SOTW: The Bee Gees and Lo Borges

It’s spring (sort of). This means a few things: the city shares the same case of the sniffles. Partly out of the shock of the newness of everything, morale takes a melancholic dip. Many feel more extraterrestrial than usual. That pile of papers that needs grading—a deafening presence in the house--feels like the hardest. thing. to. get to. ever. More than anything else, spring means that we all need take a long hard look at the damage wreaked by the winter uglies. Cue up some Duice and commence the extreme pedicures and waxing marathons...



With spring comes pain, but also pleasure. For one thing, being able to go for a long, joyous run outside means goodbye to microbio-infested gymnasiums. I’d like to offer up some songs to celebrate current wellness of heart, mind, body and employment (bulla!). Although the feel of Summer Breeze steadily approaches, I’d like to offer two mellow gold jams for the transitional here and now (my cusping of Gemini makes me hear double). These were chosen by the glow of the Forsythias:

Song #1: The Bee Gees, “You Stepped into My Life”
The older I get, the better prepared I am to think carefully about the Bee Gee’s sound. This is a pleasant yet raunchy little ditty to help celebrate the birth new friendships and romances that might be making you, breathlessly, “oh so happy.” Enjoy the gentle and just-right evanescence of Barry Gibb’s guitar and the serious glee of Robin Gibb’s teasing falsetto. Tune into the song’s conga-presence and consider its refraction with Willie Cólon and Ruben Bladés epic “Plástico” (no, it’s not important which song came first—and yes, us ladies-who-like-our-things have been out rightly reappropriating the latter for some time now).


While you're here, why not check out Melba Moore's kick ass version?



Lo Borges, “Club Da Esquina No. 2”
I’m thinking much these days about certain countercultures, particularly those generated out of Brasil for (at least) the past 400 years. In scribblelife, I’ve been trying to transcribe my heavy sonic visitation of 1970s Cuba. But as I write, I find myself drawn to some soundways from Brasil (generally), Minas Gerais (specifically). My interest was really given cause after I was gifted a recording of Pablo Milanes’s stunning 1984 concert in Rio. There’s much more I’d like to say about all this, probably in a book someday. In my dreams and without protocol schmooz, however, I’d be tapped to do a special radio program on it. It’s kinda like another dream of mine that has the folks over at 33 1/3 calling me up and asking me to contribute a volume on Donna Summer’s Bad Girls.

If there’s anyone out there who’s reading, please check out Lo Borges. Equatorial, perhaps his most famous song, is Club de Esquina's preemption of Chicago’s heavy-petting rite-of-passage “If You Leave Me Now.” Its lilt allows you to imagine what it could have been like to slow dance at a house party in the Belo Horizonte of 1972.




For the second song of the week, however, I’d like to pair the Bee Gee’s with his “Club Da Esquina No. 2.” There is not only more falsetto to be heard here, but you can also get a sense Borges’s place in the trajectory of badass Brasilian vocal interpreters.



Cuidense. (ATV)