Out and Back

So that's what it's called

Anyone who has ever been to a circus or a carnival is probably familiar with a certain piece of music.  It's a jaunty-yet-slightly-eerie song that relies heavily on the chromatic scale, and it was even worked into the melody of a Three Dog Night Song, The Show Must Go On.  The other night, as my husband and I were driving home from Greenville, we both started humming it and that of course led to the discovery that neither one of us knew anything about this weird little tune other than its melody.

When I was in college, I played Deep Sea Edna in production of Len Jenkin's stream-of-consciousness play, Dark Ride.  In our production, the opening lines, "Listen, lady. If he's old enough to enjoy the ride, he's old enough to need a ticket," were followed by a slowed-down, creepy calliope version of that same tune.  As I said before, it's a tune that anyone who has ever been to the circus will recognize.

The next morning, I set about searching for some information on the piece, and I was rewarded much faster than I thought I would be.  Turns out the name of it is Entrance of the Gladiators, and it was composed in 1897 as a military march by Julius Fucik, a Czech composer.  In the circus world, it's known as Thunder and Blazes, and the majority of the armies it accompanies nowadays seem to be armies of clowns.

Here's a link to the tune, if you still can't bring it up in your mind.  I guarantee you'll know it when you hear it, though, and you'll be able to tell all your friends the name of "that circus march" the next time it comes up in conversation.  You'll be a hit at parties.

This is quite possibly the most sublime thing ever

My favorite band singing one of my favorite songs... this made my night tonight.

Jeff Buckley

This morning, nearly an hour after the alarm clock went off, I was still in bed.  I was trying to drag my still-partially-on-west-coast-time butt out of said bed, and my husband even came in after feeding the cats and brewing the coffee to help nudge me toward verticality.  Like most mornings, I had the radio on to NPR and was sleepily listening to Morning Edition.

Just when I was finally about to kick the covers off and stagger out of bed, Renee Montagne started talking about a singer I remembered from my college days named Jeff Buckley.  I hadn't heard his name in years but I remembered his wonderful music.  In college, my friend Eric made me a mix tape of songs and put a Buckley track on there.  (Eric had eclectic taste in music and could be counted on for awesome mix tapes.)  It seems that not long after I learned of his music, I learned that Jeff Buckley had died... he went swimming one May evening in a tributary of the Mississippi River and drowned.  That was in 1997; in fact, the NPR story about him this morning acknowledged that today was the tenth anniversary of his death.

I spent the rest of the morning thinking about my life ten years ago and listening to Jeff Buckley for the first time in about as many years.  I had forgotten that he'd done a wonderful cover of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah or that by listening to Last Goodbye I could be 21 years old again.  His music is stunning, visceral even.

The one album he released when he was alive, Grace, is available on iTunes, along with a bunch of posthumous releases.  You can check out the NPR story about him here.

It's only bossa nova but I like it

So my brother sent me this email today in which he confessed that he had no Rolling Stones in his music collection and asked me to make him a compilation.  I started thinking about the Stones tracks I would include and began hunting through my music collection.  I told my husband what I was doing, and he offhandedly inquired if there were any remixes of the Rolling Stones that I knew of.  I'm only aware of some remixes of I'm Free (that tune that's been co-opted by Chase for their TV ads) and Sympathy for the Devil, but I was curious so I started digging around.

And I found this.

Yes, electro-bossa remixes of the Rolling Stones.  Some of the tracks were just hilarious (especially because the vocalist on many of the songs had clearly learned the lyrics phonetically.  Anyone want to blow a "fif-tamp fuse," for instance?)  A couple of them were decent, though... my husband especially liked the interpretation of Paint it Black.

Yes, Bossa 'N Stones was mildly entertaining, but I think I'll stick with the originals.

