Tag: birthday

Tony Bennett Day

Anthony Benedetto

It’s Tony Bennett Day!

I’ve often been a sucker for a comeback story. Tony Bennett’s is a great one. Instead of changing with the times – his attempts to do so were disastrous – he returned to being who he’d always been, and the times changed with HIM.

He was born Anthony Dominick Benedetto in 1926 in Queens, New York, but was singing as Joe Bari when Bob Hope made a better suggestion.

Tony was one of those crooners I remember seeing on the variety shows hosted by Perry Como, Judy Garland, Red Skelton, Danny Kaye, Andy Williams, and Dean Martin. Of course, he was on Ed Sullivan, where he appeared 18 times between 1952 and 1971.

While he didn’t entirely fade away, he became less relevant to the cultural conversation for a time.

Rebirth

As Wikipedia noted, his son Danny was pivotal in the change: “His father… had tremendous musical talent, but had trouble sustaining a career from it and had little financial sense. Danny signed on as his father’s manager.

“Danny got his father’s expenses under control, moved him back to New York City, and began booking him in colleges and small theaters to get him away from a ‘Vegas’ image. The singer had also reunited with Ralph Sharon as his pianist and musical director (and would remain with him until Sharon’s retirement in 2002).

“By 1986, Tony Bennett was re-signed to Columbia Records, this time with creative control, and released The Art of Excellence. This became his first album to reach the charts since 1972.

“Danny began regularly to book his father on Late Night with David Letterman… This was subsequently followed by appearances on Late Night with Conan O’Brien, Sesame Street, The Simpsons, Muppets Tonight, and various MTV programs.” I specifically remember Capital City on the Simpsons; the song is on my Simpsons’ Songs in the Key of Springfield CD.

In the collection

I have several Tony Bennett albums, all but one from 1993 or later when the video of Steppin’ Out With My Baby from the album Steppin’ Out was in heavy rotation on MTV.

Then Tony had an MTV Unplugged special, which I watched. Elvis Costello and k.d. lang showed up for one song each. I own his two Duets albums with various collaborators and Tony and lang, Diana Krall, and  Lady Gaga on whole albums.

Between 1963 and 1966, he was nominated for eight Grammys, winning two for I Left My Heart in San Francisco.  From 1991 to 2022, he was nominated 33 times for a Grammy, receiving 17, plus a Lifetime Achievement Award. Many were songs or albums with artists decades younger than he, including Stevie Wonder and the late Amy Winehouse. He became the king of duets.

I had the pleasure of seeing Tony Bennett at Tanglewood, I believe, in the late 1990s. His opening act was Krall, and they performed songs together as well. Ralph Sharon was the pianist/musical director.

I was reading the 60 Minutes interview about Tony preparing for two concerts at Radio City Music Hall with Gaga. He was aided by his wife, Susan, while living with  Alzheimer’s disease. The shows, which he did not remember only days later, were tremendous. It was recently rebroadcast on CBS. 

American Songwriter called these the Top 10 10 Bennett songs. Check out his paintings.

Citations

Bennett was inducted into the International Civil Rights Walk of Fame and received the United Nations “Citizen of the World” award.

The US Senate recently passed a resolution declaring August 3 as Tony Bennett Day. Senate Majority Chuck Schumer “cited Bennett’s service in World War II, as well as his decision to march with Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma, Alabama in 1965, ‘at a time when the agents of most entertainers discouraged them from marching in these kinds of things because they might lose some fans. But Tony didn’t care; he believed in equality.’” The House passed a similar measure.

Here is a life in pictures from The Guardian. Today would have been Tony Bennett’s 97th birthday. He was the gold standard for singers.

Musicians born in August 1953

J.T.

I’ve divided this month’s notables into two lists: musicians born in August 1953 today and others tomorrow.

Robert Cray (1st) was the bass player of the fictional band Otis Day and the Knights, as seen in the 1978 movie National Lampoon’s Animal House.

He is in my vinyl collection with his breakthrough album, Strong Persuader (1986), which reached #13 on the pop album charts. It won the Grammy in 1987 for Best Contemporary Blues Album. The hit single was Smokin’ Gun, #22 in 1987.

My one Cray CD is Showdown! with Albert Collins and Johnny Copeland, his first to chart at #124. He’s released over 20 albums.

Robert appears on the compilation album A Tribute to Stevie Ray Vaughan, on which he sings Love Struck Baby. Here’s the SRV tribute video.

Robert Cray will be touring in the US later this month after performing in Germany, the UK, and Ireland in June.

Scion

Randy Scruggs (3rd). From his 2018 obituary: “Scruggs won four Grammy awards for his instrumental work and was named the “Musician of the Year” at the Country Music Association Awards twice.

“The guitarist contributed his talents to recordings by Johnny Cash, Dolly Parton, Tammy Wynette, Wilco, Randy Travis, and Vince Gill.

“He produced albums for Waylon Jennings, Toby Keith, and Alison Krauss.

