OK, it wasn't Mary Wilson and the Supremes. After a few sound-alike hits, it became Diana Ross and the Supremes. And then Diana Ross went solo.
While The Supremes are way too famous for THIS blog, a mention should be made of Mary Wilson, who along with Flo Ballard, created a pleasing and strengthening background for Diana, much the same way three anonymous guys backed Levi Stubbs who sang lead for The Four Tops.
The Supremes, their follies and fortunes, are the stuff of legend, quite a few books, and even a fictionalized Broadway musical, Dreamgirls. How they bickered or harmonized is important to some people, but for others, a copy of "The Supremes Greatest Hits" is an essential part of their collection, and might even include several more albums, including that one where they take on Liverpool hits.
On Twitter, Diana Ross offered a brief, rather cool statement:
"I am reminded that each day is a gift. I have so many wonderful memories of our time together. 'The Supremes' will live on in our hearts."
It's possible, back in the day, that the girls and their manager made more money shilling for Coke in a radio ad than they did off one of their lesser Top 20 singles.
Just a reminder -- Coke (the drug) is not good for you, and Coke (the drink) isn't much better, with its incredibly high sugar ratio. Any attempt to substitute a chemical for sugar, to create a "diet" version, just might land you six feet under a lot sooner than it did Mary Wilson.
Somebody says, “RCA just put out a FORTY CD BOXED SET on him…”
You figure, Elvis Presley. You know, THE KING, who died on August 16th and a whole bunch of people still sob about it. Jerks as far away as Holland solemnly say it was "the day the music died." I know, it's hard to keep track of how many DAYS the fucking music died -- Freddie or Kurt or Elvis or...
So, a FORTY CD boxed set from RCA (plus DVDs). But wait...that's not ELVIS...
Right, cat-gut breath, Julian Bream. Astonishing isn’t it? And that’s the reason somebody that successful turns up on this, the blog of less renown. He’s certainly not well known among the regulars who visit here. Most don’t care about classical music at all. And yet, he’s left behind an incredible (and expensive) legacy:
Another factor accounting for Julian's obscurity in the little minds of the average people, is that when anyone mentions classical guitar and a famous guitarist, the first name people say is "Uhhhhhh." And then,"Oh! Segovia!” But there ain’t half been some clever bastards, and oh…Segovia was certainly one. But don’t overlook the man from Battersea, Julian Bream.
Another problem: Battersea. For most people with a passing interest in classical solo guitar, what they like, over some paella and a quart bottle of Madeira, is the famous pieces coming from Spain. “Yeah, maybe I should have ONE album of classical guitar, like I have ONE album of sitar music.” The go-to guy would be Segovia. Certainly my own favorites among guitar concertos are both from Latino composers: Rodrigo and Castuelnuevo-Tedesco. But, irony of ironies, I have them both on either side of a great record from the English guitarist John Williams.
Back to Bream. His father was a jazz guitarist, but when young Julian was given a classical guitar, he was hooked on the classics, and became a prodigy before reaching puberty. He would go on to travel the world and win four Grammy awards playing both the guitar and the lute. He’s credited with popularizing the vast library of classical guitar music (especially British works) for the general public. Hey, Jude kept coming up with more albums, and in his native England, was the subject of several documentaries and a “This is Your Life” TV broadcast.
Since this IS an esoteric blog, your sample is not one of Julian’s guitar pieces, but one for lute, a most neglected instrument indeed. From the looks of it, the lute is almost as difficult to master as the sitar. Ah, the lute. Ah, Mr. Bream.
As we honor his passing, let’s remember that tribute song from the Everly Brothers: “Whenever I want Lute all I have to do is Bream. Bream Bream Bream…”
Here’s a quote from classical pianist Leon Fleisher’s memoir:
“When the gods want to get you, they know right where to strike, the place where it will hurt the most.”
The world of the classical pianist is extremely stressful and brutally difficult. Think it’s hard to make it in rock or country music or rap? The standards for classical are obnoxiously high.
Just about the worst thing that can happen to a genius pianist who has beaten the odds and risen to the top of his profession, is the nightmare of injury. Leon Fleisher (July 23, 1928 – August 2, 2020) suffered a kind of "carpal tunnel syndrome" disaster that crippled his career for decades.
A prodigy born in San Francisco, Leon was hailed by some of the greats of his era (conductor Pierre Monteux and pianist Artur Schnabel). He studied with Schnabel since the age of 10 and at 16 he performed with Monteux and the New York Philharmonic.
He was signed to Columbia records for praised recordings in the 50’s and early 60’s. Focal dystonia, caused by over-use of certain muscles or tendons, weakened his right hand in 1965, creating cramping in several fingers. “I was in a state of deep depression,” he recalled. His second marriage was unraveling and he thought of suicide.
Now what? He followed the Paul Wittgenstein playbook and tried to continue by playing the left-handed “freak” pieces.
Paul Wittgenstein's career was promising until a literal shot in the arm during World War I left him an amputee. Josef Labor was the first composer
to create a left-handed piece for him. Once Labor’s “Variations for Pianoforte Left Hand” debuted, and Paul adapted famous works for left-handed variations, it was clear Wittgenstein had a future after all. Like many a genius, he proved to be quite temperamental and even a bit of an ingrate.
Hindemeth wrote a left-handed piano
concerto for him in 1924, and it was rejected. The great Prokofiev submitted one in 1931 and it too was rejected. Ravel wrote the brilliant
“Concerto for the Left Hand” and Wittgenstein approved. It became his showpiece, a spectacular
success when it premiered around 1932. It is so spectacular, most
wouldn’t even realize only one hand is playing when they hear it.
Wittgenstein
thrived despite the Nazis, who considered him a Jew, even though (for
the sake of safety) most of his family had converted years earlier.
Eventually, as long as he and his sisters gave them ALL of their family
fortune, they were allowed to to live. Wittgenstein came to America in
1941.
John Browning’s version of the Ravel piece was the first I bought and remains my favorite. The vintage pianists on “primitive” (ie, non digital) vinyl from that area of course include Kempf, Rubinstein and Richter, and I have more of their Beethoven sonatas and concertos than others. I can't say Fleisher was one of my favorites, but I do have some of his Beethoven works, and he's definitely one of the better interpreters.
Aside from left-handed works, Fleisher became a teacher and a conductor with the Baltimore Symphony. Some twenty years passed before medical science was able to help Fleisher regain enough use of his hand to be considered any kind of competitive pianist again. In 1982 he returned to the stage but didn’t think his performance was anywhere near as good as he could be, and it took another ten years before he was comfortable enough, using everything from aromatherapy to botox injections, to take up professional performances again, both solo and in duo-piano works with his wife.
Two photos: the optimistic young Leon at the start of his career, and after enduring what happens when fate lends a hand...or takes one away.
During Leon’s absence from the recording studio, quite a few other promising pianists came and went due to the whims of fate. I remember seeing Roger Scime (accent grave over the e...) who recorded for Columbia’s subsidiary Epic label. He issued a Gershwin album in 1959 but a car accident damaged his hands and the 60's became lost to him. I saw him in the 70's, and he played well, but couldn't quite compete with the top recording artists of the day.
Another artist signed to Columbia (and recording with George Szell as Fleisher had), Gary Graffman, also saw his recording career shortened when he sprained his right hand in 1977 and he too, was diagnosed with focal dystonia. In 1985 he thrilled audiences with the premiere of a piano concerto for the left hand created by Erich Wolfgang Korngold for, yes, Paul Wittgenstein. Gary is still with us, in his early 90’s.
In 1996, Leon Fleisher and Gary Graffman united to perform “Concerto for Two Pianos” by William Bolcom, a work that could be played by ONE pianist, or by two, each using one hand and one piano. In a strange twist of fate, Fleisher would premiere the Wittgenstein-rejected “Piano Concerto for the Left Hand” by Paul Hindemith.
