Peter Brewis - "CALL ME PAUL" - via Mel Smith. Parody of "Graceland" and "You Can Call Me Al"

Peter Brewis? 

See below, for an homage (in time for Kate Bush's birthday) to his brilliant "Oh England My Leotard" satire, performed by Pam Stephenson. 

Among Pete fans, a close second for "funniest parody of a pop star" goes to "Call Me Paul," which was originally performed on "Alas Smith and Jones." 

Since Paul Simon is American, and perhaps has a sense of humor (remember when he dressed up in a turkey outfit to sing "Still Crazy" on a "Saturday Night Live" episode), there wasn't quite the hoo-hah over using snatches of Paul's music as there was when using Kate's. 

'I Know What I Know" "Boy in the Bubble," "You Can All Me Al" and "Graceland" are all stewing in here. 

Pete is an award winner. Whatever it is, it looks nice doesn't it? He seems happy to have it.

 

Brewis lent his comedy stylings to a variety of British comedy shows, many featuring either Mel Smith or Lenny Henry in the cast: Alas Smith and Jones, Not the Nine O'Clock News, Smith and Goody, Spitting Image, Three of a Kind, The Lenny Henry Show, Lenny Beige, and Carrott's Lib. Among his other songs cultists love: "Santa's Super Sleigh" and "I've Never Met a Nice South African." In the uneven (Jeff Goldblum starring, Rowan Atkinson in villainous support) film "The Tall Guy," Pete supplied the mocking pseudo-Broadway songs for the highlight, where Goldblum's character stars in a musical version of "The Elephant Man."

And kudos to Pete for having his own website PETERBREWIS with nothing much on it except a misspelling of composer: 

CELEBRATE KATE BUSH’S BIRTHDAY WITH PAMELA STEPHENSON - That HEAVY Satire!

"Do you like my latest hits...'cause you like my latex tits?" 

"Oh, England, my LEOTARD..."

Yes, all you Bush Babies, your beloved Kate was born July 30th, 1958, and I’m giving you a day’s HEADS UP to plan a party…all alone in your basement surrounded by Kate posters. 

Some blogger for whom English is a second language, and who has no imagination or morals, might use the day to give away an ENTIRE KATE BUSH DISCOGRAPHY. This, along with a huffy demand for a nice comment for his hard work. As in, "Here I am with nothing better to do in Holland, Sweden, Turkey, Croatia, or some other third-rate armpit country that isn't hip, and all I ask is that you appreciate how much I love MUSIC. ANY music. ANYTHING that will make me seem cool. Ooh ooh, I have a BLOG! I am in the music business!" 

But I digress. I was knocked out when Kate Bush suddenly emerged, fully formed, with not only some very exciting songs, but a new and pretty erotic way of putting them across...via mime and, yes, wearing a leotard.

I certainly remember when Kate was among the first to create evocative rock videos; two pieces were actually imported and broadcast on “Saturday Night Live.” WOW, WOW, WOW, WOW, WOW, WOW…UNBELIEVABLE!
    
Let’s take a look back at one of them: “Wuthering Heights.” It had people actually gasping, “There was a book based on this video?” Yeah, some chick named Bronte. I forget which one

Notice that this AUTHORIZED video has gotten over 19 MILLION HITS?

That means that Kate Bush has gotten paid some money by The Great God Google. Imagine THAT. One reason for posting a video here is that money actually goes to the artist. As long as the artist uploads and doesn't leave it to some asshole who writes "no copyright infringement intended, I just like this," so it's uploaded defying the point of copyright protection. Hoo ha.

I'd heard high-pitched pop voices before (Marsha Malamet is on this blog).  But Kate's lyrics were in progrock form, and she kept getting more and more evocative with her British delights in fantasy, ghosts, romance and things spiritual or simply peculiar. She would soon become political as well. 

Most would agree that the "hot" Kate Bush (all some people cared about) was best heard and observed on her first two or three albums and those early videos. I was going to record stores (remember them?) and buying import singles and albums. Here's Kate going banshee, but still being sexy with it:

I know, what's sexy about a woman actually called "Babooshka?" Nothing, unless it's Kate. For most, "babooshka" recalls the kind of schmatta old immigrant women from armpit countries in Europe used to wear while trudging around smelling of herring. 

It was at this time that Kate Bush became so successful she was worth a parody. After all, once the initial shock of seeing a curvy mime in action wore off, you had to think, "This IS a bit silly, even for progressive rock." Enter the fabulous Pam Stephenson, star of cult horror-comedy films, wife of Billy Connolly, and now a therapist. She was a woman who was not only sexy, but funny. She was not just the Carol Cleveland type that male comics could leer at for humor. She was talented and got chances to prove it. Like THIS amazingly on-target and pungent satire of our beloved Kate, including high kicks and hilarious face-making:

I think it edges Weird Al's Lady Gaga parody "Perform this Way" for best funny rock video of all time. You're getting the version with the Pete Brewis lyrics. 

Copyright is a bit different around the world. In America you can write parody lyrics and get paid for them, and there's no hassle (as long as the writer of the music is also paid). Nobody tells you NO YOU CAN'T. But in 1980 in the UK, Pete Brewis (who created some hilarious faux-Broadway musical songs for "The Tall Guy" movie) got a stern warning. NO, you can NOT lift the music from "Heavy People" or a phrase from "Violin" or "England My Lionheart" and get paid for adding tongue-in-cheek lyrics. 

As I see on my copy of "Not the Nine O'Clock News" (BBC Records REB 421), "England My Leotard" is SOLELY credited (meaning the money goes SOLELY to the person credited) as KATE BUSH. There's an added notation that the song is owned by Kate Bush Music Ltd, in association with EMI MUSIC Ltd. And then, as a throwaway, in parenthesis: (Lyrical pastiche Peter Brewis). Pastiche? UNPAID pastiche? Some people, leaving comments on various bootleg versions of the original video, marvel at what a good sport Kate Bush was, writing her own parody lyrics. But, no, she didn't. 

Pete Brewis: 

"There were copyright problems. When Kate Bush's publishers EMI got wind of the song being put out on an album I was summoned to a meeting with their lawyers who said I'd ripped off Them Heavy People. I said, 'The tune's different, the harmony's different, the bass line's different and the words are different. It's a different song'. They said, 'But your song wouldn't have been written if Them Heavy People hadn't existed'. Yep - true enough. 'And that makes it a breach of copyright', they said. So there you are: in this country you can't send up any song that's still in copyright. Not The Nine O'Clock News was extremely popular at the time, so the album stood to sell squillions. They agreed to let the song go on the album as long as they (and Kate Bush) got my share of the money. And they insisted on that wording: 'by Kate Bush. Lyrical pastiche by Peter Brewis'. Sounds really Edwardian doesn't it? Lyrical pastiche. 'And now, Ladies and Gentlemen, for your amusement I should like to perform a lyrical pastiche'.

Was Kate Bush in on the recording of this? NO. Did she like the parody? Pete Brewis:

"I heard, soon after the show was first broadcast, that she was a bit angry about it. Then a year or so later I asked a friend of mine who'd been working with her if she'd ever mentioned the song. 'Yeah - we were talking about it. She thought it was funny'."

In the category of WTF, it is duly noted that Pam probably recorded the lyrics while listening, karaoke-style to the finished song. In one she sings "my carrot quiches" while another has her sing "my cauliflower quiches."Let's turn to Pete Brewis again for the answer: 

"I wrote it, made a demo tape of me singing it to give to Pamela Stevenson for her to learn it, booked four or five musicians, a couple of backing singers and a studio. The bass-player was having an off-day and I got a bit impatient, but we got the backing track recorded in a couple of hours. The musicians went home. Pamela Stevenson arrived and listened to the backing track a couple of times before we started recording it. On the first take she sang the first line, 'I was into yin and yang and hatha yoga' and said, 'can I hear that back?' I said, 'You've only done one line!'

So bit by little tiny bit we got it recorded. She said she thought the line 'my carrot quiches were better than the bought ones' would be better if it was 'cauliflower quiches'. Never defensive about my finely-honed, expertly-crafted lyrics I agreed to change it. (Well - I argued with her for half an hour about it THEN I agreed). For the rest of the session, whenever we got to that line, the engineer and I would sing, 'My cauliflower quiches were better than the carrot ones'.

Just how the "carrot quiches" version got leaked and popular, who knows.

Those unfamiliar with British slang might be mystified by "I was thicker than two short ones." She wasn't referring to stalks of cauliflower or two carrots. Just recall Jethro Tull's 'Thick as a Brick," and you'll know that this is a reference to stupidity.

In the book "Under the Ivy, The Life and Music of Kate Bush," it's "cauliflower" that's quoted, and the preferred vegetable. On the web, "carrot" is quoted here on the blog in an earlier posting about the song, and preferred at the Kate Bush gaffa forum: Carrot Quiches reference in a lyric posting 

There have been a variety of Kate Bush parodies since Pamela Stephenson, but with her high kicks and her flashing eyes, and her sexy swivels, Pam not only gets laughs, she gets applause for being an excellent singer and dancer. Why she walked away from her comedy career, she should have her head examined, but being a therapist, she's too busy helping others. And one thing most therapists will tell a patient is to...have a sense of humor. Laugh and you'll live longer. Long live Pam, Kate, and Mr. Pastiche, Pete Brewis.

There’s Old Rick Wakeman and there’s “Young No More” HANK JONES - hear some HANK

Recently, Rick Wakeman performed in concert. Shabby of hair, stubbled of face, sporting a paunch, but still wearing a CAPE and acting like this was the dawning of the Age of Pretentiousness, he dazzled the gawking crowd. Ooo, watta Keyboard Hero! 

What denotes a keyboard hero? Same thing that defines a guitar hero: the ability to play FAST. And wowie zowie, look at all that gear! Dr. Frankenstein in his lab didn't have such cool stuff.

The big problem with keyboard heroes is that they're stuck at the keyboard. Unless you're on the right side of the stage (usually the left side) you can't see their fingers. Maybe you can if you're up in the balcony peeping down, or you're one of that cheering stadium throng of 50,000 who all came to watch TV on a giant screen, because from where you are, the guy on stage is barely a fly speck. 

Interesting that in the world of progrock, there are only two keyboard heroes, really: Rick Wakeman and the late Keith Emerson. They played FAST, LOUD and used synths. Classical and jazz pianists (and even Randy Newman, Elton John and Billy Joel) use an acoustic piano, so they play with nuance and emotion. That's why there are more PIANIST heroes in the music world than progrock synth stars.

After viewing Capeman, and learning he's still alive, and still has devoted fans,  I happened to put the headphones on, and play some miscellaneous jazz. Usually about an hour is more than enough of a fix. Like country, and even classical, jazz can get pretty annoying after too long. That's unlike the music of ELP or YES, which gets annoying after five minutes. 

One piece really sauced my cauliflowers (like the jive talk? I stole that phrase off liner notes on a Spike Jones record). It was "Young No More" by the old and now dead Hank Jones. And it reminded me of what a REAL keyboard hero can do on a Steinway. While synth albums get old for most people, acoustic piano albums remain fresh for a much wider audience. Put it this way, ELP and YES are in the bargain bin. Hank Jones, not so much.

Hank Jones. He might be an obscure name to the average music fan who at least knows about Oscar Peterson, Errol Garner, Fats Waller and Art Tatum. But...

....Hey, you know who was at the piano when Marilyn Monroe sang her ridiculously sultry “Happy Birthday Mr. President” to her fuck-buddy JFK? It was Hank Jones! 


Hank died back on May 16, 2010. He was "Young No More" when people began appreciating him and giving him honors: 1989’s Jazz Masters award from The National Endowment for the Arts (hope he was endowed with a check), 2003’s “Living Legend” award from ASCAP (who care about piracy and royalty payments SO much), and 2008’s “National Medal of Arts.”


Hank’s early career was as a session man and accompanist. He was Ella Fitzgerald’s pianist in the late 40’s and early 50’s, and was support on recordings by Charlie Parker, Wes Montgomery, Nancy Wilson and Cannonball Adderley. He was hired by Savoy to sit on most of the sessions they booked for well known soloists, and his day job for 15 years was working at CBS where he was often called in to back a singer on “The Ed Sullivan Show.” He toured the world doing jazz festivals, and was well liked and respected by his peers, sitting in on dozens and dozens of all-star recording sessions. And yes, he put out some solo albums as well for hipsters in the know. 

IF I’M BEING HONEST, as they say in the U.K., I found “Young No More” pleasant on first listen, but it grabbed me when, instead of background music, I happened to just lie back, close my eyes, and really listen, with headphones. Sometimes with pianists, this IS the way to really appreciate the nuances of tempo, phrasing, and shades of volume. In both jazz and classical, it’s not just about dexterity, but when a piece requires it, whether it’s Chopin, Bach, or “Young No More” (by Frank Metis) it creates a whole different awe. 

“Young No More” starts out with a spooky-cool lope, the bass line recalling Vic Mizzy’s “Night Walker,”  or something out of Vince Guaraldi’s “Charlie Brown” smooth bag of tasty tricks. What’s this? Sounds like Snoopy stalking the Red Baron or something. But after the jeepers creepers, a different gear kicks in, and, as they say, the song begins to swing all over the keys. I mean, SWING. Dance, pirouette, slip, slide, ravel with patterns that seem spontaneous but have mathematical precision. In rock, bassists are handed a solo; here, the bassist works with the pianist, the two instruments like loves, till a drum break separates them, and the song eases back into what someone crude might call a post-coital rest. We often take this for granted when it’s playing in the background at a restaurant. But the way this finger-spider weaves complexity without sacrificing melody is a wonder of nature. And then, as killer-easy as this piece turned into virtuosity, it slid back to the original cool; over and out. 

Not a surprise that “Note for Note,” a documentary on how Steinway makes a concert grand piano, included Hank among the pianists talking tech. The greats are not only technically proficient, and use the finest instruments, they take a supernatural joy and an almost religious devotion to making music that captures a full range of emotion. It’s a rare thing, whether in rock, pop, country, classical or jazz.

So, on July 29, nice to know old Wakeman is still around playing for geezers who still love him, and would even want to waddle onto a cruise ship to see him and pester him for a selfie, and a birthday remembrance to Hank Jones, who would be 101 if he lived to his birthday, July 31. 

Try it with headphones: YOUNG NO MORE - Hank Jones - no dodgy foreign website, no spyware, no porn ads. Listen online or download.

Edward Woodward covers an Elton John song that SHOULD have been in ROCKETMAN - Dick James' son is PISSED OFF

It's ONLY a movie. Why should it be factual? 

In the movie, young Elton John auditions songs for British big shot Dick James. The year is 1967. Elton plays "Daniel" (actually written in 1972) and “I Guess That’s Why They Call It The Blues” (actually written in 1983). Dick James, being a complete asshole jerk fuck-up executive-prick tin-eared piece of shit, passes on BOTH gems, which he didn't even hear. Well, that's the movies.

The fact is that Elton wrote and SANG a lot of demos for Dick James, and these are easy to find in bootleg form. One of them, the peculiar "Tide will Turn for Rebecca," was actually recorded in 1970 by Edward Woodward. Here's some of the typical WTF lyrics from Bernie Taupin: 

"Can you hear the floorboards crying in a room on the second floor, that used to be owned by someone who's no one, but he don't live there anymore
"Only Rebecca clasping her head on her knees, trying to work out what is about
And why someone had to leave.
"But dry up your tears, stop counting the years. Don't worry what's coming. Forget all your fears. And the tide will turn for Rebecca. Her life will change, her hopes rearrange into something that might really matter
"She's all alone in a world of her own with a key that fits her lonely world. You won't need a crowd to shout out aloud what she says deserves to be heard."

Here's the song, which you can stream or, using any Youtube-to-mp3 website, download for your very own:

Not a bad song, really. But would it have worked on viewers if Elton had sat down in front of Dick James, sung 10 seconds of this, and had him say, "Hey, I'm signing you to a demo contract, and maybe I can get a TV actor to cover that song..." Nah. Better to have Elton play a hit song and have Dick James sneer that it wasn't any good. Bad, bad music executive! 

When somebody is dead (Dick James) he makes the perfect villain to puncture the oh-so-gay world of a darling, darling dearest, whether it's Elton John or Freddie Mercury (both movies were directed by the same fellatio. Er, fellow.) 

Well, dicking with Dick has gotten some dour words from Stephen James. Unlike the sons of Elton John and David Gurnish, Dick James actually put his dick in a twat and created a true offspring. This son of a Dick is coming to the defense of his Dad: 

"He's basically a coward," James said in an interview with the Express. You can read it here:

DAILY EXPRESS interview with STEPHEN JAMES

But if you want just a few highlights:

On Elton John: "He's never been able to really express his emotions properly, certainly not to me. I don't understand why he seems to feel the need to try to destroy everybody who helped him. We only ever tried to do the best for him and to promote his career. I really am very upset that he has turned on people in this way."

On his Dad and the Film: ""It's rather upset me because my father was a nice guy... my father treated Elton very much as if he was a son. He gave him advice. He was always helping him. My father would always be there. (Scenes in the film) basically depict my father opposite to the way he was in real life. They have turned him into this stereotype with a big fat cigar, swearing every other word. He just wasn't like that. He never got aggressive. He never lost his temper. He never swore. But that's how they have made him in the film."

And so the tide turns for Dick James! Thanks, Stephen for setting the record (pardon the expression) STRAIGHT.  

PS, the Edward Woodward album "This Man Alone" was on the DJM label. That's...DICK JAMES MUSIC.

Zsa Zsa WHO? Gabor gets a new bio - long after even SPIKE JONES fans or DION might care

"Zsa Zsa who?" 

That's what Millennials would say, learning that somebody named Staggs (no joke) has written a new bio on one of the Gabor sisters. Huh? There were 3 famous sisters not named KARDASHIAN? 

Back before idiots were paying hundreds and thousands of dollars for sneakers, here's Zsa Zsa in 1960 singing (sort of) "High Heeled Sneakers." Go, Zsa Zsa: 

Aren't you glad the blog now includes VIDEOS? 

Back before Paris Hilton was born, Zsa Zsa Gabor (first name Sari) fled Hungary (where she was the 15 year-old runner up to a "Miss Hungary" contest.  Beautiful but a Jewess, the Nazis and their pals hounded her through Europe, Iran and Iraq into Turkey, and finally...(since there was no State of Israel, a sandbox sliver that a Jew might call home) she ended up in America. Her actress-sister Eva was already there, but her other sister Magda and her parents were still trying to avoid being killed overseas. 

Conrad Hilton, the best known hotel owner in the world, married Zsa Zsa in 1942. The bombastic blonde had already been married and divorced. When they divorced in 1945, Hilton figured she had to be crazy...so he helped book Zsa Zsa into a nuthouse (er, sanitarium) where she was given two months of insulin shock therapy. 

Meanwhile, back in Hungary, Magda Gabor and her parents had to deal with people who just didn't care much for Jews. Magda recalled what it was like: "“Slaughter in the streets, the yellow badges, the men and women... our family physician, our lawyer, merchants we knew...  machine-gunned to death.” Thanks to Magda sleeping with a Portuguese ambassador,  the Gabors made their way to Lisbon, somehow missed Elsa and Victor Lazlo, but got a plane to America. 

Zsa Zsa married George Sanders in 1949, they divorced a few years later, but they remained such good friends that when Zsa Zsa recommended he marry Magda, he did so. Back in the 50's, you had to do something besides fuck celebrities and leak a tape to become a star. Zsa Zsa did get work as an actress, and through her slight fame, got booked on talk shows, where she did something none of the Kardashians could do: get intentional laughs. Witty, glamorous, and with an exotic accent, Zsa Zsa found magazine-cover fame, and even got some decent roles in films, including "Moulin Rouge," though her musical voice was dubbed by black opera singer Muriel Smith.  Gabor was also in Orson Welles' "Touch of Evil," and the campy "Queen of Outer Space" among others. She showed a sense of humor on sitcoms, variety shows, and course as a guest villain on "Batman." 

Though she was born in 1917, so you'd think she would not have been of interest to teen idol Dion (or his Belmonts). But as you saw above, Zsa Zsa was rockin' in 1960, so when Dion had a hit with "Donna the Prima Donna," the lyrics didn't reference Brigitte Bardot or Connie Francis:

"I remember the nights we dated,always acting sophisticated,
Talking about high society,
Then she tried to make a fool out of me...
She always wears charms, diamonds, pearls galore,
She buys them at the 5 & 10 cents store.
She wants to be just like Zsa Zsa Gabor,
Even though she's the girl next door…"

Dion mispronounced Gabor's name as "Za Za" in the original single, but below you get a 2009 bootleg from a Connecticut concert, in which he corrects it to "Zsa Zsa…

"Donna the Prima Donna" - and a "Za Za" mention


A few years earlier, Spike Jones revived the "Knock Knock joke" novelty hits of the 40's with a new song loaded with rotten puns including this one:  

"Knock Knock!" "Who's There?" "Maverick!" "Maverick who?" "Mah-ah-'hv-a-rickording of this song??"

Yes, there's a "Knock Knock" on Zsa Zsa.

KNOCK KNOCK -- SPIKE JONES

By the 1980's, Zsa Zsa Gabor was finally out of the news, unless she slapped a cop over a parking incident, or got married again (as she did to some asshole Frederic von Anhalt, who claimed to be a Prince. He was 43 and she was 70.  He remained devoted to his trophy wife, and like any collector, got to the point where he wouldn't let anyone else get close to his treasure. He shut off contact with Gabor's own daughter. When her health began to fail, he turned her misery into good publicity for himself, speaking for her, and choosing very carefully what lurid pictures of the helpless, bed-ridden one-legged star the tabloids could run.

Who is going to buy a book on Zsa Zsa? Not too many. Nobody buys books anymore, and the days when major publishers offered celeb bios on just about any celeb are long gone. At least Mr. Staggs was able to maybe get a slight advance from Kensington, and didn't stoop to BearManor Media. Of course, no book is immune from piracy, so a few people might be willing to read an eBook version of Zsa Zsa's story...as long as, like the downloads here, it's free.

Wencke the Wench - Sexy Wencke Myrhe turns a heartache into Side-Boob Wiggles!

Now that the blog is in "show and tell" mode, with Blogspot happily linking to YouTube (because both are owned by The Great God Google), you'll be SEEING some obscure but delightful musical moments. Like this:

With a nicely nasal shriek of JOE (she may have been channeling Gwen Verdon in "Damn Yankees") our Myrrh Cat opens with what she thinks are incredibly erotic come-hithers to her nethers.

First up, she's the State of Taking Liberties, her legs crossing in an "I've gotta pee" position while her right hand sticks straight up in the air. All those in favor of fucking this wench, say AYYYYYYE. Next, the aerobic robot switches to left-hand-on-knee. All those who have a knee fetish, toot your swine-knee whistles. 

As she continues to pierce the air with goose-like cries of JOE, she gets FRANK, and simply drops her hands with a "Come on, already, come and knockwurst mein schvitzer." And then, one arm pointing toward the bedroom (one assumes), she brings her hand to her side-boob, and twiddles her fingers.

Yes, TWIDDLES HER FINGERS. Does it get any more SEXY than that? 

All this in the first TWENTY SECONDS of the video.

NOW you see why the blog has begun to include YouTube visuals. Did Bonnie Tyler do any of this when she sang the original "It's a Heartache?" 

NO, probably because she was actually singing about a heartache. When lyricists in foreign countries grab a hit song and write for a local star in Germany, Belgium, France or other EU nation, they generally don't bother trying to literally translate. They just make up something new. SO...a song about a heartache turns into a set of turn-on moves (she thinks) for a GUY NAMED JOE. But YOU can pretend YOU are an AVERAGE JOE, too. 

Wencke the Wench Myrhe would go through the muck and mire to admire a Joe like you. (I am joe-king of course.)  

Want to know more? Wencke Myrhe (February 15th, 1947), a mere 30-something when she decided to give a Teutonic toot to Bonnie Tyler,  has always been part of my collection (making up for my lack of frankincense).

Years ago I got the cleverly titled "Wencke Myhre Album," where she covered and re-titled, Eric Clapton's "Sorry Sally," Juice Newton's "Der Mann auf einem Seil," and Bobbie Gentry's "Billy Joe McAllister." And "Wenn Du mich beruhrst" was her take on"Sometimes When We Touch." 

This is the album, and yes, I could make a zip file out of it with a Haaardy-har-har cry of "I do this for fun! I love music, I love sharing!" And then, the idiot caveat: "Delete this in 24 hours, it is for review only, if you like it buy it." 

I don't know why bloggers put that statement of assholery on their posts. We all know it's a crock of shit. If people get a download free, they almost NEVER buy the fucking album. What for? To have a wooden shelf sag under the weight of vinyl, when a simple 4TB brick of an external drive can hold an entire ROOM FULL OF MUSIC?? Let's be practical. People who own record stores or sell records mail order should sell hats instead, and musicians should all really give away the music and sell t-shirts at their gigs, and they also shouldn't mind if people use a camcorder to record the gig so nobody has to go in the first place.

A Norwegian who also sings in German, it's no surprise that depending on the country of origin, her albums are credited either to "Wencke" (Germany) or to "Wenche" (Norway).  Wink wink, say no more. She was not born in Norway or Germany. It was in Sweden. But as we know, Orange is the new Black, and Sweden might just as well be Norway.

In 1963 Wenche had three songs in the Norwegian Top Ten, and was ready to annex Germany as the next challenge. Singing in German, she won the Deutschen Schlagerfestival in 1966 with "Beiß Nicht Gleich In Jeden Apfel." It became a #1 hit in Germany, and she followed it in 1967 with the Top Ten "Komm Allein." The following year, she branched out to sing in Swedish, scoring with "Det var en ding-dong rena rama sing-sång." She sank her teeth into Danish songs, too.

Through the 60's and 70's, Wencke was in her prime, appearing in films and TV specials in Norway, Sweden and Germany, and in 1972 "Jeg og du og vi to og mange fler" proved to be her biggest Norwegian hit ever, spending 30 weeks on the charts and hitting #1. In 1978 she scored her final Top Ten in the German language with her cover version of "It's a Heartache."
 
In 1983 she became the first Norwegian to record a CD (it went gold) and she kept releasing new material through 1997, when she recorded "Vannmann." Her greatest hits have been re-packaged many times since, and she still tours in concert. As we say in Norway, I think; Gratulerer med dagen, Wenche.

HEAT - BOBBY COLE AND KATHY KELLY -- it's been a HOT SUMMER, FOLKS!!

There's been record heat this summer, all over the world. "It feels like a hundred," is what you hear...and that's even from people living where they count degrees in Celsius, 

“Tar’s hot as soup in the street. Can’t get away from this awful heat!” 

Below, you get the STEREO version of “Heat.”  The guest artist on this cut, and a few others on the album is Kathy Kelly. Despite the very short rehearsal time, she kept up with Bobby pretty well here. 

It was an interesting notion, bringing in a female vocal on certain tracks. On one song, Kathy does some vocalise, doing ethereal wordless singing in a style used on many a jazz album of the day. Marni Nixon did a lot of that. Much sappier was the tradition of a guy and gal singing together...Debbie Reynolds and Gene Kelly or whatever, enjoying perfect harmony. On "A Point of View," Bobby didn't want that at all.

On "Heat," Bobby was not going for harmony, but the idea of a couple on the same note; looking for a night out on the town, and trying not to let nature interfere. 

There’s a delicious contrast between the rough voice of saloon-singer Cole, and the rather cheerful and sweet sound of Kathy Kelly, especially on “Heat.” Bobby is the somewhat grim New Yorker undaunted by streets “like Hades lowest floor” even at night. Kathy’s pretty cool as she sings along! This isn’t that much of a surprise to me, as I recall that Bobby was a great fan of “Miss Toni Fisher,” who had a big hit with a rather cheerful version of “The Big Hurt.” 

I remember going over to Bobby’s apartment with a copy of Del Shannon’s version, with its “this time the big hurt will end” drum-pistol shot punctuation. Bobby shook his head. He liked Toni’s take much better, and with gruff enthusiasm, asked, “Where is she? I’d like to write an album for her!” Perhaps he was recalling when he wrote “No Difference At All” for Kathy? But more on that in a minute.

Meanwhile, back in the "Heat," note how the well-read Mr. Cole threw in words most don’t know how to spell! Bobby didn't stick with simple lines ala Irving Berlin or the punny hipness of Johnny Mercer:

“Look at this town incandesce. Like it or not you must acquiesce. Sure I’m admitting defeat. Can’t get away from this awful heat!”

Kathy Kelly sings with Bobby on this and several other songs on the album, but she's not on the one he wrote for her, the unlikely “No Difference at All.” 

The humorous if hipster-cruel put downs in this kiss-off tune include “she’s like pink champagne, and you’re like beer. You’re like scratchy old corduroy. She’s cashmere.” And: “She’s like a gentle rain, and you’re like a basement flood. She’s like a lunar rocket and you’re a dud.” 

No, if Kathy joined in on the chorus, that would be quite mean, implying that Bobby and his new girlfriend were making fun of the dumped chick.
 
Too bad there isn’t a demo of Kathy singing this with the original lyrics aimed at some loser who, what, is some scratchy old clod named Roy?  

While the Concentric album wasn’t exactly a best seller, Bobby Cole stayed in show business and Kathy moved on. “I was in the messenger/courier business, and before that I was in  the anti-poverty program. I didn’t go to law school until I was 42, and I graduated at 45.” She worked with a partner in San Francisco and later moved on to set up her own firm in Seattle. She specialized in employment law. About 40% of her clients came to her with complaints of workplace violence and discrimination. Another 30% of the cases she handled involved sexual harassment. Another 20% involved wrongful termination. (That leaves 10% for miscellaneous crimes and misdemeanors.) 

After nearly 30 years of this, Kathy is now retired in Arizona: “I am doing mostly nothing, except playing around with my dogs and puttering around the house. “ Yes, it’s hot in Arizona like everywhere else, but it’s a dry heat. Hot dogs? No, Kathy's dogs look pretty calm and cool.

HEAT - Bobby Cole and Kathy Kelly -- listen online or download. No spyware, no crappy website that takes forever to download, no porn ads.

REACH OUT IN THE DARKNESS for FRIEND & LOVER and MARK TWAIN

July is the month to remember “Friend and Lover.” 

July of 1968 was when their lone hit, “Reach Out in the Darkness” climbed from a promising debut in June to stay in the Top 20 through the month. It was an optimistic song, and it may have helped some people deal with the murder of Robert F. Kennedy just a month earlier, June 5, 1968.  Martin Luther King Jr. was killed only a few months before that, April 4, 1968. 

July 4th 2018 was the date when Cathy “Cat” Conn died. The event wasn’t well covered in the papers, as it had been a long time since she and her friend and lover (and ex-husband) Jim Post were getting a lot of airplay. While Jim is still active in the music business, and can celebrate the 50th anniversary of the “Friend and Lover” album (released in 1969),  Cathy left it long ago. She had two more marriages and three children. She was born in Chicago, lived quite a while in New Mexico, but came back to Evanston, Illinois two or three years before the end.      

 In the beginning, the husband-wife team (they were married only a few months after they met) played the local Chicago folk clubs, including Earl of Old Town, which had welcomed Phil Ochs, Steve Goodman and so many others. As “Jim and Cathy,” they recorded a 1965 single for Cadet: “Santa’s Got a Brand New Bag” b/w “People Stand Back.” Their next single, now under the “Friend and Lover” name, was for ABC Records: “A Town Called Love” b/w “If Tomorrow.” 

Then they auditioned for Verve’s Jerry Schoenbaum, he preferred them to be heard but not seen: “You have to send me a tape,” he told the duo, “I never listen to people in person because I’m affected by the way they look.” After all, it was all about radio play back then, and the sound. Jim said, “Why don’t you turn and look out the window?” He did and he signed them. “I think it’s so groovy now…”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqLRd4neGGE

    Yes, this was an uplifting tune, especially since it was pretty much of a lie: “people are finally getting together.” Really? Well, yes: “We went to a love-in in Central Park. When we left, I had two lines written on a napkin: ‘I think it’s so groovy, now, that people are finally gettin’ together,’ and ‘reach out in the darkness.” Inded,  there were the love-ins and peace marches, but there was also rioting in the street and two major assassinations. 

     The hippie-dippie tune was just the newest “summer of love” anthem. The previous year, July of 1967, it was The Youngbloods’ sappy “Get Together,” with the Pollyanna scolding of: “Come on people now, smile on your brother, Everybody get together, try to love one another right now.”  That dopey tune had been around for years, recorded by the Kingston Trio and even Jefferson Airplane before these shit-kickers punted it into the Top 40. Now, wise “Friend” Jim Post was singing:  “I knew a man that I did not care for…we sat and talked about things on our mind. And now this man, he is a friend of mine.” 

    “Reach Out in the Darkness” was Top 10, with session man and novelty singer Ray Stevens playing keyboards and Joe South producing, but the follow-up, “If Love Is In Your Heart” b/w “Time On Your Side: You’re Only 15 Years Old” didn’t make it. The latter, a kind of naggy Sonny & Cher tune, offered helpful advice: “Go talk to someone 65. You’ll be happy you’re so young and alive. And in a few years you’ll discover your father and mother love you so much more than you ever knew!” 

    Their hit was successful enough to warrant a full album, which came out in 1969, 50 years ago, but that was it. Produced not by Joe South but by Buddy Buie, and included nicely harmonized but silly things like “Weddin’ March: I Feel Groovy” and energetic soul-pop nonsense “I Wise Man Changes His Mind.” The lead track “Boston is a Lovely Town” is bombastic, but who the hell cares? They were raving at high speed over “lovely houses standin’ all around, made from stone out of the ground….fly up to New England!”  

    Friend (Jim) and Lover (Cathy) divorced, and Jim tried for a solo career with “Colorado Exile” on Fantasy, the label that had Creedence Clearwater Revival. Undaunted by the lack of commercial success of his debut, Post continued to create indie albums (including “Ship Shape,” “The Crooner from Outer Space” and “Reach Out Together”), and even branched out into children’s books, with gimmick “board books” including Barnyard Boogie” and “Jungle Beat.” (If you buy “Frog in the Kitchen Sink” by mail, be sure to ask the seller if it’s the first 3D rolling, bulging eye version or the one with a halograph sticker instead.)  And yes, Jim re-married too; his wife Janet is a children’s book author. 

    Jim also works as a Mark Twain imitator. Unlike Hal Holbrook, his impression includes music. His JimPost dotcom shows that he’s still performing the Twain show at a local restaurant/theater in Galena, Illinois. That’s his real mustache, folks. He also still performs his solo songs in local Illinois clubs. A highlight is his reworking of “Reach Out in the Darkness” melded with “Get Together.” Cool! Isn’t it? Well, actually, yes. Bless old hippies everywhere. They are more tolerable than young rappers. And props to Jim for saying “I don’t have any CDs here to sell. I don’t care what you do.” 

ELTON JOHN “ROCKETMAN” MOVIE LIES & FACT TWISTS + His Whiter Shade of Pale “Borrowing”

Elton and Taron. Yes, the make-up work on Taron was very good. He looked quite a bit like Elton John. And sometimes Gary Burghoff.

Now that ROCKETMAN is all over the torrents, including the recently revived DEMONOID, you've probably caught up with it. Or did the publicity about a brief gay bedroom scene put you off? Or have you had enough of "what's up with gay icons with weird teeth" after sitting through BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY? 

If you did see the film, you might be wondering, as one usually does with "based on a true story" films...how much of it is reality, and how much of it is bullshit? Or, as we say, "dramatic license?" After all, "it's only a movie" is the bottom line, and the bottom line is profits. So invent characters, play with the timeline, conveniently darken a few people into villains, and if it's a musical, make sure to have ludicrous moments where people burst into song. 

BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY (directed by the same guy who helmed ROCKETMAN) made a convenient villain out of a dead guy. Here, the very much alive John Reid is presented as a twisted Machiavellian who seduced the virginal 23 year-old Elton only to make him a contract slave and to sneer at him and even punch him. Reid, a recluse these days, can’t prove this film has damaged his ability to make money. So what are his monetary damages? None. The truth? He remained Elton’s business manager a long, long time after he and Rocket Man stopped rocking their inner spaces together. You can argue the film merely “compacted” Reid’s misdeeds, as Elton eventually did sue the guy, but the settlement was out of court. 

The film insists Elton and Bernie "never had an argument." Yeah? The film itself shows them arguing! In an artful moment of the impossible, we see Bernie storm away from his drugged-up friend singing (yes, singing) "Goodbye yellow brick road..." In an admittedly amusing coincidence, Taupin (well known for having a ranch and horses) sings, "going back to my plow." (The film also bypasses the drama of Taupin making solo albums and working with Alice Cooper while Elton used lyricist Gary Osborne amid his drug hazes, and, not mentioned at all, had some very big hits working with Tim Rice.)

Another movie villain in ROCKETMAN is Elton's mean ol' daddy, who was aloof while is mother was smothering him with alternate attention and put-downs. Elton’s half-brothers dispute the depiction of Elton’s father as a cold nasty guy. Geoff Dwight: “When I was growing up, Elton was always there and we had a lot of fun on family holidays.” But presenting both of Elton’s parents as ogres (father cold, mother overbearing = homosexual son) is good drama. 

The most egregious and obvious lie in ROCKETMAN is when Reggie Dwight, calling himself Elton (after Elton Dean) glances at a photo of John Lennon and…announces his last name is JOHN. 

No. Reggie Dwight chose John as a tribute to a different idol, the flamboyantly gay John Baldry. Can we forgive Elton for wanting to alter history and give a salute to John Lennon, who beame more important in his life than Baldry? Then again, it was the gay Baldry who insisted Elton was making a mistake in getting engaged to Linda Woodrow, a woman Elton had dated (but apparently not slept with) for two years. “You almost had me roped and tied,” Bernie Taupin apparently wrote of this incident via “Someone Saved My Life Tonight.” Baldry saved Elton by clucking, “Oh my dear, for God’s sake, you’re getting married and you love Bernie more than you love this girl. This is ridiculous.”  (That line, and Woodrow, are not in the film, and the film makes it a point several times to insist Elton and Bernie never experimented together, much less were lovers). 

Did Elton John really try to kill himself in a swimming pool? Movie producer Elton will say it's good movie drama. Old quotes from Elton indicate NO: “I was typical me. There was no way I was going to kill myself doing that. And, of course, my grandmother came out with the perfect line: ‘I suppose we’ve all got to go home now.’”  

There are plenty of continuity errors in ROCKETMAN (not ROCKET MAN) but it’s sort of nit-picking to complain about them. Yes, he opens The Troubadour set with “Crocodile Rock” which he hadn’t yet written. Doug Weston, the club owner (depicted here as being outrageously gay...the film may be outing the long-dead man) claims Neil Young played the club a week earlier, when in reality, it was a YEAR earlier. Elton frets at the show that he’s nervous in part because he hasn’t played with a band before…but he already had Dee Murray and Nigel Olsson on British gigs. PS, that was it, a trio. Elton didn’t add guitarist Davey Johnstone for several more years. 

Oddly, or perhaps pointedly, producer Elton John chose not acknowledge that Neil Diamond introduced the audience to the brilliant but unknown Englishman on his first show at the Troubadour. A Neil Diamond impersonator, or just “Neil Diamond is going to introduce you” could’ve been a nice little “thank you.” But, no thanks. 

I wonder if Neil Diamond is a little peeved about being left out of the movie. Come to think of it, I was left out of the movie, too. But then again, I only met Elton once at a party, and spoke to him for maybe three minutes. That's the truth. 

Less truthful is the scene where Elton auditions several familiar hit songs for Dick James that he also hadn’t yet written (it’s 1967 and he’s singing 1983’s “I Guess That’s Why they Call It the Blues”).  Elton seems to be getting wicked revenge on Dick James by making it seem the guy wouldn’t know a hit song from a poke in the ear. But can you blame Dick James for the fact that a dozen or more demo songs by Elton John from that period NEVER became hits? Most NEVER were even recorded by anyone. (An exception, which is here on the blog somewhere, is Edward Woodward singing that tune about "Rebecca," but it may have been recorded long after Elton was a star and his back catalogue was being peered at for potential gold.)


What disappointed me about the Dick James early scene is that it would’ve been a good place to drop in one of the demo songs Elton wrote, or a truly early number like “Lady Samantha.” Why pander constantly to putting the familiar hits on the soundtrack? 

This leads, for your inspection, to the obscure “Tealby Abbey.” For some reason (it could be technical, legal or artistic) Elton’s never officially released his early demo material. “Tealby Abbey” is a light little pop prance, with the usual obscurities and confusions one always finds in Taupin’s lyrics, but check the opening chords.

 Isn’t that “A WHITER SHADE OF PALE?” Isn’t it using the same chords that organist Matthew Fisher created for Procol Harum’s hit song that had come out about a year earlier? It sure is. That’s not dramatic license. It’s a fact. And not a coincidence.  Fortunately, after borrowing five or six notes, the song kicks into something totally original. It was the days when Elton “was Tealby Abbey.” Oh, wasn’t he Reggie Dwight? No, no, Tealby is a little village in Lincolnshire, and there’s probably an abbey there, just like there’s a cathedral in Winchester that brings people down.  

Due to bandwidth issues, the blog will have less instant download links from Box. (And no, this blog does NOT use rogue companies that are full of spyware, that have porn ads on their site, or deny copyright owners quick takedown relief). 

However, you all know how to Google and get a website that will convert a YouTube post to a downloadable mp3 file. In most cases, YouTube streaming actually does put a few pennies into the pockets of the people who created the music.

YAO LEE is gone -- Sang Original CHINESE version of Frankie Laine's "ROSE ROSE I LOVE YOU"

We all know that Frank Sinatra's "My Way" was originally a French song, and "Mack the Knife" was originally German. But can you name a hit song that was originally Chinese? Now you can. 

Until you hear the late (as of today) Yao Lee's high-voiced version, you wouldn't have even thought that Frankie Laine's "Rose, Rose I Love You" had an Asian melody. It seemed more like some dopey number you'd find in "Paint Your Wagon" or "Oklahoma." 

Méiguì méiguì wǒ ài nǐ  with lyrics by Wu Cun and music by Lin Mei, DROPPED (as we Millennials now call it) in 1940. In 1951, British lyricist Wilfrid Thomas turned it into "Rose, Rose I Love You," and Frankie Laine took it to #3 on the Billboard charts. The original was also released on Columbia, with Yao Lee billed as "Miss Hue Lee." (Her real name was Yáo Xiùyún: September 3 1922 – July 19, 2019).

In an ironic twist, Yao Lee was almost considered the Mandarin Peggy Lee, but instead, she began to emulate Patti Page. From the somewhat shrill 78's of the 1940's, her voice deepened and in the 50's, her recordings had a richer tone.  (Well, Gee, even Sinatra's Columbia high voice turned more rugged on Capitol). You can hear the difference in Lee's style as you listen to  "The Spring Breeze Kisses My Face," which opens with an homage to Grieg's "Morning," from the Peer Gynt Suite.

   
China, now RED China, did not appreciate Western influences in their music, and began to ban anything that wasn't a march. Or a traditional melody. In the 50's, Yao Lee re-located to Hong Kong where she could continue singing the kind of music she liked. She continued to record hundreds of songs through the late 1960's, and ultimately retired around 1975. 

While she may be unknown to the English speaking world, her music is still very popular in the Far East, and with new interest in Asian culture, some references to her have appeared in recent films and TV shows. The movie "Crazy Rich Asians" included her song "Ren Sheng Jiu Shi Xi" as background music in one scene. Fans today are saying, "Yao, Yao...we love you." 

TUX AVERY sings MY BLUE HEAVEN as THE GOONS

You may have noticed a gap between this set of postings on the 9th and the last set in February.

This was due to a meeting with the Board of Directors, deciding on which way the blog should go. The prevailing sentiment was “Go…away.” This was voiced by several people wearing Brexit buttons. Or, to put it more correctly, Brex-ill buttons. 

Another group suggested the status quo, but no matter how good Andy Bown’s solo material might be, who would want a blog offering nothing but Status Quo downloads? What next, Slade? 

