I'm a librarian. I hear music, even when it's not being played. I used to work at a comic book store, and it still informs my life. I won once on JEOPARDY! - ditto.
Patty left the group in 1954, which also caused a personal schism; her sisters learned about it by reading it in the newspapers.
Prelude: for this round of ABC Wednesday, I decided to do musical groups that featured family members. I actually found 24 groups, for all the letters except Q and U, though I did have to stretch some definitions. No Doobie Brothers, though.
Undoubtedly, I was inspired by writing about the Green Family Singers, and further when I watched The Sound of Music. *** It may have been Bette Midler who introduced me to the music of the Andrews Sisters with her cover of Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy of Company B in the early 1970s – LISTEN to a version by the Andrews. But in fact, I already owned some Andrews Sisters through Bing Crosby’s classic Christmas album, which featured Jingle Bells and Mele Kalikimaka [LISTEN], though I didn’t know the singers at the time, and I don’t recall if they were credited.
Fortunately, I have a friend named Fred Hembeck who is a fairly rabid Andrews Sisters fan, so now I actually have two albums of the classic tunes by Patty (the youngest, blonde), Maxene (middle sister, a brunette), and LaVerne (the eldest, the redhead). They were quite popular from the late 1930s on. “In the 1940s the sisters found themselves in high demand, and became the most profitable stage attraction in the entire nation, earning $20,000 a week. Aside from singing, the sisters were established radio personalities and made appearances in 17 Hollywood movies. During the mid 1940s the sisters released eight new singles, six of which became bestsellers. Some of the hits include Rum and Coca Cola [LISTEN] and ‘I’ll Be with You in Apple Blossom Time.'”
Patty left the group in 1954, which also caused a personal schism; her sisters learned about it by reading it in the newspapers. They got back together, “professionally and personally,” in 1956 with a newer sound that “did not gain popularity with the public, who preferred hearing old hits.”
Laverne died in 1968 from cancer at the age of 55. Patty and Maxene continued to perform, together, but usually apart, into the 1990s. “In 1995, while on vacation in Cape Cod, Maxene had a heart attack and died. She was 79.” Patty died in January 2013, a few weeks shy of her 95th birthday.
I find that I really enjoy listening to them, more now than in my callow youth.
I predict there will be a Broadway version of Frozen by 2018.
It was a very rainy Sunday afternoon. The Wife, The Daughter and I were supposed to travel from Albany to near Binghamton for a family dinner, but the forecast for locations in between were dodgy, with snow and ice likely. Instead, we went out to lunch, and then to Colonie Center Mall to see the newish Disney animated film Frozen.
The Daughter doesn’t go to school, the Wife DOES go to work because her districts weren’t even delayed, *I* DON’T go to work.
Going to bed the night before a major weather pattern, I figure on one of these three scenarios, given that The Wife is a teacher at BOCES, an educational consortium, working several suburban or rural districts, and The Daughter is a student in the Albany school district.
1. The Daughter goes to school, whether The Wife goes to work or not doesn’t matter, I go to work.
2. The Daughter’s school is delayed, the Wife’s schools are delayed, I go to work.
3. The Daughter doesn’t go to school, the Wife doesn’t work, I go to work. What I DON’T figure on:
Now, I HAVE said to The Wife that, as a matter of practicality, if the fourth setting ever came to pass, I’d stay home. But I didn’t think it would REALLY happen.
Although I should have gotten an inkling a few days ago, before a wind advisory, when I was on a bus with some young man from one of our charter schools, who seemed to believe there would be no school for him today.
This leads me to believe that the Albany school superintendent is in touch with the heads of the charter schools regarding the weather, but perhaps NOT with the other district fellow wizards. There have been another time or two when Albany closed and other schools didn’t, around the time one of the hurricanes last year was not a real weather event in the city.
It’s a peculiar way to burn a vacation day. Then again, I didn’t REALLY want to be out there waiting for two buses each way, when it was below zero Fahrenheit, did I?
I know I’m not maximizing the device’s utility, possibly because, since it actually doesn’t belong to me, I don’t want to become dependent on it.
“Do you want the use of an Android device?” our techie supervisor asked me a few months ago Sure, yeah, I guess so. There it was – an ASUS Android 7. First thing: plug it in, which I do. I can’t get it started, but that is a function of not squeezing these two prongs long enough. So it’s working. What should I DO with it?
I know; I’ll download – what do you call them? – applications? They say apps, I understand. But there are about a billion of them, many of them free; which ones should I get? I go to Google Play, which is already on the device, and type in various obvious ones: CNN, the local weather, the local mass transit, FEMA (hey, ya never know), a dictionary, and Free Cell card game. What’s cool is that I can search for apps on my computer and they magically would appear on the device; no plugs necessary.
Hey, it’s locked! How do I unlock it? I keep pressing the lock, when I should have been making a sweeping motion to the left and down, or right and down.
Here’s what it’s useful for: checking my e-mail while working with my daughter on her homework. It doesn’t require 100% attention. I watched a little bit of football, and checking e-mail with that is a good thing. But not so much watching a dramatic series, or JEOPARDY! or any program which I have to view actively.
I discovered where the Internet hot spots are in the area: certain businesses, the 905 bus from Albany to Schenectady. AlbanyNet works some places downtown.
I know I’m not maximizing the device’s utility, possibly because, since it actually doesn’t belong to me, I don’t want to become dependent on it. But I AM glad for the chance to figure out, if only a little, why people’s faces are always buried in some device.
