Stevie Wonder is 65

One of the Spinners’ relatively few hits on Motown before they moved to Atlantic.

swonderPortraitSince I’ve tried to list my favorite songs by an artist on his/her 70th birthday, and Stevie Wonder’s is five years away, what to do this year?

Fortunately, I found this nifty list of songs written, co-written, by Stevie for other artists. Occasionally (Whitney, Macca, and Jermaine, e.g.), Stevie also performs. These are listed, more or less, up to my favorite Stevie song first recorded by another artist; Stevie did subsequently cover a couple of these. LISTEN TO ALL.

First, though, a couple of cuts introduced to me by Chuck Miller recently:
1966 All I Do (Is Think About You) – Tammi Terrell (S.Wonder/C.Paul/ M.Broadnax)
1983 The Crown – Gary Byrd And The G.B. Experience (S.Wonder/G.Byrd) – also has a Stevie vocal.

1974 Perfect Angel – Minnie Riperton (S.Wonder) I had forgotten that the late Riperton was the mother of former Saturday Night Live cast member Maya Rudolph.
1990 We Didn’t Know – Whitney Houston (S.Wonder). I have only two Whitney albums and one has this song.
1974 Take A Little Trip – Minnie Riperton (S.Wonder)
1980 Let’s Get Serious -Jermaine Jackson (S.Wonder/Lee Garrett). This was the benefit of Jermaine staying with Motown when his brothers moved to Columbia/Epic. Have this on vinyl.
1975 I Can See The Sun In Late December – Roberta Flack (S.Wonder). The last six minutes of this 12-MINUTE SONG are probably extraneous, but I like it. Also, own this on vinyl.

1982 What’s That You’re Doing – Paul McCartney (S.Wonder/P.McCartney). Pauly can be pretty soulful (Lady Madonna, e.g.), but I was glad to see Stevie back in form; much of his 1980s output was disappointing.
1982 Try Jah Love – Third World (S.Wonder/M.McCully). The one song on this list I did not know was co-written by Stevie.
1970 It’s A Shame – the Spinners (S.Wonder/S.Wright/L.Garrett). One of their relatively few hits on Motown before they moved to Atlantic.
1974 Tell Me Something Good – Rufus (S.Wonder). Couldn’t find a studio version, but this pretty representative.
1967 Tears Of A Clown -Smokey Robinson & The Miracles (S.Wonder/H.Cosby/S Robinson). Also love the version by the English Beat, or The Beat.

R for Radio

I’d especially listen to WWVA, Wheeling, WV, which played country artists such as George Jones, Patsy Cline, Buck Owens, Jim Reeves, and Eddy Arnold.

radio-004I listen to so little radio these days, mostly when I wake up, or if The Wife is playing it in the car. However, growing up in Binghamton, NY, radio was what I listened to all the time. WENE in nearby Endicott is a sports station now, but in its heyday in the 1960s, it was THE place in the area to listen to the Top 40 hits.

At night, though, when I was about 9 to 13, I would listen to a wide array of stations all over the Northeast US via a clear-channel station, which “is an AM band radio station in North America that has the highest protection from interference from other stations, particularly concerning night-time skywave propagation.” This is NOT to be confused with the stations owned by the company formerly named Clear Channel, now iHeartMedia, Inc.

I’d get my portable radio and hide it under the covers to muffle the sound. I’d listen to WSM in Nashville, TN (country), WABC (Top 40, heavy on the Beatles), and especially WWVA, Wheeling, WV, which played country artists such as George Jones, Patsy Cline, Buck Owens, Jim Reeves, and Eddy Arnold.

Some songs mentioning radio:

Turn Your Radio On – Ray Stevens (1971)
You Turn Me On, I’m A Radio – Joni Mitchell (1973)
Radio, Radio – Elvis Costello (1978)
On Your Radio – Joe Jackson (1979)
Do You Remember Rock N’ Roll Radio – Ramones (1980)
This Is Radio Clash – The Clash (1981)
Mexican Radio – Wall Of Voodoo (1983)
Devil’s Radio – George Harrison (1987)

ABC Wednesday – Round 16

The vitiligo update post

I’ll NEVER shave fully, because the beard offers protection for my upper neck.

vitiligo-1My spellcheck does NOT like the most prominent word in this post…

One of my ex-sisters-in-law wrote:

Hey Roger, I saw a recent photo of you and am wondering if you have vitiligo on your hands. I have it now and find that the sun stings me even with sunscreen. If you do have it, do you find that to be the same for you?

Yes, for over a decade. First posted about it here, and periodically since then.

This I can say: the lack of pigmentation, which is on my arms, legs, and face doesn’t bother me EMOTIONALLY as much as it once did. PHYSICALLY, though, it’s still a pain in the neck, sometimes literally so, if I don’t use sunscreen.

Thanks for the interesting information. I didn’t know about the possible liver connection. I’ve had it for about ten years as well. in my case, it seems to be related to the thyroid condition. I think the pattern of it is kind of interesting, but have trouble with my hands because of the difficulty of keeping them out of the sun.

