RUBY, DON'T TAKE YOUR LOVE TO TOWN

KENNY ROGERS

SONGWRITER: MEL TILLIS

COUNTRY: U. S. A.

ALBUM: TEN YEARS OF GOLD

LABEL: UNITED ARTISTS RECORDS

GENRE: COUNTRY

YEAR: 1978

 

           Kenneth Ray Rogers(August 21, 1938– March 20, 2020) was an American singer, songwriter, musician, actor, record producer, and entrepreneur. He was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2013. Rogers was particularly popular with country audiences but also charted more than 420 hit singles across various genres, topping the country and pop album charts for more than 200 individual weeks in the United States alone. He sold more than 100 million records worldwide during his lifetime, making him one of the best-selling music artists of all time. His fame and career spanned multiple genres: jazz, folk, pop, rock, and country. He remade his career and was one of the most successful cross-over artists of all time.

          In the late 1950s, Rogers began his recording career with the Houston-based group the Scholars, who first released "The Poor Little Doggie". After some solo releases, including 1958's "That Crazy Feeling", Rogers then joined a group with the jazz singer Bobby Doyle. In 1966, he became a member of the folk ensemble the New Christy Minstrels, playing double bass and bass guitar as well as singing. In 1967, he and several members of the New Christy Minstrels left to found the group the First Edition, with whom he scored his first major hit, "Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)", a psychedelic rock song which peaked at number five on the Billboard charts. As Rogers took an increased leadership role in the First Edition following the success of 1969's "Ruby, Don't Take Your Love to Town", the band gradually changed styles to a more country feel. The band broke up in 1975–76, and Rogers embarked on a long and successful solo career, which included several successful collaborations, including duets with singers Dottie West, Dolly Parton, and Sheena Easton and a songwriting partnership with Lionel Richie. His signature song, 1978's "The Gambler", was a crossover hit that won him a Grammy Award in 1980 and was selected in 2018 for preservation in the National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress. He developed the Gambler persona into a character for a successful series of television films starting with 1980's Emmy-nominated Kenny Rogers as The Gambler.(…)

          Ten Years of Gold is the fourth studio album by Kenny Rogers issued in 1978.

           As his fourth solo album, Ten Years of Gold is a collection of ten songs spanning the last decade. The album features solo re-recordings of hits Kenny had with The First Edition. These new versions were recorded at Jack Clement Recording Studio "B" using Kenny Rogers' road band "Bloodline" (listed below). Side 1 of the LP contained the all re-recordings. Though Kenny had already scored three other solo hits, "Lucille", "Daytime Friends", "While The Feeling's Good" and "Love Lifted Me" are all that represent his recent work. The last track is the First Edition's original hit recording of "Today I Started Loving You Again", which was featured on the First Edition's 1972 album Back Roads; Kenny still had the rights on this song, therefore this version is present. Oddly the First Edition are not credited on the album jacket, even individually.

          There were two different versions of the cover art. One had Kenny's name in white next to the title and a mock pasted photo on the back. On the second pressing the photo is retouched to look like it is in a gold frame.

You've painted up your lips

Rolled and curled your tinted hair

 

Ruby, are you contemplating

Going out somewhere?

The shadow on the wall

Tells me the sun is going down

 

Oh, Ruby

Don't take your love to town

 

It wasn't me

That started that old crazy Asian war

But I was proud to go

And do my patriotic chore

And yes, it's true that

I'm not the man I used to be

Oh, Ruby, I still need some company

 

It's hard to love a man

Whose legs are bent and paralyzed

And the wants and the needs of a woman your age

Ruby, I realized

But it won't be long

I've heard them say until I'm not around

Oh, Ruby

Don't take your love to town

 

She's leaving now 'cause

I just heard the slamming of the door

The way I know I've heard it slam 100 times before

And if I could move I'd get my gun

And put her in the ground

 

Oh, Ruby

Don't take your love to town

Oh, Ruby, for God's sake, turn around.

HOMELESS

PAUL SIMON

SONGWRITERS: JOSEPH

COUNTRY: U. S. A.

ALBUM: GRACELAND

LABEL: WARNER RECORDS

GENRE: POP

YEAR: 1986

 

             Paul Frederic Simon(born October 13, 1941) is an American musician, singer, songwriter, and actor whose career has spanned six decades. He is one of the most acclaimed songwriters in popular music.

Simon was born in Newark, New Jersey, and grew up in the borough of Queens in New York City. He began performing with his schoolfriend Art Garfunkel in 1956 when they were still in their early teens. After limited success, the pair reunited after an electrified version of their song "The Sound of Silence" became a hit in 1966. Simon & Garfunkel recorded five albums together featuring songs mostly written by Simon, including the hits "Mrs. Robinson", "America", "Bridge over Troubled Water", and "The Boxer".

