I was a weekend Smooth Jazz DJ for about three years in the early 2000s, right as the number of stations that could make the format work on commercial radio was getting smaller. I was never one of the main on-air talent at Orlando’s WLOQ, 103.1 FM, but you might hear me Saturday afternoons or Sunday mornings. I’d be playing – still on CDs – Euge Groove or Mindi Abair or Acoustic Alchemy. Smooth Jazz was never my personal favorite, but it can be nice while reading or studying – not a lot of lyrics to distract you.

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A little Halloween music from a show band of Spanish (I think) choreographed hair metal skeletons with a mash-up of KISS’s “I Was Made for Loving You” and Blondie’s “Call Me.”

Singer/songwriter Kinky Friedman died June 27 of Parkinson’s disease. I never saw Kinky perform live, but I read all his mystery novels and admired that he was able to create a more clever fictional version of himself that replaced the real guy in the public eye.

I imagine he’d appreciate that when People magazine wrote his obit, it neglected to mention his song, “People Who Read People Magazine.”

You’ve heard this song in commercials. You’ve heard it on oldies radio. It’s been used in The Crown and I, Robot and even as the name for a TV series, but odds are still good you see the wrong face in your mind when you hear Fontella Bass sing “Rescue Me.” Despite the song reaching #4 on the Billboard pop chart two years before Aretha Franklin ever had anything close to a hit single, so many people still think “Rescue Me” belongs to the Queen of Soul. Here’s the original Fontella Bass track laid over a colorized version of a live TV appearance.

You can understand why someone might hear Aretha in “Rescue Me.” Both Bass and Franklin were soul singers who grew up in the gospel choir – Bass in St. Louis and Franklin in Detroit. Aretha never officially covered “Rescue Me,” although she recorded a thirty-second version with new lyrics in the early 1990s to promote Pizza Hut. You gotta wonder if the ad agency knew it was Fontella Bass’ song when making the pitch.

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It seems appropriate that singer Brenda Lee was born in December as so many people know her for her 1958 hit “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree.” At 13, she was already a hit as a child singer on the radio when she got the chance to record a new song by Johnny Marks. Marks had previously written “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” and “A Holly Jolly Christmas,” so the record company was a little surprised when Lee’s recording of “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” fizzled. Over the years, the tune has built momentum and made a comeback to become a holiday classic. It probably helped a bit when the song was featured in 1990’s “Home Alone” with Kevin faking a swinging party to throw off robbers Harry and Marv.

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