Sara Bareilles at the Chicago Theatre

When pressed last winter to choose an artist to represent the letter B for my desert island A to Z Music Challenge, I didn’t pick The Beatles. I went with Sara Bareilles, one of those musicians who I admire and envy in equal parts, her talent so off the charts that it almost seems unfair. My wife and I attended her performance last night at the Chicago Theatre for her Good Grief tour, and just like the two previous times I watched her perform, Bareilles showed why she’s one of the most gifted singers and songwriters of this century.

Focusing primarily on selections from her new album, she explored grief and all its messy implications while still managing to be funny, relatable and uplifting between songs. Unlike some performers, Bareilles comes off as the genuine article: sincere, appreciative, funny and self-deprecating, and she enjoyed playing off an audience that included many young girls in attendance. That didn’t stop her from dropping a few F-bombs along the way, but I doubt there were many parents who minded. When it comes to strong female role models for young girls, you couldn’t do much better than Bareilles, who’s been champion women’s empowerment for decades now.

Even by the time I took my then-15-year-old daughters to see Bareilles in 2013, it felt like she had played an important part in their upbringing. Our little family musical group had already performed “Love Song” and “King of Anything” at a couple of block parties, and I admired that her songs presented a strong, independent woman who’s unwilling to accept putdowns and mansplaining from her partners, while also expressing vulnerability when it comes to navigating the uncertainties of life and the desire for real connection. These threads continue to appear in her work – perhaps with more urgency given our country’s current climate – and you might not find a more important lyric for a young girl than those from her new song, “Hands Off My Body.”

Still, I don’t love Bareilles’s new album, Good Grief. As brave and ambitious as she is lyrically, she plays it very safe musically. There isn’t a chord on the album that I couldn’t have predicted moments before, and I’d be hard-pressed to recall a melody from any of the songs, many of which resemble those of other artists: “Capsize Me” sounds too much like Sheryl Crows’s “Leaving Las Vegas,” and “Idiot Heart” summons Air Supply’s “Lost In Love.”  Still, there’s no denying the performances on the album, and I’m genuinely moved by the storytelling that so deftly captures the sundry emotions tied to the grieving process, from heartbreak and anger to acceptance and gratitude. Good Grief isn’t a bad effort at all – it’s just not as impactful as it could have been.

For last night’s concert, each member of Bareilles’s exceptional 6-piece backing band occupied different landings of a stage that was framed by what looked like the outline of a house, with rudimentary walls and rafters that lit up at various points throughout the show. Prior to the performance, the entire stage was draped with a light, white fabric that lifted just as the opening song “Home” began, the first track from Bareilles’s first studio album since 2019. This fabric was draped in various ways throughout the show, hovering above the stage and rippling with texture, allowing it to take on whatever color shone on it. It was a very basic but effective stage design, both spartan and visually appealing.

And Sara’s voice – well, dang. If someone had any inkling of doubt about her vocal prowess beforehand, they certainly don’t now. She is so skilled at doing whatever she chooses to do with her voice that what might be considered risky for some singers comes off as effortless. Every tool in her vocal arsenal was executed to perfection, with the lone exception of briefly forgetting a few lyrics, including one from the lone cover of the evening, Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Dance with Somebody.”

Beyond that, most of the concert was made up of the Good Grief album, interspersed with just a few of her older tracks, including “Armor” and “Many the Miles,” before ending the concert with five of her mainstay tracks. I was hoping to hear “Chasing the Sun” and “Satellite Call,” but hey – you can’t have it all.

Though when it comes to musical chops and on-stage charisma, Sara Bareilles might lead you to think otherwise.

Music Royalties in the Age of Streaming

The music business and music artistry don’t always intersect happily. You might have heard stories about Billy Joel, Bruce Springsteen, Badfinger, and many others who were so thoroughly screwed by the powers that be in the music industry, that you could be forgiven for thinking, “How could in the world could they have been so naïve?” But I take pity on those whose sole aim in life is to create art and who put their faith in others to look out for their best interests. Hell, I have a background in finance and am pretty adept at investing and tax strategy, but that hasn’t stopped me from being completely clueless about the music business.

Which brings me to a conversation I recently had with my friend Phil, who – like me – has uploaded his original compositions onto DistroKid, a platform that enables you to direct your songs to whatever streaming platforms you choose. It’s a good service and it doesn’t cost much. I’ve been using it since 2017, and I’ve uploaded most of my songs onto Apple, Tidal, Spotify, etc., but I never thought to investigate whether all the streams I’ve amassed (and I say this quite facetiously, because there haven’t been many) have led to some income.

When Phil asked me if I’d made any money through Distro Kid, I said, no, that I wasn’t a member of ASCAP or BMI, the performing rights organizations that collect royalties for artists whose songs are played on the radio, TV, or through streaming services. It’s always been my understanding that membership in one of these companies was a requirement to earn royalties. Turns out not.

“You don’t need to be a member,” Phil said. “DistroKid tracks streams and pays you directly.”

Say what?

That’s right. I’d been paying an annual fee to Distro Kids for nine years without noticing the tab on top of the website that says in big bold letters, “BANK.”

Oops.

Phil showed me the tab and how things work, and when I returned home I logged in and discovered that over the past nine years, my compositions have earned…drum roll please…

$79.08!

That’s right. I am officially a professional musician whose compositions are earning cold hard cash! What’s particularly interesting is that DistroKid actually tracks all the streams for you, so you can see which compositions were streamed, when, and through which specific platform. It didn’t take long for me to realize that my biggest-streaming composition is by far – by a multitude of 1000 – the soundtrack I wrote for my daughter’s short film, Preheated, but because it streams primarily on Facebook/Instagram – who pay artists virtually nothing – it’s only made me 47 cents!

