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.)

Tuesday, January 18, 2022

Joe Simon

https://www.billboard.com/music/rb-hip-hop/joe-simon-dead- 1235010357/

 

I guess I’m not alone being late on this one – as far as I can tell, nothing has appeared in the Washington Post, New York Times, or Rolling Stone either. Bill Dahl put it well in his AllMusic.com biography: “His plaintive baritone equally conversant with R&B and country phrasing, Joe Simon married the two genres with startling success during the late '60s, adapting Nashville material to the soul sound and repeatedly coming up a winner.” While Simon’s only top 10 hit on the Hot 100 was a rather unfortunate foray into disco, he did have million-sellers with “The Chokin’ Kind” (written by country tunesmith Harlan Howard) and two later collaborations with Gamble and Huff: “The Power Of Love” and the classic “Drowning In The Sea Of Love”. He was a much bigger success on the R&B charts, with 28 singles hitting the top 20 between 1965 and 1979.

 

Favorite songs:

(You Keep Me) Hangin’ On

Drowning In The Sea Of Love

San Francisco Is A Lonely Town

Looking Back

A Teenager’s Prayer

 

The Chokin’ Kind

Message From Maria

My Special Prayer

The Power Of Love

Nine Pound Steel

 

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