Category: music

Recommended book: “The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love”

August 26, 2026 • 10:15 am

My two-person book club, in which a friend and I alternately choose a book for both of us to read, recently finished an excellent novel, The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love, writtten by Oscar Hijuelos and published in 1989.  Wikipedia puts it in the genre of “magical realism,” but I wouldn’t call it that, as the “magic” consists only of the main characters having fantasies that might have occurred but didn’t.

At any rate, it’s a longie—407 pages in my library version—but a goodie, recognized with a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1990. The story contains at least one huge spoiler that I won’t describe, but it’s a spoiler that divides the book into two parts, and that bipartite structure helps make the book so good.

“Mambo Kings” is the name of a Cuban-music band organized by two brothers, Cesar and Nestor Castillo, who immigrated from Cuba in 1949, hoping to achieve musical fame in America. They find both living in America and finding gigs tough, and one of the best parts of the book is the vivid description of problems faced and lives lived by Cuban immigrants. As my book-pal emailed me, one of these aspects was

” . . . . the fact that the book never left the world of the Cuban Americans or a made any concessions except indirectly to events exterior that world.”

There are five dominant elements in the lives of Cesar and Nestor: music (always mambo, rumba, and other Hispanic stuff), love, sex (often but not always separable), booze (a solvent for the brothers’ troubles), and memories.  I don’t know how Hijuelos learned so much about Cuban music, but it permeates the book, with dozens of musicians named and recognized. Hijuelos, the son of two Cuban immigrants, must have either been inundated with the music of his parents, or learned it for the book—or both. You too will learn a lot, and you’ll surely have heard of at least one Cuban musician who appears repeatedly in the tale: Desi Arnaz of the “I Love Lucy” television show. (I take this back: you have to be of a certain age to know him and the show.) In the book, Arnaz invites Cesar and Nestor to play on his show, which makes them briefly famous, and then befriends the brothers for life.

Nestor is hopelessly and fruitlessly in love with a woman he left behind in Cuba, while Cesar, justifiably proud of his pinga, beds an army of women but never finds real love, perhaps impeded by the memory of his beloved mother left behind in Cuba.  And both the brothers are ridden with memories of their youth on the island, so you’ll also learn quite a bit about the lower rungs of Cuban life (they grew up in a poor farming family). The sex is frequent and graphic, perhaps surprisingly so for a Pulitzer winner, but it’s integral to the fruitless search for love. My book pal added this:

“despite all the sex (and there’s a LOT of it), it’s at its heart a book about the love between two brothers.”

It’s a colorful, fast-paced, wonderfully inventive and well-written story, and well deserved its acclaim. In the NY Times review of the book in 1989, Michiko Kakutani, a notoriously harsh critic, lauds Mambo Kings.  A few excerpts to give an opinion besides mine:

Indeed, Oscar Hijuelos’s remarkable new novel is another kind of American story – an immigrant story of lost opportunities and squandered hopes. While it dwells in bawdy detail on Cesar’s sexual escapades, while it portrays the musical world of the 50’s in bright, primary colors, the novel is essentially elegiac in tone -a Chekhovian lament for a life of missed connections and misplaced dreams.

. . . With his sympathetic, yet uncompromising portrait of Cesar, Mr. Hijuelos has created a character who will continue to inhabit readers’ imaginations long after they have finished this book; and with his sharply sketched supporting cast of characters he has also succeeded in fashioning a colorful fictional world. Nestor’s wistful wife, Delores, who dreams of bettering herself through books; Vanna, Cesar’s flamboyant mistress, who eventually settles down to life in Co-op City with a postal worker; his shady business partner, Perez, who has made a fortune through prostitution and drug-dealing, and his sensible friend Manny, who has saved all his money to buy a small bodega – together, these friends, lovers and family members give us a portrait of a tight-knit immigrant community struggling to survive in the promised land of New York.

By turns street-smart and lyrical, impassioned and reflective, ”The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love” is a rich and provocative book – a moving portrait of a man, his family, a community and a time.

If Kakutani liked it, that’s another reason to read it.  “Rich” is an adjective that is absolutely accurate, while the sometimes graphic descriptions of sex are no longer so “provocative.”

