Man, oh man, what an historic and exhilarating week it has been with the election of Barack Obama as the first person of African-American descent to be President of the United States of America.

Wow!

The flood of feelings and emotions that have been washing over me is way, way too immense to even try and verbalize them. And anyway, I express myself so much better and more eloquently with my music as opposed to my words and/or writing.

This week’s RIBS TPTD mix is dedicated with great pride to President-elect Barack Obama (man it feels good to write THOSE words, President-elect Barack Obama, Whoo!) and to the beautiful new First Family that will soon take up residence at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. I many ways I would like you to think of this mix as part 2 of the fantastic OSW mix that the “PodFather”, EJ Flavors, posted on Wednesday. I had the pleasure and honor of suggesting a few songs for that one but kept enough to myself so I could continue the great vibe over here on RIBS.

I’m calling this one “The ‘Happy’ Mix” as the majority of the songs have the word happy somewhere in the title. The word happy and the word change are the two words that I keep coming back to as I think about the results of the election this past Tuesday night. Change, of course, is the wonderful message/theme of the Obama campaign that brings us all hope for a brighter future for this country after the darkness of the past eight years of the current administration. And Happy because, well, as a person of color in this world that is tired of divisiveness and who hopes that we all can just get along, if the election of Barack Obama doesn’t make you happy then I just don’t know what to say to ya! {smile}

Soooo, sit back, be HAPPY and… “Congratulations, President-elect Barack Obama!”

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Whew, finally! (I apologize for not getting this out late Friday/early Saturday as I had planned. I’ve had an unusually busy last 24-36 hours.)

Here is our latest podcast collaboration effort that the “Super Friends of Podcasting” have put together for your enjoyment. This one is very important as it’s purpose is not only to entertain you musically but also to encourage you to:

Get up, Get Into It, Get Involved… GET OUT AND VOTE!

Now I could write many, many words about why it’s important and what’s at stake but, hopefully, you already are aware of these things. So… let’s get right to the messages and the music by some of your favorite podcasters and listen to what they have to say:

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I felt like I needed a little break musically speaking this week. It’s been a while since I’ve done anything in a jazz and/or blues vein around here lately, and I needed something a little different.

So this week we’re focusing our TPTD taste buds on Mr. Bob James.

Hopefully many of you who stop by here on a regular basis are familiar with the man and his music. If not, I believe you are in for an enjoyable treat as you listen to the mix. As a matter of fact, many of you have probably already experienced some BJ music and are not even aware of it. Here, let me give you a hint…

Remember the TV show Taxi? Remember the opening instrumental theme for the show? The name of the piece is called Angela, and, you guessed it, the song was composed and performed by Bob James (unfortunately, I did not include this cut in the mix, but if you’re interested it can be found on his album, Touchdown). Oh, and have you ever heard of the jazz group, Fourplay? James was one of the founding members of that group and continues to make great music with them also in addition to his solo work and collaborations.

Now us older um, more experienced, I mean {smile} heads will recall the early years of BJ’s career when he was one of the people that played a major role in turning fusion jazz into the more mainstream form that we now refer to as “smooth jazz”. Back in the 70’s when he was recording (and also arranging and producing many of the artists on the CTI jazz record label) he produced three of my favorite jazz albums from that time period, Bob James One, Bob James Two and Bob James Three. AAMOF, the first seven selections in today’s mix are from those three discs.

So… sit back, relax and let’s partake of some Bob James jazz. A perfect mix for chilling out… anytime, anyplace and anyway in which you like best!

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{sigh} Another one of the great soul voices of the “Soundtrack of My Life” has passed away. This past Friday we learned that Levi Stubbs former lead singer of The Four Tops had passed away after a long illness.

Maybe it’s just me but it seems like we’ve done a lot of these “in memorium” mixes this year, as a matter of fact, a couple of hours ago I saw that Dee Dee Warwick (Dionne’s younger sister) passed away this weekend (Saturday) as well as comedian/actor Rudy Ray Moore (Sunday), better known to the world as “Dolemite”.

It’s funny ironic, I was a little upset with myself for not getting a new mix out on Thursday as scheduled, but perhaps I was meant to have that little delay so we could have a chance to honor the memory of Levi in a timely fashion. As they say, the Lord works in mysterious ways.

I could sit here and try to wax poetic about all of the great music and memories that Levi and the Tops have provided for me over the course of my life, but others write so much better than I. So instead, here are a few links to some of remembrances that have  been posted in the past few days:

1. 4 Brothers Beats: R.I.P. Levi Stubbs (if your eyes don’t tear up while watching the second video in this post, well, you are a better person than I)
2. Funky16Corners: Levi Stubbs RIP
3. Get On Down With The Stepfather Of Soul: RIP Levi Stubbs
4. In Dangerous Rhythm: Levi Stubbs RIP
5. Fufu Stew: So Long, Levi…
6. soul sides: Levi Stubbs: R.I.P.
7. Musicmeiho: Levi Stubbs - (R.I.P) - The Four Tops
8. Funk my Soul: The Four Tops (In Memory of Levi Stubbs)

Rest well, Levi.

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