Rap 1

This is all part of a series of Rap Music. Started yesterday with the Hip Hop Jazz, but that's not where it started for me. My claim is not that these are the "best" rap songs, just my pick. And kind of in the order that I was exposed to the genre. And what I bought as I was listening to Rap. Remember pretty much none of this was available on radio or MTV at the time. You heard about a track and you went to Tower Records to try to find it mixed in with the disco records. For me its started with Birthday Party (not on this pick, but on the Birthday What's The Connection) and then Flash to The Beat. Soon after I discovered 12 inch singles of  White Lines, The Message and Hustlers Convention. Like most young men discovering this music my friends and I memorized the lyrics. At this time I had no idea how much was out there already and had been for years. Some of it I knew as you will see in future volumes of this. But as others were trying to do the lyrics of Sugarhill Gang, we concentrated on "Broken glass everywhere, People pissing on the stairs like they just don't care..." I was visiting New York several times a year around this time and I realized how NY it was. We loved it.

Rap 1

01 Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five - Flash To The Beat

02 Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five - Freedom

03 Grand Master Melle Mel & The Furious Five - The Truth

04 Grandmaster Melle Mel & The Furious Five - Hustlers Convention

05 Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five - Scorpio

06 Grandmaster Melle Mel - White Lines

07 Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five - Pump Me Up

08 Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five - The Message

09 Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five - Survival (Message II)

10 Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five - New York New York

11 Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five - It's Nasty (Genius Of Love)

12 Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five - Step Off

13 Grand Master Melle Mel & The Furious Five - World War III

Hip Hop Jazz 1

I call it Hip Hop Jazz, but some call it Jazz Rap. I like mine better. Here are the tracks that got me started with the genre. My favorite picks. I did a small bit of editing to get the Breakfast at Denny's quote where it is, but other than that it's how each single came. I am ready to make a part 2, but I am missing a few tracks, so if you have some great suggestions that I missed here make sure you put them in the comments. Coming soon is also my pick of early rap. The stuff I actually listened to when it was first getting known and maybe I will post my pre-rap picks sometime. You have to realize that at the time these were coming out, it was not on main stream radio, barely on college radio. Not on MTV. And there were no streaming services. You had to buy the albums.

Hip Hop Jazz 1

01 Buckshot LeFonque - Some Cow Fonque (More Tea, Vicar)

02 US3 - Cantaloop (Flip Fantasia)

03 Ronny Jordan - Bad Brother

04 Buckshot LeFonque - Breakfast@Denny's

05 Candy Dulfer - Sax-A-Go-Go

06 Jazz Warriors - Chameleon

07 Buckshot LeFonque - Here We Go Again

08 Buckshot LeFonque - Try These On

09 MC Solaar - Le Bien, Le Mal

10 Jazzmatazz - Loungin'

11 Outlaw - Kickin' Jazz

12 The Solsonics - Jazz In The Present Tense

13 Digable Planets - Rebirth Of Slick (Cool Like Dat)

14 Stetsasonic - Talkin' All That Jazz

15 Gang Starr - Jazz Thing

RIYL Recommended If You Like Sad Sweet Dreamer

Another RIYL. This time if you like Sweet Sensation's Sad Sweet Dreamer these are my recommended picks. This is one of those bands that you wish they had something more. They kind of had another hit in Purely Coincidence, but it didn't sound like this hit. In fact it kind of sounded like the Sylvers. Just not the best of the Sylvers. But here on this track, they hit is just right. The 21 other tracks on this compilation all spike out from the one song. I'm not sure when I will post another one of these, but if you want to see more, leave a seed song in the comments and I may work on it if it excites me enough. BTW, the font I used in the covers is a cool one called Tom's New Roman. I wish he had more like it.