“Also a talented songwriter, he wrote numerous hit songs, including We Danced Anyway for Deana Carter [on an album I own] and Shakin’ for Sawyer Brown. He co-wrote multiple songs with artist Earl Thomas Conley when Conley had a string of hits in the eighties. [Your Love Is On The Line] 

“Scruggs produced and played guitar on the critically acclaimed Grammy-winning album “Will the Circle Be Unbroken: Volume Two” for the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band in 1989.

“As a recording artist, Randy and his brother Gary released two albums in 1969 and 1970, then formed the progressive country rock band the Earl Scruggs Revue with their father. I Could Sure Use The Feeling was a top 30 hit for the group in 1979.”

He died after a “short illness” at the age of 64.

A Titanic talent

I suppose I could write about James Horner (14th). Or I could link to Kelly Sedinger’s post, written after Horner died in the plane he was piloting in 2015.

Kool and the Gang

James “J.T.” Warren Taylor (16th) was the lead singer of Kool & the Gang between 1979 and 1988. Though the group had some earlier hits (Jungle Boogie, Hollywood Swinging), the group’s biggest hits were still to come.

Ladies Night, #8 pop, #1 for three weeks RB in 1980

Celebration from the Celebrate! album, which I will admit to owning on vinyl. But I won’t acknowledge the lime green polyester suit I wore in my brief disco dancing days. #1 for two weeks pop, #1 for six weeks RB in 1981, platinum single.

Get Down On It, #10 pop, #4 RB in 1982, gold single.

Joanna, #2 pop, #1 RB for two weeks in 1984, gold single.

Misled, #10 pop, #3 RB for two weeks in 1985

Cherish, #2 pop for three weeks, #1 RB in 1985, gold single

Victory, #10 pop, #2 RB for two weeks  in 1987

Stone Love, #10 pop, #4 RB  in 1987

J.T. has some solo recording and songwriter success.

Jazz Pianist

David Benoit (17th) is described on his website as Jazz Pianist, Composer, Arranger, Conductor, Educator, Radio Personality. He has charted over two dozen albums in a 45-year career and has been nominated for three Grammys.

The title track to Waiting For Spring, 1988

Dad’s Room, 1999

GRP All-Star Band, 1992

Filmmaker Ken Burns turns 70

devastating — and distressingly topical

I’ve been watching films directed or co-directed by Ken Burns, for decades.

In an interview, possibly on 60 Minutes, he noted that his academic family moved frequently, including southeastern France, Delaware, and Ann Arbor, MI.

His mother, Lyla Smith (née Tupper) Burns, a biotechnician, was diagnosed with breast cancer when Ken was three and died when he was 11. He said that circumstances shaped his career. His father-in-law, psychologist Gerald Stechler, shared a significant insight: “He told me that my whole work was an attempt to make people long gone come back alive.”

From the Wikipedia: “In 1977, having completed some documentary short films, he began work on adapting David McCullough’s book The Great Bridge, about the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge.

“Developing a signature style of documentary filmmaking in which he ‘adopted the technique of cutting rapidly from one still picture to another in a fluid, linear fashion [and] then pepped up the visuals with ‘first hand’ narration gleaned from contemporary writings and recited by top stage and screen actors,’ Burns made the feature documentary Brooklyn Bridge (1981), which was narrated by McCullough, and earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Documentary and ran on PBS in the United States.”

The films

I saw Brooklyn Bridge well after the fact, and The Civil War (1990) ss it came out. But it was with Baseball (1994) that I fell in love with his style. Someone gave me the accompanying book, which is at arm’s length in my office.

I had to watch Thomas Jefferson (1997), Jazz (2001), The Central Park Five (2012), The Roosevelts (2012) – I even have the soundtrack),  Jackie Robinson (2016) and The Vietnam War (2017) because of my great personal interest.

Here’s the blog post I wrote about Country Music (2019).

Then Hemingway (2021), because I didn’t know much about him, and Muhammad Ali (2021), because I thought I knew almost everything about him, but I did not. Benjamin Franklin (2022) was not that engaging to me.

The U.S. and the Holocaust (2023), which I’ve begun watching, is an exciting choice. Had he not covered this territory in The Roosevelts and Defying the Nazis? But it is powerful stuff.

THR’s review called it “devastating — and distressingly topical. Burns, Lynn Novick and Sarah Botstein’s six-hour PBS documentary explores what the United States did and could have done in response to the Nazi atrocities of the Holocaust.” Here is A Conversation With Co-Directors Ken Burns and Lynn Novick On Authoritarian Parallels. A CBS Sunday Morning piece is interspersed with info re: wildflowers, but it’s easy to skip to the interview.

Ken Burns considers himself a patriot. When he appeared on Finding Your Roots in 2014,  he was pained to discover that he had a Tory sympathizer as an ancestor who fought for the British during the American Revolution.
In 2015, around the time of the rebroadcast of The Civil War, he noted on Morning Joe that the Confederate flag issue was not really about heritage.

In the fall of 2022, I received a mass email from Ken Burns.

It was a pitch to vote for incumbent Senator Maggie Hassan (D-NH) for reelection. She won in November 2022.

She works hard for the money

Old Songs Festival

Les Green.Carol PowellOne thing I’ll say about my wife: she works hard for the money. As some of you may know, she retired as a teacher of English as a New Language at the end of June 2022. After a fall, getting COVID, and spending four days in the hospital during her six months “off,” she went back to work.