Why hadn’t it ever been recorded? Hindemeth either didn’t have a spare copy, or didn’t have another one-handed pianist to give it to, or no able-bodied pianist wanted to bother with it. It was only discovered after the death of Wittgenstein’s widow. She was several decades younger than he, and passed on in 2002. Wittgenstein died way back in 1961. Leon premiered the piece in 2004.
If you’re wondering, yes, there are a few one-handed pianists in the world (there’s even Liu Wei, an Asian pianist with no hands, who plays with his feet…but obviously with a limited repertoire).
Norman Malone (partially paralyzed when his berserk father went after him and his brother with a hammer to their heads) managed to master the Ravel piece while in his 60’s. Nicholas McCarthy (born without a right hand) is in his 20’s and the best known single-handed pianist playing today.
One thing about pianists…once they are on the right track, age itself isn’t much of a factor. A surprising number of concert pianists have been able to remain big attractions and tour the world into their 70’s, 80’s, and even 90’s. Richter, Horowitz, even Rubinstein with troubled eyesight, performed late in life.
Fleisher was a “Kennedy Center Honors” recepient in 2007. One of the last major appearances for Fleisher was, at the request of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a performance at the Supreme Court in 2012.
Once in a while on my late-night radio show so many years ago, I offered up the crackpot tune "Circular Circulation," one of the better numbers from the GTO's, "Permanent Damage" album produced by Frank Zappa. It's actually titled "Do Me Once and I'll be Sad, Do me Twice and I'll Know Better." It was produced by Lowell George (who wrote the music) and sung by Pamela Des Barres.
I didn't want to annoy my listeners TOO much, but it was after midnight, and they knew they were not going to get mainstream rock. Well, not much of it. One of my favorite segues was to play "Lonesome Cowboy Burt" (from Zappa's 200 Motels album) and when Burt ends with "...you hot little bitch," I'd have the Rolling Stones and "Bitch" cued on the other turntable. Clever? Not a lot. But it amused me. It also amused me to be on the radio at all, and this was at a time when not EVERYBODY could do that. (Gee, I could do a PODCAST now, like another ten million people are doing. Wheeee.)
I suppose Genesis, Jethro Tull and Boko Harum or whatever they called themselves, were as mainstream as I tended to get. Oh, except for deserving obscure artists who could've been mainstream successes but weren't, like Ron Nagle and Priscilla Coolidge and others who've turned up on this blog.
As I recall, "Circular Circulation" was the "pick" from the album, appearing on one of those Warner Bros. "Loss Leaders" dollar discs you could get by mail. Albums like those were helpful for me avoiding the more predictable stuff on the radio station shelves. (I also brought in my own Yoko Ono singles and albums, but I digress way too much).
The GTO's stood for "Girls Together Outrageously" as far as most were concerned. "Girls Together Orally" and "Girls Together Only" were also popular among the era's rock writers and disc jockeys, the latter favored by the girls when they were first asked about the name.
The ringleader was Miss Pamela (Pamela des Barres, of plaster-caster fame). Also on the album: Miss Sandra (Sandra Lynn Rowe), Miss Cinderella (Cynthia Wells, whose marriage to John Cale was derailed by an affair with Kevin Ayers) and Miss Christine (the late Christine Frka who overdosed at 22, and may be best loved for being the "Hot Rats" cover girl). Also worth noting: the pioneering Miss Sparky (Sandra Rowe Harris) who dropped out of the group due to pregnancy, is not on the album, and died in 1991 due to cancer.
Miss Mercy (Judith Peters) was a very important member of the group, supplying some of the lyrics and vocals. She died two days ago July 27th. Like almost all the GTO's except Pamela, her fame ended when the group disbanded. None of Pamela's outrageous-looking co-conspirators seemed to be able to even get to the level of incompetent cult-fame as labelmate Wild Man Fischer. None seemed inclined to turn up naked in "San Francisco Ball" or "Fetish Times" or some other West Coast underground-ish newspaper. Before she disappeared into "I used to have her phone number, maybe I can send it to you" status, she did manage to shag and marry funkoid sugar-man Shuggie Otis, and produce a child, John "Lucky" Otis.
I know. You want to actually hear Miss Mercy. OK. She sang and wrote the words (Lowell George again supplied the music) for the item below, "I Have a Paintbrush In My Hand to Color a Triangle." I admit, I didn't play it on the radio 'cause, well, at the time all I had was the Loss Leader albums, and the other GTO's track was some stupid shit about Captain Beefheart's girly shoes. Something like that. Not this:
I have the CD version of "Permanent Damage." The booklet is autographed over two pages by Pamela des Barres. There were only a few blank parts in the booklet. She started on one page (with her, Miss Cinderella and Miss Sandra). She finished writing on the facing page which shows Miss Christine and Miss Mercy, and it ends..."I'm glad I got you off, Pamela Des Barres." I will officially say this refers to the album, and her infamous memoir.
If you can't quite make out Miss Mercy's paragraph it says: "The GTO's are to me a combination of the world's beauty and ugliness we are supreme yet the gutter that's all except there's no forever." Each band member had a chance to dedicate the re-issue to somebody or group, and Miss Mercy chose "Joe Brynth and Brian."
Condolences to Joe and Brian and all who knew and loved her, and to those who bought The GTO's album and are still temporarily in circular circulation.
When I was flippin’ through the dollar bin, I’d often see “BENT FABRIC.” I had no idea what it meant. Some bad rock group? Some middle of the road singers? The fact that one cover had a wet-eyed wet-nosed dog on it was enough to turn me off.
If “BENT FABRIC” was the bastard son of ACKER BILK, I didn’t care. Not with THAT dopey album cover. As a dwindling few of you might know…
…Bent Fabric was actually a Danish pianist named Bent Fabricius-Bjerre (December 7, 1924 – July 28, 2020) and the VERY LEAST one can do is give away some fabric samples. For more, stream on YouTube and don’t feed the ego of some ego-asshole with a blog loaded with discographies and the notion that serving up other peoples’ music without asking or payment is generosity. They have nothing better to do except throw it all out there like it’s their duty; “More stuff tomorrow. I have nothing better to do! Pretend I’m cool and a show biz insider! Leave a nice comment. Copyright is copy wrong! Fair use! Entire albums fo review purposes! I make up the rules! Don’t let the bastards win! I’ll re-up anything if you give me a Paypal tip. Later!”
But I digress. The focus is on rending our garments in mourning for BENT FABRIC.
Obscure now, he most certainly entertained a lot of people all over the world, and like ACKER BILK, had one hit that made his name immortal. Well, sort of. How many people under 40 ever heard of ”Stranger on the Shore” or ACKER BILK? Consider the same number for “Alley Cat” written by Frank Bjorn (actually Mr. Fabricius-Bjerre using yet another pen name) and performed by BENT FABRIC?
“Alley Cat” originally had nothing to do with a prowling feline. For those who speak Danish (and get the crumbs off your lips), there’s no need to translate: “"Omkring et Flygel.” For the rest, it’s “Around a Piano.” With a name change to “Alley Cat” (being on a major label means you get creative input to help your commercial appeal and EARNING A LIVING), it strutted into the Top 10 all over the world. Lyricists rushed to put words to the tune so that a variety of singers could get some bucks, too. Mr. Fabric ended up with a million seller, a Gold Record and a 1963 Grammy in….hold on…the ”Best Rock and Roll Recording” category.
“Alley Cat” beat out “Breaking Up is Hard to Do” by Neil Sedaka, “Twistin’ The Night Away” by Sam Cooke, “Up on the Roof” by The Drifters, “Big Girls Don’t Cry” by The Four Seasons, and “You Beat Me To the Punch” from Mary Wells. In 1965 the category name was changed to “Best Contemporary Rock and Roll Single” and changed again in 1970 to “Best Contemporary Song.” As opposed to what, “Best Song from Five or Ten Years Ago that Got Re-Issued?”