This guy's something else

I was up ridiculously early on Saturday morning, so I turned on VH1 in order to have some ambient background noise as I sipped my coffee.  In the midst of all the commercials and promos for the stupid reality shows that have overrun what used to be the music channels, there was a video by this guy, and needless to say, it got my attention.  His name is James Morrison and the song was You Give Me Something.  I immediately downloaded it from iTunes and have been listening to it a lot... Morrison reminds me a little of Stevie Wonder with something else thrown in.  He's not quite blue-eyed soul but he's not a straight-up "rock" musician, either.  Anyway, I love the song.  You can catch the video yourself on his web site if you're curious.

I love the line, "I have never brought you flowers/I can't work out what they mean."  It reminds me of someone.

A little fierceness for a Saturday morning

Check out this fun clip of Fergie and Charlotte Church singing Dolly Parton's "9 to 5" on Charlotte's chat show.  It's fierce!

(And yes, I know the noun form of "fierce" is "ferocity," not "fierceness," but "fierceness" works so much better for these ladies.)

Love ya, Fergie-Ferg!

Jeanne's Holiday Music Mix, 2006 Edition

Here's my personal holiday playlist for 2006.  Hope you enjoy!

Cool Yule - Bette Midler
River - Peter Mulvey
This Christmas - Donny Hathaway
The Man With The Bag - Jane Monheit
Bethlehem, PA - Logan Daniels
All I Want For Christmas Is You - Mariah Carey
It's The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year - Johnny Mathis
O Holy Night - Clay Aiken
Dominick The Donkey - Lou Monte
I Want A Hippopotamus For Christmas - Gayla Peevey
Grown-Up Christmas List - Michael Buble
Happy Xmas (War Is Over) - The Fray
Baby It's Cold Outside - Carmen McRae & Sammy Davis, Jr.
Christmastime Is Here - Vince Guaraldi Trio
We Need A Little Christmas - Johnny Mathis
The Christmas Song - Jo Dee Messina
Auld Lang Syne - Lou Rawls

Who needs friends who never show?

Yesterday, the inane but undeniably catchy Bananarama tune, "I Heard a Rumour" got stuck in my head.  I don't know why, but it did.  As far as I'm concerned, the best remedy for a song stuck on infinite replay in my head is to actually get hold of it and listen to it a few times in order to purge it from my brain.  (It's counterintuitive, but it works.)  So I turned to iTunes, as I normally do in such situations, but to my dismay I discovered that iTunes doesn't have the early Bananarama catalog.  (Wow.... "early Bananarama catalog."  There's three words I never thought I would string together.)  Anyway, all they had was their later stuff and a million dance remixes of said later stuff.  The classics, such as "Rumor," "Venus," "Love in the First Degree," and "Cruel Summer" were nowhere to be found.  Frustration ensued.

My husband was at the dining room table, studying for his statistics final, and I groaned to him that I couldn't find "that damn Bananarama song" on iTunes.  He just looked at me with a bewildered expression.  I braced myself for judgement... my husband is a music snob, but he was also a wave-o in high school so I thought he might not judge my sudden renewed interest in Bananarama (a new-wave English girl group from the 80s) too harshly.

But he just regarded me silently, and finally I couldn't take it anymore.

"What?" I said, "Is it weird that I like Bananarama?"

He shrugged.  "Well, it's better than liking getting rammed by bananas."

I think stats has fried his brain.

Saturday morning playlist

I've been up since before 6 a.m., which I suppose is weird because I went out with some friends last night and had a few drinks and was still feeling buzzy when I went to bed.  I woke up craving a bacon, egg & cheese bagel from Dunkin' Donuts, so I put on my sweats and headed out first thing.  It still felt cool outside and there weren't many people out on the roads, even considering it's the start of a holiday weekend.  Here's what I listened to in the car:

Break Down Here - Julie Roberts
Radar Love - Golden Earring
I Wasn't Kidding - Angie Stone
Do I Ever Cross Your Mind - Ray Charles & Bonnie Raitt
Be Without You - Mary J. Blige

This song is in my head

Stephen Fearing's Wailing Wall will not leave my head tonight.

