To make up for the fact that I haven’t posted a playlist in months, I packed this one with more songs than usual. Along with a few of my favorites from Aretha, I included songs by artists introduced to me by my friend Steve Lippman, who passed away in August.

Steve was a brilliant filmmaker and the most talented listener of music I’ve ever known. I worked with him on a few musical projects over the years, doing voiceover work for EPKs and some post-production retouching. I even appeared in the companion video package to Jane Monheit’s 2005 Christmas album The Season.

When I first met Steve, he was working on a collection of videos for Jane Monheit’s 2002 album In the Sun. The particular song he was working on first was a beautiful cover of Bill Evans’ “Some Other Time.” Knowing that I had Photoshop skills, Steve asked me to do a little digital smoothing on some frames of the footage.

Though the song is a romantic poem, much of it can apply to a friendship. This song and especially the video will always take me back to the beginning of one of the very best friendships I’ve ever had and one that I’m missing so much today.

There are other tracks peppered throughout the playlist that remind me of Steve: Bowie’s “Bring Me the Disco King” (the video for which I also worked on for Steve), Madeleine Peyroux’s cover of “Everybody’s Talkin’ At Me,” “Am I Forgiven?” by the British singer Rumer (see the video Steve directed here) and a few others.

As with all my playlists, this one crosses many moods, eras and genres, with a groovy autumnal twist. Hit shuffle, enjoy and thank you for subscribing.

October 2018 Playlist

Further listening…

Feel free to dive into the complete playlist archive on Spotify and The Men’s Shop Playlist, a growing eclectic mix of classics that I would play in my fantasy men’s store or barbershop.