60 of Joe Mari’s favorite songs

"Music builds upon itself. All songwriters are influenced by the music they grow up with and their styles are molded by those songs."

That’s Jose Mari Chan speaking.

Sunday last week, Joe Mari was among the artists honored at the 1st Platinum Circle Awards 2005 (see story below) launched by ABS-CBN’s noontime show ASAP ‘05. His albums are platinum best-sellers; two of them, Constant Change and Christmas in Our Hearts (both, multi-platinum), have combined sales of more than one million copies.

"Many of us borrow from other composers while a few even dare to steal, consciously or unconsciously," Joe Mari continues. "One of the most celebrated cases was that of George Harrison who was charged for plagiarism. It was determined that his My Sweet Lord (1970) was copied from He’s So Fine by the Chiffons (1963).

"Probably the only ones who were truly original and classic were the likes of Bach and Mozart because there was not much music that came before them. The songwriters today have an enormous wealth of music material at their disposal. Like architects that follow the lines and designs of their famous predecessors, songwriters grow up listening to and imbibing music and from that totality they write their songs."

Funfare requested Mr. Songwriter to make a list of 60 of his favorite songs ("I have thousands," he enthused).

"These are the songs that I grew up with and that have planted tiny seeds in my musical subconscious. I have always been very careful not to steal or blatantly copy from those songs."

However, Joe Mari hastened to add, "Exceptions are two compositions that are tributes to Lennon and Macartney, entitled A Day in the Life of a Song from my album A Heart’s Journey (Awit Awardee Album of the Year 2003) and A Counterpoint to Here, There and Everywhere from the album A Golden Collection. They were intentionally crafted as tributes to the Beatles whose body of work is a major influence of mine. Another exception is my tribute to the Big Band Era called Give Me the Old Big Band Anytime from the album Thank You Love where my melody, though original, was intentionally patterned after the sound of the Big Band. To those who are interested I suggest you get copies of the above three songs for analysis."

Here’s Joe Mari’s Magic 60:

1. Frederic Chopin’s Etude Opus 10 No.3

2. Gigi by Lerner and Loewe

3. Ang Tangi Kong Pagibig (Constancio C. de Guzman)

4. A String of Pearls (Jerry Gray-Glenn Miller)

5. Claude Debussy’s Claire de Lune

6. Serenata (Leroy Anderson)

7. Get Back (The Beatles)

8. The 2nd Star To The Right (Sammy Cahn/Sammy Fain) from Peter Pan

9. Autumn in New York (Vernon Duke)

10. Walay Angay (Ilonggo song)

11. John Philip Sousa’s Marches

12. Rock-a-Beatin’-Boogie (Bill Haley)

13. Merry Widow Waltz (Franz Lehar)

14. Long Tall Sally (Little Richard)

15. Alone Again Naturally (Gilbert O’ Sullivan)

16. Peter Tchaikovsky’s 1st Piano Concerto

17. Garry Owen (The US 7th Cavalry March)

18. When I Fall In Love (Victor Young)

19. George Gershwin’s Rhapsody In Blue

20. We Didn’t Start The Fire (Billy Joel)

21. Two For The Road (Henry Mancini)

22. The Long and Winding Road (The Beatles)

23. Singing In The Rain (Arthur Freed/Nacio Herb Brown)

24. Jerome Kern’s Showboat

25. Kahibulungan (Fernando Alfon/Ming Villareal)

26. Banana Boat Song (Harry Belafonte)

27. Wave (Antonio Carlos Jobim)

28. So In Love (Cole Porter)

29. From Russia With Love (John Barry)

30. Rachmaninoff’s 2nd Piano Concerto

31. Smile (Charles Chaplin)

32. True Love Ways (Buddy Holly)

33. I’m Gonna Love You Too (Buddy Holly)

34. Windmills Of Your Mind (Michel Legrand/Marilyn & Alan Bergman)

35. Go (adapted from Camille Saint-Saenz’s Samson et Delilah)

36. Autumn Leaves (Joseph Kosma/Johnny Mercer)

37. Richard Rodgers’ Carousel

38. Here There and Everywhere (The Beatles)

39. Moonlight Serenade (Glenn Miller)

40. Witchita Lineman (Jim Webb)

41. Max Steiner’s body of work (Gone With the Wind, A Summer Place, Helen of Troy, etc.)

42. Alfie (Burt Bacharach/Hal David)

43. Whistlin’ Away The Dark (Henry Mancini)

44. Love Is Here To Stay (George Gershwin)

45. Stardust (Hoagy Carmichael)

46. Peter Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake

47. I Get Around (The Beach Boys)

48. I Have Dreamed (Rodgers/Hammerstein)

49. Frederic Chopin’s Nocturne in E Flat

50. Al Di La (Emilio Pericoli)

51. Concierto de Aranjuez (Joaquin Rodrigo)

52. Love Is A Many Splendored Thing (Paul Francis Webster/Sammy Fain)

53. Watch What Happens (Michel Legrand/Norman Gimbel)

54. I’ll Be Seeing You (Irving Kahal/Sammy Fain)

55. Young-at-Heart

56. Bridge Over Troubled Water (Paul Simon)

57. Beneath The Southern Cross (Richard Rodgers)

58. River of No Return (Alfred Newman)

59. Some Enchanted Evening (Richard Rodgers/Oscar Hammerstein)

60. On The Street Where You Live (Lerner & Loewe)

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