary weekend, I checked out to see if any station had something about it. It turns out The History Channel had a program called “Woodstock Now and Then.” There were a few things I learned. One being that doctors came in to treat the “wounded”. For free. Which was nice of the doctors. Another thing was that the Army helped out as well. They transported people with helicopters. In fact, it would've been hard for the concert to go on without their help. It was a terrific gesture on their part given the fact that most of the people and performers were against the Vietnam war.

iv> There were two deaths that occurred. One of them was drug related, which makes sense, while the other was a real tragedy. Someone driving a tractor ran over a person covered by a blanket. Just thinking about that is horrible. I don't know what happened as a result of that, but on last weeks blog I mentioned that something like Woodstock wouldn't happen now because the promotors would be afraid of too many lawsuits. Well it turns out that the promoters were sued quite a bit. Even back then. Around eighty lawsuits. One of the lawsuits was because a cow wasn't giving out enough milk, presumably because of the stress of the concert.

WOODSTOCK FORTIETH ANNIVERSARY

This week marks the fortieth anniversary of the Woodstock Music and Arts Fair. It's no surprise that Rolling Stone magazine listed it as one of the 50 moments that changed the history of Rock and Roll. And this was for several good reasons. The main one, of course, was the caliber of the artists who performed. From The Who, Jefferson Airplane, Janis Joplin, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Sly and the Family Stone, Santana and Jimi Hendrix, to name just a few.

Nothing like this had ever happened before. Not even close. The promoters told the city, in order to get a permit, that they were expecting no more than fifty thousand people. And that was considered a lot. Fifty thousand people attending a concert was unheard of back then. They sold 186,000 tickets at seventeen dollars a pop. That's around seventy five dollars today if you adjust for inflation. In the end, almost half a million people showed up. If I do my math correctly, that's almost ten times more than fifty thousand, which they thought was too much already. Traffic jams were twenty miles long.

The promoters wanted the best acts around and were willing to pay for it. So they told they agents they wanted the acts no matter what. They signed some acts for twice as much as they usually got. Jefferson Airplane, which was the top acid Rock band at the time, usually got around $5,000 to $6,000. They signed for $12,000. Once they signed, it became easier to sign other artists. Supposedly the only reporter around was a New York Times reporter. They were the only ones that thought this was a worthy news event. The newspaper wanted the event reported as a disaster. But the reporter, to his credit, refused to do so. Instead, the reporter did the story on what was actually going on. There were two deaths that occurred as well as two births. Incredibly for the amount of people who showed up and the conditions they lived in those three days, there were no violent crimes reported.

Can something like this happen now? I seriously doubt it. I can just imagine the lawsuits as a result of something like this. It truly is sad for the U.S. If you ask me. Not that I would go if something like this did occur. But I can still dream.

Canned Head played "Going Up the Country", the video of which I think distills the essence of the concert. The carefree attitude, the cameraderie, the zonked out kids, the dancing and of course the music. Oh yeah, and don't forget the nuns.

ELVIS TRIBUTE AT THE PARK

I admit having a fondness for tribute bands and artists. And this is for several reasons. The main one being that they are generally good musicians who love the artists they give tribute to. Among others, I've seen The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, The Doors and the David Lee Roth version of Van Halen. Needless to say , there's a slim to none chance I would see them in person. So a tribute band is usually the best and only way to experience them live. And frankly they've all been terrific. It's amazing how similar they look and sound. Besides, it's hard to beat the price, which is usually free where I live. I guess it's one of the perks of living in SoCal.

This last one I've gone to was an Elvis tribute. I know Elvis impersonators are a cliche and a joke. And for good reason. You can't get any cornier than the Flying Elvi. Which are officially sanctioned by Elvis Enterprises. Fortunately, and to quote Mr. Larry David, the Elvis impersonator was "pretty pretty good." He didn't take himself seriously and was funny to boot. Probably funnier than the real Elvis. He spent a great deal of time with the audience and would mostly go after the older ladies, which was fun. He sung a good deal of the hits. There was one song from one of his movies that I've never heard before that was really good. It was a bluesy number that I wish I could remember. I wish I knew his real name so that I could recommend him. All I remember is that his first name was Richard and spends a great deal of his time in Vegas.

