Chapter 17: Tempted and Tested

          Here's one that Jack and I wrote together in record time. It was one of those inventions mothered by an opportune necessity to place a song on an album of promised prominence that was already in production. [Hint: it involved Jack's niece and a son of a Detroit Motown™ Temptation in L.A.]   It is the fourth and final entry in the “Well Ain’t She Suite” series.

          This was 1998. I had moved operations from Avery Street [in (Detroit Tiger Hall-of-Famer) Ty Cobb's old neighborhood] to Clinton Township—a Met-DET suburb near its northeastern extremes. Ask anyone who was around in the Avery studio [S. A. S. Productions] and they'll tell you we left a lot of good memories…fortunately, we still have most of the music in one format or another. [Note: Look for the release in the medium-near future of some of the best of this on a release titled "The Avery Tapes".]

Chapter 14: Lies

This is the first chapter in a 4-part series within a series ably authored by an abstruse riddler wrapped in an enigma while using his zillion-piece white sand puzzle box as a maraca.

This song series, codenamed "Well Ain't She-Suite", is a mini-musical melodrama about betrayal, mistrust, denial, and finally contrition.

In November 2008 (at the Mμne’s onset)—when I played "That Said" [see Chapter 3] over the phone for my firstborn:  Maceo, he commented, "Pops…doing it old school."  It was my intent to produce that late 2008 composition with a funky 70's feel.  "Lies" is different, and is probably early old school…maybe pre-school, for that matter.

It has been my observation that popular music has a twenty-five to thirty year turnover cycle.  Think of all the Beatles Sgt. Pepper-esque affectations in the past few years. …as well as Coldplay's Viva La Vida-tour garb in 2008.  Late last century (in the nineties), Rap performers and producers began utilizing P-Funk elements in their products, and the term and concept of old school became the new thing all over again.  Where I grew up, the best dances were held in a building that was literally literally an old one-room schoolhouse, so old school even means a different thing to me.

"Lies" is a pre-school groove stylistically, as it has that 1987 Minneapolis music-heyday feel that hasn't quite yet rolled up in the chamber.  The thing about "Lies" is that it was actually written and produced in 1987, and is current for that time.

…the Second Coming of Motown?