A problem with continuing the blog as before is a) most deserving oddballs and ill folks have been covered, and b) bandwidth is expensive. The idea of using free outfits that have gruesome ads and tricky spyware on their sites, is not appealing. Neither is having to re-up files because these sites knocked them off after 7 days or a month. 

An alternative: since Google owns both Blogspot and YouTube and LOVES to provide easy links to YouTube, why not go for streaming music/videos, which will always be available to see or hear? What a great idea. Well, be careful what you wish for. Take a look at...TUX AVERY!

Sapristi! VISUALS on the Illfolks blog. And it's...TUX AVERY?? What an auspicious debut. 

The beloved Tux, who always dresses up in his shabby apartment, has done a fair job of mating his histrionic expressions to his a cappella singing. An unusual purist, he not only refuses to sing with a band or even a guitar, but he insists on performing his song silently, and THEN dubbing the music by using recording equipment in his kitchen. Yes, everything including the kitchen sync.

A busker until he was banned from ever being on a bus, Tux Avery headlined and mainlined from Selby to Goole and from St. Erth to St. Ives. From Armley Moor to Dogdyke and Tumby Woodside, this singer has been consistently pelted with nuts and sultanas, fried eggs and bananas. Now restricted in any travel via public transportation, and monitored to make sure he doesn't set up an amp and a begging hat in any public place, Tux Avery has retreated to his shabby apartment and to YouTube and this blog for Internet immortality.  

 Here, the versatile, infantile and futile singer varies his a capella by impersonating several denizens of The Goon Show, most specifically, The Famous Eccles, and Major Bloodnok, although sharp ears may catch Bluebottle or some other species of insect in his throat. In other words, put the ear plugs in, folks! Or better yet, just turn the sound down, and enjoy the faces. This IS the blog of less renown!

“PEDOPHILE” PETER YARROW witch hunt - ban JOHNNY BURNETT OR RINGO STARR too? Jeffrey Epstein...yes....

What's Johnny Burnette and "You're Sixteen" doing here? Read on, as we explore the world of groupies, pop/rock music and PEDOPHILIA. Ooooooh.

Can you be 81 years old and with no real evidence considered a “dangerous sex offender?” That’s the warped thinking behind the anonymous finger-pointers who demanded that an arts & crafts festival in Upstate New York CANCEL their booking of Peter Yarrow (who was born May 31, 1938.) The charge? “He’s a pedophile!” The truth? He is NOT.  A putz once, but a pedophile, never. But some spineless twat went along with the mob and assured them she had told Peter Yarrow to STAY HOME. 

What’s Yarrow been doing for the past 39 years since his odd brush with the law? He started “Operation Respect,” a non-profit that helps children who have been bullied at school. The aim of Yarrow’s group? To make sure there’s a “respectful, safe, and compassionate climate of learning where their academic, social, and emotional development can take place free of bullying, ridicule, and violence.” That’s a guy to disinvite to a summer festival of arts, crafts and song? The organization has a branch called “DLAM” (“Don’t Laugh at Me”) which works with summer camps and after-school programs to make sure kids are protected. 

Yarrow was part of Peter Paul and Mary, the group that made Dylan a star by turning “Blowin’ In the Wind” into a hit, and performing in Washington, D.C. at a rally for Martin Luther King Jr.  The trio were deeply involved in good causes. Yarrow later produced the Festival For Peace (at Madison Square Garden), worked for groups trying to get aid to Jews persecuted in the Soviet Union, and performed in Ho Chi Minh City for the “Vietnam Association of Victims of Agent Orange.” He received the Allard K. Lowenstein Award for his "remarkable efforts in advancing the causes of human rights, peace, and freedom.” 

Wherever there was a good cause, from Occupy Wall Street to the Academy of Education, Peter Yarrow was there. Never a word about him being anything but a kind and giving gentleman. In this #METOO era, nobody's come out to say, "Yeah, this guy tried to molest me" or "This guy attacked me." They say that about hedge fund weasel Jeffrey Epstein, a billionaire who struck a deal to avoid major prosecution, but is currently getting backlash. 

It's outrageous that a 39 year-old “scandal," the subject of an obscure Facebook post from an obscure bunch of arts and crafts clowns in upstate New York, ended up as NATIONAL NEWS.  Yes, Associated Press spread it all over: 

The articles pointing at Peter didn’t bother to list Yarrow’s contributions since the incident, or this fact: Noel Paul Stookey is a true Christian, and he never stopped working with his friend Peter Yarrow. I’ve met both these guys, and they are truly nice, caring individuals. I knew of Paul's solo Christian albums, and talked with him at length about them, and about his beautiful song "Sebastian" which he confided was an unusual transmogrification -- the song about a boy's arrival was rooted in his recollection of getting a new guitar! 

I probably spent only about five minutes when I met Yarrow. He was tired after a performance, and after signing autographs for EVERYONE who asked, and taking pix with parents and their kids. I did ask him if the Phil Ochs movie he was in, “Chords of Fame.” It was a docudrama featuring a guy playing Phil, and spliced-in real interviews with Phil’s small circle of friends. I asked Peter if it was ever going to get released on DVD. Peer just sort of sighed and shook his head helplessly, which meant “how would I know about something I did years ago that is out of my hands?” But he was patient and nice about it. 

Here’s the story of what happened, and why he is NOT a pedophile. Go back to 1969. The “Summer of Love” led to Woodstock, with hippies getting naked and literal flower children naked too, and unashamed. People didn’t think “PEDO” for a girl to be topless on the cover of a Blind Faith album. A new word was coined: GROUPIE. Yes, free-lovin’ chicks were taking drugs and pursuing rock stars,  and targeting anybody famous, even a putz folkie like Peter Yarrow. 

When two chicks came to his hotel room, he wasn't checking ID cards, his libido had taken control. One girl was 17. Even The Beatles could tell you: “she was just seventeen, YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN.” Her sister was 14, but may have looked older. "Indecent liberties" isn't quite the same as being Aqualung and stalking kiddies in a park. It was a lapse in judgment, but not with the evil intent of pedophile priests and their trickery. The girls were not molested or kept against their will. But he was reported and did three months in jail. This happened in Washington, D.C. If it happened in New York City, it would’ve been a mere misdemeanor. If it happened in the South, he would’ve been asked if he wanted to marry the 14 year-old, with Jerry Lee Lewis as best man.  

President Jimmy Carter officially pardoned Peter Yarrow in 1980. This helped Yarrow and his group perform internationally and appear at charity events without question. EXCEPT…one in a while, somebody would bring up the incident and ask what happened. Yarrow could have said "no comment" but instead he would again offer an apology and hope that people would have some tolerance since he did his time and never had a problem again. 

So far, Yarrow's other gigs this summer are still ongoing. These include solo performances and performances with Noel Paul Stookey.  Strange isn’t it, that our President has been accused of 22 sexual predator incidents but has successfully ignored them. Mr. "Grab the Pussy" has not been impeached, even though another president suffered the ignominy even if his incident involved a consenting adult, a woman who made the first move by pulling up the waistband of her thong undies and snapping it for him. We also had Senator Al Franken forced out of office because of a joke photo and a few grumbles about how he touched a few asses when these women cuddled up to him to waste his time for selfies. 

What’s next? Ringo Starr could be forced into retirement because he’s over 70 and prances around the stage singing “You’re Sixteen…and you’re MINE…” People don't seem to know the difference between being offended, and being a sanctimonious Harper Valley hypocrite, or what a true PEDO really is. He's Jared, the guy from SUBWAY who insisted he could only be satisfied by underage girls. He's England's notorious Jimmy Savile. It's not a term to be thrown around recklessly, and it's a shame that on social media ignorant people are saying, "This Peter Yarrow lefty, he's a PEDO." As if he's spent his life asking pimps to get him teens, or gone to the Far East to find virgins, or used his influence the way Jeffrey Epstein did. 

Was Jerry Lee Lewis or Edgar A. Poe a pedo for marrying young? In many parts of the world it's not uncommon for someone even 13 to get married. At least Jerry and Edgar were involved in consensual situations, and when asked to stop, Peter Yarrow stopped. “You’re Sixteen,” which was a hit in 1961 for Johnny Burnette. Johnny was born in 1934. So here’s a guy, 26 or 27, singing lustily about a 16 year-old, and doing it on national TV and having a hit. 

You remember the lyrics? The words were happily telling a generation of listeners that 16 was old enough for ANYTHING:

You come on like a dream, peaches and cream
Lips like strawberry wine
You're sixteen, you're beautiful and you're mine
What is the song talking about? Alcohol and sex. “Lips like strawberry wine.” WTF. “You come on like a dream.” What does that mean? A wet dream? “And you’re mine.” In the Biblical sense? This was sung on TV by a guy TEN YEARS older than his 16 year-old sweetie?? 

