Hello and welcome back to my podcast, R. E. Fort Without Music Life Has No Soul, Happy New Year’s to you and yours. For the January Featured Tracks playlist, I wanted a playlist that would work great for New Year’s Eve celebrations and celebrate my grandson’s birthday. So, I picked these five great tracks: Stop Wait and Think, Told Ya, Why Don’t Ya Just Let us play, Run with Me and Tydus’s Lullaby. As always, I’ve created this playlist and links for YouTube, YouTube Music, Spotify, Pandora, Apple Music, and Amazon Music, in this post and on my website at refort.co/playlist. Let’s get to the playlist.
Podcast and Featured Tracks Playlist January 2026
Playlist
First up,is the title track from my 2025 release, Stop Wait and Think. This track has such a great groove. This track is a big, bold, fusion track. On this track I am playing all the guitar parts using my Fender Stratocaster. On keyboards I used some very cool midi instruments from horns; strings and a cool DX synth sound I use to help support the guitar melody. The drum programming was so much fun to program using Addictive Drums and some cool midi drum patches I pulled together and edited. I love the rhythm guitar’s bright and crips sound on this track. Let’s give Stop Wait and Think a listen.
Next up is the title track from my 2022 release, Told Ya. Told Ya is a smooth jazz ballad. I love this tracks melody and its smooth groove. On this one I’m playing the melody and rhythm guitar sections using my Ibanez hollow body guitar, the solo is my Fender Stratocaster. On keyboards I used some very cool midi instruments, horns and strings to fill out the track. I think this one really came together, making this track a great smooth jazz ballad. Let’s give Told Ya a listen.
Next up, Why Don’t Ya, Just Let us play from my 2023 release Life on The Other Side. This track is a fusion of funk, blues, and a little rock. I love how this track opens with that killer bass guitar line and the drum section I programed. The foundation or sound canvas for this track is the rhythm section, the rhythm guitar, Fender Rhodes piano sound, bass guitar, staccato horns, and that awesome drum programming. I used my Gibson SG for the rhythm guitar and melody. On the guitar solo, I played my Fender Stratocaster. Let’s give Why Don’t Ya Just Let us play, a listen.
Next up is Run With Me from my 2020 release Living in Strange Times. I love songs that are like conversation. In this case, the conversation is between my Fender acoustic guitar and a Grand Paino sound. There is a killer solo at the end of the track, that believe it or not, I played on my Fender acoustic electric. It sounded so good I decided to leave it and not redo it using my SG or Stratocaster. On the keyboard side I’m using a Baby Grand sound for the melody and the solo and a Fender Rhodes electric piano sound for the chords. Let’s give Run With Me a listen.
To close this month and this year’s playlist is Tydus’s Lullaby from 2025 release Stop Wait and Think. This is a beautiful lullaby I wrote for my second grandson, Tydus, whose birthday is in January. When I started writing this one, it was just the piano and soft strings. But once I recorded those sections and listened to it, I knew I needed more. So, I added my Ibanez nylon acoustic electric guitar for the melody and wrote a cool bass guitar line for it. Let’s give Tydus’s Lullaby a listen.
Well, I hope you enjoyed this episode of my Featured Tracks Playlist and get a chance to listen to the full playlist on either YouTube, YouTube Music, Spotify, Pandora, Apple Music, and Amazon Music sites. Remember you can find links to this playlist for those sites in this post and on my website at refort.co/playlist. The song opening and closing this podcast is still one of my favorites, a track named So Cool from my cd 10 released in 2017. Thanks for listening, and as always, Without Music, Life Has No Soul. Thanks
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