As
a young woman, Denise LaSalle began writing songs. "I thought that
I could do that. I started writing songs and writing songs," she
said in a recent phone interview. "They used to laugh at me on my
job. 'Is she crazy? What's wrong
with her? What is she doing?'
... They wanted to know, 'Writing songs for who?' I would write a
song as I think that someone would sing it. I would say, 'I'm
writing this for Jerry Butler; this is for so-and-so. This one's
for Aretha.' In my mind this is who I thought could sing those
songs."
When
Bo Diddley died on June 2, you might have heard a story about how
that name came to be.
"I
do some of my grandfather's stuff, but I up it a notch."
The
Dodos exist at the nexus of world music, country blues, heavy metal,
and songcraft, and while it is
as strange as it sounds, it's also pretty natural.
One
of the most beloved albums of the 1970s, Billy
Joel's
The Stranger,
get a labor-of-love reissue next week from Columbia Records' Legacy
imprint. Celebrating 30 years since its original release and double
Grammy win, the remastered edition is available in a book-style case
boasting a live CD recorded at Carnegie Hall from June 1977, and in a
special limited edition featuring a bonus DVD with promotional videos
for the album's title track and "Just the Way You Are," and 10
songs filmed for the BBC's Old
Grey Whistle Test
television show from the following March. Also looking back with a
"bottle of red, and a bottle of white" is a 30-minute documentary
on the DVD with Joel and producer Phil Ramone.
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