AccuRadio Song Of The Day-Cynthia Erivo

Artist:Cynthia Erivo

Song:I'm Not That Girl

Album:Wicked: The Soundtrack

British actress Cynthia Erivo is already on her way to being one of the biggest stars on earth. The measuring stick used for this is EGOT meaning the performer has won an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony. Cynthia has won all but an Oscar. And she has several films coming soon. She was born Jan. 8, 1987 in London, England. Her parents are Nigerian immigrants. Her parents separated and her mom worked as a nurse to support Cynthia and her sister. She attended a Catholic girls school and started appearing on TV as a teen. She attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and graduated with a bachelor's degree in acting in 2010. Cynthia started out on TV. Then she started appearing in stage musicals. But the big one was as Celie Harris in the 2013 musical adaptation of The Color Purple. She also appeared in the 2015 Broadway production of The Color Purple and won a Best Actress Tony. Then the Color Purple cast won a Daytime Emmy for an appearance on The Today Show. I was just saying the other day that there are way too many Emmy awards. Then she started doing films. The big one was the 2019 film Harriet where she played abolitionist Harriet Tubman. Cynthia got Best Actress and Best Original Song Oscar nominations. Then she appeared in the 2020 HBO miniseries The Outsider. This was an adaptation of a Stephen King novel. And she started her own production company. Then she played Aretha Franklin in the third season of the National Geographic series Genius. She was nominated for an Emmy. And that brings us to Wicked. Of course both Wicked films were big hits and Cynthia was nominated for another Oscar. The soundtrack album is available as a budget CD. Defying Gravity was a top ten hit in England. So now she has to figure out what she will do next. She appeared in a couple of limited run stage shows. And she released the 2025 album I Forgive You on Verve Records. She recorded this during breaks in the Wicked filming schedule. Cynthia wrote and produced the album with keyboardist Will Wells. The main complaint I have heard about the album is it's too long at 60 minutes and it's not focused. She tries to do too many kinds of music. Well, she's not a musician so what do you expect? As I said at the top, Cynthia has several films in the works. The one that really stood out to me is The Road Home. I think it is currently filming in South Africa and no release date has been set. The film is produced by the French company STUDIOCANAL and directed by Dreamgirls director Bill Condon. The film is about the controversy in South Africa surrounding Paul Simon's 1980 album Graceland. Cynthia will play Miriam "Mama Africa" Makeba. John Legend will play Harry Belafonte. We'll see how that goes. Here's Cynthia Erivo performing I'm Not That Girl in the 2024 film Wicked. 