Click below to see the Amazon site. A paperback is only ten bucks.

Dolly Parton died

August 25, 2026 • 2:00 pm

OMG! I heard the other day that Dolly Parton had canceled yet another show because of unexplained health concerns, but now she’s dead—at 80.  I don’t know anybody who isn’t fond of her; she was a great musician and, by all accounts, a lovely person. From the AP:

Dolly Parton, the country music icon whose soaring vibrato vocals, poignant songwriting and sparkling costumes defined her rise from a log cabin in the Tennessee mountains to the height of stardom and acclaim, has died. She was 80 years old.

Known for her curvy physique, massive blonde wigs and skin-tight outfits that served her self-deprecating wit, she was among the most beloved personalities in music and beyond — the rare celebrity whose appeal transcended generations, geography and politics.

She wrote hundreds of songs, including classics like “Jolene,” “Coat of Many Colors” and “I Will Always Love You,” that totaled more than 100 million worldwide sales and more than 1 billion online streams. Parton, who plucked bejeweled banjos, guitar and dulcimers with her long fingernails during performances, was a generous philanthropist and successful businesswoman whose projects included a theme park in the Smoky Mountain foothills near her birthplace.

The cause of death was not released, though some articles mention “accumulating health problems.”

As a tribute, I’ll post two of my favorite Dolly Parton songs released a few years apart. This one was apparently written for her mentor Porter Wagoner when she left his show. It’s from 1973.

“Here You Come Again” was written by Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, and released by Parton in 1977.

RIP Dolly.

A stream of consciousness: The decline of the Broadway musical

August 16, 2026 • 10:00 am

Yes, I can hear you thinking, “Here goes Professor Ceiling Cat again arguing that popular music reached its apogee in his youth and has gone downhill ever since.”

Well, you’re right. I do think that, but I think the same thing for all the arts save photography, literature and film. The decline of the arts, in my view, holds for painting, classical music, and poetry.

Here I’ll maintain that the Broadway musical is an example of this decline. Let me be explicit about what I’m saying: although musicals may have gotten more sophisticated with time (viz., “Hamilton”), the songs in musicals have gotten worse in recent days, having reached their peak between the early 1940s and the early 1960s. So I’m talking about the songs in plays, not the quality of the stories in or intricacies of those songs.

I realized this when I came across the song below, which I see as one of only three great Broadway-musical songs in the last fifty years. It is, of course, “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina,” from the musical “Evita,” written Andrew Lloyd Webber (tune) and Tim Rice (lyrics; the musical is completely sung).  The song had a somewhat bumpy genesis, but, as Wikipedia reports,

Rice and Lloyd Webber’s research showed that Eva had not in reality delivered any major oration on the day of her husband Juan Perón’s inauguration ceremony, but not long after becoming Argentina’s new First Lady, she started making highly emotional speeches, the intensity of which they wanted to capture with “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina”. The song was composed to appear at the opening and near the end of the show, initially as the spirit of the dead Eva exhorting the people of Argentina not to mourn her, and finally during Eva’s speech from the balcony of Casa Rosada.

The original was sung by Julie Covington on a “concept album” issued in 1976 (her version here), by Patti LuPone in the 1979 Broadway play (her version here) and by Madonna in the 1996 film version (her rendition here). None of these versions comes close to that of Karen Carpenter, which was suggested for me by YouTube. Covington’s version is too high and too light, and LuPone’s lacks lyrical force (LuPone was a belter, which is why she snagged so many Broadway roles). Madonna’s is the best of the so-so lot, but in my view lacks emotion.

This version by Karen Carpenter, who along with Barbra Streisand is one of the two great female singers of our time, is virtually unknown. I’m a huge Karen Carpenter fan, but I’d never heard this until the YouTube bot spat it out:

The song is beautiful, with several parts, including a speech, and, as far as I know, is something that Evita herself would have though, as it accurately reflects her life and her goals. I highly recommend the biography Evita: The Real Life of Eva Perón, by Nicholas Fraser and Marysa Navarro, It’s easy to become mesmerized by Eva’s short life—she died at 33 of cervical cancer—regardless of whether you think she was beneficial or injurious for Argentina (I hold the former view). But don’t get me started on Eva; all I can say is that I know of no other political figure save Margaret Thatcher who was so polarizing, but the attachment or dislike of Eva continues strongly, while most people have forgotten Thatcher. To see why, read Evita’s biography. 