This was not the only song about TEENAGE LUST. There were dozens and dozens of them. From “Wake Up Little Susie” to the very adult Sam Cooke singing “Only Sixteen,” the idea of a girl being a WOMAN in her teens was not unusual then, and certainly, considering high school teen pregnancies as an epidemic, not unusual NOW.

What next? The Burnette song gets pulled from YouTube? Ringo gets hauled off stage and banned from ever performing "You're Sixteen?" As Peter and his friends sang long ago, "The answer my friend is blowin' in the wind..."

JOAO WHO? WHERE IS ASTRUD GILBERTO?

Isn't she the adorable Brazilian gamin? The first Atrud Gilberto album I bought (you used to buy albums at one time) was "Look to the Rainbow." It had that great "forest creature" cover, with Astrud's big brown eyes and rather enigmatic grin. 

She guarded her privacy then, and she guards it now. Shhhh! 

Jill Sobule sang "Where is Bobbie Gentry? WHERE IS BOBBIE GENTRY? If I could find her I would love her and then leave her alone." 

A less Sapphic sentiment is "WHERE IS ASTRUD GILBERTO," but it would be unseemly to sing "I would lover and then leave her alone." She's 79, after all. 

If you visit Astrud’s official website, you’ll find a laudable interview in which she talks about her love of animals and her disgust at fur coats. But there’s no merchandise. No updates. Not all that much about this very private person. Which is fine, but it of course begs the question…WHERE IS ASTRUD GILBERTO? What’s she doing? Sipping a cool drink on a veranda somewhere? Playing with her cats? Taking a few calls from her sons? Checking the royalty statements from the assholes at Universal Music Group and wondering why they're taking most of it?  

Back in the day, there were a few exotic, baby-voiced vocalists, both American (Priscilla Paris) and imported (Claudine Longet and Astrud). Longet had the most hits, but certainly Astrud Gilberto had more critical acclaim and a longer career. She also had a less violent love life. She divorced the late (as of a few days ago) Joao Gilberto; she didn’t accidentally shoot him. She also didn’t fire a shot at Stan Getz, who she unfortunately had an affair. Yes, her cameo "Girl from Ipanema" on the Getz/Gilberto album made her a star, but Stan was NOT the man who deserved all the credit. Here, from a rare interview:

“As you know, I was still married to Joao Gilberto at the time of the recording of "The Girl from Ipanema". Before the recording, I had never sung professionally. I'd like to emphasize to those of you who have read the distorted version that I was "just a housewife until Stan Getz or Creed Taylor 'discovered' me", that although I had not yet performed "for hire", I've had already some experience as a vocalist stemming from the few years that I had been singing at gatherings with this clan of musicians. Then, of course, I had also acquired experience from the teachings and daily musical "sessions" with the "master", himself, Joao Gilberto…In 1963 I came to the US with Joao, as he had a commitment to record the Getz Gilberto album…. One day, a few hours prior to Stan Getz coming to our NYC hotel for a scheduled rehearsal with Joao, he (Joao) told me with an air of mystery in his voice: - "Today there will be a surprise for you". I begged him to tell me what it was, but he adamantly refused, and would just say: - "Wait and see…" Later on, while rehearsing with Stan, as they were in the midst of going over the song "The Girl from Ipanema", Joao casually asked me to join in, and sing a chorus in English, after he had just sung the first chorus in Portuguese. So, I did just that. When we were finished performing the song, Joao turned to Stan, and said (in "Tarzan" English) something like: "Tomorrow Astrud sing on record… what do you think?" Stan was very receptive, in fact very enthusiastic; he said it was a great idea. The rest, of course, as one would say, "is history". I'll never forget that while we were listening back to the just recorded song at the studio's control room, Stan said to me, with a very dramatic expression: "This song is going to make you famous".The funny thing is that after my success, stories became abound as to Stan Getz or Creed Taylor having "discovered me", when in fact, nothing is further from the truth.” 

Getz took more credit than he deserved, but, hey, he also took more booze and heroin than he should have. He was a noted wildman. His family was from Ukraine, and like the original Jazz Singer of the movies, Stan was not particular interested in Judaism as much as JAZZ...and the saxophone he got when he was 13. Did he say "Today I am a man" or "Today I am a JAZZ musician??" Soon enough, he had master alto and tenor sex, the clarinet and even the bassoon, and precociously found himself earning more money touring in jazz bands than his father did. With his father's blessing, Stan worked his way up from band leaders Teagarden and Kenton to Woody Herman, by which time he had a very bad heroin habit. But so did half of Woody's band. Woody recalled: “I was so naive, I couldn’t figure out why the guys were falling asleep n the bandstand.”


Going solo in the 50's, Getz had hit records but made headlines by attempting to rob a drugstore to get morphine to control his heroin habit. He was jailed, and seemingly finished at 27. He managed to return to music, and to heroin. He developed a nastier alcohol habit, and was put in a strait jacket and hauled off to rehab. Bankrupt in 1957, sturdy Stan somehow once again reclaimed some fame, and despite more punchouts (his wife, his mother-in-law and his mistress on the receiving end) he found ironic success with the gentle music of bossa nova in 1962. Charlie Byrd turned him onto the new sound from Brazil, and that led Stan to top the charts with "Desafinado" and recruit Joao Gilberto for a new album. Joao knew little English so his wife Astrud helped translate. 

“Getz/Gilberto” won “Album of the Year” at the 1965 Grammy Awards, and “Girl from Ipanema” won for Best Single. How did Stan celebrate? A few days after the award show, he beat up his wife, went on a rampage breaking things in their home, and ended up staggering into the kitchen where he put his head in the oven. His son managed to turn off the gas and rescue him. Meanwhile, Astrud Gilberto was enjoying a quieter time building up her fan base, which included odd experiments (an entire album backed by Walter Wanderley's jarring roller-rink organ) and maturity (an excellent live album that belied her reputation as merely a soft voice with no stage presence). 

 Most still know Astrud best for singing and BEING “The Girl from Ipanema.” But her best early album was probably “Look to the Rainbow.”One of my favorite cuts is a kind of strange carnival piece called “Frevo.” There’s nothing romantic about it. It’s not a love song. It’s a rather cool-voiced salute to the wild doings of partying in Brazil. The orchestration is not what you’d expect. It opens with Prokofiev woodwinds in the distance. It’s the parade slowly appearing, getting closer and closer.  

  Soon the brass comes in, shining and lively. Over it, there’s Astrud’s soothing voice. We can watch the proceedings without getting too rowdy. We can sip our fizzy alcoholic drinks, perhaps. We can look at the festive dancers. And then we can go out for dinner and dancing, and love. OK, maybe things will get a BIT sloppy. At the two minute song, the trombonist sounds like he’s about to eject his kidney through the horn. Who arranged THAT weird noise? It does add punctuation to this pixie ditty. Perhaps the oddball German band effect is a small bow to Astrud’s heritage: Brazilian mother but German father. (Astrud was born BEFORE THE WAR, in 1940).

The lyrics on this Jobim tune are pretty basic: “Cme, let’s dance in the sun. Come, the band is passing by. Hear the clarion call announcing The Carnival arriving, the brass shining…thousands of colors, the green sea…the blue sky…Oh my God, how beautiful, my Brazil!”


 Vem
Vamos dançar ao sol
Vem
Que a banda vai passar
Vem
Ouvir o toque dos clarins
Anunciando o carnaval
E vão brilhando os seus metais
Por entre cores mil
Verde mar, céu de anil
Nunca se viu tanta beleza
Ai, meu Deus
Que lindo o meu Brasil


How beautiful, Astrud Gilberto.  Her schedule slowed down after 2002, but her music remains timeless. “Look to the Rainbow” from 1966 has a soft pallette of beautiful songs, from the title track and the pensively charming “Once Upon a Summertime” to the gently swaying “Berimbau” and “Lugar Bonito.” Wherever you are, Astrud Gilberto, you are admired, respected and loved.

SWINGIN’ THE ALPHABET: The Three Stooges B-I-Bicki as Big Band’s B-I-BI

Listen to THIS guy Swingin' the Alphabet! He doesn't exactly look like MOE, though, does he?

One of the most beloved musical moments in 30’s film comedies, right up there with Groucho singing “Whatever It Is, I’m Against It” and W.C. Fields warbling ("Poor Young man) a British Music Hall ditty in “The Fatal Glass of Beer,” is The Three Stooges “Swingin’ The Alphabet” in the 1938 short “Violent is the Word for Curly.” (The title was a pun on the 1936 movie “Valiant is the Word for Carrie,” with Gladys George in the title role of Carrie Snyder.  

Professor Moe Howard, with able help from Larry and Curly, instruct a bunch of hot-looking coeds on how to sing some weird variation on Pig Latin. It was based on the 1875 song “The Spelling Bee,” written by the amusingly-named Septimus Winner. Winner apparently based it on a college chant, “Ba-Be-Bi-Bo-Bu.” Bu-bu-bu-borrowing tunes was quite popular in the days before copyright and is even MORE popular now that the Internet has made defending copyright difficult and unpopular.