AccuRadio Song Of The Day-Living Colour

Artist:Living Colour

Song:Cult of Personality

Album:Super Hits

The 1988 single Cult of Personality was a top twenty hit. It was the biggest chart hit for the band Living Colour. It was probably a bigger hit than that as the album Vivid was certified 2XPlatinum. But some radio stations want to avoid controversial records and they wouldn't play it. Living Colour is still around mostly because Cult of Personality is WWE wrestler CM Punk's theme song. The original band split up in 1995. For the most part, Living Colour is a metal band. The main difference between them and other metal bands is they are black. There are other influences but mostly, they are metal. Band leader, guitarist and main songwriter Vernon Reid was born in England but he grew up in New York City and attended New York University. He started out with avant garde jazz drummer Ronald Shannon Jackson's band The Decoding Society from 1980-86. He formed Living Colour in 1984 using the British spelling of "colour". He called it Vernon Reid's Living Colour. He experimented with different musicians and different styles of music including jazz. In 1986, he brought in actor Corey Glover to sing lead, bassist Muzz Skillings and drummer Will Calhoun. They started working on their music performing regularly at the New York club CBGB's. After Reid auditioned for Mick Jagger's album Primitive Cool, Jagger went to see Living Colour at CBGB's and produced two demos. This got Living Colour a deal at Epic Records a lot quicker than if Jagger didn't help them. Living Colour's debut album Vivid was released in May 1988. Things started to pick up when MTV started playing the video for Cult of Personality. The single reached #13 on the Billboard Hot 100 but the album Vivid reached #6 on the Billboard 200 and was certified 2XPlatinum. So the success was because of MTV. The album was produced by Ed Stasium who had worked with The Ramones and Talking Heads. Reid wrote most of the album songs. But Cult of Personality was credited to the entire band. Of course Living Colour's success was a fluke. What if Jagger doesn't get them a record deal? What if MTV doesn't play the video? So their other two albums didn't do that well. Skillings was replaced by Doug Wimbish in 1992. After three albums, Living Colour split up in 1995. This budget comp covers their Epic albums. But you might want to consider buying the remastered version of Vivid. Living Colour first reunited in 2000. They record occasionally and continue to perform. Reid says they will release a new album next year. The main thing that keeps Living Colour relevant today is that WWE wrestler CM Punk (Phil Brooks) uses Cult of Personality as his theme song. He's been using it since his pre-WWE Ring of Honor days. So who pays for the use of Cult of Personality? Of course the WWE pays for it. This is why most WWE themes are produced in house these days. It's a whole lot cheaper but the music is mostly terrible. It's one of several things that WWE fans lament about these days. I stopped watching WWE after this year's Wrestlemania was so bad, I stopped watching cold turkey. And I've watched wrestling since I was a little kid watching with my grandfather. Day 2 was really bad. My favorite wrestlers Asuka and Kairi Sane have gone home to Japan. There are still a couple of wrestlers that I may watch like former MMA fighter Lola Vice and IYO SKY. But the current booking is so bad, I can't watch pro wrestling anymore. Here's the video for Cult of Personality by Living Colour.

AccuRadio Song Of The Day-Carl Carlton

Artist:Carl Carlton

Song:She's a Bad Mama Jama (She's Built, She's Stacked)

Album:Everlasting: The Best of Carl Carlton

R&B singer Carl Carlton is best known for the 1974 top ten hit Everlasting Love. But you may not know that he scored a top five R&B hit with the 1981 single She's a Bad Mama Jama. What the two records have in common is that Carlton had terrible record company problems that killed his career. Despite that, he recorded two big hits though I would guess that many folks are familiar with She's a Bad Mama Jama, they may not know that Carlton recorded it. Of course the funny part is that both records are now owned by the same record company so you can get them on this comp. Carlton was an up and coming singer when he recorded for Back Beat Records in the late 60s. This label was owned by Don Robey who also owned Duke and Peacock. Carlton recorded an album for Back Beat. Then Robey sold everything to ABC Records in 1972. ABC picked up Carlton's contract and the 1974 single Everlasting Love reached #6 on the Billboard Hot 100. Everlasting Love was a cover of Robert Knight's 1967 hit single. What Carlton was concerned about was royalties for his Back Beat album. Rather than go to court, ABC froze Carlton out until his contract expired. That wasn't going to be for a year and a half. Remember Carlton just had a big hit. So he couldn't get a record deal until singer songwriter Leon Haywood threw him a lifeline and got Carlton a record deal with 20th Century Records in 1981. The single She's a Bad Mama Jama reached #2 on the R&B Singles chart and #22 on the Billboard Hot 100. It was also nominated for a Best R&B Vocal Performance, Male Grammy. Of course the song is memorable but I dunno if most folks know who recorded the song. Heywood produced the album, wrote She's a Bad Mama Jama and played keyboards on the album. So did George Duke and James Ingram and Ingram arranged the backup vocals. The problem was that 20th Century closed in 1982. And though Carlton recorded for RCA and Casablanca, his recording career was over in 1986. Both hits are owned by Universal so they are on this Hip-O Select comp. Carlton continued to perform live until he died on Dec. 12, 2025 at age 73. Here's Carl Carlton performing She's a Bad Mama Jama (She's Built, She's Stacked) on Solid Gold 1981. 

