Tuesday Tuneage
Marvin Gaye - "Purple Snowflakes"
1964

Before Prince did "Purple Rain" and Jimi Hendrix came up with "Purple Haze," Marvin Gaye was singing "Purple Snowflakes." Absolutely beautiful.

Tuesday Tuneage
The Drifters - "White Christmas"
1954


The animation on this link is cute, but pay attention to the tune: A Christmas standard done in stunning R&B fashion by The Drifters. Merry Christmas everybody!

Tuesday Tuneage
Sugarloaf/Jerry Corbetta - "Don't Call Us, We'll Call You"
1975

I have a playlist set up in my iTunes that is simply titled "Jukebox," and in it are a bunch of random songs I've downloaded over the years. Most of the songs are typically not part of any album I have in iTunes. A favorite thing to do is to pour a drink or grab a beer, fire up the Jukebox on random, and kick back and enjoy the tuneage. This playlist is where I have gotten many a song for this Tuesday Tuneage series and one of my fave songs to hear is "Don't Call Us, We'll Call You."

It hit #9 on the US singles charts in 1975, though you can't call it a one-hit wonder, as Sugarloaf previously hit #3 with "Green-Eyed Lady" in 1970. But "Don't Call Us" is not a Sugarloaf song proper, as my my pal Chuck pointed out that Sugarloaf and their lead singer Jerry Corbetta were co-credited on "Don't Call Us" and a quick look at Internet photos of both the actual disc and the album on which is was placed all have "Sugarloaf" and "Jerry Corbetta" on them. (Gotta love it how the album cover uses separate-but-bad fonts for each entity!)

The tune features an awesome keyboard-driven riff, post-Dylan hipster vocalizing, glorious backing vocals, and samples of both the Beatles and Stevie Wonder. I love the turn-the-tables ending:

"We got percentage points and lousy joints and all the glitter we can use, mama, so huh don't call us now we'll call you."

Allmusic.com calls this tune "bubblegum sarcasm," which is by far one of the greatest turn-a-phrase I've read in my music reading lately.

Oh, and the phone number? It's CBS Records phone number, they had previously turned down Sugarloaf for a record deal. Which ranks "Don't Call Us, We'll Call You" up there with great anti-label songs such as Graham Parker's "Mercury Poisoning," Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Workin' For MCA," and the Sex Pistols' "EMI."

Tuesday Tuneage
Jim Ellis - "WKRP In Cincinatti End Credits"
1978

The greatest hard rock song ever? Maybe. That it contains the best nonsense lyrics - I can identify "bartender" twice and not much else - since The Kingsmen stumbled through "Louie Louie" is certain.