Tune Tag #120 with Thea Wood of Herizon Music: Sonny & Cher, Maxine Weldon, Rita Coolidge, Nancy Wilson, Ella Fitzgerald, Karen Carpenter, Delaney & Bonnie, Al Jarreau
She's an incredible #MusicStack supporter, and an impressive writer/interviewer! She's making her first appearance on Tune Tag, and we couldn't be happier to have Thea grace our stage! Classy?✔😁👍
Well, somebody’s got the Tune Tag zoomies!
Welcome, Thea Wood of Herizon Music: Newsletter & Podcast, to your debut Tune Tag!
Thea is the Herizon Music Podcast & Newsletter founder. She’s a Recording Academy Member, the TelePresent Programming Director, and a frequent Public Speaker. Plus, she proudly advocates for gender equity in music.
🎶🪑🪑Last week, we enjoyed the company of Steve Bradley of Musical Chairs:
Next week, mark your calendar for the arrival of Joe of One Life for his Tune Tag debut! Trust me: He’s no ordinary Joe!
Thea’s song #1 sent to Brad: Sonny & Cher, “I Got You Babe,” 1965
Thea’s rationale: Watching TV’s The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour (and later the Sonny & Cher Show), was a weekly religious ceremony for me as a young girl. I adopted Cher’s style by age five:
Dark straight hair down to my bum, sunglasses, earrings, and handbags were all part of my kindergarten look. “I Got You Babe” was one of the first songs I ever memorized and can still sing by heart in the car. When I saw Cher perform it for the first time, I wept big, sloppy, salty tears of joy. Fun fact: Cher is the only artist to achieve a #1 hit on Billboard charts in every decade since the 1960s. That’s 7 decades!
Brad’s song #1 sent to Thea: Maxine Weldon, “It Ain’t Me Babe,” 1971
Thea’s response: In 1971, Maxine Weldon released a 45 with “It Ain’t Me Babe” and “Like A Rolling Stone” on the flip side. Bob Dylan composed both.
Sonny wrote the “I Got You Babe” duet as an opposing point of view to Dylan’s song. Where Dylan (pictured above with the duo in 1965) cynically tells a hopeful woman that he won’t give her the relationship or things she desires, Cher and Bono eagerly profess their unwavering commitment to each other through what others see as rose-colored glasses. As with most young love stories, their marriage eventually ended when Cher left Sonny after years of infidelity and financial trappings.
Brad’s rationale: You may think, Sonny, that “you got me, babe,” but, as Bob Dylan would say, “It Ain’t Me Babe.” There’s quite an all-star studio team backing Maxine (click here)!
According to a 2015 ABCNews article, Cher had initial doubts about “I Got You Babe”:
“Sonny woke me up in the middle of the night to come in where the piano was, in the living room, and sing it. And I didn’t like it and just said, ‘OK, I’ll sing it and then I’m going back to bed.’ So I was never a very good barometer,” she added.
Thea’s song #2: Nancy Wilson, “A Song For You,” Live performance, 1987
Brad’s response: All I’ve got is a cover of a ‘60s male singer/songwriter (Dylan) followed by a cover of a ‘60s male singer/songwriter (Leon Russell)!
Thea’s rationale: Maxine Weldon (above) and Nancy Wilson both covered “A Song For You.” Wilson (1937-2018) performed one of her few live recorded versions at the 1987 Newport Jazz Festival (shown above). I realize that Ellen from Endwell and Brad featured Wilson in their “Ladies Night” Tune Tag #90 with Mike Reid and Allen Shamblin’s “I Can’t Make You Love Me” (a hit for Bonnie Raitt in 1991), linked just below.
[Nancy] Wilson deserves more recognition given her contributions to modern music, number of albums, awards, etc.—Thea Wood
Back to Brad: Per Thea’s request, some more Nancy, from 3 weeks away from my 18th birthday, late February 1973: A two-song set on NBC-TV’s The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.
As a Tuesday, and a school night for this then-high school senior, it’s likely I saw this that very night! Our Houston home’s living room TV set (that’s what we called it…or, simply, “set”) was on virtually 18 hours a day! And, with Dad being a huge jazz fan (with many Nancy Wilson Capitol Records LPs in his massive collection!), he probably had it on.
Here, she swings brassily through Sam Cooke’s “Almost in Your Arms” (1958), as Doc Severinsen and the Tonight Show Orchestra nearly blow her off the stage! They bring it down a bit with her arrangement on Marvin Gaye’s little-heard “We Can Make It Baby,” which is a story in and of itself!
According to Discogs, You’re The Man [above, which includes “We Can Make It Baby”] is a posthumous studio album by Marvin Gaye, originally intended to be released in 1972 as the follow-up to [1971’s landmark] ‘What’s Going On’.
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