Here’s Evita’s final speech in 1951 from the Casa Rosada; she was already dying when she gave it:

There are two other songs from musicals in recent times that I think are great: “Send in the clowns” (by Stephen Sondheim from the 1973 play “A little night music”), and “All I ask of you” (by Andrew Lloyd Webber, Charles Hart and Richard Stilgoe, from the 1986 play “The Phantom of the Opera”). See below for Babs’s versions:

And that’s it for recent times. I can’t think of another Broadway song that combines words and (especially) music in ways like the three songs above. And believe me, I’ve listened to “popular” Broadway songs of recent days, and have been disappointed. Have a listen, for example, to the much-touted song “My Shot” from “Hamilton” (here). It is heavily influenced by rap: good words and a good story but set to a totally lame tune. Overall, it’s dreck: it doesn’t work as a song. Have you heard anybody humming or singing it lately?

But I’ll stop here about recent musicals; if you know of fantastic songs from Broadway musicals appearing after 1980, by all means describe and defend them below.

Now I get to tout my favorites: the earlier musicals that have memorable songs. I give them in no particular order save when they came to mind. I’ll link to the musicals and list some of my favorite songs from them, linking to the best. I claim that no modern musical comes close to these in musical quality:

Brigadoon, by Lerner and Loewe (1947). This great musical is all but forgotten. The original cast album is far superior to the 1954 film that starred Gene Kelly. Great songs (i’ve highlighted YouTube versions from the original cast):

I’ll Go Home with Bonnie Jean
Come to Me, Bend to Me
There But For You Go I
From this Day On  (After time travel, the lovers part, apparently to be separated forever. Such a beautiful song.)

 Oklahoma! by Rodgers and Hammerstein (1943) Great songs:

Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’
I Cain’t Say No
Many a New Day
People Will Say We’re in Love
Pore Jud Is Daid

My Fair Lady by Lerner and Loewe (1956).  Many great songs:

Wouldn’t It Be Loverly?
With a Little Bit of Luck
I’m an Ordinary Man
The Rain in Spain
I Could Have Danced All Night
On the Street Where You Live
Just You Wait
Get Me to the Church on Time
I’ve Grown Accustomed to Her Face

Camelot by Lerner and Loewe (1960). Again, many great songs:

I Wonder What the King Is Doing Tonight
Camelot
C’est Moi
The Lusty Month of May
If Ever I Would Leave You
What Do the Simple Folk Do?
I Loved You Once In Silence

South Pacific by Rodgers and Hammerstein (1949)

Some Enchanted Evening
I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair
I’m in Love with a Wonderful Guy
Younger than Springtime
You’ve Got to Be Carefully Taught (a bold denunciation for its time about the teaching of racism)

West Side Story by Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim (1957)

Maria
Tonight
Gee, Officer Krupke
I Feel Pretty
Somewhere (I’ve put up Barbra Streisand’s live version as there’s nothing comparable to it. The preliminary music starts about 16 seconds in). 

Show Boat by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein (1927)

Ol’ Man River
Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man

And I may have forgotten one or two, as I’m working from memory here.

Now some of these musicals came out when I was too young for them to have been part of my life, except that my parents had most of them on albums and I listened to them. Since none of my contemporaries listened to them, I will argue that I like them because of their quality, not because they were in the air when was I was growing up. I will further argue that I love jazz (up to and including Coltrane) despite not having heard a lick of it until I was in my forties. I love jazz because much of the stuff up to Coltrane was great, not because it was part of my youth.

I’ll end with two great songs that came out more recently than those above, as well as an earlier song recycled into a movie. Both are renditions by Barbra Streisand, for who else could do them justice?