She’s been the program director of Wizard’s Wardrobe, a one-on-one afterschool tutoring program in Albany’s South End. The tutoring takes place only during the school year. So you’d think that the summer would be relatively easy? Not so much.

She has to compile reports about each student and get them to the parents and the teachers. There are three Saturday field trips in July, including one today.

Additionally, she is doing “tabling,” showing up at various community events trying get more students, tutors, and other volunteers. I know this well because most of the material is currently in our house, specifically in her office, because the Wizard’s workspace is being renovated over the summer. Her “off-season” is exceedingly busy.

Sometimes she is so focused on doing the next thing on her agenda that it is difficult to have a present-tense conversation.

Take a break

When she takes a break and says she wants to go to the cinema, I always say yes, because movies. Still, she totally surprised me when she suggested attending the Old Songs Festival. If we were going to go, it had to be on Friday, because Saturday was a high school graduation party and Sunday was likewise busy.

For the uninitiated, Old Songs, taking place at the Altamont Fairgrounds,  is “a family-friendly festival of folk, traditional, Celtic, and world music and dance. ” It “is known for its relaxed atmosphere, interactive sessions and workshops, hands-on experience and participatory nature. In addition to evening concerts each night, there are over 100 daytime workshops, dances or performances. Also featured are craft, food and instrument vendors, and a well-run children’s activity area.”

It’s been going on since the early 1980s. I had attended it several times, having purchased music there. But I had not attended it in two decades, before our daughter was born. My wife had never been there at all.

It had been so long since I had been there that I forgot that we could bring our own lawn chairs. We sat in the Dutch Barn and saw Rum Ragged, a very fine Newfoundland band, followed by the ‘genre-bending” Gaslight Tinkers on the main stage.

We checked out the West African Drum Circle at the grandstand before returning to the barn for Open Mic, with lots of fine musicians. You can download an album by Drew Jacobs, my favorite of which is Dylan’s Just Screwin’ With You.

That evening

After eating some very good Jamaican fare, we listened to the Main Stage Concert. Forty Degrees South from Australia, Matt and Kim Watroba, Andy Cohen, Steve Gillette and Cindy Mangsen. Then Tret Fure who used to play with Cris Williamson, who I have on vinyl. They were all fine sets. we left around 8:30 pm, not before the rain came.

My wife LOVED it! She wants to go again next year. We saw our churchmate Harriet, and our friends Broome and Jay were also around somewhere. The power of recreation is quite strong.

i’m sorry she’s doing work on her birthday, an aforementioned field trip, but I hope she enjoys the day regardless.

The pic, BTW, is of my father, Les Green, and my fiancee shortly before our wedding. Song.

More birthday month music

Depressive Quartet

birthday month musicHere’s more of my birthday month music celebration. These are songs tied to a particular time and place, or occasionally multiple times and places, in my life. 

For about a year, c. 1965, I tried to learn to play the piano. I went to the home of Marcheta Hamlin, our church organist. She was patient, but it just wasn’t in my skill set. One time she wanted me to play Minuet in G major, then attributed to J.S. Bach, but now considered to be written by Christian Petzold. She said it was like A Lover’s Concerto by The Toys. I didn’t know the song at all then and may not have until The Supremes covered it the following year.  

After I broke up with my girlfriend in May 1971, I visited my friend Steve in Poughkeepsie. He was playing the Billy Preston album That’s The Way God Planned It, produced by George Harrison. The first song is Do What You Want. I LOVE that song. Within a year, I saw Billy live in Elting Gym at SUNY New Paltz, which I was attending. 

In my freshman year, I was in Scudder Hall, probably in my dorm room, when I determined that  When You Dance, I Can Really Love by Neil Young was Our Song for The Okie and me. This track, and the Billy Preston tune, have something in common. They start much slower than they end. 

Help Me by Joni Mitchell defines a rebound relationship that didn’t last, and a concert went awry. 

My real understanding of apartheid in South Africa started with Biko from Peter Gabriel’s third album. BTW, that whole collection, sometimes called Melt, is a desert album of mine. I have a copy of it in German.   

Again

My tenth high school reunion in 1981 was a bit of a dud. But a bunch of us went over to my friend C’s house. My friend Karen played the new Rolling Stones single Start Me Up about once an hour between midnight and 6 a.m.

Romance was hit or miss in the day. I developed a Depressive Quartet of songs. I wrote about them here. Sweet Bitter Love by Aretha Franklin, her best track on Columbia. My First Night Alone Without You by Jane Olivor. Gone Away – Roberta Flack; if I WANT to cry, this song always works. Stay With Me by Lorraine Ellison.  If I needed to feel worse: Remove This Doubt by The Supremes; Down So Low by Linda Ronstadt; Can We Still Be Friends by Todd Rundgren. 

I was riding back from somewhere late at night in 1983 with my roommate Mark, a part-time disc jockey at my favorite radio at the time, Q104. Owner Of A Lonely Heart by Yes came on the radio, and we mused whether the song would have any commercial success. I had my doubts.

More next week. 

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