Doris Day Passes Away At Age 97

I have been temporarily far too busy to post on this here blog thingy lately. I hope to post more soon.

For now, though, I should mark the passing today of the great Doris Day, who passed away today at age 97.  As the loving obits all note, she really had a full, busy life of talent.

I'll save these good tributes for the experts. I'll just mark her passing with this tribute: A video of Doris Day and her famous song Que Sera Sera

Aretha Franklin Honored Carole King In This Beautiful Clip

When Aretha Franklin sang Carole King's "(You Make Me Feel Like)
A Natural Woman" when King was being honored at the Kennedy
Center in 2015, she blew both King and then-president Obama away

I think I posted a similar video of this when it first came out toward the end of 2015, but it's worth a repeat.

The world is still mourning the passing of Aretha Franklin. Back in 2015, Carole King was one of the Kennedy Center honorees.

King wrote the song (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman." As we know, Aretha Franklin turned that into a huge hit that everybody still can't get enough of.

So, as King was being honored, Franklin sang that song. King was besides herself, then-president Obama wiped a tear, and then he and Michelle spent the rest of the evening trying to scrape their jaws off the floor.

As did all of us. Note that the video below may not be available and you'll have to go to YouTube for another version. Although I think this video of Aretha's performance is pretty much a historical, fair use document, CBS keeps taking it down, citing copywright.

But here goes. Take us to church, Aretha. Rest in peace:

Corvette's Prince Tribute Ad Hits The Mark, Respectfully

Chevrolet/Corvette's
tribute to Prince.  

Whenever a famous person like Prince dies, brands capitalize on these events by putting out tribute ads, either on social media like Twitter, and sometimes in print publications.

To me, this is a little tacky. The brands want to pay respects, yes, that's good. But also putting their name out there to take advantage of the death is a little weird.

That said, Chevrolet had a good tribute.

One of Prince's most famous songs was "Little Red Corvette."

You remember the tune: "Little red Corvette! Baby, you're much too fast!"

Chevrolet, maker of Corvette, placed the ad you see in this post. (Click on it to make it bigger and easier to see)

Sometimes less is more when you do something like this. Nice tribute.

Adele's Tribute To Brussels Terrorist Victims A Must See

Adele sang in tribute to Brussels Tuesday evening in London. 

Adele, performing at a concert in London Tuesday, performed one of the loveliest tributes I've seen to an international tragedy.

Bringing up Tuesday's terrorist attack in Brussels, Adele asked the audience to turn on the smart phone torches so that the entire arena lit up with what amounted to thousands of candles.

Then she sang a gorgeous rendition of "Make You Feel My Love."

When the song concluded Adele told the audience, "I don't think I've ever actually been so moved in my life at one of my shows, that was just so beautiful.....Thank you very much for doing that....I think they heard us."

Indeed.

Here's a video of the moment:

 

Grace Potter's Beautiful, Haunting Bowie Tribute

Grace Potter in her music video as she covers David Bowie's
"As The World Falls Down." 

Maybe I've been harping on David Bowie's passing so much, but he was such an inspirational talent that he's been inspiring other talents.  

Case in point: Rocker (and fellow Vermonter!) Grace Potter just released a version of Bowie's "As the World Falls Down" that does Bowie proud.  It's quite ethereal and psychedelic and incredibly beautiful.

H/T to Spin for alerting us to this.

Here's the video to Potter's take on "As the World Falls Down:"

Dream On: Steve Tyler, Aerosmith, Do Great Boston Strong Tribute On Annivesary

I've never been a big Aerosmith fan.

Steve Tyler and Joe Perry of Aerosmith, along with the
Southern California Children's Chorus, pay
tribute to the Boston Marathon bombing victims 

Don't get me wrong, I totally respect the band and lead singer Steve Tyler. But Aerosmith is just not totally my cup of tea.

But their tribute to the Boston Marathon bombings on the one year annivesary of the attack I think increases everybody's fandom, and respect for Aerosmith.

Tyler and Joe Perry of Aerosmith put together a video of their signature song "Dream On" from 1973 as a tribute to the Boston Strong people who were there that day, and everyone that supports them.

It doesn't hurt that they get an assist from the Southern California Children's Chorus with this.

Aerosmith is almost as synonymous to Boston as the Old North Church, Fenway Park, and Faneuil Hall, so it fits that they would do this.

The tribute is done with class and style, in Tyler and Perry's own fashion. So, in the spirit of Boston Strong, here's the excellent video:

Devo Drummer Dies: Wearing A Flower Pot In His Honor

I just heard the news that Alan Myers, the drummer for that very unsual early 1980s band Devo recently died at the age of 58.

Devo is the band probably most famous for the song "Whip It,"

The band Devo recently lost their drummer to cancer.  

Devo was one of those bands that I loved back when I was in high school and college. They, like Talking Heads, Patti Smith and the B-52s, cast me as a bit of a weirdo when everybody except me was listening to Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd and, if you were a teeny bopper, Bay City Rollers or something like that.

I just loved Devo's eccentricity. As you can see in the video below, they appear to be wearing flower pots as hats. That was a bit of a trademark for them.

Even when they did a remake, you knew they'd make it their own. Just check out Devo's version of the Rolling Stone's "Can't Get No Satisfaction" if you want proof.

I looked up the Whip It video and it's insane, of course. Which means I love it. It hasn't gotten old with age.

Especially nice, and a good tribute to Myers, comes at the very end of the "Whip It" video. The mom in the video weighs on his antics:  "Oh, that Alan!"

Here's that Whip It video. It will brighten your day: