Feel So Good

I still remember the day when I met Chuck Mangione. I was in college at the University of Iowa working as a server at Swans restaurant at the Holiday Inn. He was virtually unknown to my co-workers so I had no problem convincing my manager to assign me to deliver his room service order.

I was so nervous from the anticipation of meeting Chuck Mangione in person - it was probably the equivalent of meeting Paul McCartney or John Lennon for most Americans. I pictured walking in the room and witnessing Mr.
Mangione himself belting the chorus to "Feels so good." That would have been so memorable. However,  the meeting was uneventful; I greeted him by name, rolled the cart by the bed and as he was signing his check, I told him that he was a superstar in the Philippines. He was polite but he never gave me the impression that he was interested in what I had to say. I guess after the millionth room service delivery, courtesy conversation with a room service server becomes irrelevant.

While my appreciation for Mr. Mangione has faded since that fateful day in Iowa City, his songs, especially feel so good, will forever be a part of my childhood days in the Philippines. "Feels so good" was released in 1978. It made it all the way to # 4 on the pop charts in the US, losing to Billy Joel's "Just the way you are" as the best song of 1978. But in Manila, "Feels so good" was a monumental hit. For the first time, an instrumental jazz song hit the mainstream. As a high school freshman, my lola Albe's driver, Islaw, must have gotten so sick of this song because I played this song every morning in the car on the way to school. The song simply made you feel good. It was one of those songs...

My good friend Nolet Soliven and I would lounge in his den and jam to "Feels so good" and "Give it all you've got" while "browsing" through his dad's collection of Playboy. Along with bottles of San Miguel and blue seal yosi, we were definitely loving life.