Songoftheday 2/18/22 - Should old acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind?

 

 

"Auld Lang Syne (The Millennium Mix)" - Kenny G

from the album Faith: A Holiday Album (1999)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #7 (one week)

Weeks in the top-40: 2

 

Today's song comes from saxophonist Kenny G, who had become the solitary biggest instrumentalist in the 1980s and 1990s with his version of "lite jazz". He not only sold millions of records, but managed to land five top-40 pop hits on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 chart, including two in 1993 from his album Breathless with "Forever In Love" and "By The Time This Night Is Over", the latter with Peabo Bryson. The following year, Kenny released his first seasonal album Miracles, which became the best-selling holiday album at that point moving over eight million copies in the U.S. alone, and was his first and so far only album to top the Billboard 200 sales tally.

In 1996, Kenny returned with another studio album, The Moment, which peaked at #2 on the Billboard 200 and sold over four million copies. However, while the Latin-injected single "Havana" topped Billboard's Dance Club Play chart with its remixes, while the album version put him back into the top ten on the Adult Contemporary radio chart at #10, mainstream pop stations pretty much were cold, and both singles from the set stalled in the 60's on the Hot 100. The next year saw the artist release his first Greatest Hits set, which sold over three million and had another new top ten AC radio hit with the soft instrumental  "Loving You". 

Kenny released an album of all "cover songs", Classics In The Key Of G, in the summer of 1999, which sold over a million. Later that year, the saxophonist put out a second holiday-themed record, Faith. Along with nine Christmas classics (and one requisite Hanukkah number), there were two back-to-back versions of the New Year's Eve standard "Auld Lang Syne". Originally based on a poem by Scotland legend Robert Burns, and using a melody from a 16th century folk ballad, the song was first not affiliated with a particular date, but in time had become inseparably married to the turning of the year.  Kenny included a faithful reading of the tune, and then what was dubbed the "Millennium Mix", which interspersed news soundbites from the past 100 years. With the hubbub behind Y2K, it was the perfect time for this type of record, and Kenny found himself with a prototype of the "Viral hit" Now, this could have been a total sugar-coated novelty, but the choices of what to include, the good and the bad, with the assassinations of the Kennedys and Dr. King, as well as the AIDS crisis and Ellen coming out, gives the record a bit of gravity to the track.

 

 Kenny's version of "Auld Lang Syne" spent two weeks in the top ten of Billboard's pop Hot 100 chart in January of 2000. The "Millenium Mix" spent a week at #3 on their Adult contemporary (or "easy listening") radio chart, as well at #15 on the older-skewing Adult Top-40 format list. The mix got such widespread (yet short) radio love that it even appeared on Billboard's R&B (#57) and Country (#49) charts. The Faith: The Holiday Album went to #6 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, selling over three million copies. At the Grammy Awards in 2001, Faith was nominated for Best Contemporary Instrumental Album in its first year as a category, losing to new waver Joe Jackson for his Symphony No 1. 

In 2002, Kenny came back with his eleventh studio effort Paradise. It reached the top ten on the Billboard 200 at #9, but it would be his last so far to do so. The main single from the record, "One More Time" with R&B singer Chante Moore, peaked at #19 on Billboard's Adult Contemporary chart and #27 on the Adult R&B format. Another cut from the set, "All The Way" featuring Brian McKnight, was up for a Grammy in the Best Duo/Group R&B Vocal category, which went to Stevie Wonder and Take 6 for their remake of Wonder's "Love's In Need Of Love Today". Meanwhile, the Paradise album was up for Best Contemporary Instrumental Album, losing to fellow jazz artist Norman Brown's Just Chillin' opus. Kenny put out a third holiday album, Wishes, later that year, which contained another version of "Auld Lang Syne" that was dubbed the "Freedom Mix", which popped on to the R&B Singles chart at #98. The collection was up for the Best Contemporary Instrumental Album in 2004, which went to rock veteran Ry Cooder and Cuban guitarist Manuel Galban's collaborative set Mambo Sinuendo.

2005 had Kenny release an album with all vocal collaborators, Duets, which included a smooth jazz remake of Outkast's "The Way You Move" featuring Earth, Wind & Fire that climbed to #12 on the Adult Contempoary radio chart and #25 at R&B. He had so many holiday sets out that Kenny was able to put out a Greatest Holiday Classics compilation with new tracks later that year, and three cuts made the Adult Contemporary radio chart, with "We Wish You A Merry Christmas" climbing to #15.

 

Since then, Kenny has released six more studio albums. 2010's Heart and Soul, his most recent to make the top-40 on the Billboard 200 chart at #33, was nominated in the Best Contemporary Instrumental Album category again, which went to Larry Carlton and Tak Matsumoto for their Take Your Pick set. In 2015, his Brazilian Nights album popped on to the albums sales chart at #86, while topping Billboard's Jazz Albums list. 

 

Kenny was able to get back to the Hot 100 top 40 as a guest on Kanye West's track "Use This Gospel" from his Jesus Is King album, which peaked at #37. His most recent studio release, New Standards, came out in 2021. The year before, the sax player appeared on the special remix of R&B star The Weeknd's single "In Your Eyes", which went to #27 on the Adult Contemporary radio chart.

(7/10)

(Click below to see the rest of the post)

In 2003, "Auld Lang Syne" was redone as the "Freedom Mix", which was a bit more jingoistic. Nevertheless it got to #98 on the R&B Singles chart...

 Here's a recording from the last millennium, in 1898...

 

and lastly, Kenny performing "Auld Lang Syne" live...

Up tomorrow: This Latin lover has some religious percussion, perhaps.