Monday, May 13, 2019

Dante Rusciolelli YTunes Shuffle Song Nuggets

Dante The Comic was on Last Comic Standing, BET, and the co-owner of Golden Artists Entertainment in Los Angeles. He travels all over the country performing and even abroad on USO tours for the troops!
Here are the #Fave5 songs that are important in Dante's life and a few nuggets about the music and artists that are so important to him.

ALONE AGAIN (NATURALLY)---Gilbert O'Sullivan
The most depressing song ever written, about being left at the altar, and his parents dying. People LOVED this song. This was Gilbert's only #1 in America. It was the second best selling record of 1972, only behind Don McLean's “American Pie.”


THE WAY YOU LOOK TONIGHT---Frank Sinatra
The was originally written for the movie “Swing Time” in 1936 with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. Fred sings it to Ginger in a scene where he is playing the piano and she is in another room washing her hair.


IN THE AIR TONIGHT---Phil Collins
Phil offered this song to Genesis, but the band rejected it because it was “too simple.” This was his first hit as a solo artist. He wrote this about going through a divorce with his first wife. By the time the album “Face Value” was released in 1981, Collins was already dating his second wife.


IF I WAS YOUR GIRLFRIEND---Prince
This was Prince's alter ego, Camille. He only sang three songs as her, “If I Was Your Girlfriend,” “Housequake,” and “Strange Relationship.” His engineer, Susan Rogers said recording this song was one of those rare times when Prince asked her what she thought.




LITTLE DRUMMER BOY---Pentatonix


This was a Czech song eventually translated to English in 1941. It was “Carol Of The Drum.” It was recorded as “Christmas Is A-Comin' until the Harry Simeone Chorale got a hold of it in 1958. Pentatonix did their version in 2013.

Monday, May 6, 2019

Rebekah Kochan YTunes Shuffle Song Nuggets

Rebekah Kochan is the co-owner and manager of Golden Artists Entertainment in Los Angeles. She has starred in over a dozen horror films and IMDB has chosen her as one of the top 100 scream queens of all time! Rebekah is the most famous actress in gay comedy films, thanks mainly in part to her role as Tiffany in all 5 Eating Out movies. I

Rebekah was also a writer for Joan Rivers on the E! TV show Fashion Police. As a stand-up comic, Rebekah is a power house. She performs all over the globe 40 weeks a year to sold out crowds and makes frequent stops to perform for the US troops.

These are the songs she picked and here is some more details about the artists:


YOU OUGHTA KNOW—Alanis Morissette
Alanis recorded the vocals in one take. Producer Glen Ballard remembers it was 11pm at night and sang it once. Everyone was exhausted. But that was it. She didn't want to change anything. Dave Navarro and Flea from Red Hot Chili Peppers played on this.






AGE OF AQUARIUS---The 5th Dimension

This was originally written for the musical “HAIR.” You can hear this in movies like Forrest Gump, The 40 Year Old Virgin, Apollo 13, and a new age folk singer, Mike Doughty used the chorus in his song “Fort Hood”


NEW YORK, NEW YORK---Frank Sinatra
This song was originally debuted by Liza Minella. This is the most popular version, and the last hit for Frank Sinatra when the birth of rock n'roll took over the airwaves. At 64 years old, he reached #32 on the Top40 charts on in 1980. AND was nominated for a grammy that year.


STRONGER---Britney Spears
There is a reference to her first hit in the song “My lonliness ain't killing me no more.” The video was a departure from that “candy-colored” teenage pop videos she was making, and this launched her as a “diva” according to director Joseph Kahn. Spears came to him and said “i would like to dance in a char, and drive in a car and break up with my boyfriend.” And all he could think is “how do I make that cool?”



SISTER SUFFRAGETTE---Mary Poppins
Glynis Johns thought she was being offered the title role of Mary Poppins when she was signed to play “Mrs. Banks.” While the song writers, and Glynis, were sitting in the studio lot office, Walt softened the embarrassement of the misunderstanding by exclaiming, how the songwriters wrote a “terrific new song” which they wrote just for her. He took her to lunch and the songwriters, The Sherman Brothers, had changed the lyrics of “Practically Perfect” to fit Glynis “Sister Suffragette.”