AccuRadio Song Of The Day-Natalie MacMaster

Artist:Natalie MacMaster

Song:Catharsis

Album:No Boundaries

Canadian fiddler Natalie MacMaster had chart success in Canada partially because of her looks. But mostly because the CRTC's Canadian Content (CanCon) regulations force broadcasters to play a percentage of CanCon. And they have to pay employees to keep track of it. Natalie was born June 13, 1972 in Troy, Nova Scotia on Cape Breton Island which has a long musical history. So she comes from a musical family including her uncle Buddy MacMaster. She took fiddle lessons with her cousin Ashley MacIsaac. She started performing at age nine. After self releasing a couple of albums, Natalie signed with Rounder Records in the US and Warner Bros. in Canada. Of course Rounder is a roots music label so they know how to sell this kind of music. But in Canada, Warners was counting on CanCon to get Natalie radio play and have her videos played on MuchMusic and CMT. Catharsis is from Natalie's 1997 album No Boundaries. It was her third album on Rounder/Warners. It was released as a single and as you can see, there's a video for the song paid for by VideoFACT which was funded by MuchMusic's parent company. The album was produced by recording engineer Chad Irschick meaning that Natalie produced it. Most of the songs including Catharsis are traditional. The musicians on that song are Ray Parker on keyboards, Michael Francis on guitar, Tom Szczesniak on bass and Brian Leonard on drums. Francis, Szczesniak and Leonard are all session musicians and they play on about half of the album. Guest vocalists include Runrig lead singer Bruce Guthro and Cookie Rankin from The Rankin Family. This album is available as a budget CD. Natalie has won two Juno awards and was named East Coast Music Association Artist of the Year several times. She is a member of the Order of Canada and was inducted into the Canadian Fiddle Hall of Honor in 2023. Natalie married fiddler Donnell Leahy of The Leahy Family in 2002 and they moved to Lakefield, ON which is near Peterborough. They have seven children and they record and tour together. They released a 2023 album on their own label distributed by Linus Entertainment. Here's the video for Catharsis by Natalie MacMaster.

 

AccuRadio Song Of The Day-Celso Fonseca

Artist:Celso Fonseca

Song:Slow Motion Bossa Nova

Album:Juventude/Slow Motion Bossa Nova

Singer songwriter Celso Fonseca has been a significant player in the post Bossa Nova era in Brazil since the 80s. At first he was an accompanist and a songwriter. He started recording as a solo act in the 90s. Slow Motion Bossa Nova from the 2002 album Juventude/Slow Motion Bossa Nova. At the time he was writing a lot of songs with Ronaldo Bastos. That's why Bastos' name appears on the cover despite the fact that he doesn't appear on the album. But he does own the record label Dubas Musica so he's executive producer of the album. Fonseca was born Nov. 16, 1956 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He started playing guitar at age 12. His main influence was Baden Powell. Fonseca joined Gilberto Gil's band in 1981. For the next few years he recorded and toured with Chico Buarque, Milton Nascimento and many others. And he produced Vinicius Cantuaria, Gilberto Gil and others. He recorded his first solo album in 1986. He started writing songs with Bastos in 1983. They wrote so many songs together that it took up three albums including the 2002 album Juventude/Slow Motion Bossa Nova. They wrote all the songs together and Fonseca produced the album. As I said, it is on Bastos' label Dubas Musica with Universal distribution. It's available as a digital download. Slow Motion Bossa Nova is probably Fonseca's best known song. So you should be able to find it on various artists collections of Brazilian music. Fonseca is still around. His 2015 album Like Nice was nominated for three Latin Grammys. That was his final album for Universal. He released the 2021 CD Nossa Musica on Joia Moderna. He still performs live in Brazil. Here's the video for Slow Motion Bossa Nova by Celso Fonseca.