The rush-release of a full album for “Alley Cat” meant the inclusion of such filler as “Across the Alley from the Alamo,” “You Made me Love You,” “Comme Ci, Comma Ca” and “Baby Won’t You Please Come Home.”
It’s human nature to try and duplicate a success, so BENT FABRIC followed “Alley Cat” with “Chicken Feed” and “The Happy Puppy.” The former pecked around outside the Top 50 (which was, ha ha ha, chicken feed) and his label was dismayed when the latter sniveled outside the Top 100. Both those singles are on “The Happy Puppy” album with that wet-eyed drooly, shit-spewing weiner dog on the front cover. But don’t give up, Mr. Fabric. There’s a menagerie out there.
More BENT FABRIC albums hit the racks: “The Drunken Penguin” and "Organ Grinder's Swing" (1964), “Never Tease Tigers” (1966) and “Operation Lovebirds” (1967). Monotonous, isn’t it? This guy went animal crackers. Eventually his label figured BENT FABRIC was all wet, and they left him hung out to dry. The golden years for BENT FABRIC were the 60’s, when instrumentals were actually considered a legitimate art form for singles. Sadly (for some) the days of Wine and Roses and Henry Mancini and Ray Coniff and Percy Faith and Mitch Miller and BENT FABRIC were coming to an end.
I think part of the problem was that by the 70’s, the trend toward singers was spiked by more and more foreigners learning to speak English. In fact every country seemed to have English as a second language (except America, where Spanish was starting to become more and more popular until bilingual signs began turning up in most major cities). Aside from walking your “Alley Cat” you could take “A Walk in the Black Forest” while staring through the trees to see “Telstar” only to mutter “Wipe Out.” Instrumentals could be fun, especially if the alternative was Kyu Sakamoto singing “Sukiyaki” or Dominico Modugno singing “Volare.” But come the 70’s, and a record player in every home everywhere, and every country had a recording studio for its native-language singers and every radio station could play the superior English-speaking singers and not worry that listeners wouldn’t understand the lyrics. Well, there was Bob Dylan, of course.
“Alley Cat” isn’t “ill” or obscure, so this blog offers the two follow-up singles, submitted for your upheaval. “The Happy Puppy” is actually pretty famous, actually. You’ve heard the damn thing hundreds of times, usually when some fossilized asshole like Ben Blue would do an unfunny comic mime on “The Ed Sullivan Show.” You know the kind of tedium: Mr. Sad Faced Bewildered Funnyfuck tries to put his hat on only to have it keep falling off while adjusting his cane which keeps falling down. After several excruciating minutes (accompanied by irritating music such as “The Happy Puppy”) the child-man has his hat and cane in place, and he walks away with his pants falling down. Ta da!
You ALSO get the totally rotten “Chicken Feed,” which Frank Bjorn (aka BENT FABRIC) did not write. This one is credited to the team of Bert Graves & Jorgen Ingmann. Both are on “The Happy Puppy” album, which includes such MOR-on titles and grain-dead filler as ‘Puppy Love” and “Tip Toe Serenade.”
The happy story for BENT FABRIC is that he remained busy with movie soundtracks and more albums in his native Denmark, where he was lauded as one of their greatest musicians. Can you name another? (Victor Borge, but he left the country in the 40’s and lived in Connecticut). In 2006, the vigorous old gent was still charting back home with “Shake” and “Jukebox,” both reaching The Top 10. If you want to know more about BENT FABRIC, you can iron out any wrinkles in your knowledge by visiting his website. It would help if you not only eat but speak Danish: https://fabricius-bjerre.dk
Wouldn't it be nice to think that Max Crook has become a "Twistin' Ghost?"
If you don't know the song, listen on line or download via the link below. "The Twisin' Ghost" was not a hit in America, but the amiable, roller-rinky harmless dance instrumental managed to amuse the Canadians and do an ectoplasmic ooze into the Top 20.
The man with the splendid name, which should be immortalized as a cartoon villain, was born Maxfield Doyle Crook (November 2, 1936 - July 1, 2020. His father was a doctor. His mother had a degree in music and was a fine pianist, but young Max was first taught the accordion. He graduated to piano, but back then, teachers were strict about their students learning “good music” only. He recalled a sign in the practice room of the university he attended: “'The playing of popular music will not be tolerated on these instruments."
You know what crooked direction he took to the max. In 1959 he was the leader of “The White Bucks,” a group named for its shoes. They managed to get a single released on the Dot label. Two years later, now a member of Del Shannon's band, he perfected his "Musitron" “synth” keyboard and its eerie sound helped make “Runaway” a hit.
Reversing the old pop song lyric about the joys of going “from major to minor,” Max struck up a chord change that inspired Del to work on a melody for it. The familiar story that Del told a thousand times: “We were on stage, and Max hit an A minor and a G and I said, ‘Max, play that again, it’s a great change.’ That night, I went back to the club and I told Max to play an instrumental on his Musitron for the middle part, and when he played that solo, we had ‘Runaway.’ ”
Max recalled, “It was unorthodox, a ‘hook’ song. You’ve got the chord progressions, the falsetto, the Musitron...that bridge actually came to me in less than five minutes, just something to fit in there. It all seemed to fit together…” Crook took the original tape around to local radio stations with no luck. One of his friends brought it to Big Top Records “and they listened to it and said well, it’s very strange, it’s very different, it’s got a lot of gimmicks…” They passed, but were interested in what Del and his band might do next. They didn’t like their next demo and were persuaded to give “Runaway” a shot.
Although “Runaway” went gold, and Shannon and his band were no longer having to play cover versions of “It’s Only Make Believe” (Conway Twitty) and “Rock Around the Clock” (Bill Haley) Max had other ideas. Although today's music pirates insist "the music should be free, make your money touring," that lifestyle was not for Mr. Crook:
“The loneliest thing in the world is to be a traveling star. When we played gigs in New York, you couldn’t leave the room or you’d be swamped with people.” Missing home and family was another problem, as was trying to sleep in strange rooms at night, and missing the simple pleasures of making breakfast or taking a familiar walk around the neighborhood. Besides, Max had gotten a lot of people interested in "synth" music thanks to that catchy bridge in "Runaway." Maybe....
Now calling himself “Maximillian,” he offered radio stations such instrumental novelties as “The Snake” and, yes, “The Twistin’ Ghost” which tried to haunt the airwaves at the same time as Joe Meek's "Telstar." By the late 60’s, Max was involved in the moog scene, and with a musical partner performed their electronic music as “The Sounds of Tomorrow.” When this didn’t do much for his bank account, and tiring of living in Michigan where the winters were cold and the summers upset his allergies Max looked West.
Interested in tinkering with all kinds of electronic devices, not just musical ones, Crook moved his family to California where he installed burglar alarms for a living. He never quite left the music business. He worked on movie scores and dabbled in gospel via an album called “Good News." This obscurity (no, even I don't have it) featured such gems as “Don’t Kiss the Devil” and “Jesus Still Makes Housecalls.” Another unusual album: “Standing Pat,” focused on offering marital advice.
Max worked with Del Shannon now and then. Seeking steady work with a pension, Max eventually became a fireman in Ventura County, and rose to the rank of Captain. “Under Captain Crook” was a light-hearted indie album produced by Max and his firefighter friends. Further demonstrating his sense of humor, Max wrote “Happy Haven Rest Home,” which won the attention of Dr. Demento.