Regardless, I’m thankful that there are people out there who have more of a clue about the music business than I do. Thanks to Phil, I can now pay for approximately 3 hours of health care for my wife and me. I sure hope she appreciates all the hard work I put in for our benefit.

Rainy Days and Monday

After three and a half weeks without rain in the Chicago area, the skies finally opened up on Monday just as my wife and I exited Costco, $250 poorer than when we entered. The rain was such a welcome site that we opted to get wet and load up the car, but after arriving home the weather got more serious with a deluge of rain, wind gusts, hail and tornado warnings – none of which, I might add, had been forecasted by our weather apps, which had merely predicted a “chance of rain.”

As we hunkered down in our basement, I marked the occasion of this wonderful, beautiful rain (granted, with a side of danger) by playing a recording of The Carpenters’ song, “Rainy Days and Mondays,” as it was both raining and a Monday! How perfect! Well, the gods were having none of that nonsense, and one minute into Karen Carpenter’s glorious delivery, the power went out, flashed back on for a second, went out again, flashed on again, and then went out for good. There would be no music for the time being.

Once the worst of the storm had passed, I headed upstairs and I took matters into my own hands, sitting at the piano to pluck out the 1971 tune penned by Roger Nichols and Paul Williams. The chords were no problem, but I botched the melody pretty badly. It brought to mind how much easier it had been to play the song when I could just hide behind my daughter Jessica’s singing voice, who performed the tune with me from time to time when she was around 12 years old. Playing chords while someone else took the melody? No problem. Melody on the fly? Not so much.

On one occasion in 2009, Jessica and I performed “Rainy Days and Mondays” for my mother and her husband. Jessica had – and still has – a very good voice and vocal technique. We picked the proper key, I played the intro, and she took it away from there. I added some silly backup vocals behind my daughter’s controlled performance, but overall it sounded good.

After we finished the tune, my mother said, “Oh Jessica, why didn’t you use your pretty voice?”

Now, it would take years of psychoanalysis to understand what prompted that remark. I had gotten used to callous comments from my mother over the years, but this one left me dumbfounded. I stood up, looked at Jessica with eyebrows raised, wiggled my finger toward her and said, “Follow me.”

When Jessica recounts the story today, she says that she thought she was in trouble, that she had possibly embarrassed me in front of my mother, but nothing could have been further from the truth.

We walked to the back room of our house, I crouched down to her eye level and said, “Do you know what tactless means?” She said she didn’t. “It’s when you say something rude, something unkind. You sang beautifully, and what Grandma said was tactless.”

Jessica and I will occasionally recount this story when reminiscing about her childhood. It was one of my prouder parenting moments and one of my mother’s weaker moments. But Jessica wasn’t deterred. She went on to sing throughout high school and college, and even made a career as a music therapist for half a decade.

“Rainy Days and Mondays.” I love that this wonderful song that accompanied me during my early childhood now has a personal history with my daughter. However, I’d be much obliged if the next time I choose to play the record, the skies let it go to its completion.

A to Z Music Challenge

On the podcast 1000 Greatest Misses, co-host Chris and I submitted the following music challenge to our listeners: you’re sent to a desert island and are allowed to take with you the recordings of only 26 artists - one for each letter of the alphabet. Who do you choose? This challenge comes courtesy of my daughter and her partner who needed to kill some time while driving through Indiana last Thanksgiving. And what a great time suck it was!

Chris and I were delighted by the number of responses we received from listeners, further proving the point that although people aren’t always willing to tackle the pressing issues of our times, they will happily piss away a few hours on a completely frivolous endeavor! We thought it would be helpful to include everyone’s picks in one place so that they might inspire further investigation. There are tons of choices of artists I’ve never even heard of, much less listened to, and I hope to check some of them out in the days ahead.

For me, I stuck to rock and pop and didn’t go down the jazz or classical rabbit holes. Some letters - B, C, J, P, S - were exceptionally difficult, while others - G, N, O, Q, U, Y - were absolute no-brainers.

Consider coming up with your own choices before perusing the lists below. Please ignore misspelling, and please don’t shoot the messenger when it comes to entries that should have been disqualified (Elvis Costello as an E entry, for example); Chris and I didn’t catch some of these as they came pouring in toward the end of our podcast challenge. Also, consider checking out author S.W. Lauden’s Substack where he addresses the same music challenge. And yes, I am aware than Ken was messing with us when he chose acts like USA for Africa and Pia Zadora. All good!

Five Power Pop Gems

One of the benefits of co-hosting the podcast 1000 Greatest Misses has been getting introduced to music lovers whose knowledge far surpasses my own. It can be humbling, to be sure, but also exciting, because I get to broaden my understanding of music and some of the people who’ve made an impact on the industry. Last June, my podcast partner Chris and I were privileged to interview S.W. .Lauden, not only a killer musician and uber music fan, but also an accomplished author whose Substack Remember the Lightning explores power pop and indie rock in fun, creative and informative ways.

On his Substack, Lauden has an on-going series called ‘Is It Power Pop?!” in which special guests recommend five great power pop tracks that music fans should be aware of. I had the pleasure of submitting this week’s entry, and I have to say, writing about music is much harder than playing music, but I did my best and chose five killer tracks. You can check out my entire essay on Lauden’s site, but below are my choices. Some might teeter on the edges of power pop, but they’re all great songs:

“Money’s No Good” by Off Broadway
”Here Comes Sally” by Glen Burtnick
”She’s So Young” by The Pursuit of Happiness
”Our Story” by The Judy Bats
”Caught in the Middle” by The Red Button

Be sure to click subscribe on Lauden’s Substack, and also check out his music-related books, both fiction and non-fiction. The guy’s a gem! You can hear our interview with Lauden on episode 111 of 1000 Greatest Misses.