 

AccuRadio Song Of The Day-Melissa Manchester

Artist:Melissa Manchester

Song:Skylark

Album:Too Marvelous for Words: The Songs of Johnny Mercer: A Public Television Special

Of course Johnny Mercer is one of the all time great songwriters. Melissa Manchester's performance of Skylark is from the 1997 PBS TV special Too Marvelous for Words: The Songs of Johnny Mercer. This was released on VHS by MPI Home Video and they also released it on CD. The entire show can be streamed on YouTube. The show was produced and directed by Bob Marty who also produced Victor Borge shows. I think he worked a lot with PBS. The musical direction was by Peter Nero who also appears in the show. Among the performers are Johnny Mathis, Melissa Manchester, Margaret Whiting, The John Pizzarelli Trio and Peter Nero and His Trio. All perform multiple songs in different combinations except for Nero who led the band. The musicians are not identified so I don't know who played the trombone solo. Mercer wrote Skylark with legendary songwriter, pianist and actor Hoagy Carmichael. Mercer wrote the lyrics after his affair with Judy Garland. Carmichael based the melody on a Bix Beiderbecke cornet improvisation Bix Licks. There were plans at the time to turn the novel Young Man with a Horn into a Broadway musical. When that project failed, Carmichael contacted Mercer to write the lyrics. It took a while for Mercer to write the lyrics. Carmichael kept reminding him. He got the title Skylark from a billboard. Of course the lyrics are about Judy Garland. As tended to happen in those days, several artists recorded Skylark. Dinah Shore scored the biggest hit when her 1942 recording reached #5 on the Billboard pop charts. Other charted recordings were by Harry James with Helen Forrest on vocals, Glenn Miller with vocals by Ray Eberle and Bing Crosby. Today Skylark is a jazz standard. Carmichael recorded it on his 1956 album Hoagy Sings Carmichael. Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers recorded it on his 1962 album Caravan featuring Freddie Hubbard on trumpet and Carmen McRae recorded it on her 1958 album Birds of a Feather. Here's Melissa Manchester performing Skylark on the 1997 TV special Too Marvelous for Words. 

AccuRadio Song Of The Day-Martin Briley

Artist:Martin Briley

Song:The Salt in My Tears

Album:The Mercury Years

Occasionally, a record charts because it sounds like a big star. I call it "soundalike". British musician Martin Briley is mainly a studio musician. But in the early 80s, Briley recorded a couple of solo albums and scored a top 40 hit with the 1983 single The Salt in My Tears because it sounded like Phil Collins. It ain't just me. In his review of Briley's 1983 album One Night with a Stranger, Allmusic's William Ruhlmann said that Briley sounded like either Phil Collins or Sting. And that could be why Briley's attempt at a solo career failed. Briley was born Aug. 17, 1949 in London, England. He started playing and writing music when he was ten years old. He formed the band Mandrake and they signed with Parlaphone/EMI. But they only released two singles. Legendary producer George Martin hired Briley to work at his AIR Studio in London and Briley became an in demand session guitarist. Briley joined the progressive rock band Greenslade for two years. They recorded four albums for Warner Bros. and split up in 1976. Then Briley moved to New York and became a session and touring guitarist. The most notable act he toured with was Meat Loaf when the album Bat Out of Hell was hot. Then he signed a solo record deal with Mercury Records. He recorded three albums for Mercury. One Night with a Stranger was the second album in 1983. Briley sang, played guitar and wrote all the songs. Peter Coleman is credited as producer. But he's a recording engineer. So I assume that Briley produced the album too. The Salt in My Tears reached #36 on the Billboard Hot 100 mainly because MTV played the music video featuring actress Marie-Elise Grepne to death. She had recently appeared in the James Bond film Octopussy. Why didn't it chart higher? I think some thought it was a Phil Collins song. And when they found out it wasn't a Phil Collins song, they didn't want to here it anymore. The album One Night with a Stranger is out of print. You can get The Salt of My Tears on this comp which is available as a digital download. After his Mercury albums, Briley returned to songwriting and session work and he still does that today. I don't think he was distinctive enough to be successful as a solo act. The only reason this song charted is MTV liked the video. Here's the video for The Salt in My Tears by Martin Briley.