As happens with too many old time performers, the royalties on the old tunes diminished thanks to piracy and the "new paradigm." That would be cheap-ass streaming where all the money goes to THE SUITS (at Spotify, Pandora and YouTube) while creative accounting and penurious percentages kept the money away from the people who actually created the music. Max would often go out to small-time fairs and music conventions to demonstrate is musitron and play for a sleepy audience of corndog-eating clods and the kind of slack-jawed apathetic nitwits who will mosey to any event that brightens their dull lives as long as it's free.
Here's Max in front of crickets and hayseeds in some country-fair pasture with private homes in the distance. This doesn't look like YOUR idea of a good time, does it?
There's not a lot of "Maximillian" recordings out there, since the ones he made didn't make a million, or come anywhere close. There's still a cult for them, and of course, nobody has ever reproduced a riff like Crook's in "Runaway," and even with today's technology, nobody can duplicate that musitron sound and make it work like he did.
Max lives! Here's the amiable instrumental "The Twistin' Ghost" via mega:
The Photoshop middle finger...is a FUCK YOU to the Grim Reaper, for taking down Hugh before he could reach 100.
Yes, Hugh Downs is gone. Hugh who? Well, Yoo Hoo to you, too. And too bad if you were too young to enjoy a low-key gentleman from the golden (i.e. CLASSY) days of television.
July got off to a rotten start with the deaths of Max “Runaway” Crook, and a man not known for his musical triumphs: Hugh Downs.
It’s been said that TV is a “cool medium,” and it was certainly true in its formative days, when comfortable and calm personalities such as Mister Rogers and Hugh Downs were welcomed into the living room, and not harridan twats like Judge Judy and brainless bimbo cunts like the Kardashians.
Downs, living up to his name, downplayed drama when he hosted an amiable, news-accented version of “The Today Show." He had been the tongue-in-cheek announcer for Jack Paar’s “Tonight Show,” where conversation, rather than Fallon-fucked stunts, prevailed. The idea was for people to be adult and talk to each other in a witty, informative manner...oh, with a risque joke now and then, or a drunken evening from Garland or Rooney, or a freewheeling session with Jonathan Winters.
In the world of frantic quiz shows, with hyped up prizes and a variety of risque remarks and “consequences” for contestants to act out, Hugh hosted “Concentration” from 1958-1969. So, for a time he was doing both the quiz show and the Paar show, and or the quiz show and "The Today Show." That was kind of a super-load for this mild mannered gent.
As its name implies, "Concentration" was not a quiz show you could merely glance at. It wasn’t a show that a housewife could listen to while dusting the furniture. The show involved remembering little portions of a rebus puzzle, and being the first to deduce and solve the whole thing. “Not a match,” Hugh would softly say, “the board goes back.” David Letterman even adopted that as a (now meaningless) catch-phrase.
Downs got to be so popular that, no surprise, a record label asked him to do some singing. As you'd expect, he had a smooth voice and a pleasant way with a folk song. Yes, Hugh was fond of folk songs. He also liked country and western, especially Red Foley. From the album notes:
"I think Red Foley is one of the greatest singers of all time. And I
include him with Caruso…I'm serious. His singing represents life and
that's what music should do." This was also the era of Burl Ives, and Burl's style is pretty evident in the way Hugh handles "Drink To Me Only With Thine Eyes" and "The Ride Back from Boot Hill." Downs recalled (for the liner notes) that he did meet Ives. He "told me I deserved to wear a beard. I told him I
wouldn't grow one. I had a mustache for five years but I finally did it
in. It was sapping my strength."
You know what makes me laugh? All the Swedes, Germans and Dutchman who just LOVE the idea of being COWBOYS. What a bunch of...WILD AND CRAZY GUYS. Did you ever hear of Mats Radberg? He had a hit with a Shel Silverstein song called "Put Another Log In the Fire." It was "Peta In En Pinne I Brasan."
If you've been around this blog for any length of time, you know I have a perverse fondness for familiar American songs sung in foreign languages. Most people don't pay much attention to lyrics, but I find it pretty odd when a familiar melody is accompanied by (to me, not to the star's home-based fans) gibberish. Somehow the singer usually gives you some kind of emotional response -- same way most can listen to an opera aria and get the idea Pavarotti is a very sad clown, or Roberta Peters has just gone nuts -- without checking the libretto.
When I used to forage the bargain bins (I mean the REAL bargain bins, like 2-for-$1 or 3-for-$1 or 25 cents each) I'd find obscure foreign records and check the songwriter credits. If I saw a foreign title but recognized an American songwriter's name (and the added name of whoever wrote the foreign lyrics) I bought it.
You might think ol' Mats is about to launch into "Okie from Muskogee" but no, it's Uncle Shelby singing one of his songs that melds stupid Southern shit-kicker idiocy with Jewish pathos. The shit-kicker part:
Put another log on the fire. Cook me up some bacon and some beans. And go out to the car and change the tyre.
Wash my socks and sew my old blue jeans.
The Jewish pathos part:
Come on, baby, you can fill my pipe, And then go fetch my slippers. And boil me up another pot of tea. Then put another log on the fire, babe, And come and tell me why you're leaving me.
I'm sure that Radberg captured all the nuances while singing in Swedish. Yah. And if he was getting no royalties thanks to Sweden's Pirate Bay, oh well. He did make some bucks back in 1983 when the above song was recorded, and nobody could copy it all over the Internet and declare "copyright is copy WRONG" or "music should be FREEEEEEEE." He made about a dozen albums between 1969 ("Country Our Way" with his Rankrama Rank Strangers band) and 1983. He made only three albums in the past decades of piracy "When We Were Young" in 1996, "100% Mats Radberg & Rankama" in 2002, and "Nashville" in 2014. But I'm sure he was still doing concerts and sweating for his salary with those, and maybe after, he sold t-shirts and hats.
Adios, Mats. At least you made it past your birthday: June 8, 1948 - June 27, 2020
Back in the 50's, there was an incredible glut of Western TV shows. By the 60's, the number had dwindled to only a few. "Bonanza" and "Gunsmoke" were still around, but attempts to add more manure to the shitty prime time schedules dominated by sitcoms and bad variety shows, failed. You might vaguely remember "Lancer," or the almost laughable "Custer," or the weird Chuck Connors items "Branded" and "Cowboy in Africa."
There were also "Bonanza"-type shows that tried to give us a view of our sprawling American West, and brawling American families. "The Big Valley" was one of those, with Barbara Stanwyck supervising a slightly more interesting bunch besides the usual cowboys. There was, after all, Linda Evans. And there was another Linda...LINDA CRISTAL, hanging around "The High Chaparral."
You might well ask what the FUCK is a "Chaparral." Is it the apparel a chap would wear? The show lasted from 1967-1971, and I don't think too many people cared about the scenery and landscape...just the face and body of LINDA CRISTAL.
Linda has passed on (February 23 1931 – June 27 2020 and here's a musical tribute to her...the mediocre theme song for this mediocre show.
David Rose composed some good theme music. This isn’t necessarily the best example. He also wrote two instrumental hits: "Holiday for Strings" in 1944 and 'The Stripper," a #1 smash in 1962.
Rose worked on several TV westerns, composing incidental music for "Bonanza," and also for the forgotten 1967 hour, "Dundee and the Culhane," which starred John Mills as an urbane lawyer dealing with the wild wild west. For some reason, that show can't even be sampled on YouTube.
The theme he wrote for "The High Chaparral" opens with notes that seem copped from Leonard Bernstein (“Tonight, tonight, won’t be like…) NO no, this is a WESTERN, not a West Side Story. Rose also makes use of the Dimitri Tioimkin stutter-rhythm that, I guess, was supposed to imitate horses galloping. Or something. Oh well, I think David Rose was busier dealing with his regular job as band leader for "The Red Skelton Hour," (where "Holiday of Strings" was flogged constantly) and who knows, when he wasn't watching Red make an ass of himself, David was still shaking his head over how Judy Garland wanted him to fuck her in the ass. But I digress.
