Food and music are very different.
But when it comes to the taste of either, they are first cousins. You like it, or you can leave it.
I understand eating liver can be good for you, but it’s a “no thanks” for me.
And that’s a ditto for opera and rap music. If you love those genres, help yourself. But pile my plate high with non-pop/rock country and Motown’s rhythm and blues (R&B), and soul, led by Sam Cooke, self-proclaimed “King of Soul.” My all-time favorite tunes are “Carolina beach music.” Not to be confused with California’s Beach Boys.
I’m talking about The Diamonds, The Tams, The Embers, The Drifters, The Clovers, Jerry Butler, Bruce Channel, The Temptations, The Dominoes, The Showmen, The Platters, Maurice Williams & The Zodiacs, The Four Tops, Lloyd Price, The Catalinas, Otis Redding, Marvin Gaye, The Band of Oz and more.
Oops, can’t forget The Swinging Medallions. Arguably, “Carolina Girls” by The Chairmen of the Board is the No. 1 beach-music shag song.
Shag music was made famous along the beaches of the Carolinas but spread kudzu-like across the South. Back in my 1960s UGA days, fraternity-house jukeboxes were crammed full of get-your-feet-moving beach music. Leather soles of a gazillion Weejuns were worn thin, shagging on the dance floors.
Former newspaperman Roy White of Mullins, South Carolina, was a regular at Myrtle Beach. His wife had leather soles stitched to the bottom of his favorite tennis shoes, so he could slide and shag to beach music on Ocean Drive.
But I digress.
Right now, there’s a fractious debate about artificial intelligence (AI). But what has AI got to do with music and dancing?
Well, plenty.
And almost everything.
Case in point: Eddie Dalton.
Who?
Eddie Dalton, so far, has three iTunes Top 10. The skyrocketing star was imagined by Dallas Ray Little of Greenville, South Carolina, who writes the lyrics. But Eddie Dalton is AI-generated from voice to visuals. I became a fan the first time that I heard his music streaming through the dashboard of my truck.
“Another Day Old” might be my right-now theme song. Oh, I’ll never tune out the original Carolina beach music. But I encourage you to listen to Eddie on any of the streaming services. I feel as though he’s a blend of Otis Redding, Marvin Gaye and BB King. Check out this excerpt from “Another Day Old”:
“We’re just passing through time like the wind through the pines
Just small little pieces in a bigger design
But the older I get, the more that I know
There ain’t nothing wrong with being another day old”
Even if music, specifically Eddie’s, is not your thing, there’s a deeper message in what is happening with his creation. My friend’s cousin, a Nashville songwriter with a wall full of gold records, says AI is a disrupter of the way it used to be. Old-school songwriters might take weeks to create lyrics. AI can whip out the words in less than a minute. Maybe not as good, but good enough to compete with humans.
And that’s the point.
Where are we headed, enamored with this new “shiny thing?”
Will people—particularly students—stop using their brains?
Is AI a jobs creator or a job-busting disrupter?
Even Pope Leo XIV has published a manifesto of his AI concerns.
Does anyone really know?
While I’m trying to develop my opinion, Eddie sings a hint:
“Time don’t stop and it don’t rewind
But around every corner there’s some to find.”
dnesmith@cninewspapers.com
