As a fan of a wide variety of popular (and not-so-popular) music from the 1950s (and sometimes even earlier) up through the present, one of my bucket list projects for years has been to put together a list of my 100 favorite songs of all time. At some point I decided that, once I got around to figuring that out, I could put it out on a blog, for the infinitesimally small proportion of the Internet world that might be interested. So, here we are. While the Top 100 will be a major focus, I also plan to post on a variety of other musical (and occasionally non-musical) topics, in which you may or may not be interested. (If a particular posting doesn’t ring your bell, you’re only a few clicks away from a dancing cat video on YouTube.)

Saturday, November 4, 2017

Livingston Taylor – AMP, 11/3/2017


Great VIP seats again, center table in front row
 
It’s always tough for a solo performer to pull off a two-hour show while keeping the audience engaged throughout, but Livingston Taylor managed to pull it off last night at AMP, with his songs and stories accompanied only by his work on guitar, piano on several songs in his post-intermission set, and frequently-tapping feet. Although many of the songs he performed were older than I am (most notably “Pick Yourself Up”, “Heart And Soul”, and his standard closing medley of “Merry Old Land Of Oz”/”Over The Rainbow”), he also spotlighted more contemporary songwriters such as Stevie Wonder (the opening “Isn’t She Lovely”) and Laura Nyro (the classic “Sweet Blindness”), as well as such originals as “You Can Take Me Home”, “Life Is Good”, and “Writing A Book” (undoubtedly Taylor Swift’s next move). His love of nicely-tuned song lyrics was evident throughout, as he did a recitation of Oscar Hammerstein II’s lyrics to “I Cain’t Say No” (from Oklahoma!) and spent a few minutes praising the beginning of Lesley Gore’s big hit “It’s My Party”.

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