Let's see some ludicrous but sexy publicity stills on Linda...
Linda was a nice lady. She autographed a few photos for me. I wasn't geeking her at a memorabilia show...this was purely a free, mutual-respect thing. I did know quite a lot of famous people back in the day, and I sure appreciated beautiful ladies.
I put the photos down on a Moon Martin and a Patti Dahlstrom album -- which is of course, proof that I didn't merely swipe photos off of eBay or Google. This isn't a Dutch liar blogging. And it's a bit ridiculous the fanboys who "pay for it," going from table to table to get one minute with a star and think it means anything to that star except some extra bucks in the purse. But, let's not digress again...
Linda was an exotic beauty from Argentina, with the requisite load of names (Marta Victoria Moya Peggo Burges). Her looks typed her pretty much for Indian roles, and for roles in a load of those "sword and sandal" movies which were so popular in the 50's. Her debut was as "Margarita" in "Comanche" (1956), and she slid from the 50's into the 60's with both Westerns (she was Flaca in John Wayne's "The Alamo) and yeah...."Legions of the Nile" (1959) and "The Pharoah's Woman" (1960).
Her greatest fame came, of course, when she was on FREE TV, and millions could watch her week after week (Friday nights, 7:30 to 8:30) on "The High Chaparral." She only appeared in a few guest-star roles after the series ended, including a "Love Boat" episode in 1981. Her last film role was as Nancy Chavez in the film "Mr. Majestyk" in 1974. Lovely, majestic...LINDA CRISTAL...still sailing in some of our dreams.
Freddy Cole has passed on (October 15, 1931 – June 27, 2020). Yes, Lionel Frederick Cole was one of Nat "King" Cole's brothers. The youngest. They're all dead now. Eddie was born in 1910, Nat was born in 1919, Ike was born in 1927, and Freddy in 1931.
Freddy first gained some attention in 1953 when he recorded "Whispering Grass" for Okeh. His varied career included records, a lot of touring, and session work, including commercial jingles. A documentary was done on him in 2006 aptly titled "The Cole Nobody Knows."
Fans of the blog know that there's ANOTHER "Cole Nobody Knows," and that's my very late friend Bobby Cole, who died back on December 19th, 1996. In his tumultuous lifetime, he had Top 40 success once, via the very first cover version of "Mr. Bojangles." He'd heard its author Jerry Jeff Walker perform a folk version in Greenwich Village, and knew it would be fantastic given a more Sgt. Pepper-type arrangement...adding a bit of "Mr. Kite" calliope and "Day in the Life" somberness. Bobby's version and Jeff's version ended up dueling for chart position across the country. Where Columbia/Date had more influence, the radio stations played Bobby, and where Atlantic/Atco had more clout, it was Walker. Also I think the North tended to prefer Bobby's urban version (which was copied by Sammy Davis Jr. and George Burns) and the South Walker's (which was copied by Bob Dylan and the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band).
As for people covering Bobby's songs...only two people anyone's heard of tried to wax him. Nancy Sinatra performed "Flowers" on one of her albums, and late in his career, when Bobby was long gone, Freddy offered a cover of the
smoke-dream ballad, "You Could Hear a Pin Drop."
Listen online or download -- no stupid passwords, no Paypal donation whining.
Vera Lynn. She was not known too well in America or some of the junk-Eurotrash countries and backward countries of the world.
She wouldn't be a familiar name to the fine, fine music-thieves in Turkey, Sweden, Holland or Brazil, etc., so don't count on them generously offering full albums: "just for fun...and leave me a nice comment so I'll feel like I'm God, or I'm relevant, or I'm in show biz.").
Vera made a name for herself on British radio during World War II. Like Betty Grable in America, whose cute, All-American pin-up pictures boosted morale for American soldiers, Vera Lynn's singing warmed the hearts of both soldiers, and the civilians who never knew when a bomb might destroy their homes.
At a time of great stress and uncertainty, sex symbols were not what was needed. What were soldiers fighting for? Country. Home. The girl they left behind or the girl they wanted to marry. The American GI's chose Betty Grable as their sweetheart, not Jane Russell. Rather than a saucy Marie Lloyd, the British soldiers wanted a girl who could put a steak and kidney pie on the table: Vera Lynn.
For "The Greatest Generation" living in the U.K., Vera Lynn was an enduring symbol. Hitler and Mussolini were not invincible. Vera Lynn assured the nation: "We'll Meet Again." The soldiers would return to their sweethearts. "I'll Be Seeing You...in all the old familiar places." Both songs had a gentle, melancholy optimism...a far cry...more of a whisper...from World War I marches like "Over There," and songs sung by bombastic battle-axes like Florrie Forde.
After the war, she continued to enjoy a respectable following, and usually with more songs that had an element of bitter nostalgia via minor key melodies. In 1970, two years after Mary Hopkins' twittery rendition of "Those Were The Days," Vera covered it, and covered it well. She also sang the wistful "There's a Kind of Hush All Over the World."
Into the 80's and 90's, Vera Lynn made tasteful re-appearances for songs and interviews, and like the Queen of England herself, was as much a reassuring figurehead than someone with actual power. She certainly didn't have the power to compete with the new wave singer/sluts in leotards and big hair and big busts -- the type bouncing around on MTV.
Vera Lynn, who was a comforting presence that suggested war would be over, and romance would return, became, in a way, a symbol of something else: peace in old age. She had all her marbles. When interviewed, she was always graceful, gracious and articulate. She seemed to even defy mortality. "Vera Lynn is still alive..." maybe this death thing isn't so final?
As you know, she died the other day at 103.
Plenty of her hit songs would be a likely cliche for a tribute: “Auf Wiedersehn Sweetheart,” “As Time Goes By…” or "It Hurts To Say Goodbye."
The latter is the choice, because it DOES hurt to say goodbye, even if, as people LOVE to say, "her work lives on...she's alive in our hearts."
Her song below has a slightly different flavor of heroic agony than the others mentioned. It's not as sad and wistful as her other ballads. It's not nearly as gentle. Vera Lynn was not given enough credit for having an expressive, powerful voice, but she had one, and she uses it to its full extent here:
It’s hard to resist some kind of stupid tag line related to John Martin’s nickname. After all, he earned it by writing songs that referenced the moon, even if he never had a hit song doing it (like “Only a Paper Moon”) or had the audacity to actually rhyme moon and June, (as Keith Reid did in “A Salty Dog.”) If one was known for bad taste (and no, this blogger isn’t QUITE), the line would’ve been “The Eclipse of Moon…”
Actually “ghostly” fits better, because Martin was an enigma to most of his fans. Magazines rarely seemed to profile him, and his record label's bio kept even common details about his life a mystery. Even his age was a secret until the end, and even after. Most obits listed his age as 69. Actually, he lied by five years; he was 74 when he died.
His look was pale and haunted, and it befit the title of his first album “Shots from a Cold Nightmare.” He looked like something one of Jimmy Savile’s victims probably still sees in her nightmares…a long-faced, solemn, pale creature with weedy blond hair. There’s nothing, fortunately, to suggest that Moon Martin was as creepy as Savile, but spooky? You bet. His voice was high and faded, and he was fairly bloodless in his videos.
The Oklahoma-born songwriter wasn’t initially a singer. I checked what’s available on the early bands he was with, including Southwind, and no, he played guitar and that was it. He worked as a session guitarist on Bridget St. John’s 1969 album “Ask Me No Questions” and Linda Ronstadt’s “Silk Purse” in 1969 and her 1971 self-titled album. He was on “Ululu” from Jesse Ed Davis in 1972. How he transitioned into lead vocals, and managed to get signed to Capitol, I have no idea. I have a bunch of publicity releases from Capitol that were sent to disc jockeys and music editors/writers and they tend to focus on what’s on the albums and not any bio material on Martin.
