All of a sudden, I got obsessed with this song

I had landed on a decent radio station in the rental car I was driving around Detroit in December 2006 when I heard a KT Tunstall song for the first time. About the third time I heard "Suddenly I See," I realized that this little gem with the shuffling Bo Diddley beat was yelling at me to learn more.

I thought it probably was some local rock band with this ballsy female singer emerging from the still-vibrant Detroit scene. I was surprised when I found out it was the solo work of this Scottish woman whose debut album had been around for quite awhile. 

Ranking the early Genesis albums

2014 documentary interview: Gabriel, Hackett, Rutherford, Collins, Banks

Genesis released six studio albums in 5 1/2 years with original lead singer Peter Gabriel. It is remarkably easy to delineate this band's growth in that period just by listening to those records in consecutive order. They get their feet wet with From Genesis to Revelation. They plant their flag with Trespass. They fill in the missing pieces with Nursery Cryme. They hit their stride with Foxtrot. They polish their sound to create a classic with Selling England by the Pound. And they shake their audience to its core with the epic The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway.

Most of these albums I've known by heart for decades. I've spent a bit of time over the past couple or three weeks listening to and studying the first two so as to give an honest evaluation of them in context.

A nice visit with old friend Daniel Lanois

So I had one of those "Oh, he's still around?" moments the other day when I noticed that Marc Maron had dropped an interview with Daniel Lanois as the latest episode of his WTF podcast.

If you're not familiar with the name, the 69-year-old Lanois was THE trend-setting record producer back in mid-1980s and into the '90s. He helmed dozens of landmark albums for high-profile acts such as U2, Peter Gabriel, Bob Dylan, Brian Eno, Emmylou Harris, Sinead O'Connor, Willie Nelson. Lanois' lush, moody style was the defining sound of that period.

Gilligan's Island and Led Zeppelin

It is a circuitous route, but there is a link between the 1960s sitcom Gilligan’s Island and the British heavy-metal behemoth Led Zeppelin.

The connecting points are American singer-songwriter Jackie DeShannon and Led Zep guitarist Jimmy Page via Gilligan’s Island actress Dawn Wells.

Genesis: An era comes to an end

1974: Rutherford, Hackett, Collins, Banks, Gabriel

The cover of Genesis' fourth album, Foxtrot, gave Peter Gabriel an idea for spicing up the band's stage show (Genesis: The classic lineup settles in). A booking agent for Charisma Records suggested to Gabriel that the band should have someone in a red dress and fox's head in the street in front of their concert venues to draw attention. But Gabriel took it a step further. His wife had a red dress that looked like the one on the album cover, and he found a big furry fox head in a costume shop.