In the week we lost Mary Wilson, here are the Supremes (Mary on backing vocals) having a very good time with an audience who are also having a very good time. Stoned Love is from 1970, after Diana Ross had left, but is as good as anything they did. So put Teams on mute, turn off the camera and get dancing with Mary.
This song comes from the 1956 album Songs for Swingin' Lovers!, one of the albums Sinatra made with arranger Nelson Riddle which revived his musical career. The song was written much earlier, in 1923, but it was probably waiting for Frank to get hold of it. It's been said many times but just listen to Frank's phrasing as he tells you his story.
"Do I look for those millionaires like a Machiavellian girl would, when I could wear a sunset?" sings Kate, accompanied by a Macedonian bridal dance played on Uilleann pipes (I had to look that bit up, obviously).
If you don't know Kate Bush's music then there are worst ways of spending lockdown, from the teenage years of Wuthering Heights to the most recent (and pertinent) 50 Words for Snow. Yes, she does come up with 50.
Shaking off initial reputations is the curse of many artists (and mathematicians?). De La Soul found themselves labelled hip hop's hippies after the release of their first album and they have spent 30 years trying to shake it off. Mind you, they did claim they were transmitting live from Mars and rapped a lot about peace and harmony.
So in deference to their wish to be thought of as more than that first album, here is the biggest hit from that album. Peace and love.
As Konzertmeister in Weimar from 1714-1717, Bach was charged with providing a monthly diet of church cantatas. This one is from c1715. It was performed in Lecture Theatre 1 of the Andrew Wiles Building in October 2019 as part of our 'Sunday Service' collaborations with Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. The Services will resume later in the year.
Your Song of the Week correspondent spent some of the holidays in a bubble with a mouse. Admittedly it was rather good at social distancing but for everyone who has had mouse issues in their house (or even their car, as a colleague has reported) here's Ronnie Hilton in the days before mice had heath and safety officers on site.
In 1960, during a concert in Berlin, Ella launched in to Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht's Mack the Knife, by now a jazz standard. Only Ella couldn't remember the words. Not that it made any difference. Check out the Louis Armstrong impersonation. And enjoy the voice.
In the week of the Nobel Prize presentation it is only appropriate that Song of the Week should come from a Nobel Prize winner. Unfortunately neither Einstein or Niels Bohr took to the recording studio (though Einstein loved Mozart and Bach) so here is the 2016 winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, Bob Dylan. A controversial choice though Bob's Nobel lecture, taking in Buddy Holly, Dickens and Moby Dick, is well worth checking out.
The album cover said it all. Instead of the usual smiling Marvin getting ready to sing about love lost and found, here was a man uncertain in the rain. But then as he said, he had a lot to think about. War, enviromental disaster, police brutality, social and racial divisions. The record company (Motown) were nervous, but Marvin got his way. It will be 50 years old in 2021.