RIYL Recommended If You Like Sad Sweet Dreamer

01 Gilbert O'Sullivan - Alone Again (Naturally)

02 Vicki Lawrence - The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia

03 Eddie Holman - Hey There Lonely Girl

04 The Four Tops - Ain't No Woman (Like the One I've Got)

05 The Commodores - Sweet Love

06 Sweet Sensation - Sad Sweet Dreamer

07 Stylistics - You'll Never Get to Heaven (If You Break My Heart)

08 Paper Lace - The Night Chicago Died

09 Hot Chocolate - Every 1's a Winner

10 O'Jays - Use Ta Be My Girl

11 Brook Benton - Rainy Night In Georgia

12 Cornelius Brothers & Sister Rose - Too Late To Turn Back Now

13 Dionne Warwick And The Spinners - Then Came You

14 The Three Degrees - When Will I See You Again

15 Tavares - It Only Takes a Minute

16 John Paul Young - Love Is in the Air

17 The Tymes - You Little Trustmaker

18 Looking Glass - Brandy (You're a Fine Girl)

19 The Chi-Lites - Oh Girl

20 Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons - Who Loves You

21 Chi-Lites - Have You Seen Her

22 Lobo - I'd Love You to Want Me

RIYL Recommended If You Like Sharing The Night Together

Another RIYL compilation. I pick the songs that I recommend if you like another song. This time the Baseline song is Dr. Hook Sharing The Night Together. Go back a couple of days and see another RIYL. Or search for RIYL and see the different ones I have posted. Easy to see if you want to check it out further. If you like the baseline song, or band, you will probably like the recommendations. No guarantees, but this isn't a toaster. I think you will like the other songs. Please leave your comments and tell me how I did. Or give me another baseline song to work on.

RIYL Recommended If You Like Sharing The Night Together

01 The Marshall Tucker Band - Can't You See

02 Atlanta Rhythm Section - So Into You

03 Toto - Georgy Porgy

04 Guess Who - These Eyes

05 Spinners - It's A Shame

06 Doobie Brothers - Listen To The Music

07 Little River Band - Lonesome Loser

08 The Turtles - Happy Together

09 Bachman-Turner Overdrive - You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet

10 Starbuck - Moonlight Feels Right

11 Firefall - You Are The Woman

12 Three Dog Night - One

13 Gerry Rafferty - Right Down The Line

14 America - Ventura Highway

15 Jim Croce - Time In A Bottle

16 Steely Dan - Reeling In The Years

17 Grass Roots - Midnight Confessions

18 England Dan Seals And John Ford Coley - It's Sad To Belong

19 Seals & Crofts - Diamond Girl

20 Orleans - Still The One

21 Ambrosia - Holdin' On To Yesterday

22 Dr Hook - Sharing The Night Together

REPOST: What Is The Connection? Paul

Repost for my Birthday: Since my name is the same, I like this connection. All songs with Paul in the title. Mostly. I also have one Pablo and one Paula although the latter is a song with Paul all through the lyrics. Several versions of Pablo Picasso, but I went with the more original version. Hard to dislike the song, however, no matter who does it. John Cale, David Bowie all did good versions, but I like the one from the Repo Man soundtrack by Burning Sensations quite a bit. Probably because I like the movie so much. I think if I was going to pick the very, very best Paul song for me, it would have to be Nina Hagen "I Love Paul" it's just the right sentiment. I did not include Johny Hit And Run Paulene by X, even though I like the song, because it just didn't quite make the criteria for me. Good song though.

