Word: pianos
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...find a word, but you don't stop," he explains. "You're constantly looking for alternatives, never settling for the obvious." McFerrin, 38, has been a musician for all his professional life and a singer for more than a decade. From his first big-time gig, playing piano in the Ice Follies band, to his current in-concert, one-man musical parody of The Wizard of Oz, he has never settled for anything less than unique...
After taking up the piano, he formed the Bobby Mack Jazz Quintet during his senior year in high school ("We put 'jazz' in the name so there wouldn't be any surprises") and in 1970 dropped out of Cerritos College to hook up with the Ice Follies. It was not until a half-decade later that McFerrin "heard my subconscious tell me to sing -- the result, no doubt, of years of soul- searching and a nagging voice that kept pressing me to take risks." Now the risks have paid off handsomely, and exhaustingly. Feeling tapped out, McFerrin ended his latest...
...styles of the songs cover the entire spectrum of rock history. At one end is the droll "I Could Have Stood You Up," featuring Jordanaires-like "bop bop" vocals in the background, Chuck Berry sideman Johnnie Johnson's rolling piano in the foreground and whimsical lyrics like "My shoes walked down the street/Only trouble is they weren't on my feet." At the other end is the funky swagger "Big Enough," which plays with tricky tape loops and loud bass and drums...
VISUALLY, the ads are arresting and unique, slightly surreal, almost random. They feature very bright, vivid images that are usually accelerated or in some other way distorted. The voiceover sounds like an old radio announcer and the music is a tango played by violin and piano. The ads use light in a unique way so that shadows and bright spots seem connected to nothing...
...film, the shots of the vigils that followed John's death. Seas of bereaved fans cry and sway while singing along with "All You Need is Love." Members of John's family talk about how much they miss him. Finally, there is a clip of John at a white piano in a white room, singing "Imagine." As corny as the sequence sounds, it concludes Imagine: John Lennon in a manner likely to make anyone cry who still mourns for John and his lost promise, as well as that of the Beatles...