As I mention at the start of the show, this month’s mood “Hopeful,” was definitely chosen based on how I was feeling at the moment I got the show together. At this time in the year, there were so many terrible things going on in the world, insane wildfires in CA and elsewhere, the seemingly never ending pandemic, unrest around the world, including in a country that has a major part of my heart, Cuba. While I may be clinically diagnosed with severe depression, I often like to say that I’m the most optimistic depressed person that I know. And so, I felt a need to surround myself with music with hopeful sounds and messages, even if some of them (particularly the track that leads off the show from Silvio Rodriguez) deal with hopefulness in a slightly cynical way. Several of these songs, particularly “Come Sunday,” and “Over Again,” (a mix of which I included in this show that highlights only one side of the original stereo recording, where the strings are largely dropped out and the soulful elements become even stronger) are songs that have literally at times saved my life and given me the strength to keep going on and to remain, no matter how bad things are in the present moment, hopeful that brighter moments are always around the corner. Though it was a show borne of a specific moment, I’m hopeful that it’s one that you and I can both return to in those times when we need a reminder of how beautiful this life we are living actually is, and that as long as we’re living we have a chance to make it even better for us all.
Moods In Free Time 019: Hopeful
Playlist – Moods In Free Time 019: Hopeful
{opening theme} The Visitors – The Juggler – In My Youth (Muse)
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Silvio Rodriguez – Ojala – Ojala (Discos Bello) label from Santo Domingo in the DR
Minnie Riperton – Les Fleur – Come To My Garden (GRT)
Curtis Mayfield – I Plan To Stay A Believer – Live! (Curtom)
Ensemble Al-Salaam – Optimystical – The Sojourner (Strata East)
Tim Maia – Over Again – Tim Maia (1973) (Polydor)
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Lenny White – Sweet Dreamer – Big City (Nemperor) 1977
Billy Harper – The Cry Of Hunger – Capra Black (Strata East)
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The Lumpen – No More – 7” (Seize The Time)
Funkadelic – Everybody’s Got To Make It This Time – America Eats Its Young (Westbound)
Duke Ellington & Mahalia Jackson – Come Sunday – Black, Brown & Biege (CBS)
Liberation Music Orchestra – We Shall Overcome – Liberation Music Orchestra (Impulse!)
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{closing theme} Tony Williams – Wild Life – Believe It (Columbia)