I am building two projects together mainly because they share the same word, “love”. In the image on the left is “Love Me Lilke You Do,” and to the right is “Do You Love Me.” This post is about, Do You Love Me.

Ray Charles, even in the Rock ‘en Roll days at the UW Madison I still had a connection to Ray Charles. I am thinking that connection came form my mother’s taste in music, Hank Williams, probably playing in a bar on a flashy10 cents a song jukebox, or was it three for a quarter

Even though I searched and searched a little more I only found lip-syncing versions live of Do You Love me, on YouTube. I asked GEMINI and the response was a pleasant surprise to me.

Why spend a month or more on “Do You Love Me”? I must thank the 1987 Dirty Dancing film for that decision. For me, a musical that brought back sixties memories and the Dave Clark Five version. Although I have mistakenly thought that The Beatles recorded it.

For me today, I now prefer the Contours version first heard in 1987. What appeals to me is the absolute power of emotional connection. A simple song like this came over me and all of Rock ‘en Rock listeners. This song is full of a sense of “let it all out. Let it go. I am having my moment, and I am with my people.” Let me add back in the sixties, I never thought so much about “my people” for they were all around me, especially my three years in Madison.

Beyond the Hits: The Stories That Make Art Matter

ARTIST STATEMENT. This is a summary version of my discussion with my AI assistant, Mr. Brightside. Final editing by Scott. Attached is the original discussion unedited for spelling or grammar]

I have to acknowledge that I’m pretty much a 1960s Top Forty sound-system guy. My philosophy on music was and remains today simple: “Just shut up and play the hits.”

I know the songs I grew up with, and I see the familiar paintings repeatedly over the years. I read the stories and listen to the experts. But eventually, I wonder: What else is there? What was happening beyond the familiar examples that represented an entire birth of new art forms ?

Recently, my interest in Berthe Morisot and the Impressionists led me down an unexpected path. I encountered a painting by Lawrence Alma-Tadema, dated 1895, the year Morisot died. It surprised me. Then I saw its substance. Three women, their gestures, their relationship to one another, and the romantic world surrounding them held my attention.

Soon afterward, I encountered a Venetian painting by Ludwig Johann Passini. A woman looks outward from a balcony, surrounded by soft colors and beautifully observed architecture. I felt the artist was extending an invitation. I wanted to enter the scene.

I didn’t need to know either artist’s name to respond. The feeling of “surprise” comes first. What follows is the seeing of “substance,” and only later, to lock down that I made the right decision, I look at a song or an artwork’s history.

And that led me to a bigger question: Is it the STORY that is needed to raise an artwork above the pounding waves, and into the light of art competing for our attention?

Consider Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. The painting was already an important work, but its theft from the Louvre in 1911 brought international attention. The story became inseparable from the painting’s public identity. Millions of people who might never have thought about Renaissance portraiture now knew its name.

Then, there is Vincent van Gogh. We know his paintings, but we also know the story of his strenuous life and his relationship with his brother Theo. Yet another person deserves recognition: Jo van Gogh-Bonger, Theo’s widow. She preserved Vincent’s letters, promoted his paintings, and helped bring his work before the public after both brothers had died.

If Jo had not been present, people might still remember Vincent. But would his place in our collective imagination be the same?

Jo did not create Vincent’s talent. She helped create the circumstances in which the world could discover it.

This distinction matters. Art history is not simply a record of the greatest paintings. It is also a history of the people who preserved, promoted, exhibited, collected, interpreted, and remembered them. Artistic merit matters, but merit alone does not distribute recognition.

How many artists produced remarkable work without ever finding their Jo?

This question brings me back to the Impressionists. Their story is familiar: the rejected artists, the independent exhibitions, the resistance of the establishment, and the eventual acceptance of a revolutionary way of painting. But what I thought was there but never questioned the ideal that there were other great art and music stories to be unfolded. Other names of other artists that were pursuing different ideas of beauty, craftsmanship, realism, and expression lived alongside the artist names I do remember.

Their work deserves to be encountered on its own terms, not dismissed simply because it did not become part of the most celebrated movement, Impressionism.

Perhaps, an interesting story gives an artwork its chance to be recognized. Perhaps the painting itself gives us a reason to stay.

For me, the order matters. Surprise earns the first look. Substance earns continued attention. Context deepens the experience, and story can open doors I didn’t know existed.

I don’t intend to abandon the hits. I am now a little more curious to discover the music playing alongside them.

And with this art, I want to discover the paintings, the artists, and the stories that history left waiting just beyond the familiar names, that I wish to include. Although I probably will never remember their names.

Perhaps the story doesn’t make the art great. Perhaps the story gives the art a chance to be recognized as great.