Category: Musical Miner

The outlet of Nostos Nic: Music Journalist, to include concert reviews, mixes, current obsessions, jukebox classics, and artist profiles.

Brain Connection: “Grandma’s Hands” and “No Diggity”

The greatest thing about the present is the ability to know the past. That’s why it’s called the present: because that ability is a gift. What we do, what we are now is a patchwork of all the things that came before us. Whether or not this is a conscious facet of our existence depends on our engagement with what surrounds us and the frequency of self reflection.

There are always links. We just need to pause, look and listen to find them. Doing this the other day, my brain immediately connected the 1996 Bilboard sensation “No Diggity” by the utterly forgettable Blackstreet featuring Dr. Dr with Bill Withers’ 1971 classic “Grandma’s Hands” from the album Just As I am.

The first video below is Bill Withers performing some of his iconic songs for the BBC in 1973. The roughly 30 minute show can be seen in its entirety HERE. The second is the official music video for “No Diggity” that dominated the MTV airways, and all of my Middle School dances.

 

Drink Whiskey with Sammy D and Father Misty

In honor of Father Misty’s show tonight at The Fillmore, I present his parody of the 1974 Suntory Whiskey ad featuring none other than the inimitable Sammy Davis Jr. Well, inimitable unless you’re FJM.

Update: The original video that was included in this post was removed, and (unfortunately) the only version currently available has substandard audio that cuts out about halfway through. My apologies; the hunt for an adequate video persists, but until that is found this will give you a sample.

Adam Arcuragi and The Lupine Choral Society, “Presidents’ Song”

Adam Arcuragi strikes me as the modern equivalent to an 18th-century itinerate preacher. When those floorboards creak under his climb to the stage, women swoon and swearing men grow tame. The way he writhes around a microphone with an imploring Bayou passion is at once soothing and exhilarating. His rhythms rhyme and roll, and he deftly uses volume and tempo to allure, reeling you in, bringing you close before the crescendo where he leaves an everlasting mark. And there, where the scarlet double AA is burned onto your eardrum, is where he’ll stay. An aural memory that finds you in the finer of moments, a call to recollect the places you have been and the things that you have seen. Simply put, Adam Arcuragi harkens; he is a harkener. And what more is a Preacherman supposed to do?