Only three years after the Three Stooges swung the alphabet with their B-I-Bicki-Bye, some Bi-sexual stooges created “Bi-I-Bi.” The numbskulls: Sydney King Russell (S.K. Russell as he preferred) plus two babes, Judy and Beverly Freeland. Oddly, “Bi-I-Bi” was VERY popular as sheet music. Any hipster cruising into a department store for something more interesting than “Tenement Symphony” (from the Marx Brothers 1941 film “The Big Store”) could find “Bi-I-Bi” on sheet music with either Beverly Mahr, The Harrison Sisters, The Tune Toppers, Ray Bloch or Hal McIntyre on the cover. Yes, FIVE different cover versions on this piece of…sheet music. 

The song was recorded by quite a few orchestras, including ones helmed by Horace Heidt (Columbia) and Guy Lombardo (Decca). However, RCA’s Bluebird version from Bob Chester and his Orchestra (vocal refrain by Betty Bradley and Bob Haymes) seems to be the only one captured on film. Just click the link above and hear how some of it is WAY TOO CLOSE to the Stooges’ song. 

Interest in botching the alphabet for nonsense syllables didn’t end with the shellac whacks of 1941. In 1957, Gene Vincent and his Blue Caps released "B. I. Bickey Bi, Bo Bo Go" which was b-b-based on Don Carter’s song "Bi I Bicky Bi Bo Bo Boo.” When Gene grabbed it and adapted it, Carter got a co-write credit. You might recall that Gene had already dazzled the public with "Be-Bop-A-Lula.” 

Don Carter may have dimly recalled the Three Stooges song when he wrote his ditty, but it’s more of a dopey Roger Miller-type square dance tune: “B.I. Bickey Bi, Bo Bo Boo, Grab your gal and go go go, you love me, and I love you, B.I. Bickey Bi, Bo Bo Boo.” 

I know, this MAY be too much information, but it's original research and not stolen off ALL MUSIC by some asshole in Croatia pretending to know what he's talking about. Nothing here is album cover and a link with a moronic line, "I love music, I love sharing, and I love being in a third world country and thinking I'm hip! if anyone objects, let me know, and if my blog is taken away because I'm a douchebag, I will get another one and keep doing it." 

In 1959, the revived Three Stooges (with Curly Joe DeRita) released “The Nonsense Songbook.” The very middle-aged trio offered “The Alphabet Song” among the mild novelties. In 1985, Malcolm McLaren recorded a punk-disco take called “B.I. Bikki.” And that covers the B-B-Basics. It’s a bit sad that the original Three Stooges never had a chance to join Spike Jones in putting out bizarre 78 rpm music massacres. The discs that came later…by the Big Band bozos, by Malcolm McLaren and others…are a bit sad, too. Should anyone request a treatise on “Hut Sut Song” or “Mairzy Doats” - go ask someone else.

MAD MAGAZINE IS DEAD - DECEASED, DEFUNCT, VERKLEMPT

These days, most magazines are on the decline. Many are website only. Penthouse Forum couldn't stay around even by including a porn DVD in every issue. You think MAD could've survived if they added a flexi-disc, like they sometimes did in the 60's? Not likely, Arthur. (You do remember the name of the avocado plant.) 

Yes, latest casualty of “FREE ON THE INTERNET” is MAD Magazine. Look, if “Christian Science Monitor” couldn’t make it on newsstands, what do you expect from a comedy mag started by, edited by, and pretty much cartooned by a bunch of Jews?’ From its original editor in its comic book format (Harvey Kurtzman) to its long-running editor in magazine format (Al Feldstein), MAD thrived primarily thanks to affluent Jewish kids who also identified with mascot Alfred E. Neuman, who could've been a classmate. 

The best cartoonists through the greatest years of MAD were almost all Jewish. There was Will Elder, Dave Berg, Mort Drucker (90 and retired), and Al Jaffee (well over 90 but still doing the infamous MAD back cover.)  

While I did have dealings with some MAD-men, via mail and even via collaberation in one case, the only one I ever met was Al Jaffee, a wonderful man who also sometimes cartooned elsewhere, notably Playboy. But speaking of Playboy, when it came to a risque drawing sneaking into MAD, that generally was the work of Will Elder (who would also do the "Annie Fanny" comic strip in PLAYBOY for many glorious years in the 60's). 

Your welcome, 

Rounding out the “Gang of Idiots” were Don Martin who contributed pioneering sick humor, the frantic Jack Davis a Southerner who could cram tons of great gags into every panel (and who thrived doing print ads and comedy record album covers) and the whimsical Sergio Aragones with his “marginal” gags. You'll find the Jack Davis covers for Homer & Jethro elsewhere on the blog. As for Don Martin, his stuff was always an eye-opener.

Lenny Bruce, Jackie Mason, Mort Sahl, Allan Sherman, The Three Stooges, The Marx Brothers...they all influenced generations of fans via records, stand-up and films, but the only literary humor influence most could cite would be MAD magazine, especially back in the late 50's and early 60's when there were few other sources for satire. Classic movies and TV shows of the era had to get the Mort Drucker treatment. 

Generally, a TV star or movie star would turn up a few issues later, holding the copy of MAD and genuinely (usually) showing a delight in being parodied in the World's Greatest Comedy Magazine. (What, you thought it was Punch?)  Drucker only really angered the "Star Wars" franchise, getting a cease and desist lawyer-letter and a demand that all issues of MAD be destroyed. Ironically, at the same time, George Lucas sent in a fan letter praising Mort's work. This was sent back to the lawyers!

So, what happened? Competition from SICK and CRACKED didn't harm MAD at all, but their millions of fans simply GREW UP. They went for R. Crumb comic books, the National Lampoon and SPY. There was cable TV bringing in George Carlin TV specials. Comic strips grew up too, with Doonesbury and The Far Side.  Bare tits and fart jokes were in the movies, and the affluent audience they had assimilated, and the new generation of kids didn't know what "furshlugginer" meant and didn't care. They also didn't really want to read, and didn't GET satire at all. They preferred video games and the big laugh of killing cartoon characters and watching the Mario Brothers hop around.

That Mort Drucker image from "Star Trek." It meant something way back when. His talent wasn't diminished when he took on famous people in the 90's, but did it have the same impact? Do you get much of a kick seeing Jay Leno lampooned for being nuts about cars? 

No. A big reason why MAD meant so much at one time, was because AT THAT TIME, nobody else was doing it. That "Gang of Idiots" -- all geniuses. 


The world has gotten a lot more serious. It's simply not so easy to find humor in incompetent Presidents sending kids to war, ignoring climate change, and allowing gun laws that turned schools into massacre sites.  It certainly isn't the kind of material suitable for MAD-type lampooning.

The worst blow for MAD came with the Internet Age of FREE. MAD could be bootlegged in PDF form. Why BUY? Almost all their skilled artists died or retired. Kids went to the Cartoon Network to watch some crap, and there were "The Simpsons" and "Family Guy." Now? You go on Twitter or Facebook or Instagram and you're bombarded with "funny" memes for FREE, and most think this shit is pretty funny. There is no shortage of Photoshop comedy, commercial parodies or bad limericks. They are emailed to people despite Weird Al Yankovic’s song “Stop Forwarding That Crap to Me.”

Yes, Weird Al, there are many, many people (mostly 40 and over) who were DEEPLY influenced by MAD Magazine, and by Will Elder, Don Martin, Dave Berg, Mort Drucker and Al Jaffee in particular.

Officially, MAD will hang on with maybe ONE original issue a year. It will limp along with perhaps a quarterly "best of" issue featuring past glories. That's sort of like "Peanuts" still in some newspapers via re-runs. But the comic strip is in a newspaper as a kind of free bonus. You don't have to go to a comic bookstore and BUY a whole set, which is what MAD thinks people will do. Which is pretty optimistic consider they foolishly issued EVERY issue on a CD-Rom and various forums and blogs give every issue away so that there's no need to buy. 

Back in the 60’s, affluent kids not only bought MAD magazine, they bought novelty singles. The radio had no shortage of goofy shit, from “Monster Mash” to “The Chipmunk Song.” Allan Sherman’s “Hello Muddah Hello Faddah” was a huge hit even if it was targeted almost exclusively to Jewish kids shipped off to summer camp. Oddly, MAD didn’t succeed on record. The 1959 “Musically Mad” album featured weak Spike Jones-influenced music and “Mad Twists Rock and Roll” and “Fink Along with Mad” didn’t sell too well either. Flexi-discs sometimes appeared in the mag, including "It's a Gas" (burps by Alfred E. Neuman) and even a short parody of "All in the Family" with Allen Swift (real name Ira Stadlen) as Archie. 

Below is POTRZEBIE. This was a beloved nonsense word back when Mad was loaded with them. It is credited to Alfred E. Neuman And his  FURSHLUGGINER Five.  YOU GET IT FREEEEEEEEEEE. Yes, the Internet will tell you the BEST THINGS IN LIFE are free. But somebody has to pay for it. And if nobody is paying for it, there won’t be any more.

POTRZEBIE - download or listen on line