Stevie Wonder

Do Better Mixtape, Songs for the Movement!: Tracks 18 through 21…

by dre of onustees.com on 22 February 2012

Track 18…

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oab4ZCfTbOI]

Artist: The Staple Singers / Song: Respect Yourself / Album: Be Altitude: Respect Yourself / Year: 1972

Track 19…

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMrl8SWWH3g]

Artist: Sly Stone / Song: Stand! / Album: Stand! / Year: 1969

Track 20…

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEMyha47FzY]

Artist: James Brown / Song: Get Up, Get Into It, Get Involved (Parts 1 & 2) / Year: 1970

Track 21…

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zf0zcOM0750]

Artist: Stevie Wonder / Song: Black Man / Year: 1976

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5 Things: 2012 Grammys

by dre of onustees.com on 13 February 2012

Rest & Thanks to Ms. Whitney Houston

With the sudden passing of Houston… the Grammys took a different tone, or should have, this year… These are 5 things I learned while watching the tail-end of the show…

  1. Jennifer Hudson did a wonderful job singing tribute to Ms. Houston… the ability to put on that performance in that window of time and mountain of emotion was dynamic…
  2. Taylor Swift made an odd acknowledgement to Black History Month… 1st by rocking that get-up from “The Color Purple” during her performance… then following that up with coming on stage in the Watch The Throne dress… Then again that could be my imagination…
  3. Rihanna… *deep sigh* like… I can’t even call it… most on my Twitter timeline were fans of her look… I just thought the non-singing child looked like she was attending a Tina Turner dress-alike contest and came in 274th place…
  4. Chris Brown… whenever I see him… I still see Rihanna… whom I don’t care much as a singer… but as woman, didn’t deserve this… and he certainly doesn’t deserve to be back or get an R&B Grammy for Fame… I only know of 2 songs off the album and neither one sounded like R&B… then again what does…
  5. God / Lawd Jesus / Sweet Baby Jesus / Jebus / Zeus / Buddha / Vishnu / Optimus Prime… forbid… If Stevie Wonder was to be taken away from this Earth… on the VERY day of the Grammys… the ENTIRE schedule of performances and award announcements need to be scraped for a 2 and half hour long concert in honor of Stevie Wonder… There’s no excuse for anything else to occur… just have folks lining up to sing their favorite Stevie song… while the ushers hand out the Grammy’s to the winners in the audience… No need for them to be announce… damn them… It’s all about Stevie… Some may think, foolishly, that this is overdoing it… However, I’d like them to remember his last name isn’t actually Wonder, it’s Judkins (or Morris) and he was given the name “Wonder” because there were 7 wonders of the New World… and he made 8…  During a time when artists had names one could aspire to… Like being Supreme, a Miracle, Dramatic, or even a Main Ingredient… they gave him this name at age 11… and for 50 years he’s lived up to it… Not mention his Grammy raid from 73 to 76… when he had Paul Simon thanking him for not releasing an album… thus others had a chance… So, when his time comes… we better do the right thing… and spend the entire night singing his songs…

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Do Better Mixtape, Songs for the Movement!: Track 6 – Stevie Wonder “Higher Ground”

by dre of onustees.com on 6 February 2012

Day 6 – Time to reach a Higher Ground…

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wZ3ZG_Wams]

Artist: Stevie Wonder / Song: Higher Ground / Album: Innervisions / Year: 1973

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Rest & Thanks: Don Cornelius

by dre of onustees.com on 1 February 2012

Don Cornelius, brought us the “hippest trip in America” and always wished us “love, peace… and SOUL!

They’re are certain things in popular culture that unites a people and yields commonality across a race…

Roots…

Thriller…

Good Times…

The Color Purple…

…and Soul Train.

All these things are ingrained in the DNA of Black popular culture. I bet, and hope, that those reading this will instantly remember a setting, feeling, person, story linked to each of those examples above…

From 1971 to 2006 (and beyond on Centric), Soul Train provided wonderful moments for us all…

Whether it was your favorite artist singing their top seller… an act your weren’t aware of… but after hearing them went out to get the album…

Or if it was to see if that tall sister was going to be dancing in the red hot suit with the high heeled boots again this week…

Maybe it was to solve the all-too-easy “Soul Train Scramble Board”…

Perhaps, the intro with the train tip-toeing and skipping along the tracks caught your eye…

Certainly, the Soul Train line made EVERYONE stop and see if there was any new moves that needed to added to the repertoire…

…we’ve ALL had those Soul Train moments.

With the passing of Don Cornelius, I immediately wanted to scrap the “Do Better Mixtape, Songs for the Movement!” for Black (Music) History Month… and replace it with 28 of the top Soul Train performances… but that would be unfair to suggest they’re 28 best performances of a show that featured great acts for 1,117 episodes… Plus, it would take a heluva undertaking to go through them all…

Thus, I’ll simply post 5 clips from my favorite artists on the Train!

Hope you dig it…

“and as always in parting, we wish you love, peace… and SOUL!”

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbbSo-WuSeU]

MJ performed several times but nothing’s like seeing him bust out into the Dancing Machine…

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhBAJHzIkQk]

Interview and performance by Brother Marvin… “Lip syncing, what?” and check the “Politically correct reply to the Diana Ross question”…

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOj9lPbp1I4]

Rock Steady, baby… The Queen doing her thing…

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SUEyf_2fbo]

21-year old Steve Wonder jamming on his clavinet… Damn near 30 and I got a blog… Yeah, I’m not jealous…

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2Sl7FKpMkY]

He only performed once on the Train… but is my fave artist… check out the people’s bop to “Shaft”…

BONUS!!! THEE M#THAF@^K!N JAM…

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75BlzjqGVcc]

Cornelius was present during the recording of this song… “Say Don, say Don, say man, I didn’t know you were in here.”

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