The colors of this room never change
The fragile friends that come and go
And it's harder to reveal
So we shut our eyes and steal again
From what we know
I wish I could let it go

'Cause you are my wailing wall
My endless fascination
The voice of inspiration in an empty hall
You are my wailing wall
When the nights that never end
Twist in closer to the bend
Where the lonely fall....

iPope

According to the Catholic News Service, Pope Benedict XVI was recently given a 2 gigabyte iPod Nano as a gift by a group of Vatican Radio employees.

I have a picture in my mind of Pope Benedict rockin' out to some phat tunes in the corridors and gardens of Vatican City.  Can't you just imagine him getting down to 50 Cent or the Rolling Stones?

Maybe this signifies the end of Papal bulls and the start of Papal podcasts.

Go Benedict, it's ya birthday... we gon' party like it's ya birthday......

Five for Friday #3

Five songs for a Friday morning in February....

1. If I Was Your Woman/Walk on By - Alicia Keys
2. Boogie Shoes - KC and the Sunshine Band
3. When God-Fearin' Women Get The Blues - Martina McBride
4. I Want Candy - Bow Wow Wow
5. Rip Her to Shreds - Blondie

Monday Music Mambo on Tuesday

BlogdriveInsanity's Monday Music Mambo for this week was too fun to pass up, so I'm doing it on a Tuesday.  Here it is:

1. A song by a Beatle: Here Comes The Sun

2. A song featuring piano as the main instrument: Silent All These Years - Tori Amos

3. A song with a woman's name in the title: Melissa - Allman Brothers

4. A song with a man's name in the title: Joey - Concrete Blonde

5. A song about money: For the Love of Money - The O'Jays

6. A song with weather in the title: It's Raining Men - The Weather Girls

7. A song with parentheses in the title: (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction - The Rolling Stones

8. A song made by a punk band: Blitzkrieg Bop - The Ramones

9. A song with the word "song" in the title: I Write the Songs - Barry Manilow

10. A song you love so much you have to stop and listen whenever you hear it: Beast of Burden - The Rolling Stones

Five for Friday #2

Five more songs for a Friday morning:

Very Special - Debra Laws
Don't Think Twice - Susan Tedeschi
Dirty Little Secret - The All-American Rejects
Another Kind of Green - John Mayer Trio
Come To Me Right Away Baby - Earl Hooker

The Morning Mix

I look forward to Saturday mornings because there's a show called the Morning Mix on WDIY, our local NPR station.  It's hosted by Van Whitmore, a guy who sounds like Barry White when he talks.  He' s a delight to wake up to, as are the tunes he plays -- lots of old school R&B mixed with plenty of new hits... on any given Saturday, I'll hear Mary J. Blige followed by Chaka Khan and the Four Tops.  At Christmastime, he played Donny Hathaway's "This Christmas" and other soulful holiday tunes.  It is a fantastic show, and it always starts my Saturdays off on a high note.

Right now, my iPod is in a heavy R&B mood... I am channeling Teena Marie and Gladys Knight, and there is some other stuff mixed in... Ol' Dirty Bastard just came on, for instance:

Hey, Dirty!  Baby I got ya money......

That's enough for now... got to go shake my boo-tay.

Tuesday morning lyrics

the butter melts out of habit
the toast isn't even warm
the waitress and the man in the plaid shirt
play out a scene they've played so many times before
i am watching the sun stumble home in the morning
from a bar on the east side of town
the coffee is just water dressed in brown....

    -Ani Difranco

You learn something new every day....

It's no secret that I LOVE the Rolling Stones.  Love them.  I'm a member of their fan club.  Some Girls and Exile on Main St. are my two favorite albums.  I have a not-so-secret crush on Mick Jagger.  (Yes, I know he's old enough to be my father.  My grandfather, even... but nonetheless, I am completely awestruck by him.)