One of the songs he played was "Heartbreak Hotel". The song has a really interesting story. Elvis was only 21 years old when he recorded it. This was the first single he recorded for RCA. Sun Records sold Elvis's contract for $40,000. The idea for the song came to Thomas Durden when he read a newspaper article about a person who killed himself in a hotel room. The suicide note said, "I walk a lonely street." The song was recorded in the hallway to get that echo sound . When the RCA executives heard the song, they hated it and didn't want to release it. It was released anyway and the song was number one for eight weeks. “Heartbreak Hotel” has become such a big part of the American culture that there's even a hotel named after it in Memphis. You can't say that about that many songs. Maybe just Hotel California. If you ever get a chance to see an Elvis impersonator, by all means go. It just might surprise you.

LIVE HIT SONGS

There was a plea for money on one of the local public radio stations and the gift one got for donating, I don't remember, a few hundred dollars, was a DVD of the fortieth anniversary of the concert at "Woodstock". It seemed like a good DVD to get because there is supposedly new music that was not released on the first Woodstock album. The first Woodstock has terrific live performances by artists such as Santana, Ten Years After, The Who, and of course Jimi Hendrix.

Having said this, the blog is not about Woodstock since that's about a month away. Rather, it is a roundabout way of doing a blog about live music. There have been a number of terrific songs recorded live that have become hits. There is a list of Top Ten Live Hits in a list at About.com.

There are a few good songs on the list. These include Cheap Trick's "I Want You to Want Me". That song could be better if it wasn't so repetitive. They probably say "I want you to want me" about fifty times.

Just went to the lyric websites to check out how many "I want you to want me"'s they say. They stop at seven in the end. I don't know, maybe they don't say it as much as I think. Actually I think "Surrender" from the same album is a much better song. But that's just me.

Another song they have that I like from the list is "Show Me the Way" by Peter Frampton. It's amazing how both of these songs I've mentioned so far did nothing when they first came out, then became hits once they were released as a live version. There is an energy there that is not present in the studio recording. In fact, the studio recordings by comparison sound rather lame.

This brings up a good point. I like some of those MTV live acoustic sets that were performed a while back. And some of these were included on the list. These are good but don't really do it for me because, once again, they lack the energy. Nirvana is an exception because they did an incredible set. Some of these MTV live recordings were on the top ten list. They shouldn't be on the list because something happens sometimes when a song is played acoustically. It loses something. You have to be really good to pull it off. For example, Dave Grohl of The Foo Fighters does an acoustic version of "Everlong" that is fantastic. A lot of times the songs are slowed so much that they become listless. It bugs me sometimes when they do that, especially if I like the original.

It doesn't happen that often now that a song that was recorded live becomes a hit. I tried googling for the last hit song that was recorded live, but couldn't find it. I'm sure it's out there somewhere. It is kind of a shame because music is heard best when it's live. Or at least a live recording of it.

MISSING THE BOAT ON MICHAEL JACKSON

You may think that I missed the boat when I chose to blog about the Fourth of July instead of the most important story in the history of music. Ever. Okay, so maybe not ever. But in quite a long time. At least in this century. Namely, the sudden death of Michael Jackson. If I was on a major media outlet and didn't comment on something like that, I'd get fired for sure. Fortunately, I can't get fired from my own blog. At least not yet.

Having said that, I would like to think that maybe, just maybe, the music took a back seat to the story of his death and legacy. And now it's time to get back to what matters most about his life. The music.

It would be hard to pick just one song to profile. There are so many good songs and so many stories about these songs. From "Thriller" to "Beat It" to "Bad" to "Billy Jean". These are all terrific songs. So why am I picking a song about a rat.

"Ben" is actually a touching song and is one of the few Michael Jackson songs I can dance to. The only Michael Jackson dance move I can make is grabbing my crotch. And nobody, and I mean nobody, wants to see that.

