BOBBY COLE - Atlantic City - “THE END OF A LOVE AFFAIR”

Back on February 19, 2006, this blog came to life. One of the first posts on that date was for Bobby Cole. The point of the blog was to call attention to deserving, unique and neglected artists…not to make the lives of creative people more difficult by stealing entire discographies. Unfortunately too many bloggers, usually mediocre-minded selfish vainglorious assholes in useless countries like Holland, Croatia and Brazil, discovered they could get “nice comments” and be considered “hip” if they gave a daily load of freebies to cheapskates and greedheads.

Blogging turned pretty ugly, with various blogger-idiots feuding with each other, deleting posts, and getting indignant if somebody re-upped “their” files without “credit.” Need I go on? While egocentric short-sighted small-minded bloggers kept behaving like insane red ants and mindless dung beetles, letting people “discover” the complete Beatles discography or every Talking Heads bootleg ad nauseum (and usually with threats to delete if not enough praise was heaped), this blog continued on with its mission. For a long, long time, the mission was to reward creative artists, and let them know that their work is not forgotten. The reward here, was getting comments like “I never heard of this artists before” and getting praise from many of the artists themselves, who were happy that ONE track off an album and a good write-up showed that their work was still appreciated and valid.

Many of the artists you find on this blog had a hit at one time, maybe several years’ worth of rave clippings from critics, or just enough praise and work to continue pursuing the dream via gigs and maybe another one-shot record deal for a single or an album. Bobby remained a “saloon singer,” as difficult as that career was, and always was rewarded with warm praise from the journalists who covered the nightclub scene. Here’s two reviews from a 1975 visit to one of his favorite towns, Pittsburgh. Back in New York City, his name and photo appeared along with the better known jazz pianists of the day such as Andre Previn and George Shearing. You can imagine the slight pang he felt when he got publicity for a gig, but the newspaper somehow called him “Buddy” Cole. Well, that’s show biz…something the idiot bloggers, offering daily download links like a farmer slopping the hogs, wouldn’t understand. They think they’re in show biz, as they spend their last days collecting social security and pretending they live somewhere that matters. Sad. Very, very sad. And destructive. Fewer record stores, fewer old artists bothering to make new music when they can't profit by it, etc. etc. etc.

Here’s “The End of a Love Affair,” from a Bobby Cole show in Atlantic City. While some in his circle were never too sure about Bobby’s friendship with a shifty-eyed snaggletooth named Dimitri, the guy was a loyal supporter, go-fer, or whatever, and I think he may have set up the tape recorder and microphones for this show. With the microphone close to Bobby, and the crowd apparently seated a decent distance from the stage, there’s very little “noise” on the tracks. It’s just Bobby in a familiar mode, jangling the piano keys in a variation on Erroll Garner, one of his favorite performers. At the time Bobby was also experimenting with adding vibrato at the end of some of the lyric lines. This experiment didn’t last too long.

So I walk a little too fast
And I drive a little too fast
And I'm reckless it's true
But what else can you do
At the end of a love affair
So I talk a little too much
And I laugh a little too much
And my voice is too loud
When I'm out in a crowd
So that people are apt to stare
Do they know, do they care
That it's only
That I'm lonely
And low as can be
And the smile on my face
Isn't really a smile at all…..
END OF A LOVE AFFAIR -- live in ATLANTIC CITY