At Capitol, they were selling his music as a new wave version of 50’s rock of the Chuck Berry variety. “Rolene” and “Cadillac Walk” seemed to be in a parallel universe to Chuck’s “Maybelline” and other odes to cars and women…just deadened and whitened. “Rolene” was a Top 30 hit on his “Escape from Domination” album, and his label was gratified to see him headline in Europe and open for Cheap Trick in America. Having spawned two cover hits from his first album (via Mink DeVille ("Cadillac Walk") and Robert Palmer ("Bad Case of Loving You") and seeing him at least get into the charts on his own via "Rolene" and "No Chance," Capitol took a chance and re-signed Martin for another two-album deal.
They seemed to be pleased to keep Moon Martin a mysterious figure, too. The “Street Fever” press kit didn’t include info on Moon’s private life and interests. The opening line for the “Media Information” sheet that accompanied “Mystery Ticket” was deliberately vague: “Romance and intrigue - your mystery ticket into the shadowy world of Moon Martin, whose lyrical vignettes evoke provocative universal imagery.” Oh. Ok.
Martin’s lifeless singing on “Victim of Romance” (he definitely sounded like a victim, drained of blood) didn't get much airplay, but cover versions helped...impassioned vocals by Michelle Phillips and Lisa Burns (and “Je Suis Victime de l’Amour” from Johnny Hallyday).
Among other interesting cover versions of Moon Martin songs: “Paid the Price” by Nick Lowe (on “Abominable Showman”), “I’ve Got a Reason” by Rachel Sweet (on “Protect the Innocent”), “My Eye On You” (co-written with Bill House) by Bette Midler on “No Frills,” “She’s Made a Fool Of You” by The Searchers (on “Love’s Melodies”), and “Bad Case of Loving You” by Koko Taylor on “Force of Nature.”
Cover versions helped Martin's bank account, but fans of ill music preferred Moon Martin’s own versions, and the eerie somnambulistic Dr. Caligari-like musical landscape he created on his very black vinyl. The MTV generation glimpsed him briefly on “X-Ray Vision,” a pulsating, menacing little number that was given a fairly limp and enigmatic visualization where Moon was on a train, some kind of Disorient express....then running down alleys, getting strapped down by a mad interrogator, and...oh, but it was all a dream. Or was it? In his prime, as Capitol publicity noted, he was popular in Italy, Germany and other European countries (more than in America).
The better vintage clips on him seem to be from German TV. Capitol noted in promoting “Mystery Ticket,” that his previous, third album (“Street Fever”) did very well overseas, and it “firmly established Moon as a recording atist of major import in Europe. In France, for example, the single ‘Bad News” enjoyed a run of ore than 20 weeks in the Top 10 on the radio charts. New markets such as Italy and Spain caught “Street Fever,” and chart success in Australia indicdated fans were also jumping on the Moon bandwagon Down Under.” Capitol had every reason to figure the second album in their contract would also do well. Robert Palmer was producing (Andrew Gold also produced a cut) and Martin had managed to become the opening act for some American dates by Nick Lowe’s Rockpile.
What turned out to be the last Capitol album, “Mystery Ticket,” was, as usual, loaded with menacing, dark songs of misery, despair and heartbreak. Fulfilling his chosen nickname-first name, several had moon rhymes. From “Deeper Into Love” — “I raise the curtain to the moon. I see her eyes calling Johnny take me soon.” From “Chain Reaction” — “I fee a heartbreak comin’ on soon. Shadows fallin’ on the moon.” And from “Paid the Price” — “Dark night, dark moon. It came on so soon. I paid the price lovin’ you.” Hmm, no, it wouldn’t have been the same if he’d been called “Soon Martin.”
One song, a co-write with Jude Cole, had a faint touch if humor to it: “She’s in love with my car…she sure ain’t in love with me.” As for the hard-driving, symphonic disaster “X-Ray Vision,” that was actually another rare co-write. It was actually handed to him fairly complete by the Team of Pete Sinfield (the King Crimson lyricist) and Terry Taylor:
“For two or thee years, I had been playing around with the title “X-Ray Vision” for a song, but I couldn’t come up with any story I liked. Then, when I was doing my last European tour, Pete Sinfield and Terry Taylor approached me with a song called, of all things, “X-Ray Vision.” All I had to do was slightly alter the lyrics to make it more consistent with my other tunes, and make minor arrangements changes.”
From there, Moon Martin seemed to take almost a decade off, and re-surfaced on indie labels. He turned up at small venues where camcorder footage shows him to have remained totally stoic and disconnected from whatever audience was or wasn’t paying attention. He looked the same as ever, which at this point might suggest to people a strange cross between Jimmy Savile and Andy Dick.
(When Capitol was sending me Martin albums, I’d never heard of Savile, and Andy Dick wasn’t old enough to buy booze and become drunk and annoying in a bar). However, with more normal hair and in a better mood, he looked and acted far less spooky in the rare interview you can access below.
Like Keith Reid, it turned out that when he wasn’t being elusive, he could almost seem friendly; detached but at least communicative. Actually some of his mannerisms seem a bit similar to Woody Allen’s (Woody in real life, not doing the fake pausing, halting and head shaking).
A friend of Moon's, Sean Householder, gave an insight on his last days, posting it on something called Celebrity Access: "He was 74 years old, and he had become a little frail over the last few
years…He went to sleep in a big easy chair in his living room with a
book in his hand, a blanket in his lap, and a little glass of Coke on
the nightstand next to him. He left this world as peacefully as anybody
could ever hope to."
There was nothing amusing about the passing of Julie Felix, except perhaps one obituary which offered a caption that made it seem that she was about to smoke a joint.
Back when there were proofreaders and copy editors, that line would've been re-written so that the line break wouldn't be so odd. As in, "Use her full name, JULIE Felix, so that "joint performance" is on the second line. Anyway.... Julie was sort of known as the Joan Baez of England, since she covered Bob Dylan and Phil Ochs (as Joan did) and had a Latino father. She was actually born in America, but turned up in the U.K. in 1964, exploring the emerging folk clubs that were also luring Paul Simon and so many others. Just as Paul was signed first in the U.K. and put out his "Paul Simon Songbook" there, Julie was quickly signed to Decca. A song from the album, "Someday Soon," got her an appearance on "The Eamonn Andrews Show," and from there, regular work on "The Frost Report."
Some might recall that Frost's "That Was the Week That Was" made a star out of Millicent Martin, and the American version did likewise for Nancy Ames. So it was that regular appearances on the new "Frost Report" series helped Julie remain firmly in the public eye. She covered Phil Ochs on her 1966 album "Changes" and sang with him on a Swedish TV show. Brian Epstein did his part, booking Julie and Georgie Fame together for a popular series of "Fame & Felix" shows in 1967. 1967 was also the year Julie got her own BBC show. Leonard Cohen made his UK debut on it. Julie's eclectic interests also allowed for Spike Milligan to guest on the show, too. In 1969, when Bob Dylan appeared at the Isle of Wight festival, so did Julie.
She sang "Changes" with Phil Ochs on a Swedish TV show, and like Baez, Julie kept Phil's spirit alive by covering his songs in concerts over these many decades. Here's Julie singing Leonard Cohen's "That's No Way to Say Goodbye" and then Phil's "Flower Lady."
Julie's cover of Paul Simon's "El Condor Pasa" gave her one more Top 20 hit in 1970. At the age of 80, she released (that's "dropped" for any of you under 30 in age or IQ) her final album, "Rock Me Goddess." Well, "Folk Me Goddess" wouldn't have sounded right, would it? But Julie Felix sure was the goddess of folk-rock. Julie Ann Felix (June 14, 1938 – March 22, 2020).