The movie "Ben" is about a boy who befriends a rat, which he names Ben. The rat is the leader of a pack of rats who kill people. It is a sequel to "Willard", which is another movie about killer rats.

I've always found it interesting as to who winds up recording the song first. It can be as simple as someone being on tour so they give it to somebody else. This is precisely what happened to Donny Osmond. They wanted to give it to him but he was on tour. So Michael wound up doing it. I'm surprised Michael was not top billing. Maybe Donny was hotter at that point in time.

The song turned out to be Michael's first solo #1 hit. It won a Golden Globe award for best song, but lost the Academy Award for best original song to "The Morning After" by Maureen McGovern from the movie "The Poseidon Adventure."

Michael was on an episode of "The Simpsons" during the shows third season, which is pretty impressive. I know the show now has had a huge amount of celebrity voices throughout it's long life. In fact, it's probably a coup to land a spot on the show. But I can't imagine it being like that during it's third season. Maybe Michael started the ball rolling.

In any event, Michael liked the show and personally called Matt Groening to be on the show. Michael didn't actually sing "Ben" on "The Simpsons". He was only signed on to act. The song was sung by Kipp Lennon. Michael also wrote, but didn't sing, the song "Happy Birthday Lisa" for the show.

If you ever get a chance to dance to "Ben" by all means take it. It's a good song to dance to. Even if it is about a rat.

FOURTH OF JULY SONG LIST

So we're nearing the fourth of July and you know what that means? Picnics, fireworks, and a list of songs that goes along with picnics and fireworks. You could say I like lists.

Nothing says the Fourth of July better than Tchaikovsky's "1812 Overture." I guess it doesn't matter that he's a Russian composer. Those cannon fires in the song more than make up for it. Actually "The Stars and Stripes Forever" is another terrific song that goes really well with fireworks. The piccolos sound especially good. One of these days I would like to see any of those songs performed along with fireworks. But these songs are not on the list. I'm looking for Rock songs.

I'm back. I checked out some lists and figured I might as well make my own. So here's the Top Ten Rock songs for a Fourth of July party. In no particular order.

1. "American Pie" by Don McLean. I saw this one on a list and it kind of made sense. It is very Americana with a lot of American culteral references. Including Buddy Holly, Bob Dylan and Janis Joplin.

2. "American Girl" by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. This is a terrific upbeat song. Although there have been rumors of it being about a girl who killed herself at a university in Florida. Tom Petty himself dispelled the rumor.

3. "Living in America" by James Brown. This is a good song although not one of his best. Would do good, though for a BBQ.

4. "Pink Houses" by John Mellencamp. Good song with that hometown American feel.

5. "R.O.C.K. in the USA" again by John Mellencamp. The song is about regular Americans searching for their pipedreams of making Rock music in the USA.

6. "Born in the USA" by Bruce Springsteen. I know it's an anti-Vietnam song. But who listens to the lyrics. Most people just know the chorus. and it's hard to beat Bruce singing at the top of his lungs "Born in the USA."

7. "Philadelphia Freedom" by Elton John. Okay so Elton and Bernie Taupin, who wrote it, are foreigners. So what. Good or bad, the good ole US of A is full of them. Actually the song is about a tennis team called "Philadelphia Freedom." But we won't tell anyone that.

8. "We're an American Band" by Grand Funk Railroad. The song is exactly what the title says.

9. "Fortunate Son" by Creedence Clearwate Revival. There are not that many things more American than protest songs. Because, after all, we live in a free country. This is a terrific song about the common folk who isn't born with a "silver spoon in hand."

10. "America" by Neil Diamond. This song is about immigrants coming to America. You could say that this song is about my parents. And millions of other parents in America.

I started writing this a few days ago and last night we went to a concert at the Hollywood Bowl. It was terrific and it had, of course, fireworks and "Stars and Stripes Forever" with fireworks. It was terrific. So I can cross that out from my list. It also had John Fogerty of CCR. He was also terrific and he sang "Fortunate Son" which got a great reaction from the audience.

Have a great Fourth of July.