passings
Whitney Houston, singer, August 9, 1963-February 11, 2012
What takes your breath away isn’t the way she pulls out all the stops—lots of singers do that. It’s how she pulls back (2:00-2:35, 3:00-3:20, etc.).
“A Quiet Place,” TV show (with mother Cissy Houston looking on), 1980s
***
As a girl she sang at her family’s church.
New Hope Baptist Church, Newark, New Jersey, 1970s
(First clip originally posted 7/25/10, second 1/18/12.)
two takes
“I’m Your Puppet” (D. Penn & S. Oldham)
James & Bobby Purify, TV show, 1966
***
Dan Penn (guitar, vocals) & Spooner Oldham (keyboards), TV show, 1999
***
This is one of the sadder, and stranger, love songs I know. “I’ll do funny things if you want me to”: someone who’ll “do funny things” on command but isn’t, as far as we can tell, otherwise funny is someone who’s desperate to please. And that, to me, is what this song’s about more than anything else—desperation. This is a guy who’ll “do anything.” He’s “hanging on a string.”
music clip of the day 