(This post was last modified: 02-24-2019, 10:06 PM by HighSpeed.)
It seems wrong to call 2000 "back in the day", but it feels that way sometimes. Anyway, back in 2000, when Borders Books still thrived and you could listen to whole CDs in the store, I chanced upon the album "
Grateful" by
John Bucchino. After almost 20 years, Grateful is still among my favorite albums, combining powerful lyrics and music to create strong stories. Here are two selections from Grateful.
The first, "A Powerful Man", is a story that many of us will relate to. I like the way Bucchino shifts between 2/4, 3/4, 4/4 and 7/8 meter to make the lyrics flow.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uh0TltdQgOI
The second, "Not a Cloud in the Sky", is rather personal to me, but still quite universal I think. Bucchino, who Wikipedia describes as "an 'out' gay composer", wrote this in memory of his brother, who died of AIDS. My wife and I had a very close gay friend who was dying of cancer, and we bought the album for him when we found out he had never heard of John Bucchino. IMO you need to hear the whole album to understand why, but be that as it may, our friend passed away shortly before we were heading to the beach to give it to him. If you have ever watched someone go through a more or less slow goodbye, you will probably recognize something in this song. (BTW the 40 seconds of opening patter are actually quite relevant to the song itself.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XeCNvCe_4Q
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-- Mike --