ORIGINAL SONG LYRICS:

Linked alphabetically below.
Please exclude “The” and spell any numbers.

A Change In My Life
All That Comes To Mind
Always You
Babygirl
Bang
Bed Of Nails
Better 2gether
Big Wet Rag
Blah Blah Blah
Bodyboard
Bored & Stroked
Bring Some Love
California Sad-Eyed Girl
Capital
Christmas Ceasefire
Christmas Love
Christmas Without You
Come My Way
Daisy Simone
Don’t Tell Me You Do
Doorman Of My Heart
Everything to Me
Falling Over You
Fat Jack & Bonefish Joe
1st Night
Flamingo Sing
Flat Tire
Flip-Top Twister
Folgers “Forest Morning” Holiday ad
Folgers “Rockin’ Morning” ad
Follow Me to Heaven
For The Love
4U4Now4Life
Give
Hard Time
Have a Little Faith
Hold Out for Christmas
Holiday Groove
The Hope We Hold
How Bout Now?
Hula Holiday
I Am Your Man
I Found Sugar
I Like You Very Much
I Walk With You
I’ll Hear Your Voice
Indiana
Is It In You?
Jenny Come Away
Kingdom of Shy
Lift Up
Little Mary Snowflake
Lisa, I Love You
Love and the Lights
Malibu Grand-Prix
Millennial Lady
Moments of You
My Home
No Doubt At All
No Pressure
Nowhere
Nuthin’ But
NYC Summa
NYC Winter
Off My Mind
On The Last Night
One Day After Day
Peace On Earth
Peanut Shell
People Change
Presents
Pretty Much You
Quiet Sensation
Rock River
Secret Santa
77
Shemibos
The Shortest Path
Sir GotALot
Smile In My Heart
Snowstar
So Much Better
Song 9
Sunburnt Sucker
Tell Me What You Want
That’s The Way
This Christmas Day
This Isn’t Love
Tokyo Yo-Yo
Tonight
Too Much
Tornado Man
U Beat Me Up
We Got A Happy Holiday
When You Came
Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?
Where Would We Be?
Why
Workin My Way to You
You’re my Christmas

Arrangements by Scott Leonard

“INGENIOUS…”

– Reno Gazette

Scott Leonard’s one-of-a-kind arrangements have helped to make Rockapella one of the most groundbreaking vocal groups of all time.
Now you can go behind the scenes of four of Scott’s favorite cover arrangements;
Andy Williams’ “Moon River”, The Rolling Stones’ “Satisfaction“, a Prince mashup, “Little Red Wild Thing“, and a Bill Haley/Chaka Khan mashup, “Rock Around Somethin’ Good“.

SATISFACTION

“It’s hard to do vocal arrangements of songs based on instrumental hooks without sounding silly, so I don’t usually try. Pretending I’m a solo guitar grows old fast. If you wanna be funny, maybe ok. It’s sometimes sweet to add incidental moments of guitar-ish chords or trumpet sounds, but solos make me smirk.

But for our HITS show, you gotta have Stones.
Wasn’t a follower, but feels like some of their songs make for cool Rockapella.
The simplicity of structure & open chords with the catchiness of Keith Richard’s guitar hooks & the flavor of Mick Jagger’s vocals give room for play.

“Satisfaction” is all about that Keith Richards guitar riff. Tried it in the bass. Reminds you it’s there without trying to sound like Keith Richards.
The open voicing of the Stones serves Rockapella well, with only 4 notes to play with. Love chords without 1-3-5 all the time. Having only 2 notes for backups sounds Stones-y. Love odd intervals.

Wouldn’t be Rockapella without referential riffs. When I was a kid, loved that funky part of Stones’ MISS YOU when Mick starts to like rap about Central Park and Puerto Rican girls “just dyin’ ta meet choo”, so I placed my favorite Stones moment – “what’s a-matter wit choo boy?” in a pivotal spot. Ryan does it justice.
On our last Japan tour, George took it to a George place leaving me cowering, delighted.

Sometimes I go for the epic, but this one feels like the rock in Rockapella.
And of course, in the live version, we pay tribute to the Bay City Rollers.”

Moon River

“After playing Sammy’s Showroom (Sammy Davis Jr.) at Harrah’s in Reno, and dedicating an arrangement of Candyman, I thought it only fair we pay tribute to Andy Williams when playing his theater in Branson.