My husband is not the devoted Stones fan that I am.  He professes a fondness for Paint It Black, and he owns a copy of Their Satanic Majesties Request, which was the Stones' answer to the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper and is the weirdest thing I think they've ever put out.  And that's it.  He really doesn't get into the Stones much other than that.

Last evening, I was listening to She's So Cold, and out of nowhere my husband mentioned, "Hey, I used to have a 45 of this song."  I damn near fell off my chair.  Then he said, "Yeah, and Emotional Rescue was on the other side!"

There's hope for him yet.

Five for Friday

Five songs that have been in my head today...

Romeo and Juliet - Dire Straits
Darwin's Children - Edwin McCain
My Doorbell - The White Stripes
Subdivision - Ani Difranco
Dancing Barefoot - U2

In Memoriam: Lou Rawls

My mother owned a Lou Rawls record and I remember being captivated as a young child by the sound of his voice singing his signature hit, You'll Never Find Another Love Like Mine.  So I felt a pang of sadness last night when I learned he had passed away from cancer at the age of 72.

While I was living in Philadelphia, Lou Rawls would occasionally perform in Atlantic City, and I was always trying to convince my husband to go with me to one of his shows, but we never made it.  His voice was and is one of my favorites... from holiday music (I especially love his rendition of I'll Be Home for Christmas) to jazz and blues standards, I am convinced that Mr. Rawls could sing just about anything.  (As an old roommate of mine used to say, he could be singing about doody on a stick and it would still sound fabulous.)  Lou sang the national anthem at one of the world series games this past autumn, and it was clear (sadly) that his voice was no longer what it once was, but there were a few hints of that sweet, velvety voice still in him then, and I enjoyed hearing him one more time.

There is one less wonderful voice in the world today, but fortunately Lou Rawls has left behind a wonderful catalog of music to enjoy forever.  Check him out if you never have... I'm gonna miss his love, for sure.

O Holy Night

Link: O Holy Night

O Holy Night is, hands down, my favorite non-secular Christmas song.  I have always been attracted to its beautiful melody and striking lyrics.  This evening, I decided to do a little research into the song's history (a link to the page I found is above) and what I learned was fascinating.  Here are some tidbits:

* The lyrics were written in 1847 by Placide Cappeau, a French wine merchant.

* The melody was composed by Adolphe-Charles Adam, who is most famous for the ballet Giselle.

* The song was controversial in its day because Cappeau was considered a radical and Adam was Jewish.

* John Sullivan Dwight, an American Unitarian minister (and also a Transcendentalist) translated the words into English in 1855.  It was Dwight's abolitionist views that influenced the translation of my favorite line in the song:

Chains shall He break, for the slave is our brother,
And in His name all oppression shall cease.

* O Holy Night was also the first carol ever to be played live on a Christmas radio broadcast, in 1906.

O holy night, the stars are brightly shining,
It is the night of the dear Savior’s birth;
Long lay the world in sin and error pining,
Till He appeared and the soul felt its worth.
A thrill of hope the weary soul rejoices,
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn;

Fall on your knees, Oh hear the angel voices!
O night divine, O night, when Christ was born!
O night, O holy night, O night divine.

Led by the light of Faith serenely beaming
With glowing hearts by His cradle we stand
So led by light of a star sweetly gleaming
Here come the wise men from Orient land
The King of Kings lay thus in lowly manger
In all our trials born to be our friend.

He knows our need, our weakness is no stranger;
Behold your King! Before Him lowly bend!
Behold your King! Before Him lowly bend!

Truly He taught us to love one another
His law is love and His gospel is peace
Chains shall He break, for the slave is our brother,
And in His name all oppression shall cease.
Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we,
Let all within us praise His holy name.

Christ is the Lord, O praise His name forever!
His pow'r and glory evermore proclaim!
His pow'r and glory evermore proclaim!

