Featuring tracks by artists such as Michael McDonald, Toto, Average White Band, Boz Scaggs, Carly Simon, Robert Palmer, and many more, Katie Puckrik’s Yacht Rock Odyssey is a thorough journey into the epitome of cool sophistication.
A Yacht Rock Odysseyis a 72-track, 4CD and 24-track, 2LP set curated by TV and radio broadcaster and newspaper columnist Katie Puckrik, featuring songs from the affectionately wryly termed genre “Yacht Rock”.
Katie, who certainly knows her way around the subject having presented the critically acclaimed BBC TV documentaryI Can Go For That: The Smooth World Of Yacht Rock, as well as a series of Yacht Rock specials on BBC Radio 2, has split the four disc set into four separate musical voyages of discovery.
Watch her trailer below:
Polished To Perfection
The term “Yacht Rock” conjures up the lush West Coast sound from about 1975 to 1985: escapist jazz-inflected soft rock, burnished to a high sheen by session musicians and producers at the peak of their powers. As Katie has noted, Yacht’s laid-back sound and lovelorn lyrics were the perfect soundtrack for listeners in 1970s America trying to tune out the war in Vietnam and the Watergate scandal, along with economic upheavals.
Katie explains where her love of Yacht Rock began: “When I was a kid in suburban Virginia, Yacht Rock was the music that sailed out of girlfriends’ cassette players, older boys’ muscle cars, and grown-ups’ co*cktail parties. Encompassing lifers Michael McDonald, Toto and Average White Band as well as toe-dippers like Carly Simon, Robert Palmer and the Pointer Sisters, Yacht’s frisson springs from its slick sound set against lyrics about aspiration and alienation, hedonism crossed with thwarted desire. The blade might be smooth, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t sharp.”
Sonic Sophistication
She also points out why the sound still resonates for music fans globally: “In our world of poisonous political unrest, social turmoil and digital hectoring, it’s balm for the soul in an anxious age.” She continues, “Yacht Rock is currently enjoying reappraisal by a new generation of music lovers driven by the genre’s sonic sophistication and nostalgia for a Miami Vice-tinted past. But Yacht’s appeal goes deeper than just being catnip for crate diggers and style junkies. The magic of Yacht Rock is that just listening to it makes us feel sexy, happy and rich.
“It seduces you with the promise that life will be breezy and blissful, filled with dancing and forever golden sunsets and that everything’s going to be okay. And even when it isn’t, that’s fine, too. Because in Yacht’s world of grownup screwups, even melancholy has allure, as long as you’re wearing an orchid in your hair, or a louche linen blazer with the sleeves pushed right up.”
‘A YACHT ROCK ODYSSEY’ 4CD SET
CD1 LUXURY YACHT
Some of the most beloved West Coast classics this side of Malibu.
1 Christopher Cross Ride Like The Wind (45 Version)
2 Starbuck Moonlight Feels Right
3 George Benson Turn Your Love Around
4 Carly Simon You Belong To Me
5 Kenny Loggins This Is It
6 Raydio You Can’t Change That
7 Average White Band Whatcha Gonna Do for Me
8 Bobby Caldwell What You Won’t Do For Love
9 Boz Scaggs Lowdown (Single Version)
10 Robbie Dupree Steal Away
11 Al Jarreau Mornin’
12 Pablo Cruise What’cha Gonna Do?
13 Gino Vannelli People Gotta Move
14 Ace How Long
15 Stephen Bishop Save It For A Rainy Day
16 The Pointer Sisters He’s So Shy
17 Steve Winwood Valerie (original 1982 recording)
18 Player Baby Come Back
19 Chaka Khan Through The Fire (45 Version)
20 Toto Africa
CD2 SIRENS OF THE SEA
Female singer-songwriters and interpreters who broadened the palette of Yacht Rock.