          After Simon & Garfunkel split in 1970, Simon recorded three acclaimed albums over the following five years, all of which charted in the top 5 on the Billboard 200. His 1972 self-titled album contained the hit songs "Mother and Child Reunion" and "Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard". The 1975 album Still Crazy After All These Years, which featured guest vocals from Garfunkel, was his first number-one solo album, and featured the number 1 hit single "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover", among other top-40 songs such as "Still Crazy After All These Years", "Gone at Last", and "My Little Town".

       Simon reunited with Garfunkel for a performance in New York Central Park in 1981, drawing half a million spectators, followed by a world tour with Garfunkel. After a career slump, Simon released Graceland, an album inspired by South African township music, which sold 14 million copies worldwide and remains his most popular and acclaimed solo work. A number of hit singles were released from the album, including "You Can Call Me Al", "The Boy in the Bubble", and "Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes". It won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year in 1987.

           Simon continued to tour throughout the 1990s, wrote a Broadway musical, The Capeman, and recorded a companion album, Songs from The Capeman which was released in 1997. His 2000 album You're the One was nominated again for Album of the Year honors. He followed that album up with several years of touring, including another reunion tour with Garfunkel, and released Surprise, his last album of the decade, in 2006. In 2016 he released Stranger to Stranger, which debuted at number 3 on the Billboard Album Chart and number 1 the UK Albums Chart, and marked his greatest commercial and critical success in thirty years. His most recent album is 2018's In the Blue Light, which contains re-arrangements of lesser-known songs from his prior albums.

          Simon has earned sixteen Grammy Awards for his solo and collaborative work, including three for Album of the Year (Bridge Over Troubled Water, Still Crazy After All These Years, and Graceland), and a Lifetime Achievement Award. He is a two-time inductee into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: first in 1990 as a member of Simon & Garfunkel and again in 2001 for his solo career. In 2006 he was selected as one of the "100 People Who Shaped the World" by Time. In 2011, Rolling Stone named Simon one of the 100 greatest guitarists, and in 2015 he was ranked eighth in their list of the 100 Greatest Songwriters of All Time. Simon was the first recipient of the Library of Congress's Gershwin Prize for Popular Song in 2007.

             Graceland is the seventh solo studio album by American singer-songwriter Paul Simon. It was produced by Simon, engineered by Roy Halee and released on August 25, 1986, by Warner Bros. Records.

In the early 1980s, Simon's relationship with his former musical partner Art Garfunkel had deteriorated, his marriage to actress Carrie Fisher had collapsed, and his previous record, Hearts and Bones(1983), had been a commercial failure. In 1984, after a period of depression, Simon became fascinated by a bootleg cassette of mbaqanga, South African street music. He and Halee visited Johannesburg, where they spent two weeks recording with South African musicians. Further recordings were held in the United States, with guest musicians including Linda Ronstadt, the Everly Brothers, Louisiana band Good Rockin' Dopsie and the Twisters, and Mexican-American band Los Lobos.

        Graceland features an eclectic mixture of genres, including pop, rock, a cappella, zydeco, isicathamiya and mbaqanga. Simon wrote songs inspired by the recordings made in Johannesburg, collaborating with African and American artists. He received criticism for breaking the cultural boycott of South Africa because of its policy of apartheid. Following its completion, Simon toured alongside South African musicians, performing their music and songs from Graceland.

        Graceland became Simon's most successful studio album and his highest-charting album in over a decade; it is estimated to have sold up to 16 million copies worldwide. It was lauded by critics, won the 1987 Grammy for Album of the Year, and is frequently cited as one of the best albums of all time. In 2006, it was added to the United States' National Recording Registry as "culturally, historically, or aesthetically important".

Emaweni webaba

Silale maweni

Webaba silale maweni

Webaba silale maweni

Webaba silale maweni

Webaba silale maweni

Webaba silale maweni

Webaba silale maweni

Webaba silale maweni

Webaba silale maweni

Webaba silale maweni

 

Homeless, homeless

Moonlight sleeping on a midnight lake

Homeless, homeless

Moonlight sleeping on a midnight lake

We are homeless, we are homeless

The moonlight sleeping on a midnight lake

And we are homeless, homeless, homeless

The moonlight sleeping on a midnight lake

 

Zio yami, zio yami, nhliziyo yami

Nhliziyo yami amakhaza asengi bulele

Nhliziyo yami, nhliziyo yami

Nhliziyo yami, angibulele amakhaza

Nhliziyo yami, nhliziyo yami

Nhliziyo yami somandla angibulele mama

Zio yami, nhliziyo yami

Nhliziyo yami, nhliziyo yami

 

Too loo loo, too loo loo

Too loo loo loo loo loo loo loo loo loo

Too loo loo, too loo loo

Too loo loo loo loo loo loo loo loo loo

 

Strong wind destroy our home

Many dead, tonight it could be you

Strong wind, strong wind

Many dead, tonight it could be you

 

And we are homeless, homeless

Moonlight sleeping on a midnight lake

Homeless, homeless

Moonlight sleeping on a midnight lake

Homeless, homeless

Moonlight sleeping on a midnight lake

 

Somebody say ih hih ih hih ih

Somebody sing hello, hello, hello

Somebody say ih hih ih hih ih

Somebody cry why, why, why?

