Memories…a mental impression retained; a recollection.
Well, the following recollection is eight years old. Do you remember this?
In June of 2004, CBS aired a 3-hour special called “AFI – 100 Years, 100 Songs. Hosted by John Travolta, the countdown from the American Film Institute featured clips of 100 famous songs.
According to the AFI webpage:
AFI is America’s promise to preserve the history of the motion picture, to honor the artists and their work and to educate the next generation of storytellers.
Clay Aiken joined Burt Bacharach, Celine Dion, Barry Gibb, Barbra Streisand, and Paul Simon who all commented about the songs in the Top 100.
The top 100 songs were chosen by 1,500 industry experts. The songs were evaluated on quality of music and lyrics as well as their cultural impact and legacy. “Over the Rainbow” – the Judy Garland anthem from “The Wizard of Oz” – was voted the greatest movie song ever.
The top ten list of greatest movie tunes follows:
- · Over The Rainbow from The Wizard of Oz
- · As Time Goes By from Casablanca
- · Singin’ in the Rain from Singin’ in the Rain
- · Moon River from Breakfast at Tiffany’s
- · White Christmas from Holiday Inn
- · Mrs. Robinson from The Graduate
- · When You Wish Upon A Star from Pinnochio
- · The Way We Were from The Way We Were
- · Stayin’ Alive from Saturday Night Fever
- · The Sound of Music from The Sound of Music
Commenting on “Lose Yourself” by Eminem, Clay said:
Movie music does not have to be soaring love ballads. Lose Yourself is definitely an example of a movie song that makes a movie much more hip and much more popular for today’s culture.”
When commenting on “Unchained Melody” from Ghost, Clay said his mother had a dream that he would record a cover of Unchained Melody and it would be a big hit. One week later, LeAnn Rimes came out with the recording and it became a big hit. The hopes of Clay’s Mom were dashed. Clay also commented that he was in 4th grade when Ghost was released and that he did not understand the significance of the hands on the potter’s wheel during the song. I bet that Clay had no idea that Ben Cohn would later write a wonderful arrangement of “Unchained Melody” for him.
Another of Clay’s comments brought a laugh when he shared that he tried hard to learn to spell supercalfragalisticexpialidocious.
100 Years, 100 Songs, with the American Film Institute had an audience of 12.3 million people. How many of those people were fans of Clay Aiken?
Watch the video below to see Clay’s part of the AFI show.
I've never seen that. I came around too late I'm afraid but I enjoyed your blog. Great pics too! btw….I adore Ben's arrangement and of course Clay sings it as only Clay could….perfectly 🙂
Thanks for this article. It is old, but nice to see again.
Sure wish we would get some news from Clay. I bet its hard for you to come up with something each day!!
Always love what you do here.
I had forgotten all about this show. Now the memories come flooding back about how excited I was when the program began and there was Clay! Thanks for posting this.
Clay always has great comments. This was such a great video. Thanks for all you do.
I remember that show well. Being a huge fan of so many different styles of music I really enjoyed the entire proram. Of course I thought Clay was the best part.
Oh, yes, I certainly do remember this program. I was counting down the hours till it came on. If I remember correctly, it was on a Sunday night. Clay did a great job on it too. Thank you so much for the video..made my day.
I also watched this show and taped Clay's parts – I remember how exciting it was to see him be a part of that great show – he has been asked to do so many really special things. He was always so
capable and comfortable in whatever he took part in. He is that way "even now"! Love watching the
video again.