First, “Send in the clowns” from “A Little Night Music” by Stephen Sondheim (1973):

Second “All I ask of you” (by Andrew Lloyd Webber, Charles Hart and Richard Stilgoe, from the 1986 play “The Phantom of the Opera”. This song gives me the shivers.

The song below, “My Man,” didn’t originate in a Broadway musical, but as a 1920 French song, “Mon Homme”,  by Maurice Yvain, Jacques-Charles and Albert Willemetz. Comedian, actor, and singer Fanny Brice (1891-1951) popularized the English version; which became one of her hallmark numbers. Brice’s version came out in 1921, and later appeared in the eponymous 1928 talkie (that version is here).

But the hallmark version, and a comsummate piece of both acting and singing is (again) Barbra Streisand’s version in the 1958 film “Funny Girl” (“My Man” did not appear in the earlier stage verssions). In the movie, Streisand sings it when she has to go onstage immediately after having broken up with the gambler Nicky Arnstein in her dressing room. That accounts for the slow and tearful beginning you’ll see below.  Eventually it segues into a fantastic ending, which is why I’m posting it here.

So be it; those are my views and have at me, maties.  I just realized that everybody mentioned in this video, including all the songwriters, Fanny Brice, and Barbra Streisand, were Jewish. The sole exception is Karen Carpenter and a few people like Andrew Lloyd Webber. So there: you just wouldn’t have classic Broadway without the Jews. It must have been a conspiracy to indoctrinate people and infect them with earworms. Joking aside, it’s amazing that, given their low percentage in the American population, the predominance of great musicals were written by Jews. I have no idea why.

“Wild Rose” with Jessie Buckley

July 13, 2026 • 9:00 am

One of the finest new movies I’ve seen in the last decade or so was “Hamnet” (2025), about Shakespeare’s relationship with his family and his writing and production of “Hamlet”.  But Will himself makes very little appearance in the film, as the story is driven by a mesmerizing performance from Jessie Buckley as Agnes Hathaway, Shakespeare’s wife, who lives through the death of their 11-year-old son Hamnet. While Agnes abides in Stratford, Shakespeare goes off to London to write and produce his plays.

I won’t give much of a spoiler, but I will say that the ending involves Agnes’s unannounced trip to London to see the first production of “Hamlet.”  The most wonderful part is the last ten minutes of the film, which focuses almost solely on Buckley’s face as she realizes that the play is based on her late son.  It is a tour de force of acting done only through facial expression, and it’s mesmerizing, moving rapidly back and forth between grief and elation. When I saw that in the theater, through tears, I thought immediately, “This woman is going to win an Oscar.” And so she did: Buckley took home the 2025 Oscar for Best Actress.

If you haven’t seen “Hamnet,” do so immediately. A few people here haven’t liked it, perhaps because it has a touch of magical realism, but I found it fantastic in both senses. Further, it’s one of those movies just as good as the book that inspired it, the eponymous novel by Maggie O’Farrell (2020).  Two other pairs of great movies made from great books are “The Remains of the Day” (1993 movie based on 1989 book) and “Never Let Me Go” (2010 film based on a 2005 novel). I have a weakness for Ishiguro, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature.

In case you haven’t seen the movie “Hamnet”—nor read the book—here’s the trailer. There is nowhere I can find that whole last crucial scene with Buckley, but this is what’s on YouTube. And the bits of that last scene shown below still make me tear up.

I digress, but today I’d like to recommend a movie brought to my attention by my nephew Steven, who knows of my admiration for Buckley and shares it.  He knows far more about movies than I, watches tons of them, has great taste, is paid to write about them, and calls Buckley, whom he interviewed, “the finest actress of her generation”.

