Music to Write By?

Back in my green salad ranting and raving poetry and short story days I wrote profusely
while:
The Four Tops, James Brown, Gladys Knight and the Pips, Janis Joplin, Phoebe Snow, Phyllis Hyman, Michael White, Pharoah Sanders, Don Ellis, Beethoven, Hetor Villalobo, Stan Getz, Dave Brubeck, The Iron Butterfly and George Gershwin serenaded me.
They didn't do it all at once, of course. From midnight to four a.m. -- after my evening nap and before I went to work at 8 a.m. as a newspaper reporter back in Des Moines, Iowa -- their music swayed me and their lyrics stimulated me. While I wrote The Secret of Gumbo Grove in South Carolina, I was aided by The Artist Formerly Known as Prince, Michael jackson, Whitney Houston, Tina Marie, the Righteous Brothers, and especially Christopher Cross ("Sailing, take me away ..."). I listened to them either on the radio (before CDs) or on their 33 1/3 vinyl records. I still have most of their albums, too.
When I wrote African American Musicians in North Carolina in the late 1990s I swooned to the music and/or lives of Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, Mahalia Jackson, Ma Rainey, Duke Ellington, Shirley Caesar, Millie-Christine McKoy, Queen Latifah, Tupac Shakur, Eubie Blake, Anita Baker, and other greats. By listening to their music I was able to connect to their personalities, I guess.
And now what do I listen to? Well, I watch television: Dr. Phil, the Braxon Family Values, Survivor, Dancing to the Stars, Golden Girls and Frazier (still!), South Park, the Weather Channel, Animal Planet and the History Channel, Joyce Meyers, Creflo Dollar, Joel Osteen. As I write this piece I'm watching Entertainment Tonight.
I've no excuse for my media proclivities (other than NOT watching Fox News). Everything evolves. Just as long as I can keep writing.
What about you and our favorites? Or is silence your favorite partner?

Re-incarnating Musicals - Act II

This is a follow-up to intriguing Jackie’s post. I’m a fan of musicals, although I recognize they aren’t everyone’s cup of tea. A friend in college once said, “Doesn’t all that singing drive you nuts? I just want them to get on with the story.” In the best musicals, the songs are getting on with the story and I’m a sucker for all that intense character development, or the building plot scene with a chorus of thousands, combined with the emotional tug of music. There’s probably a correlation here with tearing up at country music songs when I’m alone in the car. (Or is that TMI?)

Thinking about that fixed pole of music that Jackie referred to led me to Wikipedia for:

Original songlist for On a Clear Day You Can See Forever
Overture, Hurry! It's Lovely Up Here!, Ring Out the Bells, Tosy and Cosh, On a Clear Day You Can See Forever, On the S.S. Bernard Cohn, At the Hellrakers, Don't Tamper with My Sister, She Wasn't You, Melinda, When I'm Being Born Again, What Did I Have That I Don't Have, Wait Till We're Sixty-Five, Come Back to Me, On a Clear Day You Can See Forever (Reprise)

2011 Reincarnation List
Overture, Hurry! It's Lovely Up Here!, She Isn't You, Open Your Eyes, Wait 'Til We're 65, You're All the World To Me, Who Is There Among Us Who Knows, On the S.S. Bernard Cohn, Love With All The Trimmings, Melinda, Entre Acte, Ev'ry Night at Seven, Too Late Now, When I'm Being Born Again, He Wasn't You, What Did I Have That I Don't Have, Come Back to Me, On A Clear Day You Can See Forever

Looks like some songs were used as is, others deleted, switched around in order, and a few were brought in from the musical film Royal Wedding. Interesting to contemplate how one song could provide intense character development for two different characters in different stories. It reinforces the duality of details in making characters simultaneously unique and universal.

I’d love to see the new show!