The back of my hands burns as though I were a red-haired Irish schoolgirl. Quite vulnerable when I’m riding the bicycle.

Wow, I was hoping it was just the strong sun down here. I guess it will be that way just about anywhere.

I have no protection. MUST use sunscreen. I’ll NEVER shave fully, because the beard offers protection for my upper neck.
I did get it shaved back in 2013; I thought I looked hideous.

Me too (well, except for the beard). I try to schedule my outings for early or late to avoid full sun. I hate sunscreen, but use it when I must.

Yes, I was never a sunbather, but that’s not even an option. I do the timing thing. Those times I forget (usually on overcast days), I feel miserable later.

There’s a company called Sun Precautions that sells sunscreen and blocking clothes that you might like. It’s hard with the hands. I had some hand covers, but they didn’t work well for driving. I used a parasol too until it fell apart. I’ve been taking some medications that cause sun sensitivity as well. So it was handy …unintentional pun…
I am thinking of getting the travel size umbrella this time, There is a navy blue that might be better than the yellow one I had.

I probably ought to write about it again… I wear long-sleeve shirts in the summer, lest I burn. Usually wear long pants, rather than shorts. This may be unrelated, but I really NEED sunglasses on a sunny day.

Well, I learned something from what I just read. It’s good to inform other people, I think. I sometimes wear a scarf over my head an arms in summer and I’ve gotten some strange looks with that as well as the umbrella.

Better to look weird than get heatstroke.

Mom was about everyone else

This is my fifth Mother’s Day without my mom.

trudy greenAs I have mentioned, my mother had a miscarriage in April 1951, I believe in the second trimester; it would have been a boy.

When Mom told the story to me, or to me and one or both of my sisters – she tended to tell her stories more than once – it was in context of her explaining why my father was at arm’s length when I was born two years later: he was afraid I might die too.

But I don’t ever recall her mentioning how SHE felt about what I imagine must have been an incredibly emotional incident.

Now that I think on it, she did that a lot, explaining my father’s feelings about his growing up, or being in the military, or dealing with being wronged. Or describing her mother’s eccentricities.

She did note that she was a lousy cook because she was spoiled from being an only child living with at least four adults (mother, grandmother, aunt, uncle) when growing up. But there was never much about how she FELT about it.

In fact, the only time I can remember her talking about her feelings took place well after my maternal grandfather’s father (who even I called Father) passed circa 1960. He was a very strict, church-going pious man, who she admired greatly. When the family discovered booze and girlie magazines hidden away, she was devastated; the underpinning of her values were a bit shaken.

I wondered how she processed things. When I asked her about her theology back in the 1980s, she declared that she should be a good person; this was a bit loosey-goosey to me. She then proclaimed she followed the Ten Commandments. OK – so what does “Thou shalt not kill” mean in terms of the death penalty or self-defense? In several conversations, she never really described this.

My mother WAS a very good person, very outwardly focused, caring about others. Everyone thought she was a very sweet woman. Sometimes, though, I wished her had been a bit more selfish, figuring out what was important to HER. Being squeezed between the dominant personas of her mother and her husband may not have left enough room for her SELF.

This is my fifth Mother’s Day without my mom, and it still makes me surprisingly sad.

Music Throwback Saturday: Oh, Babe, What Would You Say?

“Would you greet me or politely turn away
“Would there suddenly be sunshine on a cold and rainy day”

NomanHurricaneSmithIn late January 2015, my family attended I attended one of those Deconstructing the Beatles lectures by Scott Freiman, “a series of entertaining multimedia presentations about the composition and production techniques” of the band.

Previously, the Wife and I experienced Looking Through A Glass Onion: Deconstructing The White Album, which also covered the recording of ‘Hey Jude’. Freiman “discusses the studio techniques used by the Beatles during 1968 and share many examples of rare audio and video of the Beatles in action.”

More recently, the three of us saw YEAH! YEAH! YEAH! Deconstructing The Early Beatles, in which Freiman traces “the birth of the Beatles from Liverpool to Hamburg. The journey continues from their initial recording sessions at EMI for ‘Love Me Do’ through their first several groundbreaking singles.”

At some point, Freiman mentioned Norman Smith, the engineer on all of the EMI studio recordings by the Beatles through Rubber Soul. As an avid reader of liner notes, I did recognize the name. After he stopped working with the Beatles, he produced early albums for Pink Floyd.

What I did not know, until Freiman played a clip, was that Norman became a recording artist under the name Hurricane Smith. His big hit, which I remember quite well, was “Oh, Babe, What Would You Say?”, “which became a US No. 1 Cash Box and a Billboard Pop No. 3 hit. It reached No. 4 in the UK Singles Chart in the Northern Hemisphere winter of 1972-73, when he was nearly 50.

I always thought the song had a certain melancholy, both in the vocal and the lyrics:
“Would you greet me or politely turn away
“Would there suddenly be sunshine on a cold and rainy day”

Hurricane Smith died in 2008.

LISTEN to Oh, Babe, What Would You Say? HERE or HERE or HERE.

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