I didn’t know anything about Buckley’s oeuvre, but Steven told me I needed to watch an earlier movie of hers, “Wild Rose,” released in 2018. It couldn’t be more different from “Hamnet.” Here Buckley plays Rose-Lynn, a Glaswegian (with the proper and appealing accent) who’s just been released after a year in jail for having tossed a packet of heroin over the jail fence from the outside. Her dream is to become a country singer, and her dream destination is Nashville. She’s a potty-mouthed single mom with two kids, depending heavily on her mother to take care of them.  Her mother is wonderfully played by Julie Walters, and her employer, for whom she cleans house, by Sophie Ok0nedo, of whom I hadn’t heard but was delighted to see onscreen. Walters is famous, and Okonedo should be. Her background is great:

Okonedo was born on 11 August 1968 in London, the daughter of Joan (née Allman), a Jewish Pilates teacher who was born in the East End of London, and Henry Okonedo (1939–2009), a British Nigerian who worked for the government. Okonedo’s maternal grandparents, who spoke Yiddish, were from families of Russian-Jewish and Polish-Jewish origin. Okonedo was raised in her mother’s Jewish faith.

“Wild Rose” shows Rose-Lynn’s ups and downs as she fights for her dream, and I won’t spoil it save to say that Buckley puts on another bravura and mesmerizing performance. I bet almost no reader has seen it, and it’s surely not widely known in America. Buckley does all her own country singing, and she’s excellent (see below). Steven tells me that the movie’s final song, ““Glasgow (No Place Like Home)”, was written by Mary Steenburgen. Steenburgen, who herself won Best Supporting Actress in “Melvin and Howard”, came to her second career as a songwriter at 47, when after a minor operation on her arm she came out of general anesthesia with her head suddenly flooded with tunes!

I digress again.  If you can see “Wild Rose,” do so. Steven tells me that if you become a Jessie Buckley acolyte, two other “essential” films are “Beast” (2017) and “The Lost Daughter” (2021), which according to Wikipedia “received a four-minute standing ovation from Venice Film Festival attendees in the Sala Grande.”

Here’s the trailer for “Wild Rose”:

One final digression, and I’ll quote my nephew:

Another tidbit about [Buckley] is that she first broke through on a U.K. talent show whose winner got to play Nancy in a West End revival of Oliver! Jessie finished second despite having the support of Andrew Lloyd Webber, who was one of the judges. Here she is, at 18 years old, singing a song from Oliver! (She sang about a dozen other songs throughout the run of the show, all viewable on YouTube.)

Rolling Stone’s “Greatest Songs of All Time”

June 10, 2026 • 11:30 am

I came upon this list while lost in the depths of Wikipedia; it’s an entry for “Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Songs of All Time,” a list that has been revised several times. And of course I had to read the article (which gives only the top ten assessed at various times) and comment.

Here’s how it was made:

“The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time” is a recurring song ranking compiled by the American magazine Rolling Stone. It is based on weighted votes from selected musicians, critics, and industry figures. The first list was published in December 2004 in a special issue of the magazine, issue number 963, a year after the magazine published its list of “The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time“. In 2010, Rolling Stone published a revised edition, drawing on the original and a later survey of songs released up until the early 2000s.[2]

Another updated edition of the list was published in 2021, with more than half the entries not having appeared on either of the two previous editions; it was based on a new survey and did not factor in the surveys conducted for the previous lists. The 2021 list was based on a poll of more than 250 artists, musicians, producers, critics, journalists, and industry figures. They each sent in a ranked list of their top 50 songs, and Rolling Stone tabulated the results.[3] In 2024, a revised version of the list was published, with the addition of songs from the 2020s.

For some reason they’ve combined the 2004 with the 2010 revision, and also the 2021 and 2024 revisions. Here are the top ten songs from the two lists:

Well of course I have my opinion, which is subjective, but I’ll give it anyway.

On the first list, if you’re going to mention a Dylan song as #1, “Like a Rolling Stone” is a good choice. However, in my view the best rock song in history was “Layla”, minus the slow piano part. Right behind it is the Beatles’ “A Day in the Life.” Neither of these songs are on either list. I’m not a big Rolling Stones fan, but many are, so I won’t comment on “Satisfaction”.  “Imagine” is a very good song, but there are many Beatles songs I like better. I’ve mentioned one but there’s “Yesterday,” “Blackbird,” the medley on the second side of “Abbey Road,” and so on. Of all of Marvin Gaye’s songs, I’d put “What’s Going On” on the list, as it is, but if you’re talking about soul songs, there are many better, especially “A Change is Gonna Come” by Sam Cooke, which I see as the greatest soul song of all time.  But if you aren’t wedded to political songs, I think “Ooo Baby Baby” is better than “What’s Going On,” though it’s simpler. And then you get into the great soul songs like “Try a Little Tenderness” (which I prefer over “Dock of the Bay”), “Ask the Lonely”, “I Was Made to Love Her” (or, in the Wonder genre, “Isn’t She Lovely”), “Since I Lost My Baby,” and so on.