Somebody say ih hih ih hih ih

Somebody sing hello, hello, hello

Somebody say ih hih ih hih ih

Somebody cry why, why, why?

Somebody say ih hih ih hih ih

 

Yitho omanqoba (ih hih ih hih ih) yitho omanqoba

Esanqoba lonke ilizwe

(ih hih ih hih ih) Yitho omanqoba (ih hih ih hih ih)

Esanqoba phakathi e England

Yitho omanqoba

Esanqoba phakathi e London

Yitho omanqoba

Esanqoba phakathi e England

 

Somebody say ih hih ih hih ih

Somebody sing hello, hello, hello

Somebody say ih hih ih hih ih

Somebody cry why, why, why?

Somebody say ih hih ih hih ih

Somebody sing hello, hello, hello

Somebody say ih hih ih hih ih

Somebody cry why, why, why?

 

Kuluman

Kulumani, Kulumani sizwe

Singenze njani

Baya jabula abasi thanda yo

Ho!

YESTERME YESTERYOU YESTERDAY

STEVIE WONDER

SONGWRITERS: BRYAN WELLS & RONALD N. MILLER

COUNTRY: U. S. A.

ALBUM: MY CHERIE AMOUR

LABEL: TAMLA RECORDS

GENRE: SOUL MUSIC

YEAR: 1969

 

        Stevland Hardaway Morris(born May 13, 1950), known professionally as Stevie Wonder, is an American singer, songwriter, musician and record producer. Wonder is credited as a pioneer and influence by musicians across a range of genres that includes rhythm and blues, pop, soul, gospel, funk, and jazz. A virtual one-man band, his use of synthesizers and other electronic musical instruments during the 1970s reshaped the conventions of R&B. He also helped drive the genre into the album era, crafting his LPs as cohesive, consistent socially conscious statements with complex compositions.

          Blind since shortly after his birth, Wonder was a child prodigy who signed with Motown's Tamla label at the age of 11, where he was given the professional name Little Stevie Wonder. In 1963, the single "Fingertips" was a number-one hit on the Billboard Hot 100 when Wonder was 13, making him the youngest artist ever to top the chart. Wonder's critical success was at its peak in the 1970s. His "classic period" began in 1972 with the releases of Music of My Mind and Talking Book, the latter featuring "Superstition", which is one of the most distinctive and famous examples of the sound of the Hohner Clavinet keyboard. His works Innervisions(1973), Fulfillingness' First Finale(1974) and Songs in the Key of Life(1976) all won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year, making him the tied-record holder for the most Album of the Year wins, with three. He is also the only artist to have won the award with three consecutive album releases.

         His "classic period", which culminated in 1976, was marked by his funky keyboard style, personal control of production, and use of integrated series of songs to make concept albums. In 1979, Wonder used Computer Music Inc.'s early music sampler, the Melodian, on his soundtrack album Stevie Wonder's Journey Through "The Secret Life of Plants". This was his first digital recording and one of the earliest popular albums to use the technology, which Wonder used for all subsequent recordings.

    Wonder is one of the world's best-selling musicians, with sales of over 100 million records worldwide. He has won 25 Grammy Awards(the most by a solo artist) and one Academy Award(Best Original Song, for the 1984 film The Woman in Red). Wonder has been inducted into the Rhythm and Blues Music Hall of Fame, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Songwriters Hall of Fame. He is also noted for his work as an activist for political causes, including his 1980 campaign to make Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday a federal holiday in the U.S. In 2009, he was named a United Nations Messenger of Peace, and in 2014, he was honored with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

          My Cherie Amour is an album by American singer-songwriter Stevie Wonder released on the Tamla (Motown) label on August 29, 1969, his eleventh studio album. The album yielded a couple of Top 10 hits in the Billboard Hot 100, including the title track(#4) and "Yester-Me, Yester-You, Yesterday" (#7), as well as Wonder's takes on the 1967 hit "Light My Fire" by The Doors, "Hello, Young Lovers" from The King and I and "The Shadow of Your Smile" from the 1965 film The Sandpiper. It reached #12 in the UK album chart and #34 in the Billboard 200 album charts.