Damn that Kanye West!

Ever since Gold Digger hit the airwaves, I have not been able to get it out of my head.  The other day I was looking around for a better deal on my car insurance and when I went to Geico's website, the first thing that popped into my head was:

Shoulda got that insured got Geico for ya monaaaay...

Somebody help me.  I've fallen into hip-hop and I can't get up!

(If you ain't no punk holla WE WANT PRENUP!)

Mix tape redux

Yesterday, I shared the songs that were on a mix tape that I made eight years ago, in the fall of 1997.  I was 21, a senior in college and had recently broken up with my first real boyfriend (we had been dating since our sophomore year.)  I was enjoying my newfound freedom and I think I was pretty content being single, although I'm sure the intervening time has washed away some of the angsty stuff I went through.  What I remember most is that the possibilities for my life seemed quite limitless at the time.  I don't think I fully appreciated that then.  Oh well.

At any rate, that mix was supposed to be the soundtrack of my life, a snapshot or self-portrait in music... something like that, anyway.

Now I'm 29, married for five years and in a very different place: geographically, mentally, emotionally.  So here's what my 2005 soundtrack would sound like:

"Stupid Girl" - Rolling Stones
"29 Cent Head" - Peter Mulvey
"Coney Island" - Death Cab for Cutie
"September" - Earth, Wind & Fire
"Alive" - Edwin McCain
"In Da Club" - 50 Cent
"For The Love Of You" - Isley Brothers
"Not Going Down" - Jo Dee Messina
"Picture" - Sheryl Crow
"Tennessee Plates" - John Hiatt
"Not Tonight" - Lil' Kim
"Don't Call Me Baby" - Madison Avenue
"Can't Get Next To You" - Tommy Castro
"Beast of Burden" - Rolling Stones
"Sad Sad Sad Sad" - Peter Mulvey
"American Idiot" - Green Day
"Got To Be Real" - Cheryl Lynn
"Emotional Rescue" - Rolling Stones
"God Is A DJ" - Pink
"Heads Carolina, Tails California" - Jo Dee Messina
"I'm Feeling You" - Santana
"Absolutely Not" - Deborah Cox
"I Won't Be Your Yoko Ono" - Dar Williams
"What's Going On" - Marvin Gaye
"Like A Rolling Stone" - Bob Dylan
"Love's In Need Of Love Today" - Joan Osborne

*sigh*... I'm still such a cliche.

Oh well.

The long lost art of the mix tape

Not too many years ago, I was known among my friends as the mix tape goddess.  I was amazing at assembling disparate songs into a beautiful, cohesive work of art that was small enough to fit in your back pocket.  This was before Napster, before iTunes, before iPods, even before CD burners were all that widespread.  I would make mix tapes for my friends and occasionally get them in return.  My friend Hilary made me a fabulous tape that I misplaced a few years ago... I would give anything to find it again...  it was that good.

Nowadays, most cars don't even have tape players.  (Well, mine does, but I almost never use it... I just use my FM transmitter to listen to my iPod.)  The other day, though, I found a bunch of old mix tapes and popped one into my rusty old tape deck.  I used to come up with themes for my mixes... the one I listed to the other day was called "If My Life Were a Movie..."  (That title was ripped off from a line in an Ani Difranco song that I put on the tape, "What if No One's Watching?")  This particular tape was an amalgam of the songs that formed the soundtrack of  my life circa the fall of '97.  Here's what was on it:

