Music Review: Dolly and Friends
Picture it....
A purply lit stage with lots of gossamer and twinkling lights, butterflies, and then the silhouette of someone descending from the ceiling from a swing.
This is how every episode of "Dolly and Friends" begins. Then she brings out her aforementioned friends, they sing, they gab, Dolly changes outfits with virtually every camera angle change...then suddenly you find yourself looking at a darkened stage with Dolly saying/singing to you how she will always love you, ooh-ooh. Then it's over!
Kenny Rogers was the special friend in the episode I watched yesterday. The whole thing started off with Dolly singing that "knock three times on the ceiling if you love me, and twice on the pipes if the answer is no" song. The camera kept cutting away to what I thought was a stagehand in a closet with a wrench and a pipe, working on something. Then I realized he wasn't working, he was playing percussion. Then I realized that wasn't a stagehand, that was Kenny Rogers! Later he sang the Roy Clark hit "The Worlds Needs a Melody."
Both songs were awesome because they were sort of onomatopoeic in that the percussion/backup music features sounds/instruments specifically mentioned in the lyrics of the song, and I LOVE that. When Dolly sang about banging on the pipes, Kenny banged on a pipe. When Kenny sang about the world needing a drum, the drummer went off on a little snare solo. Other examples include:
- "Western Union" where the singers sing part of the chorus in Morse code.
- That Cake song about a phone call where part of the melody is played using phone tones. (I might be making this up, and if I am, Cake can go ahead and use it.)
- Obviously I need to work on this list, create a playlist for it, and get back to you...
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