Summer Playlist 2020: Songs for the Dock, Beach, Boat & Campfire

We’re playing DJ with the sounds of Summer 2020: Smooth and easy, breezy songs that ride the waves and sift through the maples as you sit on the dock or watch the flames snap in the campfire. Check back often, this playlist may be small now but it’s growing. If you have a request, speak up… we’re listening.

 

MuskokaStyle Playlist 2020

Apollo, St. Paul & the Broken Bones

One listen of Apollo by St. Paul and the Broken Bones and you’ll be shot straight into the constellations. The band’s modern soul/funk style is a reprise of the Motown bands of the ’70s. Think: The Commodores, The OJs, a mellow Otis Redding. Whatever the sound is, it’s wonderful. Sizzling lyrics: “Telling’ all the stars her name, Hopin’ interstellar, hey… I love you baby…” Watch & Listen HERE

High School Lovers, Cayucas

Because school lets out today for summer, we’re dedicating this space to a surfy, beachy song that speaks to Gen Z. Consider High School Lovers by the Cayucas to be this generation’s High School Confidential (Rough Trade) or School’s Out  (Alice Cooper)… remember those? This one’s better. Watch & Listen HERE.

A Beautiful Day, Freedom Fry

Somehow duo Bruce Driscoll and Marie Seyrat of Freedom Fry have captured sunshine and summer vibes in their folk-pop single A Beautiful Day. Might have something to do with their base in Los Angeles, or the soft overlay of strings and soothing voices. The band is a hippie mix of Fleetwood Mac + Crosby Stills and Nash, with a bit of Indigo Girls and Bananarama thrown in. Soothing lyrics: “It’s a beautiful day, and I just wanna ride it. Ride the wave, right there to your side…” Watch & Listen HERE.

Brazilian Soul, The Knocks (feat. Sofi Tukker)

With soothing lyrics and a samba sound that floats on an evening breeze, Sofi Tukker and The Knocks have produced the most perfect summer song. While it’s about “the heat of December”, remember that December is high summer on the beaches of Brazil. Lyrics “I’ll always remember, In the heat of December, When we let our hearts grow close…” Hear it once and you’l return again and again. Watch and Listen HERE.

C’est La Vie, Jaclyn Kenyon

Remember Jaclyn Kenyon? She’s the country music star we featured in MuskokaStyle a few weeks ago. At the time, she was at her Muskoka cottage resting, writing, and working on a new music video. Well, now the video’s dropped; it’s called C’est La Vie, and yes… it was filmed in Muskoka.

Questions, feat. Jakob Dylan & Eric Clapton

Have you seen it yet? Echo in the Canyon, a Netflix rockumentary by Andrew Slater tracing the birth of the “california sound”. Host Jakob Dylan re-plays and tracks music made in Laurel Canyon in the mid-1960s by The Byrds, the Beach Boys, the Mamas and the Papas, etc. Interviews include some who were there (Stephen Stills, David Crosby, Graham Nash, Neil Young, Brian Wilson, Roger McGuinn, Eric Clapton, Michelle Phillips) and others who were influenced by the sound, including Jackson Browne, Ringo Starr, and the late Tom Petty. Here we feature Buffalo Springfield’s Questions, re-done for the film by Dylan and Clapton.

Sun Will Find You, Gabrielle Current

It’s Labour Day 🙁 And we’re sad at MuskokaStyle because it’s the finish of another stellar cottage season. For a soft exit from sunny weather, listen to Gabrielle Current’s Sun Will Find You, a soothing, lyrical “so long” to summer.

I Can See Clearly Now, Johnny Nash

R.I.P. Johnny Nash, whose I Can See Clearly Now (1972) may well be the ultimate summer song. With its soft reggae sound and lyrics that lead us out of the gloom, the tune is full of hope and sunlight in a year we sorely need hope and sunlight. “Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind; It’s gonna be a bright (bright) sunshiny day…”