"I Love The Nightlife" - Alicia Bridges
"Leather" - Tori Amos
"Criminal" - Fiona Apple
"I Miss You" - Bjork
"I'll Close My Eyes" - Dinah Washington
"She's Got Her Ticket" - Tracy Chapman
"Get Up Jonah" - Bruce Cockburn
"Tiger" - Paula Cole
"Still In Hollywood" - Concrete Blonde
"Ordinary Morning" - Sheryl Crow
"What If No One's Watching" - Ani Difranco
"Beginning To See The Light" - Ella Fitzgerald
"Reunion" - Indigo Girls
"If I Like It, I Do It" - Jamiroquai
"Hannah Jane" - Hootie & the Blowfish
"Green Apples" - Chantal Kreviazuk
"I Will Remember You" - Sarah McLachlan
"The Letter" - Natalie Merchant
"Lovefool" - The Cardigans
"Surrounded" - Chantal Kreviazuk
"Junkie" - Poe
"I Gotcha" - Joe Tex
"Get Me" - Everything But The Girl
"Young Hearts Run Free" - Kym Mazelle
"The Real Thing" - Lisa Stansfield
"Praise" - Kinnie Starr

God... I was such a cliche....

Tomorrow I'll share with you the 26 songs that make up the soundtrack of my life now.  All I can say is that I've changed an awful lot from my early 20s to my late 20s, but I'm sure there is a lot that's stayed the same.

Friday night tunes

These are the last five songs my iPod played:

1.) Tennessee Plates - John Hiatt
2.) Route 66 - Brian Setzer Orchestra
3.) Bye Bye - Jo Dee Messina
4.) For Once In My Life - Stevie Wonder
5.) Let Me Blow Ya Mind - Eve (feat. Gwen Stefani)

It's Friday night... let's party!

Yee-haw!

My husband loves to poke fun at me for my love of country music.  Every time I put on the Dixie Chicks, Lee Ann Womack, Chely Wright, Keith Urban, or Jo Dee Messina, he invariably lets fly a mocking "YEE-HAW!" or two and starts speaking in a fake twangy accent.  Sometimes he gets so flippin' annoying that I switch to another genre just to shut him up.

Last night, I left him at home and took my friend and colleague Lauren with me to Bethlehem's Musikfest, where Jo Dee Messina was performing.  Jo Dee is without a doubt my favorite country singer, and considering how long I've been listening to her, I'm amazed I didn't get out to one of her concerts until now.  She did not disappoint, as you can read in this review from the Express-Times.  Her show felt like a great big par-tay where everyone danced and clapped and sang along.  Despite some rain that fell during the opening act's set, spirits were high and the rain quit just in time for Jo Dee to take the stage.  She had an incredible amount of energy, dancing and twirling around the stage and playing guitar, drums, and piano at various points during the show.  She wrapped up her set with her current hit, My Give A Damn's Busted, said goodnight, and left the stage.  She returned for what we thought was an encore and she spent almost another hour on stage taking requests from the crowd and singing her way through several more of her great songs.  Neither her energy nor her voice waned the whole time.

Needless to say, we had a ball.  When I got home around 11:30, my husband was already asleep, but this morning I told him what a good time he'd missed.  I think he was a little envious, so maybe next time Jo Dee comes to town he'll want to tag along.

Saturday morning playlist

Thought I would share the playlist I made for this beautiful but HOT Saturday morning here in Allentown:

"Bye Bye" - Jo Dee Messina
"Love's In Need Of Love Today" - Joan Osborne
"19th Nervous Breakdown" - The Rolling Stones
"Vehicle" - Ides of March
"The Beat Goes On" - Buddy Rich
"Sunday Morning" - Maroon 5
"Karma" - Alicia Keys
"Then He Kissed Me" - The Crystals
"A Beautiful Morning" - The Rascals
"One Fine Day" - The Chiffons
"Libiam ne' lieti calici" - from "La Traviata"
"It's Easy To Fall In Love (With A Guy Like You)" - Martha & the Vandellas
"Summertime" - DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince
"Exception To The Rule" - Tommy Castro
"Behind These Hazel Eyes" - Kelly Clarkson
"I Won't Dance" - Jane Monheit & Michael Buble
"Make Love Fuck War" - Moby & Public Enemy
"Alive" - Edwin McCain
"Down With Love" - Holly Palmer & Michael Buble
"The Blower's Daughter" - Damien Rice
"Perfect Way" - Scritti Politti
"September" - Earth, Wind & Fire
"For Once In My Life" - Stevie Wonder
"Around The Way Girl" - LL Cool J
"Thank You For The Music" - ABBA
"American Idiot" - Green Day
"Lovely Day" - Bill Withers
"Don't Know How" - Joss Stone
"My Place" - Nelly
"Snake Drive" - R.L. Burnside
"Bebot" - Black Eyed Peas
"Nod Over Coffee" - Pierce Pettis
"Don't Cha Wanna Ride" - Joss Stone
"I Got U" - Jennifer Lopez
"Happy" - Meleni

