Tag: luther vandross

Getting the Most out of my Amazon Echo: Using TuneIn Radio

Telling Alexa to “Play The Big DM on TuneIn” has been the highlight of my Alexa experience to date

before1Before I talk about technology, a quick segue: I grew up in the age of radio and cassettes. The hiss of a cassette tape is a callback to simpler times – when most albums were constricted as complete pieces (and not as a string of singles); when the order of an album was important (no easy skipping)… when building a mixtape was more art than science.

I feel the same way about radio. There’s nothing like the excitement of not knowing what great song is coming next, or the magic of slowing flowing from one song to another. Before there was music video1, there was radio – where I discovered Incognito, and Angela Bofill, and Teena Marie…. Continue reading “Getting the Most out of my Amazon Echo: Using TuneIn Radio”

My Favorite Albums: Forever, For Always, For Love

Julluther_vandross_forevery 1st was the 6th anniversary of the passing of Luther Vandross; given that, I thought it made sense to start for “favorite albums” series with 1982’s Forever, For Always, For Love.

I love this album for two reasons. First off, it’s probably Luther’s best album1. I still get goose bumps every time I hear the opening sequence to “Bad Boy/Having A Party” (sing it with me – “Ahh Yeah… scooboody, dooboody, dee dee…”). It’s amazing what Luther and frequent collaborator Marcus Miller did with this Sam Cooke track; it doesn’t sound anything like the original. Luther does another masterful cover of the Temptations “Since I Last My Baby”. Continue reading “My Favorite Albums: Forever, For Always, For Love”