Only One Hit But It’s a Timeless Classic

 

A rare live version of “Dancing in the Moonlight” via the indispensable Midnight Special channel… 

The tune was written several years earlier by a guy named Sherman Kelly — and the story behind it is more than a little bit strange:

On a trip to St. Croix in 1969, I was the first victim of a vicious St. Croix gang who eventually murdered 8 American tourists. At that time, I suffered multiple facial fractures and wounds and was left for dead. While I was recovering, I wrote "Dancin in the Moonlight" in which I envisioned an alternate reality, the dream of a peaceful and joyful celebration of life. The song became a huge hit and was recorded by many musicians worldwide. "Dancin In The Moonlight" continues to be popular to this day.

Well, now I’m going to have *that* picture in my head every time I hear it for the rest of my life.

It topped out at #13 in America during February-March of 1973, just before I turned 14.

As it turns out this big hit led indirectly to the formation of the band Orleans — more on that soon.

A Recipe for Improved Mental Health

 

Steven Kotler says that we are all capable of so much more than we know, by adopting simple habits that rewire our mindset and tame anxiety and depression by leveraging our natural ability to produce “feel good” chemicals like endorphins and serotonin.

Between social media and “the news” we are bombarded every day with social anxiety and fear, which can be difficult to overcome and is bad for all of us. 

Of course you can reduce the role of those things in your life, which is always a good idea, but completely independent from that you have the ability to counteract those negatives by focusing on what you *can* control.

Gratitude. Mindfulness. Walk, bike, or run, outside.

In Memory of Dickey Betts

 

He passed away this week at 80 years old… he had a distinct and original sound, that’s for sure.

“Blue Sky”

“Revival”

“Little Martha”

 

Seurat, Van Gogh, Pointillism and Neo-Impressionism

 

Georges Seurat, A Sunday on La Grande Jatte

This famous painting from 1886 uses “pointillism” which started the Neo-Impressionism movement, known for revolutionary expressions of color and light to create greater apparent luminosity:

Seurat and his followers tried to give their painting a scientific basis, by painting tiny dabs of primary colors close to each other to intensify the viewer's perception of colors by a process of optical mixing. This created greater apparent luminosity because the optical mixing of colors tends towards white, unlike mixing of paints on the palette which tends towards black and reduces intensity. Neo-impressionists also used more precise and geometric shapes to simplify and reveal the relationships between forms.

Diving deeper into Pointillism:

The practice of Pointillism is in sharp contrast to the traditional methods of blending pigments on a palette. Pointillism is analogous to the four-color CMYK printing process used by some color printers and large presses that place dots of cyan, magenta, yellow, and key (black). Televisions and computer monitors use a similar technique to represent image colors using Red, Green, and Blue (RGB) colors.

If red, blue, and green light (the additive primaries) are mixed, the result is something close to white light. Painting is inherently subtractive, but Pointillist colors often seem brighter than typical mixed subtractive colors. This may be partly because subtractive mixing of the pigments is avoided, and because some of the white canvas may be showing between the applied dots.

Another example of both, the famous self-portrait by Van Gogh, my favorite painter.

Amazing Rhythm Aces

 

Just about everyone has heard “Third Rate Romance” which was a solid Top 40 hit in 1975, but I like this one even better.

The End is Not in Sight (The Cowboy Tune) — Live

The studio version

The lead singer is Russell Smith who went on to become a successful songwriter for Randy Travis and others. He passed away at age 70 in 2019.

Here’s Third Rate Romance, an instant and timeless classic.

History of Major Trade Routes

 

A useful addition to my recent Silk Road post… 

History of major trade routes, mapped out

Seeing all this on a giant map, and learning the scale of trade between far-away peoples, and how early it all started, was a real learning experience for me.