What songs make your Saturday?

Monkeyin' around

Rush, rush, rush to your nearest retailer or online music store and invest in the Black Eyed Peas' newest CD: Monkey Business.  It is the most gorgeous blast of boogie I have heard in ages and will get even the stodgiest person on the dance floor.  Long live Fergie, Taboo, apl.d.ap and will.i.am.... I cannot stop listening to this bad boy.  The other songs in my iPod are getting seriously neglected.  Woo hoo!

All I can say is, "Pass the Peas!"

Blues

At the moment, my iPod is cranking out a little Tommy Castro, so I decided to roll with that and devote tonight's entry to the blues.  I have been listening to blues music in one form or another for a long time now, but I didn't really come to appreciate it fully until I was in my late teens.  As one of my favorite pieces of internet humor states, "Teenagers can't sing the blues.  Adults sing the blues.  Blues adulthood means old enough to get the electric chair if you shoot a man in Memphis."

So much of the music we listen to today has its roots in the blues.  There's even a song called "The Blues Had A Baby And They Named It Rock & Roll."  Doesn't get much plainer than that.  In addition to the aforementioned Rock & Roll, soul, R&B, and even hip-hop and country owe their existence at least in part to the blues.  When I listen to blues, I feel intimately connected to the foundation of all of the different kinds of music I love.  Plus, like the advice columns I mentioned yesterday, listening to the blues makes you realize that life could be a whole heck of a lot worse than it is.  And there are some blues numbers that are more celebratory and fun than any other songs out there.  Koko Taylor's rendition of "Wang-Dang Doodle" or Buddy Guy's version of "Let Me Love You Baby" are two examples that spring to mind, and I could easily think of more.

My brother has told me that he doesn't quite "get" the blues.  A lot of people don't.  I had to grow into it a little myself.  (Of course, spending the better part of two years of my life in an on-again, off-again relationship with a guy who was obsessed with blues was a pretty good crash course.  Emphasis on the crash.)  Now, though, I love blues and I'm always happy to catch a good blues concert or listen to a blues show on the radio.  So for the people like my brother who don't get it yet, here is a "Blues 101" primer:

Movies to watch:

Crossroads
The Blues Brothers (Collector's Edition)
O Brother, Where Art Thou?
Sounder
Martin Scorsese Presents The Blues: A Musical Journey

CDs to listen to:

Buddy Guy - 20th Century Masters - The Millennium Collection: The Best of Buddy Guy
Muddy Waters - His Best: 1947 to 1955
Koko Taylor - Force of Nature
Etta James - Her Best : The Chess 50th Anniversary Collection
B.B. King - Greatest Hits
Tommy Castro - Can't Keep a Good Man Down
Willie Dixon - I Am the Blues
Robert Johnson - Complete Recordings
Bobby "Blue" Bland - The Anthology
Son House - Original Delta Blues

And if you can, try to catch "The Blues Show" with Jonny Meister on WXPN 88.1 FM on Saturday nights.  (They have streaming audio so you can listen live no matter where you live.)

Satisfaction

Almost forgot.... got my Rolling Stones tickets today for their show at Hersheypark Stadium on October 1.  Gonna see if I can finally get Mick to notice me....... :-)