Two freakin' GREAT songs...

So I am groovin' and getting psyched for Istanbul - and these two songs keep going through my head.  Completely different, to be sure, but both smokin' and sultry in their own way, yes?  The first, of course, is the original "Word Up" by none other than Cameo - a true 70s/80s soul-funk band from NYC - that rocked the world in 1986 with this hit...

EVERY time I hear this song I get so excited and want - no, make that NEED - to dance. It is electric, hip, sassy, filled with attitude and fun all at the same time.  In so many true ways, this song captures the best of funk attitude with dance floor action.

About a hundred years later, in the middle of a CSI: Las Vegas came this version by the British soul sister, Willis, that is equally smokin' but in a whole different way.  Her on-line bio says this about Willis:

Though hugely influenced by female American artists like Barbra Streisand, Ella Fitzgerald and Brenda Lee, she began singing traditional Irish folk songs before discovering 1970s Americana, via Neil Young and The Band, during the 90s. A six year spell working at the eclectic London store, Soul Jazz Records, belatedly introduced her to the world of dance music and electronica and by the mid 2000s she was releasing records via her own label, Cripple Creek. After recording ‘Come Get Some’, an album for 679/Warners, she returned to running her own label and in autumn 2010 the new album ‘Uncle Treacle’ was released via Cripple Creek.

I think she has one of the sexiest and finest voices happening and totally LOVE this version of the song, too. Now this clip is waaay Goth - but given the popular culture introduction to Willis vis a creepy sequence with a creepy character in CSI - I guess that is ok.  But what a different song, yeah?

I just keep thinking that there's a place for this - one way or the other - in Istanbul.  Sometimes the best way to make friends it just to shake your booty, yes?