Not everybody dies on their birthday. Eddie Cooley did (April 15, 1933-April 15, 2020). Not everybody co-writes ONE mammoth hit song and no more. With Otis Blackwell, Eddie penned "Fever," first recorded by Little Willie John and then turned into a classic by Peggy Lee. Not everybody can sound like he might be of a different race, and get onto the charts that way. Yet DJ Alan Freed promoted a "rockabilly" tune called "Priscilla" that sounded no different from what Presley might do, but...no, it was Eddie and "The Dimples" (the Coates sisters and Barbara Sanders).
The song, originally on the Roost label and then picked up by Roulette, drifted around the edge of the Top 20 on the Billboard charts, but that was it for Eddie Cooley and The Dimples. As a songwriter, Eddie had a minor hit with "Aw Shucks Baby" (sung by the hefty Tiny Topsy).
Hopefully, in those days before Spotify and Piracy, Eddie got enough royalty checks to keep him comfortable, and to supplement whatever else he did over these many years. Death is final, all right, but "Fever" keeps burning.
This is a music blog, so we honor the passing of the legendary Honor Blackman with a look back at the highlights from this, her only album. Considering her long, fantastic career, most obits didn't even bother to mention the record, but for the record, it's a good one.
Some find "celebrities who sing" awfully funny. Honor Blackman did...when she tried to duet with Patrick Macnee on the novelty song "Kinky Boots." You might recall that Macnee titled his autobiography "Blind In One Ear." That could've referred to his singing. Still, he managed to sort of "talk" his way through that tune, and "Avengers" fans were delighted.
It was in 1964, when Honor Blackman made the athletic leap from Cathy Gale to Pussy Galore that she was asked to cash in with a REAL record album. The idea wasn't novelty. It was to cover Rodgers and Hart, The Beatles (well, McCartney...HE wrote "World Without Love") and Aznavour. She acknowledged in the liner notes that she was
not a professional singer, but figured what the fuck (I'm not quoting exactly) she'd give it a try.
And she did good. Most of the tracks are very entertaining for the right reasons.
No
surprise that her most effective tracks were more spoken than sung,
most notably a fierce and passionate reading of Charles Aznavour's
venomously sulky "Tomorrow Is My Turn." With the words now becoming more the focus than the music, Blackman's actually far more effective than Nina Simone, (pardon the sacrilege). Like an actress working in Broadway musicals rather than a
professional singer working in nightclubs (Gwen Verdon, Angela Lansbury
and Chita Rivera would all be in that latter category) on the numbers that do require she stay on key, Honor
puts over the tunes with panache if not pitch-perfection. "To Keep My Love Alive"
is a show tune from Rodgers and Hart, and since it involves MURDER, it's a perfect choice for Blackman. Less successful, but kind of cute, is her attempt at pop via "World
Without Love." Then there's "C'est Droll," in which our gutsy lady attempts an over-emotional ballad sung in French!
It's all in the zip file, which should download easily for you. Years later, after the William Shatners of the world had turned celebrity-vocals into an art form, Honor was sometimes asked to return to the microphone for talk-singing, most notably in live performances of "The Star Who Fell From Grace." Meanwhile, that "Everything I've Got" album actually won a re-issue.
The title track, another cheerfully vicious femme-fatale number from Rodgers and Hart, had been covered by everyone from Blossom Dearie to Ella Fitzgerald, including Barbara Carroll, Betty Garrett (with Milton Berle!), Morgana King, Annie Ross, Nancy Walker (yes, the comic actress) and Meg Myles, among others, but again, top honors to Blackman.
Individual songs from it are also streaming on YouTube for your free listening pleasure. You DO know how to use an app or a download service to convert YouTube to MP3, and own 'em for your very own, don't you?
The four best songs from the album, zip-file style (see DOWNLOAD button top right corner of the website page):
How many hipsters, flippin' through the record rack bargain bin, thought, “Hey, is THIS guy the SENSATIONAL Alex Harvey? He sort of looks like him? No? Maybe not? These song titles don’t seem like him…uh….do I waste a buck to find out?”
Hmmm. No. "Alex Harvey" from Tennessee was completely different from Scotland's eternal delinquent, "Alex Harvey." All they have in common is they both recorded and are both dead.
Like so many others on this blog, Alex Harvey was not a household word, and not the type of artist that would have lonely bloggers in Holland crying out, "Here's an entire discography, PLEASE tell me you LOVE me with a NICE comment." Nor was he so hip, that clueless nitwits in Sweden, Croatia or Turkey would proudly swipe everything he did, say "I'm posting this for FUN," and expect a NICE comment like, "Keep going, you aren't some retired fart with no respect for music, you're another Clive Davis or Dave Marsh...you know it all." Or at least, know how to steal not only the music, but a few lines off "All Music" or somebody else for whom English isn't a second language. You get more than an R.I.P. over here. You get the item below. It's Alex Harvey, doing what so many denizens who end up on the Illfolks blog did...performing in front of a very small audience for very little money. But that doesn't matter if the result is something moving, and artistic.
Yes, Alex Harvey performs his two best known songs, "Reuben James" and "Delta Dawn." But listen to how he introduces "Delta Dawn," and the story behind that song. It's memorable. Put it that way.
Thomas Alexander Harvey (Mach 10-1947-Apr 4, 2020) had a lengthy career as a singer/songwriter, but is remembered mostly as the latter…the writer of “Reuben James” (a hit for the late Kenny Rogers) and “Delta Dawn,” which kept coming back for more radio play via everyone from Tanya Tucker to Bette Midler. Those were the days when a hit song could buy you a HOUSE…and maybe even enough residuals to pay for its upkeep year after year. In fact, if you want to know, those were the days when a semi-hit could buy you a HOUSE, too, or a co-write of a hit (which is why so many pricks and cunts, from Al Jolson to Joan Jett, would want to put their names on a song they didn’t write, JUST because the songwriter, so they figured, wasn’t going to get on the charts without those talented tonsils.) Alex, in terms of vinyl, had his best luck in the 70’s, when he released (that’s DROPPED, for you youngsters) five albums in the decade. After only one in the 80’s and two in the 90’s, he averaged an album a year from 2001 to 2005, and issued his last in 2015 (“Texas 101”) and 2018 (“Heart of the Art in Song”). In Harvey’s day, “crossover” was not much of a word, and so “Delta Dawn,” now considered a standard, was Grammy-nominated in the “Best Country Song” category. And lost. Still, he won over so many with his songs and his performances, and always will. It would've been nice if the music biz hadn't collapsed before he did, and he'd been treated to one of those re-issie packages with great CD notes, rare unreleased tracks and super sound quality. But hell, let's give a thank ya to YouTube, for making this item available free. Money ain't everything.
Yes, John Prine qualifies for turning up here on the “blog of less renown.” Although successful, he remained something of a cult figure, admired by those who like “roots” music, or tunes with a slightly quirky twist on country music. One of his better known songs remains “Sam Stone,” about a man coming back from Vietnam with an addiction to drugs. Prine appreciated that Johnny Cash covered this song and helped get him noticed, and tactfully shrugged off the way Cash changed the cynical and despairing “Jesus Christ died for nothing” to “Daddy must have hurt a lot.”