Yester-me

Yester-you

Yesterday

Ooh, ooh

 

What happened to

The world we knew

When we would dream and scheme

And while the time away

Yester-me

Yester-you

Yesterday

Ooh, ooh

 

Mm, yeah

Where did it go? (Where did it go?)

That yester-glow

When we could feel

The wheel of life turn our way

Yester-me

Yester-you

Yesterday

Ooh, ooh

 

I had a dream so did you

Life was warm and love was true

Two kids who followed all the rules

Yester-fools and now

Now it seems (now it seems)

Those yester-dreams

Were just a cruel

And foolish game we used to play

Yester-me

Yester-you

Yesterday

Ooh, ooh

 

When I recall what we had

I feel lost

I feel sad

With nothing but

The memory of yester-love

And now, now it seems (now it seems)

Those yester-dreams

Were just a cruel

And foolish game we had to play

Yester-me

Yester-you

Yesterday

Mm, mm, yeah (ooh, ooh)

 

Yester-me

Yester-you

Yesterday

Ooh, ooh

Sing it with me

 

Yester-me

Yester-you

Yesterday

 

Ooh, ooh

One more time

Yester-me.

SAY YOU SAY ME

LIONEL RICHIE

SONGWRITER: WILLIE NELSON

COUNTRY: U. S. A.

ALBUM: DANCING ON THE CEILING

LABEL: MOTOWN RECORDS

GENRE: R & B

YEAR: 1986

 

           Lionel Brockman Richie Jr.(born June 20, 1949) is an American singer, songwriter, musician and record producer. He rose to fame in the 1970s as a songwriter and the co-lead singer of funk band the Commodores; writing and recording the hit singles "Easy", "Sail On", "Three Times a Lady" and "Still", with the group before his departure. In 1980, he wrote and produced the US Billboard Hot 100 number one single "Lady" for Kenny Rogers. The following year, he wrote and produced the single "Endless Love", which he recorded as a duet with Diana Ross; it remains among the top 20 bestselling singles of all time, and the biggest career hit for both artists. In 1982, he officially launched his solo career with the album Lionel Richie, which sold over four million copies and spawned the singles "You Are" , "My Love", and the number one single "Truly".

          His second album, Can't Slow Down(1983), reached number one on the US Billboard 200 chart and sold over 20 million copies worldwide, becoming one of the best-selling albums of all time; and spawned the number one singles "All Night Long (All Night)" and "Hello". He then co-wrote the 1985 charity single "We Are the World" with Michael Jackson, which sold over 20 million copies. His third album, Dancing on the Ceiling(1986), spawned the number one single "Say You, Say Me" (from the 1985 film White Nights) and the Nº 2 hit title track. From 1986 to 1996, Richie took a break from recording; he has since then released seven studio albums. In 2018, he joined the singing competition American Idol, to serve as a judge.

           During his solo career, Richie became one of the most successful balladeers of the 1980s, and has sold over 100 million records worldwide, making him one of the world's best-selling artists of all time. He has won four Grammy Awards, including Song of the Year for "We Are the World", and Album of the Year for Can't Slow Down. "Say You, Say Me" won both the Academy Award and the Golden Globe award for best original song from a film. In 2016, Richie received the Songwriters Hall of Fame's highest honor, the Johnny Mercer Award. In 2022, he will be inducted into the Black Music & Entertainment Walk of Fame.

          Dancing on the Ceiling is the third solo studio album by American singer Lionel Richie, released on July 15, 1986. The album was originally to be titled Say You, Say Me, after the Academy Award-winning track of the same name, but it was renamed to a different track's title after Richie rewrote several songs on the album. The album was released to generally positive reviews and it made Nº 1 on the US Billboard 200 chart, selling 4 million copies. The album was Richie’s second with session guitarist Carlos Rios. Following this album's release, Richie went on a long hiatus, not releasing an album of entirely new material for another ten years.

Say you, say me say it for always

That's the way it should be

Say you, say me say it together

Naturally

 

I had a dream I had an awesome dream

People in the park playing games in the dark

And what they played was a masquerade

And from behind of walls of doubt a voice was crying out

 

Say you, say me it for always

That's the way it should be

Say you, say me say it together

Naturally

 

As we go down life's lonesome highway

Seems the hardest thing to do is to find a friend or two

That helping hand

Some one who understands

That when you feel you've lost your way

You've got some one there to say I'll show you

 

Say you, say me it for always

That's the way it should be

Say you, say me say it together

Naturally

 

So you think you know the answers, Oh no

Well the whole world has got you dancing

That's right, I'm telling you

It's time to start believing oh yes

Believing who you are

You are a shining star

 

Say you, say me it for always

Oh that's the way it should be

Say you, say me say it together

Naturally

Say it together, naturally.