Back in August, when I shared “Orange,” the second portion of the series of posts we’re calling Floyd’s Prism, I noted my relief that there were enough songs in my files with “orange” in their titles for me to do a standard six-song post.
And I said in a parenthetical note: “I have my concerns about ‘indigo,’ but we’ll deal with that when we get there.”
Well, we are there. I was right to have concerns. And we’ll deal with them.
A search for “indigo” in the files brings up 209 mp3s, the vast majority of which are tunes by the Indigo Girls. There are a couple of singles from a 1960s folk-rock group called the Indigos. We find Duke Ellington’s “Solitude,” scavenged from an album called Ellington’s Indigos.
Then there is “Mood Indigo.” Oddly, I don’t have Ellington’s original version. I have covers of the song by Frank Sinatra, Henry Mancini, Jimmie Lunceford & His Orchestra and John Barry (from the soundtrack to the 1984 film The Cotton Club).
And I have a great, N’Awlins-infused version of the Big Band classic from Duke Elegant, Dr. John’s 1999 album celebrating Ellington’s birth a century earlier. That’s all the indigo I got, but it’s pretty damned good.
We’ll do a rare Wednesday post tomorrow, digging around in the Billboard Hot 100 from October 30, 1971.
Tags: Dr. John
The only other listing I had on my hard drive was Atlanta Rhythm Section’s “Indigo Passion,” by way of their ‘Underdog’ and ‘Best Of’ albums.
Indigo might be a tough find, but picture an ‘Inkjet’s Prism.’ Cyan or magenta, anyone?
Sing it Mac! Twinkle those keys!