Aretha’s “Respect” is a great song, but is it the fifth best (popular) song ever recorded? You tell me. In fact, I prefer her version of the Carole King song “You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman” (mind you, I haven’t looked at the rest of the list; I’m judging only the top ten).

The Beach Boys’ “Good Vibrations” is an excellent song, but the placement here is a clunker: clearly their best song is “God Only Knows”, and its omission is a scandal. It’s their best song and clearly better than “Good Vibrations.”  Paul McCartney judged “God Only Knows” as one of the best songs of all time, and he didn’t mention “Good Vibrations”.  Chuck Berry was a real innovator, and belongs on the list, but I like “Maybelline” better than “Johnny B. Good”. Again, remember that this is a matter of taste.

As for the Beatles, yes, “Hey Jude” is a great song, but I can think of many Beatles songs that should rank higher, and have named three above.  Let me add “In My Life” to make it an even four.

I have listened to Nirvana’s “Smells like Teen Spirit” many times, trying to find out what so many people see in it.  I see little of value, but many people like Nirvana’s style. At any rate, my list would not include that song at all.  And for crying out loud, how could they pass up Ray Charles’s “Georgia On My Mind,” a sad and heartbreaking ballad, in favor of “What’d I Say”? Oy gewalt!

I have little to say about the second list save the necessary inclusion of “A Change is Gonna Come” by Sam Cooke (listen to it here.) I see it as not only the best soul song, but the best civil rights song with the possible exception of “Blowin’ in the Wind.” Public Enemy’s song, along with those of Outkast and Missy Elliott, are not worthy of mention in the top 200, much less the top ten.  And I’d replace the Fleetwood Mac song with “Rhiannon” or (my favorite) “Landslide”.  All in all, both lists seem to me deficient, though they have flashes of good taste.

A few more things from the article:

It is, as Karen Blixen might have said “fit and decorous” that the Beatles have nearly twice as many songs as any other group or artist. And although “Are You Experienced” is a world-class album, the Beatles’ “Revolver” (to my mind their best album, has at least five songs that should be on the list.  To each their own.

Finally, here are the songs on the 2004 list given by decade, proving that my teenage and college years encompassed the best rock and pop music (the numbers vary by list,  but on all the lists the Sixties and Seventies lead the pack for having the best songs. I conclude that, yes, my adolescence and young manhood happened to occur when the best music was being made, so it’s not just that we all think the best music is the music made during our youth.

Rick Beato’s top 40 albums of all time: my take

May 27, 2026 • 11:15 am

I simply can’t bear to write anything about war or Trump today, though doubtlessly something related will pop up when I write the news for tomorrow’s Hili post. But until then I want to keep it lighthearted. The Great Duck Egress still weighs heavy on me.

It’s sad that I discovered Rick Beato so late in my life, as I generally share his taste in music, though I remain largely stuck in music of the Sixties through the early Seventies, while he’s much more open to newer music. However, his education and ear make him a great educator, and since I’ve watched his videos I’ve become a lot more attentive in listening to music, especially in understanding what  makes my favorite songs my favorite songs. His analyses of “what makes this song great” are my favorites.

In this video Beato lists what he sees at the top 40 “greatest sounding albums of all time,” and by that he means that all the songs on the album are good—but not only good but that sound good.  In other words, I think he’s choosing albums that show musicality throughout—that stimulate both the ear and the emotions.

I confess that I don’t know about a third of the albums he mentions, and I don’t share his opinion about many of the ones I do know.  Below I’ve put the 12 albums that I have heard and which I think deserve consideration for the list.  But many better albums are missing. For example, he gives the Beatles’ “Revolver” an honorable mention, but wouldn’t any of the Beatles albums after “Rubber Soul” be better music than Sufjean Stevens or Seal, good as they are? Apparently Mr Beato wants a variety of artists.