What's The Connection? Paul

01 Vince Gill - Billy Paul

02 Little Richard - Poor Boy Paul

03 Beastie Boys - Paul Revere

04 Doobie Brothers - Slippery St. Paul

05 Third Eye Blind - Dao Of St. Paul

06 Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - A Box For Black Paul

07 Willie Nelson - Me And Paul

08 MC Lyte - Lil Paul

09 Annette Funicello - Tall Paul

10 Johnny Cash - One Of These Days I'm Gonna Sit Down And Talk To Paul

11 Paul and Paula - Hey Paula

12 Modern Lovers - Pablo Picasso

13 Johnny Cash - Paul Revere

14 Nina Hagen - I Love Paul

15 Kenny Burrell & John Coltrane - Big Paul

16 NOFX - Eddie, Bruce And Paul

17 Nazz - Hang On Paul

18 Scissor Sisters - Paul McCartney

19 The Avett Brothers - Paul Newman Vs. The Demons

Recommended If You Like Get Closer

I do like these picks. Recommended If You Like or RIYL. It is a fun sort of compilation, but easy for you to skip. If you don't like the main song or the main band, you probably won't like the rest of the songs. It is designed to give you songs that sound similar in feel to the main comparison song/band, whatever. In this case it is Seals & Crofts Get Closer. When I first heard Seals & Crofts I thought it was pleasant enough music, but at the time I was listening to the Isley Brothers and, I'm sorry, they are better. I grew to like Seals & Crofts and this song got me to listen to more stuff like it. Not the same kind of stuff like our last RIYL a few days ago. I hope you like this one. Leave a comment about any choices I might have missed or a RIYL that you would like to hear.

Recommended If You Like Get Closer

01 Seals & Crofts - Get Closer

02 England Dan & John Ford Coley - Nights Are Forever Without You

03 Gordon Lightfoot - Carefree Highway

04 Jefferson Starship - Runaway

05 Randy Vanwarmer - Just When I Needed You Most

06 Hamilton, Joe Frank and Reynolds - Don't Pull Your Love

07 Doobie Brothers - You Belong to Me

08 Firefall - Strange Way

09 Stephen Bishop - On And On

10 Kenny Loggins - This Is It

11 Ambrosia - You're the Only Woman

12 Chicago - Just You 'N' Me

13 Carly Simon - You Belong To Me

14 Walter Egan - Magnet And Steel

15 Bread - Lost Without Your Love

16 Pablo Cruise - Love Will Find A Way

17 Christopher Cross - Never Be The Same

18 Rita Coolidge - We're All Alone

19 Bob Seger - We've Got Tonight

20 Climax Blues Band - I Love You

21 Gino Vannelli - I Just Wanna Stop

22 Paul Davis - I Go Crazy

Fill It Up To The Rim

Most of these songs were on the Paper Moon soundtrack. I had a friend and we saw the movie Paper Moon together and loved the soundtrack. At the time we couldn't afford buying it, so we listened to the album at the library. We made a copy of the soundtrack but realized we had room an the cassette for more songs and added songs that seemed to fit in from our perspective. Eventually I had to own all the songs and I redid the cassette as a CD and now as a pick on this compilation. Any big fan will realize that the timeline of the movie doesn't correspond to the timeline of the soundtrack. I say that makes it inaccurate, but who cares? It still has that feel. At least one  of the songs does have an earlier versions by another artist, and you can see that in the replacement of My Mary: Milton Brown instead of Jimmie Davis. It was called Fill It Up To The Rim because we thought it was great coffee drinking music. And the tag line is from the old Folgers coffee ad. BTW this comp was also at Butterboy! I fixed the cover.

Fill It Up To The Rim

01 Paul Whiteman with Peggy Healy - It’s Only A Paper Moon

02 Ozzie Nelson and His Orchestra - About A Quarter To Nine

03 Leo Reisman with Larry Stewart - (It'll Have To Do) Until The Real Thing Comes Along

04 Dick Powell - Flirtation Walk

05 Bing Crosby - Just One More Chance

06 Jimmie Grier and His Orchestra - One Hour With You

07 Victor Young and the Boswell Sisters - I Found A Million Dollar Baby (In A Five And Ten Cent Store)

08 Ben Selvin with Charles Kaley - Blue Skies

09 Bing Crosby & The Andrews Sisters - Pistol Packin' Mama

10 Benny Goodman - Don't Be That Way

11 Jimmie Grier and His Orchestra - Object of My Affection

12 Hoagy Carmichael - Georgia

13 Paul Whiteman - A Picture of Me Without You

14 Blue Sky Boys - On The Banks Of The Ohio

15 Milton Brown - My Mary

16 Tommy Dorsey - After You've Gone

17 Enric Madriguera - Let’s Have Another Cup O’ Coffee

18 Johnny Hamp with Frank Luther - Sunny Side Up

19 Ted Weems - Piccolo Pete

20 Bing Crosby & The Anderson Sisters - Don't Fence Me In