Every Friday night we smooth our way into the weekend with music, the universal language. These selections demonstrate that despite what is being passed off as art today, there is plenty of really good music available. Come along and enjoy.

 Tomorrow, Saturday is Sweetest Day.

Many skeptics and non-romantic fuddie duddies believe Sweetest Day was created by high level executives because, after all, they gave us Easter, Christmas, and Thanksgiving.

WRONG!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sweetest Day originated in the birth place of rock and roll, Cleveland, Ohio in 1922.
Herbert Birch Kingston had an idea. He wanted to somehow spread joy into the lives of orphans and shut-ins and those society had basically forgotten or turned its back on. Enlisting the help of friends, they passed out gifts to the underprivileged.

To mark the very first Sweetest Day, movie star Ann Pennington presented 2,200 Cleveland newspaper boys with boxes of candy to express gratitude for their work. Another movie star at the time, Theda Bara, gave out 10,000 boxes of candy to people in Cleveland hospitals and also gave candy to all who came to watch her film in a local theater.

This week, sweet lovin’ music.

Let’s get started.

Scoff if you will, but this weekend….

Clem Bastow, award-winning writer and critic called the above one-hit wonder “one of one of the most romantic songs of all time.”

No I wouldn’t go that far. But the song was popular, reaching #7 on the Billboard Hot 100.

“Thinking of you keeps me awake. Dreaming of you keeps me asleep. Being with you keeps me alive.”
—Unknown

”Love is always patient and kind. It is never jealous. Love is never boastful or conceited. It is never rude or selfish. It does not take offense and is not resentful. Love takes no pleasure in other people’s sins, but delights in the truth. It is always ready to excuse, to trust, to hope, and to endure whatever comes.”
1 Corinthians 13:4-7

In 1937, the National Confectioners Association launched a movement to rank Sweetest Day with other nationally accepted holidays such as Mother’s Day, Father’s Day and Valentine’s Day, but the effort fell flat. 

When you think of love and music you think of Barry White. His orchestra’s “Love’s Theme” is one of the best instrumentals ever. This is trumpeter/flugelhorn player Rick Braun’s rendition.

“Love is like the wind, you can’t see it but you can feel it.”
—Nicholas Sparks

In the U.S., Sweetest Day is mostly celebrated in the Midwest, parts of the Northeast and Florida. It’s most popular in Cleveland and Detroit. 

I don’t remember the year. But on this day, October 14, I proposed to Jennifer outside the California Grill on the 14th floor of the Contemporary Resort at Walt Disney World.

Speaking of Disney…

“When you’re lucky enough to meet your one person, then life takes a turn for the best. It can’t get better than that.”
—John Krasinski

While Valentine’s Day and Sweetest Day may look the same on the surface, the two holidays have other differences aside from their dates. 

Sweetest Day focuses on love and appreciation toward anyone, while Valentine’s Day is primarily for the more romantic side of love. 

We close with MFSB, short for Mother Father Sister Brother, a rotating cast of a few dozen string and horn studio musicians that recorded in Philadelphia.