It won’t be me always on the machine, because writing on it is too much work; I obviously just don’t have the thumbs for it, and I type with one finger, which is exhausting. I commented on a dozen blogs, and my neck hurt.
But there is one thing I do like, and that’s the ability to speak to the device and search for websites. Usually it’s one I’ve already been to, but still useful. And making pages bigger – now THAT’S quite user-friendly. I went to the Zillow app and found all the houses in my neighborhood for sale; not that I was in the market, but it was nice to check out, and expanding the page made the listings MUCH easier to see.
One last thing: it’s so big I’m not likely to use it.
I just ODed on Stairway to Heaven, I’m afraid. Still leaving it off the list would be an injustice.
Robert Plant, John Paul Jones, Jimmy Page
Noticed that, of the 18 folks inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame more than once, the list includes Crosby, Stills, Nash AND Young; three Beatles; and three guitarists for the Yardbirds: Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, and Jimmy Page.
Since I never bought a Yardbirds album until after the group broke up, I wasn’t really familiar with Page until the group that evolved from the Yardbirds, Led Zeppelin, came out with its first album in 1969.
Here’s an interesting, and applicable, quote of Jimmy Page about what “he wanted Led Zeppelin to be, from the very beginning: “‘I had a lot of ideas from my days with The Yardbirds. The Yardbirds allowed me to improvise a lot in live performance and I started building a textbook of ideas that I eventually used in Zeppelin. In addition to those ideas, I wanted to add acoustic textures. Ultimately, I wanted Zeppelin to be a marriage of blues, hard rock, and acoustic music topped with heavy choruses – a combination that had never been done before. Lots of light and shade in the music.”
And so it was.
I’ve already discussed my affection for, and irritation with, Zeppelin, especially Page and vocalist Robert Plant, so I guessed I’d list my 20 favorite songs by the group, not the best ones necessarily. Except…
Strange that my affection for songs by Led Zeppelin usually depends on what I’ve listened to most recently. Except for the #20 song, the ranking here is fairly arbitrary.
Links are to all songs, which WERE working at the time of compilation. Citations are to the albums I, II, III, IV, Physical Graffiti (PG), and Houses of the Holy (HotH)
20. Stairway to Heaven (IV) – yeah, I know that it has that building energy, a great Page guitar intro, it’s technically impressive. But I just ODed on it, I’m afraid. Still leaving it off the list would be an injustice. You would think it was released as a single, but oddly, only as a promo.
19. Houses of the Holy (PG). Strangely left off the Houses of the Holy album, it shows up on the next album. I find the beat seems to change on me. Something about the groove is infectious.
18. Babe, I’m Gonna Leave You (I) – starts off as a sweet song, actually, that reportedly is a paean to Joan Baez, who had recorded a version. Then moves to the more plaintive, driving sections. Back and forth – think I like the schizoid nature of the performance.
17. Celebration Day (III) – bluesy in an off-balanced manner.
16. Trampled Under Foot (PG) – lives on the funky bottom. This was released as a single and actually got to #38 in 1975.
15. Immigrant Song (III) – a slab of unrelenting metal that starts a generally more quiet and reflective album. Notably, it has no guitar solo, which allowed it to be released as a single and get up to #16 in early 1971.
14. Gallows Pole (III) – I knew this song first as performed by Leadbelly. Love the guitar, and the musical interlude.
13. Rock and Roll (IV) – actually a loud blues number, and often used as the band’s concert opener. Only got to #47 as a single in 1972.
12. The Ocean (HotH)- a great outlet for the bass/drum combo of John Paul Jones and John Bonham.
11. Black Dog (IV) – “Hey hey, mama, said the way you move, gonna make you sweat, gonna make you groove.” Went to #15 in early 1972.
10. In My Time of Dying (PG) – rather like putting church through the heavy metal grinder. At 11 minutes, their longest song
9. Whole Lotta Love (II) – a great hook, great vocals. Nicked a Willie Dixon song, which wasn’t uncommon for them. Tom Skulan of FantaCo used to describe the pronunciation of his last name from the second line of this song, “I’m gonna send ya back to schoolin'”. Their biggest single, it went to #4 in the beginning of 1970.
7. The Battle of Evermore (IV) – a softer side of the group, with a mandolin (I think), which would have fit on the third album.
6. How Many More Times (I) – it’s a fascinating pastiche of rocking blues, which segues into some psychedelic thing. I remember my copy of the original LP listed the running time as 3:30, reportedly so that radio DJs would play it before realizing it was five minutes longer.
5. Kashmir (PG) – it has this exotic sound, peculiar meter, awash with strings and horns. I’ve seen this song on lists of the best LZ song, and it may well be.
3. Good Times, Bad Times (I) – the first song from the first album hooked me instantly. As a single in 1969, before the album was released, it got only to #80 on the charts.
2. Friends (III) – this is the second song on the album after Immigrant Song suggested that the group was going to have another album rather like the first two. Instead, they went into a more melodic direction which led to the album being their worst seller. But I always liked it a lot.
1. Four Sticks (IV) – the song drives about in hypnotic fashion, changing time signatures frequently, from 5/4 to 6/8 to who knows what. The lyrics are banal, but it’s the beat that hooked me.
It may have been Bette Midler who introduced me to the music of the Andrews Sisters with her cover of Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy of Company B in the early 1970s – LISTEN to a version by the Andrews. But in fact, I already owned some Andrews Sisters through Bing Crosby’s classic Christmas album, which featured Jingle Bells and Mele Kalikimaka [LISTEN], though I didn’t know the singers at the time, and I don’t recall if they were credited.
