Professor Eddy

Music that sounds best on warm days is without any doubt sophisti-pop, a genre that popped up during the mid-1980s in the UK. It had a light tone and contained elements of jazz, soul and pop. During those days artists often made extensive use of electronic keyboards, synthesizers and polished arrangements. Major influences were Roxy Music’s album Avalon and Bryan Ferry's mid-1980s solo albums. According to AllMusic, key players in the genre were Simply Red, Sade, The Style Council, Basia, Swing Out Sister, Prefab Sprout and the early work of Everything But The Girl. And when we talk about summer, you can't ignore Donna Summer :-) I chose to play a track from her 1983 album She Works Hard Ford The Money . Enjoy!  Next up is a new episode of Mellow Mellow FM . Tracklist: Lou Hayter – Cold Feet (2021) Janis Siegel – Lovin’ Eyes (1982) Sade – Your Love Is King (1983) Jay Gruska – Cancun (1984) Oscar And The Wolf – Oliver (2021) The Style Council – You're The Best Thing (...

Unsplash This exclusive cloudcast refers to the so called 'beach music' of the late fifties, sixties and early seventies. This type of uplifting soul dominated the jukeboxes at the beaches of both Carolinas in the US. It has some similarities with (more Motown based) northern soul in the UK. Beach music goes back to the doo wop of the fifties and has some rock ‘n’ roll traces as well. It vanished in the mid-seventies when disco music, played at large discotheques, became the most popular kind of dance music and wiped out (to quote the Surfaris) beach music at small venues. Around the same time AM pop, which was best played on transistor radios,  disappeared to be replaced by FM radio pop.  'Calypso King' The Mighty Sparrow (Slinger Francisco) originally released Only A Fool in 1969. The song was written by Shelly Coburn and Norman Bergen and first recorded as the flipside of Open Up Your Heart by Arthur Prysock in 1965. Slinger Francisco's name was mistakenly list...

Unsplash Simply put, soft rock features the instruments and elements of rock (& roll), which are drums, guitar, bass and vocals, but it’s much softer and lighter in nature. It’s more or less rock music for sensitive people. Other terms that are used are "light rock" or "easy rock". It differs slightly from yacht rock, which is more rooted in r&b and (smooth) jazz, but the line isn't always clear, that’s for sure.  Enjoy this new Smooth Sailing part! Next up is an Exclusive one for subscribers only. Tracklist: David Guez – The Corners Of Your Mind (2021) Work Drugs – Soft Rock (2020) Childhood – Monitor (2017) Coastal – Days Go By (2021) Pablo Cruise – Slip Away (1981) Jonathan Coulton – Easy (2019) Michael Nesmith – Rio (1977) José Feliciano – California Dreamin’ (1968) Del Amitri – You Can’t Go Back (2021) Colin Blunstone ‎– I Don't Believe In Miracles (1972) Joe Vitale – Step On You (1974) Rudy Norman – Back To The Streets (1980) Univer...

Unsplash One of the tracks on this cloudcast is Disco Lady by soul veteran Johnnie Taylor. Talking about the song in Fred Bronson’s Billboard Book Of Number 1 Hits, Taylor said: “A lot of people got Disco Lady mixed up. They thought it was disco. It was not a disco tune. We were just talking about disco.” The subject of Chuck E.’s In Love by Rickie Lee Jones is singer/songwriter Chuck E. Weiss, who was good friends with Tom Waits. At the time Rickie Lee Jones was romantically involved with Waits, and the three of them spent a lot of time together, often drinking and taking drugs. One night, Waits got a call from Weiss, who explained that he was in Denver to see a girl he’d met. When he hung up the phone, Waits told Jones, "Chuck E.'s in love," and the rest is history. The summer sounds better, to quote DJ Chris Abercrombie, on this new episode of Mellow Mellow FM . Enjoy the feeling of retro radio! Tracklist: Shadow – Piece A Cake (1981) Grover Washington, Jr. & Bi...

Pixabay Enjoy this funky chillout & jazzy soul sofa session !  The story of the Isley Brothers is quite remarkable. In 1959, when they first charted with Shout , they were contemporaries of rock ‘n’ roll legends Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis and Elvis Presley. In the 1960s, the group recorded songs for a variety of labels, including Twist And Shout (later covered by The Beatles) and the Motown single This Old Heart of Mine (Is Weak for You) . In 1969 they released the Grammy Award-winning hit It's Your Thing on their own label, T-Neck Records. The next decade the brothers were at the peak of their career, when they reinvented themselves as a funk-rock band and recorded hits like That Lady and Summer Breeze with wonderful guitar solos, played by younger brother Ernie. During the 1980s the Isley Brothers went on with a more sophisticated R&B sound, especially on their 1987 Smooth Sailin' album. Ernie Isley joined Isley-Jasper-Isley briefly, but returned in the 199...

Every now and then it’s time to listen to “the sound of young America”, to quote Motown founder Barry Gordy. Enjoy! One of the songs on this cloudcast is Trouble Man by Marvin Gaye. According to Allmusic his philosophy is summed up by this couplet: "There's only three things that's for sure/Taxes, death, and trouble." In 1973 Gloria Jones recorded an LP for Motown, Share My Love . She is most famous for her sixties northern soul classic Tainted Love , although it was not a hit record at the time when it was released. In the 1970s she became the girlfriend of British superstar Marc Bolan, the singer of glam rock band T-Rex. Their time together came to a tragic end, when Jones drove her car into a tree and the T-Rex singer died next to her. Tracklist: The Originals – Down To Love Town (1976) Bobby Nunn – Do You Look That Good In The Morning? (1983) Rick James – You And I (1978) El DeBarge With DeBarge ‎– You Wear It Well (1985) Leon Ware – I Wanna Be Where You Are ...