Blogocentric Formulations

The Valley Road

DAY 18

"The Valley Road"
by Bruce Hornsby

I think my soft rock, adult contemporary are showing a little with this entry. This was the stuff my parents listen to, so artists like Bruce Hornsby and James Taylor and Chicago and Huey Lewis were always playing in their car, on the radio while they worked in the garage, etc. It was actually kind of hard for me to choose which Bruce Hornsby song to pick, mostly because I have a lot of favorites and they all sound kind of the same. "Every Little Kiss" is up there, along with "The Way It Is" and (to a lesser extent) "Mandolin Rain."

What's really interesting is that Bruce Hornsby has been around for a long time but I don't think I ever knew much about him as a musician until I looked him up for this entry. I remember that Tupac sampled "The Way It Is" back in the 90s, but I had no idea how popular Hornsby's music was as a sampling source. Six rap artists including Tupac have sampled "The Way It Is." He played more than 100 shows with the Grateful Dead, and has collaborated on multiple songs with the likes of Ricky Skaggs and Chaka Khan. He's had a pretty remarkable 30+ year career in music.

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Written for "The Soundtrack of Your Life"