Bloggerhythms

Once in awhile a piece of music sounds so generic that you wonder what someone else hears in it but that's what makes some people musicians while millions of us without talent work in cubicles. They hear things in songs we never will. One of those blessed with such talent was the late Harry Nilsson who obviously heard something in Badfinger's "Without You" that no one else did, not even the song's composers. The troubled British quartet released the original version of "Without You," written by the band's Tom Evans and Pete Ham, for their 1970 album, No Dice . However, their arrangement of this soon-to-be massive 1972 hit for Nilsson never got noticed by the public and it was destined to be just another deep track from a classic album.  Even Ham and Evans believed it was nothing more than album filler. Badfinger's recording is quite thin when compared to Nilsson's more melodramatic take that appeared on his 1971 Nilsson Schmilsson LP....

Other than the actual music one of the more endearing qualities about Norah Jones is that the anti-diva is among the few unselfish pop stars on the planet when it comes to sharing the spotlight with others. Her ego doesn't need to call attention to herself because she is all about the music. While the singer-songwriter is the main attraction in The Little Willies she is not the sole reason to listen to that country band's two albums. She is even more selfless when teaming with Billy Jo Armstrong on Foreverly , the duo's tribute to The Everly Brothers, and now Jones has allowed herself to be nothing greater than one third of Puss N Boots, another country collaboration with Sasha Dobson and Catherine Popper . Jones, Dobson, and Popper have been performing together since 2008 and this year they finally released an album, No Fools, No Fun . Only five of the songs come from the ladies themselves, the rest are cover versions, and there are four live tracks. Speaking of...