Note that the albums I list are not identical to the songs that Beato plays to exemplify the album, but, as he says, “Any of the songs from these albums are phenomenally great songs.” I am not sure I agree, though I do agree that his exemplar songs are great.

I list below the albums that I both know of and agree are excellent albums, but I would not say they belong on a list of best-sounding albums. Where is Dylan’s “Highway 61 Revisited”?  And Joni Mitchell’s “Blue” and “For the Roses” are, to me, at least as “musical” as “Court and Spark.”  “Aja” is a dubious choice for Steely Dan; I prefer “Can’t Buy a Thrill” or especially “Katy Lied.” But of course if you included the Beatles or others of that quality, the list would be heavily weighted with just a few artists.

My opinions are of course subjective, and everyone will see omissions on Beato’s list, or inclusions that don’t merit mention. That said, here is where I agree with Beato: these albnums are great as wholes—but not the best albums of all time, not by a long shot.

#35:  Bonnie Raitt, “Luck of the Draw”

#32: Tears for Fears, “Song from the Big Chair”.

#29  Sufjean Stevens, “Jacksonville”

#28  Sarah McLaughlin, “Fumbling towards Ecstasy”

#27  Chicago, “Greatest Hits”

#16  The Rolling Stones, “Let it Bleed”

#9   Seal, Seal

Here’s where I started agreeing more with Beato:

#6  The Beach Boys,”Pet Sounds”

#4 Steely Dan, “Aja”

#3   Stevie Wonder “Songs in the Key of Life”

#2  Joni Mitchell, “Court and Spark”

#1   John Coltrane, Jonny Hartman “John Coltane and Johnny Hartman”, which Beato describes as “Probably the most beautifully recorded record ever. “

Honorable Mention (there are several): one is the Beatles “Revolver”

I was delighted to see Coltrane and Hartman nab the top spot, and it’s one of my favorite jazz albums. To me, it is the greatest jazz album of modern times (by that I mean albums released after 1955).  But Coltrane/Hartman is jazz, not rock, pop, or folk like the others, and I’m not sure why Beato put it on the list. If you’re going to include jazz in the list of all-time best albums, well, you’re playing a whole new ballgame.

The entire Coltrane/Hartman album in its original incarnation is on YouTube, and I’ve put it below so you can have the pleasure of listening to it. It’s only 31 minutes long, so you have time to hear it today.  It’s the album I would give people who weren’t familiar with jazz to ease them into the genre, and I gave it to several women I fancied as a nuptial gift: the musical equivalent of a spider proffering to his swain a silk-wrapped fly.

Anyway, here’s Beato’s list. Don’t confuse his exemplar songs with the quality of the album itself; Beato is touting the album but selling it with a snippet of one of its songs.

Here’s the entire Coltrane/Hartman album. Coltrane is at his best, not too out there to put off newbies, but soft and ballad-y. Most of all his renditions blend perfectly with the smoky voice of Johnny Hartman, an underrated singer. (Hartman died at 60 of lung cancer, and I’m sure his voice reflected many cigarettes.)

Joni!

May 20, 2026 • 1:30 pm

Here’s an entire BBC concert by Joni Mitchell, filmed in September, 1970. I’ve always thought that BBC concerts were the best, as they will always live and without accompaniment.  This one is 48 minutes long, and she had long career after this with some great albums (“Blue,” “For the Roses” and “Court and Spark”).

I have nothing to add to this music save to say that I think she’s the greatest combination of singer, songwriter, and instrumentalist of our time, and like most boys my age (I was 21), I was hopelessly in love with her. James Taylor, who also had a BBC concert that same year, rivals her on the male side for the trio of talents, but Joni has the overall edge.

Oh, and some of my favorite songs here are “Chelsea Morning” (at the start), “My Old Man” (16:47), “Woodstock” (25:10), “All I Want” (31:00, on the dulcimer), “All I Want” (31:45), “California” (36:45), and of course “Both Sides Now” (44:25)

Can you imagine being in the audience and hearing these songs for the first time?

The first comment is ineffably poignant: