Later on New Year’s day, and found myself drawn back to this thread.
Back to days of great songs, great voice, great lyrics, great melody, good hooks, singable, memorable---unforgettable.
Both Natalie and her father added into the LARGE pool of that kind of music that I have been enjoying all my life, although these days, I mostly depend on the oldies.
At the risk of sounding like an older dame---but what the hell, I am---I don’t find that kind of music in many places anymore today, although I’m sure it’s because I don’t know where to look. The market is so much more segmented these days, sliced and diced into tiny pieces of followers. Sometimes I’m surprised that the term “top pop” survives.
When I was growing up, we had two radio stations dedicated to music in our town, no computer, I tunes, iPod etc. One was a country station, and the other was “the everything else station.”
So, it was not uncommon to see Dean Martin or Frank Sinatra or Ray Charles, fight it out with the Beatles and the Rolling Stones for the top 10. Which whether we liked it or not, introduced we younger ones to the music of our parents, and visa versa.
Funny, but for all the things I may forget these days, I can still remember the words to SO MANY of those songs from both generations. To me, Natalie Cole was the synthesis of that. Borrowing from the illustrious foot prints of her father’s and adding her own twist and talent to make something both new, and yet as old as good music has always been.