Watched the opening of Saturday Night Live last night, including the opening song (a funny one about not singing a song) from Justin Timberlake, and was struck again by a fact that I haven't written about nearly enough. I think there's no doubt about it: Stevie Wonder is the most influential musician in pop, rock or r&b music in the last fifty years. Turn on the radio (or TV, as in the case above) and you'll hear him in almost everything. His singing, harmonic innovations, tremendous attention to detail in building rhythms (the episode from the Classic Albums series about Songs in the Key of Life provides some cool stuff about his process), and his hugely under-rated accomplishments as a lyricist, all of it grounded in the Motown school of music - well, it's no wonder that his influence is up there with anyone you could name (Louis Armstrong, Ray Charles, James Brown, like that). And amazingly, he's equally great as a singles artist (example:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkQKk2ukiyw) or album artist (the five released between 1972 and 1976, all masterpieces - here's the discography: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stevie_Wonder_discography, and here's "Saturn" from Songs in the Key of Life: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3KpUO6t9qQ).

I'm about two thirds of the way through Keith Richards' Life (2010), and I'm finding it to be quite simply terrific. Some of the descriptive bits are so vivid you'd think the guy was a novelist rather than a rock 'n' roller - I nearly wrote "rocker" there, which would have been a mistake, because one of the really big deals to him is the importance of the swing element in music. He comes back to the point several times in fact, and one of the criticisms that he has for a lot of rock is that the roll part has been forgotten (but I don't agree with him in thinking that the charge can be applied to the Beatles - just listen to "Eight Days a Week": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtuybFrq7Rw, in comparison to "Something Happened to Me Yesterday": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=banNjTF6qEI, if you want evidence. However the Stones did learn to swing much harder later on, like on this one for example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geQ_SmCZWjE). The book has a lot of very insightful stuff on music from the various perspectives that he's assumed (fan, student, performer, composer, band leader), including some things I'd never seen written about before, really important for musicians and fans to think about. It's not only a great and fun autobiography, it's an essential book on music.

One of the many musicians originally inspired by the Stones, David Johansen, had a similar comment recently about how vital swing rhythms are to rock, pointing out that without it, rock becomes militaristic - which was the case with a lot of punk. It's also the case with techno and any other style of music played (largely) by machines. The human element necessary in trying to figure out how the triplet and the eighth note co-exist (playing swing eighth notes is one of the most difficult things a jazz musician has to learn) is crucial to the excitement generated and will never be replicated or replaced. The best swing music - be it jazz, country, rock, r&b - has the power to draw in the listener in a very subtle and seductive way, and I'm not sure that music that doesn't understand this is destined to last. Which won't be the case with the work of any of the names above.

Came across an interesting thought from the great detective writer Raymond Chandler the other day. I'm not sure of its original context (it was quoted in a book review), but I imagine it was somehow or other in defense of his genre, which is usually under-rated. Anyway, the words went this way: "There are not vital and significant forms of art; there is only art, and precious little of that." Upon reading this I understood my rather eclectic musical listening tastes, which run from the Sex Pistols to Stravinsky, and which I've tried to explain on this blog in the past, much more clearly. Chandler said it all, and with his usual concision (one of the main reasons that Lou Reed is a big admirer): it's either art or it isn't. Therefore the task of people who write about music, or play it, or even quite simply only care about it, is to differentiate between the two categories, and to understand their reasons for doing so.

I listened to Fleetwood Mac's Tusk several times the other day, and found that it's stood up really well to the test of time. I mentioned it during a recent post on the Beatles' White Album, which sent me through my collection to find it, and was glad I did. Like the Fabs, the group is centered around three distinguished and distinctive songwriters, who are all splendid lead vocalists but who also have the ability to blend for ensemble singing. Also, the two groups have outstanding rhythm sections who are able to bring a wide variety of material to life. It's hard to pick specific highlights on an album as well-balanced as this one, so here's a link to the first track, Christine McVie's "Over and Over": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhUsXxdAkbg. I hope it'll make you want to listen to the whole thing.

Finished reading Stephen Sondheim's Finishing the Hat (2010), thoroughly enjoyed it, learned a lot from it, and now I'm recommending it to anyone interested in participating and/or better understanding the craft of songwriting. The book is filled with highly detailed, insightful and honest observations about his own work as well as that of others. One particularly cool thing for me is how it provides the context needed to appreciate the lyrics to the songs. For example, I don't know how many times I've heard "Send In the Clowns" or "Losing My Mind" without knowing where they fit into the larger works that they came from - not having seen A Little Night Music or Follies. This lacking, among others, has now been corrected thanks to this terrific book. Here's Sinatra doing the first one listed above, before it became a standard apparently: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJvUCDP9u0I. And here's Peggy Lee doing the latter in a way I hadn't heard before: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OeUvNoWyfQk&feature=related. Two great singers interpreting a songwriter appropriate to their level.