I grew up on that red Andy Williams Christmas album, and would start playing it in September every year. Side 1 of that album is one of the greatest sides of an album I know of. It had “Most Wonderful Time…”, “Holiday Season”, a great “White Christmas” and “12 Days…” (a song I usually find really boring), and ended with “Kay Thompson’s Jingle Bells”. That Jingle Bells is epic. Kay Thompson was a real trailblazer, and had a singular, remarkably varied career.

If we’d been playing his theater in December, clearly one of those songs would’ve been ripe. The song for the rest of the year, however, has gotta be Moon River. It’s the classic showcase for Andy’s beautiful and uniquely pleasing voice, and it is just a masterpiece marriage of Henry Mancini music and Johnny Mercer lyrics. I love the lyrics of Cole Porter, Noel Coward, Lorenz Hart and others from the standards era, but Johnny Mercer managed to be just as clever and insightful, while doing so in the everyman vernacular of 20th century America. When you see Breakfast At Tiffany’s, you appreciate the simple way he finds the depth of feeling behind the song’s story.

Of course, it needed to have an original approach to be worthy of the Sun Brothers or Rockapella. I love the samba/bossa nova feeling of Basia (and producer Danny White), and if I was forced to listen to only one record for the rest of my days, it would be one of hers. That vibe just landed on me while contemplating Moon River, and oo it make a me feel sooo nice. The song is so sublime that, to do one of our signature middle section departures would be overkill. 2 times through with Calvin caressing it once, then the group playing around it the 2nd time treats it right. Finally, a nod to Andy’s greatest Christmas hit ends it with a smile.”

ROCK AROUND SOMETHIN’ GOOD

“Most Rockapella arrangements arise out of what I think the live show needs. For Rockapella’s Hits show, I thought “Rock Around The Clock” made sense as an opener since I think of that as the 1st big rock/pop hit.

I need to have some original vibe on a cover song to give the arrangement the right to exist. I started feeling the groove, then, singing that count-off (1, 2, 3 o’clock 4 o’clock rock…), started drifting to that Feist song (1, 2, 3, 4 – tell me that you love me more…), and I must’ve thought that was enough to build on.

At some point, when it felt right to go back to the “tell me that you love me more”, started feelin that Rufus vibe “tell me that you love me” from “Tell Me Somethin’ Good”. That made me so happy cuz that 45 was probably my most favorite of all time. Wish it could be a little slower & funky like Rufus, but this way serves the energy at the top of the show.”

LITTLE RED WILD THING

“For Rockapella’s Hits show, it seemed like the 1980’s were underrepresented. Prince was my guy in the ’80’s, and we’d recently done a few Michael Jackson songs, so I went for Prince. Thought maybe Purple Rain or When Doves Cry or Kiss were songs most people – even non-Prince people would know.

Always looking for an original approach to a song people know well,

I started hearing sort of a retro/standard/swingy vibe for Little Red Corvette.

Thought something like that could fill that vibe we get when we do Mills Brothers stuff in the regular Rockapella show. Thought it would be funny to mix that vibe with such a sex-ish song.

Started in on a Mills-ian vibe for the vamp. Like to keep the Rockapella vibe away from too much raunch, so Rockapellish backups w/words can be a good way to counter the raunch & kind of poke fun at it (Trojans – giddy-up horsey).

Had to make the hook – “Little Red Corvette” – hook-worthy, so having the bass join in for 4-note chords on that phrase makes it stand out. With melody, bass line, and only 4 guys singing, we don’t usually get to do the jazzy Take 6-ish chords, so we savor those moments. And the chorus has tasty moments to feature bass man Ryan.

I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to slip in other Prince songs, but nothing was making my boat float. Then I was thinking maybe another car song would be good. I was just kind of letting it ruminate – for days, thinking something would eventually feel good, when, sitting at my computer in my Reno hotel room with the TV on, they start talking about the movie Easy Rider on an Oscar special, and that song Born To Be Wild starts playing – “Get cher motor runnin’, Head out on the highway…”. I’m like – oh baby – and we were off.”

Browse clips via players below

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HOLIDAY ALBUMS

Browse clips via players below

Recent CDs & downloads also available now on our online shop!

HOLIDAY ALBUMS