What's above, is my own favorite, a wonderfully lame and droll tribute to how two people can stay together despite their very human faults. The bonus is that John's partner in grime is played by the great Iris Dement, who first turns up at 2:18 with anecdotal remarks that would send most any other woman hitchin' down the highway as far away from that guy as possible. Ah, Dement, you sing them pungent lines so well, lines you wouldn’t expect to hear in a lyric by anyone other than Prine. In his latter years, recovering from neck cancer and continuing to tour and to create music on his own “Oh Boy” record label, Prince had plenty of famous people supporting him and playing with him. Duly noted, as well, is that along with C&W singer Joe Diffie, jazz pianist Ellis Marsalis and jazz guitarist Bucky Pizzarelli, John Prine’s life was shortened by the COVID-19 virus. One of the lesser known victims is Hal Willner, who might be known for his various “tribute” albums and concerts as well as his many decades of contributing to “Saturday Night Live.” From Seth Meyers to Al Franken to Van Dyke Parks to Joan Jett, the tributes have poured in. One of his oddest projects was his own solo album, which had elements of Parks, Zappa, and other weirdos, as he did everything from slow down his voice and gimmick “What a Friend We Have in Jesus” to fuck up his voice and add jazz to the W.C. Fields/British Music Hall recitation “Fatal Glass of Beer,” which you see below:
No harm done. It was a throwaway album, the kind of thing a lot of Illfolks blog favorites have done for their own indie labels or for CD Baby...things that end up getting 50 or 250 hits on YouTube and are only amusing to a very small circle of oddballs. It's just something to do while the world continues to deteriorate. Among those currently being treated for Covid-19: Jackson Browne, Christopher Cross, Pink, Rita Wilson and Marianne Faithfull.
This disease, along with various other forms of flu (and the rise in a variety of insane illnesses and fatal maladies unknown only a few decades ago) is symptomatic of this crowded, unsanitary, reckless, over-populated, crude world.
The irresponsible idiots who are destroying it are aided and abetted by politicians who not only refused to nip Covid-19 in the bud, but de-funded those who monitor such diseases. World leaders have a literally sickening record of neglect and stupidity in not emphatically enforcing sanitation and birth control, and allocating more money to health care. Epidemics and pandemics are not going to end as long as there's filth, backward notions on the safe handling of food, and weird ideas of what is FOOD and what ISN'T.
At the very least, there should be a permanent end to handshaking and overcrowding, and a greater awareness of how dangerous it is to live life as a clueless selfish moron.
For once, Twitter provided some kind of "service." After Orson Bean was killed via two careless Los Angeles cars plowing into him as he was crossing a street, a variety of people tweeted about the vast variety of his work and talent. He touched a lot of people in his 60+ year career. People posted: He was Bilbo in the original Hobbit cartoon. I LOVED HIM He will always be whimsical "Mr. Bevis" from that Twilight Zone episode. He was on “To Tell the Truth” all the time, he was part of my childhood. He was on “Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman” He co-founded the “Laurel and Hardy Sons of the Desert” group Barbra Streisand said he got her on TV for the first time He wrote about the Orgone. He founded his own progressive school. I saw him play Scrooge in “A Christmas Carol” He was Breitbart’s father-in-law. He co-starred on Broadway with Jayne Mansfield, that lucky dog! What a fine Broadway musical comedy actor: "Subways Are For Sleeping" and "Ilya Darling" Saw him on Carson’s show all the time. Nice guy and such a funny raconteur. MAD magazine showed him making a paper eucalyptus tree -- he was a good magician! Fantasy signed two comedians to their label: Lenny Bruce and Orson Bean.
It was gratifying that there were only a few assholes posting photos of Rowan Atkinson.
Orson was a charming, fascinating, intelligent man. Most know that he was born Dallas Burrows, and he had a somewhat difficult New England childhood. His mother was pretty nuts, a drunk who was simply impossible to live with. The young man had to leave home and work his way through school — and deal with a suicide note that included a line about "my son won't visit me." He lost himself in the fantasy world of radio, comic strips, and magic tricks. He developed a comedy/magic act, and tried out a variety of opening lines. When none got much of a laugh, someone suggested that instead of "Hi, I'm Dallas Burrows..." he try to get the audience on his side by having a funny name. "Roger Duck" didn't get a laugh. "Orson Bean" did. (But not from Orson Welles, who somehow decided that this was some kind of insult, or some kind of attempt to gain fame at the expense of HIS famous first name!)
Orson was very spiritual in his own kooky way, which included the time he sailed a paper plane out his window in New York….and some time after…it wafted BACK through his own window. He felt the odds of this happening were astronomical and there had to be something religious about it. Same deal when he believed he could communicate with a butterfly. Out of the blue, he published "MAIL FOR MIKEY," which expressed his positive view of something beyond the beyond. For these reasons, it was especially sad and bewildering about his last moments on this Earth. Only a few months earlier, he was on stage doing his "Scrooge" routine for Mark Steyn's annual variety show (which you can see on YouTube). He had won great reviews for a one-man show of his anecdotes and magic. And only a week ago, he and his wife had finished a limited engagement at the local theater in Venice that they so generously supported. He was sharp as a tack, vivid and vital — and he got clobbered by two fucking idiot L.A. drivers who couldn't pay attention to the road or drive at a safe speed. From what I've read, Orson was on his way to that same Venice theater where he'd performed a week earlier. His wife was already waiting for him, and since he was as spry as a 91-year-old could be, she had no worries that she needed to hold hands with him to keep him safe. One expected him to have the grand passing of "surrounded by his wife and family," and going easily over to the other side; not violence. I was so impressed by the vitality of his recent stage appearances, I'd even put off writing a letter of congratulations -- why bother the guy, and surely he'd be doing even more shows in the future. Orson was so contemporary, he was even a "meme star." Playing Ebenezer Scrooge was something he enjoyed greatly, and he might've been known to more people under 40 for that, than for being Bilbo Baggins or that crusty ol' guy on the "Dr. Quinn" re-runs. On some of those "meme generator" websites, Scrooge was simply referred to as "The Angry Old Man." Pick your own "witty" comment that the geezer might say....
Since this is a music blog, there wasn't all that much to choose from in offering a sample of Orson Bean. "I Ate the Baloney," weak as it is, beats the dated Broadway stuff, such as “Strange Duet” from “Subways are for Sleeping,” or “Po Po Po” from “Ilya
Darling” etc.) It shows what charm he could bring to weak material.
In case anyone actually cares, “I Ate the Baloney” is the actual title on the 1926 sheet music but the song is also known as “The Baloney Song,” “The Three Dreams,” “I Ate the Boloney” and “Piece of Baloney.” On Orson’s album, it’s duly noted as an “old vaudeville song,” and not one of the original bits that made him a surprise hit when he tried stand-up in NYC in the 50's. Orson mentioned to me that while the atmosphere back then was sophisticated and even edgy (the new stars were Nichols and May, Mort Sahl and Shelley Berman), he had "no interest in being dour," and favored light-hearted material and eccentricity. One of his oddest bits was about a sailor arrested for having sex with an ostrich. The shaggy Aussie ostrich story had a typical bounce-off-the-Bean punchline: "Well, if I'd known you'd all make such a fuss, I'd have married the bird!"
"I Ate the Baloney" (which pretty much gives away the punchline) was in the vaudeville tradition of ethnic comedy. The trio vying for the slice were usually portayed as an Irishman, Italian and Jew, or (in Orson's version) two Irishmen and a Jew. While there's some vague antisemitism here, back then, every group got equal abuse. There were dialect comedians making fun of blacks, Italians, Scots, Germans, Poles, and every other spicy citizen diving into the Melting Pot. Over the years, the wiseguy who ate the baloney was often whatever ethnicity the singer was. Dick Nolan, from Newfoundland, recorded a popular vesion about “Two Irishman and a Newfie…”
The original poem appears in “The Journal of American Folk-Lore” (1921). The sheet music credit goes to Harry Lee, and as “I Ate the Baloney” was popularized in 1926 by dialect comedians Billy Murray and Monroe Silver who handled the Italian, Irish and Jewish lines. The verse by Harry Lee was traditionally sung to the public domain “Pop Goes the Weasel,” which only makes things more annoying. And yet, as always, it works for Orson, who was a most kind, generous and charming man.
