Rod Stewart "Passion"

Grandma Emily enjoyed her Miller Lite. Heck, when she passed away in 2004, we even buried her with a bottle of her favorite suds. Every holiday or birthday, she asked for the same thing: beer, cigarettes and scratch-ems (read: scratch-off lottery tickets). It certainly took all the stress out of shopping.

One night, Grandma polished off a pitcher of beer by herself while the two of us dined on pizza at Beggar's Pizza in Lansing, Illinois. We frequented that spot for years...even before I was of legal drinking age. Beggar's wasn't an ordinary pizza place -- the building was once an old movie theater complete with a classic Barton pipe organ. At the bottom of the old theater-turned-restaurant was a a giant pipe organ while the walls of the theater were adorned with other musical instruments that would light up when the organist played them. It was once known as Lansing Pipes & Pizza and later Beggar's, but no matter the name -- it played host to numerous birthday parties and other celebrations. Since Beggar's only featured a live organist certain nights of the week, Grandma and I planned our visits for the evenings when a guy named Dean played. Dean entertained the masses with a collection of music from classic children's songs to polkas and even contemporary music such as George Michael's "Father Figure".

That night, Grandma scribbled a few requests for Dean on a sheet of paper and walked them down to his tip jar where she dropped them. Grandma grew restless as Dean played song after song because none of these were her requests. About the same time she finished her pitcher of beer, she took action. So, she walked down and started fishing out her requests among his dollar bills and other monetary tips. Dean caught a glimpse of her from the corner of his eye while he played the theme from "Phantom of the Opera". Without missing a note, he played on while my Grandma turned to me and shrugged her shoulders. Practically in tears when she returned, Grandma asked what the hell was so funny. I explained that it looked like she was robbing Dean of his tips. Thankfully she also saw that she could be viewed as a tip thief and plotted to talk to him during his next break. That's when she shared her next unsolicited opinion with me: Dean was so good at playing a musical instrument meant that he was also great in bed. Okey doke, Grandma.

I escorted Grandma down to chat with Dean during his 15-minute break and she struck up a conversation.

"Where do you work?" she asked.

"Radio Shack," Dean replied.

"Radio Shack?!? What the hell for?" she replied.

"I actually like working there," he added.

"Well, you're wasting your talents there. You're gifted. You're a musician. You shouldn't be selling electronic parts," she chastised him.

After we returned to our seats, Grandma turned to me and said, "I was wrong. There's no way he's good in bed. He's blah."

Dean never played Grandma's requests that night.

Andrew Gold - "Thank You For Being A Friend"

I produced a morning radio show in 2003 that was one of the toughest gigs of my career.  Management micro-managed the show from its inception...and for good reason.  After recognizing the show wasn't clicking (with listeners and with the hosts), they changed the direction of the show from personality-driven to a music-intensive morning show with a couple short breaks each hour for content.  We adhered to an eight-song per hour rule--meaning that we had to play eight songs every hour and, if we had time, could use the left-over time for content.

During one morning, the hosts discussed the previous night's Lifetime reunion special of The Golden Girls.  After talking about how they felt there was something missing from the TV special, it finally hit me: the famous Golden Girl's theme song was missing.  I quickly chimed in and shared my thoughts and the conversation ended.  About an hour later, a woman dialed up our station's studio line and introduced herself as Cindy Fee.  She explained that a friend of hers was listening to our station and heard us talking about her.  I told her that maybe she had our station mixed up with our sister station, The Mix, as we always received phone calls from people wanting to chime in on whatever topic The Mix was discussing.  Miss Fee said that she had the correct station and identified herself as the singer of "Thank You For Being A Friend"--more commonly known as the theme song to The Golden Girls.  I quickly Googled "Cindy Fee" to see if her story checked out, and it did.  Not only did Cindy sing the song that Andrew Gold made a hit in 1978, but she also lived in nearby Oak Park, Illinois and still performed with a jazz band.  We put Cindy on the air and she bravely belted out "Thank You For Being A Friend"...over the phone...at 8:50 A.M.  It was one of those "oh wow" moments that I'll never forget for multiple reasons--for one, I realized people outside of our tiny radio studio were actually listening.

Bonnie Raitt - "I Can't Make You Love Me"

While Bruce Hornsby has had plenty of Adult Contemporary hits, you can find him in a quite a few others.  However, you'll only hear him as the pianist rather than the vocalist.  One such example is Bonnie Raitt's signature ballad "I Can't Make You Love Me".  The day before my sophomore year of high school started, my friend Steve and I went to Gurnee Mills Mall with his mom.  We spent the whole day at the mall and Bonnie Raitt's tune blared over the speakers at center court.  By the end of the day, I think I had heard the song about 30 times.