23-08-2016 - MolliMail.com

R.E.M. The essays on these singers, producers and musicians.

I first heard R.E.M. in 1986, a song tacked on to the end of a demos collection of a Eugene, Oregon, band that my uncle, then in school at U of O, sent to me for Christmas. The song was called "Superman," a bit of meticulously crafted bubblegum that was so simple and honest and funny that my entire nascent library of cassettes (chiefly: Yaz, Scritti Politti and Depeche Mode) seemed to be rendered obsolete in the span of the track's three minutes. I was fully hooked. Little did I know: Becoming enamored with indie bands in Helena, Montana, in the late 1980s was kind of like developing a taste for beluga caviar in rationing-era postwar Britain.

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23-08-2016 - MolliMail.com

CURTIS MAYFIELD. The essays on these singers, producers and musicians.

If, in the late Fifties and early Sixties, you were drawn to that place on the AM radio dial where the rhythms, the grooves and the beautiful sounds of African-American soul were playing, you would have found Curtis Mayfield. Many of us first heard him as backing vocalist in the Impressions behind Jerry Butler, singing "For Your Precious Love." But he really came into focus in Butler's next big hit, "He Will Break Your Heart," which was written by Mayfield and features his strumming electric guitar to a saucy tango beat that you can hear echoing in Ben E. King's "Spanish Harlem."

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23-08-2016 - MolliMail.com

CARL PERKINS. The essays on these singers, producers and musicians.

Carl Perkins' songs will outlive us all. On tracks like "Blue Suede Shoes" and "Honey Don't!" he took that country-picking thing into the rock world. He was an amazing guitar player: If you want to play Fifties rock & roll, you can either play like Chuck Berry, or you can play like Carl Perkins.

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23-08-2016 - MolliMail.com

TALKING HEADS. The essays on these singers, producers and musicians.

When I was a kid, I was really into hardcore punk. Hardcore was very rigid. Talking Heads was the first band I remember telling my punk friends about, saying, "Yo, check this out! This four-chord thing we're doing? We're missing out on something!"

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