Year: 2013

30 Day Song Challenge (The Sequel), Day 7: A Song You Love From the 50’s

The next several days of the 30 Day Song Challenge (The Sequel) are going to be a bit of a grand tour of musical history over the last 60 years. We start with the 1950’s, particular interesting to me as the decade when country, folk, blues, and gospel hopped into bed (and sometimes business) with…

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30 Day Song Challenge (The Sequel), Day 6: Favorite Song for Flying Down The Highway At Top Speed

As I said back on Day Four of this challenge, my picks for the last three days can pretty much be taken as mix-and-matchable.  All three suffice for all three of this week’s categories so far: a “song for a sunny day,” a “song to drive around town with your top down” and a “song…

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30 Day Song Challenge (The Sequel), Day 5: Favorite Song For Driving Around Town With The Top Down

I don’t own, and never have owned, a convertible.  (That’s me and my bff Dana Gabrion in the picture here, on a truly epic trip I took to the Left Coast to hang with her in L.A. a couple of years ago.  Dana owns a convertible, of course.)  I drive what can only be called,…

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30 Day Song Challenge (The Sequel), Day 4: A Song For A Sunny Day

Today’s prompt in the 30 Day Song Challenge (The Sequel) is a little tough if you live in a place like Memphis. Why?  Because, if you live in a place like Memphis, your first question to yourself HAS TO BE: well, c’mon now, what kind of “sunny day” are you talking about? Of course, we…

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30 Day Song Challenge (The Sequel), Day 3: A Song For A Rainy Day

I should say first that there is very little that I don’t like about rainy days.  I don’t find them dark or depressing or forlorn at all.  On the contrary, I genuinely love a good rain, including and especially the blustery, electric, thunderous and torrential ones.  Even in its most violent expressions, there’s something soothing…

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30 Day Song Challenge (The Sequel), Day 2: A Song You Hate From A Band You Love

There’s very little that is more disappointing to a true music fan than when his or her favorite band records a bona fide stinker of a song.  When that happens, as it does all too often, I suspect most of us self-respecting music-lovers just avert our eyes/ears, turn away in ashamed obligation, give a conciliatory…

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30 Day Song Challenge (The Sequel), Day 1: A Song You Like From A Band You Don’t Like

Part of me wanted to object to beginning this Challenge with a band I don’t like, since that seems contrary to the whole spirit of the enterprise, but I suppose since I’m picking a song I do like (even if it is from I band I don’t like) then I won’t complain.  Though, I guess…

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30 Day Song Challenge (The Sequel): Rules

[For those of you who’ve arrived here from a link, you can read below the initial “rules” of the 30 day Song Challenge (The Sequel)… but, more importantly, the rest of you who are probably just looking for a quick access to ALL of Dr. J’s entries for the 30 Day Song Challenge (The Sequel).. …

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30 Day Song Challenge, Redux

A couple of years ago on this blog, for the whole month of June, I participated in the 30 Day Song Challenge, a rather ingenious invention by some anonymous music-lover on Facebook.  The way the 30 Day Song Challenge works is that it provides one “prompt” every day– for example, “a song that makes you…

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I Bet You Gonna Find Some People Who Live in Memphis

Apologies in advance to my close friends and family, but the truth is that there is quite literally nothing in the world that I love more than Memphis. Thanks in part to the Grizzlies’ inspiring display of our city’s three most valuable homegrown resources– heart, grit, and grind– and in larger part thanks to the…

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