1 Olivia Newton-John Magic
2 Nicolette Larson Lotta Love
3 Laura Allan Opening Up To You
4 Carole Bayer Sager It’s The Falling In Love
5 Carly Simon It Keeps You Runnin’
6 Curved Air Touch Of Tequila
7 Lauren Wood Save The Man
8 Samantha Sang Emotion
9 Rajie Last Chance
10 Evie Sands Lady Of The Night
11 Maria Muldaur Open Your Eyes
12 Holly Near Back Off
13 Kiki Dee Love Is A Crazy Feeling
14 Akiko Yano Telephone Line
15 Diane Tell Tes Yeux
16 Wendy Waldman Cold Back On Me
17 Karla Bonoff Someone To Lay Down Beside
CD3 DEEP DIVE
Shining a light on rare Yacht treasures.
1 Maxus Nobody’s Business
2 Toto Georgy Porgy
3 Average White Band Isn’t It Strange
4 Greg Guidry Show Me Your Love
5 Dane Donahue Freedom
6 Randy Crawford That’s How Heartaches Are Made
7 Paul Anka Walk A Fine Line
8 Robbie Dupree Brooklyn Girls
9 Little Feat Red Streamliner
10 Robert Palmer Every Kinda People
11 Larsen-Feiten Band Who’ll Be The Fool Tonight
12 Lake Key To The Rhyme (Album Version)
13 Leo Sayer Easy To Love
14 Amy Holland How Do I Survive
15 Pages The Sailor’s Song
16 Airplay Nothin’ You Can Do About It
17 Bill Champlin Keys To The Kingdom
CD4 NIGHT SAIL
A smoochy set to keep you and the moon company.
1 The Jones Girls Nights Over Egypt
2 Michael McDonald I Keep Forgettin’ (Every Time You’re Near)
3 Grover Washington Jr. And Bill Withers Just The Two Of Us
4 Kenny Rankin Creepin’
5 Steve Winwood Hold On
6 Chicago Wishing You Were Here
7 Lonette McKee Maybe There Are Reasons
8 Ned Doheny Get It Up For Love
9 Loggins & Messina Move On
10 JD Souther Midnight Prowl
11 Michael Sembello Lay Back (Menage À Trois)
12 Robert Palmer Give Me An Inch
13 Kool & The Gang Too Hot
14 Pousette-Dart Band Winterness
15 Bernie Leadon Glass Off
16 Steve Miller Band Sacrifice
17 Christopher Cross Sailing
‘A YACHT ROCK ODYSSEY’ 2LP SET
LP1 SUNSHINE
West Coast sounds to make you feel sexy, happy and rich.
SIDE A
1 Christopher Cross Ride Like The Wind (45 Version)
2 Average White Band Whatcha Gonna Do for Me
3 The Pointer Sisters He’s So Shy
4 Bobby Caldwell What You Won’t Do For Love
5 Maxus Nobody’s Business
6 Lauren Wood Save The Man
SIDE B
1 Toto Africa
2 Robbie Dupree Steal Away
3 George Benson Turn Your Love Around
4 Stephen Bishop Save It For A Rainy Day
5 Carly Simon It Keeps You Runnin’
6 Bill Champlin Keys To The Kingdom
LP2 MOONLIGHT
A smoochy set to keep you and the moon company.
SIDE C
1 Michael Sembello Lay Back (Menage À Trois)
2 Maria Muldaur Open Your Eyes
3 Paul Anka Walk A Fine Line
4 Little Feat Red Streamliner
5 Robert Palmer Give Me An Inch
6 Lonette McKee Maybe There Are Reasons
SIDE D
1 Michael McDonald I Keep Forgettin’ (Every Time You’re Near)
2 Olivia Newton-John Magic
3 Diane Tell Tes Yeux
4 Kenny Rankin Creepin’
5 Pages The Sailor’s Song
6 Christopher Cross Sailing
Released 30 August, Katie Puckrik Presents A Yacht Rock Odyssey is available for pre-order now. Click here
Read More: Popscene – Yacht Rock
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