“It was Shakespeare who inspired Berlioz to write what is his single greatest symphony and work in general.”
My church was going to be celebrating William Shakespeare’s 450th birthday on the First Friday of this month, but it got canceled. Still, I have been on the lookout for celebrations of the same. Without searching, I came across these:
From JEOPARDY! episode #6804, aired 2014-03-27 SHAKESPEARE REWRITES THE BEATLES
“The lady is enamored of thee. verily, verily, verily”
“Wilt thou still require me, wilt thou still provide sustenance unto me, roughly midway through my 7th decade?”
“Aid me if thou canst, I feel sorrow…& my gratitude is large for thy presence here”
“Assemble forth, all ye jesters, speak thusly… hark! Thou must conceal thy amorousness”
“I believe I shall be melancholy, I believe it shall be anon…the woman who disturbeth my temper is leaving hence”
“It was Shakespeare who inspired Berlioz to write what is [for Jaquandor] his single greatest symphony and work in general. It’s his third symphony, Romeo et Juliette.”
Father stop criticizing your son
Mother please leave your daughters alone
Don’t you see that’s what wrong
With the world with world today
Everybody wants somebody
To be their own piece of clay
The absurd death of Marvin Gaye, at the hands of his father, a day shy of his 45th birthday, always saddens me in early April. He would have been 75 today, but instead was killed 30 years ago yesterday.
Here are twenty-one songs, all linked here, some multiple times, and with different spellings. My list is more or less in preference order, though I’m sure I left off something obvious. The citations refer to its Billboard pop charts zenith, and the year:
21. The Star-Spangled Banner – a controversial version performed at the 1983 NBA All-Star Game 20. Yesterday – WAY too many covers of this Beatles song, yet this is one I like 19. Let’s Get It On (1, 1973) 18. Got to Give It Up (1, 1977) 17. I’ll Be Doggone (8, 1965) 16. Pride And Joy (10, 1963)
15. You’re All I Need to Get By (with Tammi Terrell) (7, 1968) 14. Your Unchanging Love (33, 1967) 13. I Heard It Through the Grapevine (1, 1968) – this might have fared better on my list if I had not burned out on it in the Big Chill period. BTW, Yahoo! Voices wrote: “The song became so popular in fact, that numerous artists have re-recorded their own renditions, not that any of them can compare to the original.” WRONG: It was NOT the original. Smokey Robinson and the Miracles recorded it earlier, though Berry Gordy put the kibosh on its release. Then Gladys Knight and the Pips went to #2 with it the year before Marvin’s version went to #1. 12. It Takes Two (with Kim Weston) (14, 1967) 11. Mercy Mercy Me (4, 1971) – the ecology is more threatened now than it was then…
10. Sexual Healing (3, 1983) – his last big hit, after he had moved from Motown to Columbia 9. Ain’t Nothin’ Like the Real Thing (with Tammi Terrell) (8, 1968) 8. What’s Going On (2, 1971) 7. Hitch Hike (30, 1963) 6. Ain’t That Peculiar (8, 1965)
5. Stubborn Kind Of Fellow (46, 1962) – and he was, in his dealings with Berry Gordy and others 4. Ain’t No Mountain High Enough (with Tammi Terrell) (19, 1967) 3. Piece Of Clay – never heard this song until I found it on the soundtrack to the 1996 movie Phenomenon Father stop criticizing your son
Mother please leave your daughters alone
Don’t you see that’s what wrong
With the world with world today
Everybody wants somebody
To be their own piece of clay 2. Inner City Blues (9, 1971) – STILL makes me want to holler, throw up both my hands… 1. Can I Get a Witness (22, 1963) *** This is an interesting listen A Tribute To The Great Nat King Cole by Marvin Gaye. All links are correct, except #2, which is neither the song (On the street where you live NOT Ramblin’ Rose), or the artist (sung by someone named Eugene Butcher) listed.
She doesn’t have Guillain Barre or Lyme disease, but I don’t know what she has.
The Daughter’s last month as a nine-year-old was… interesting. As noted, she’s been rehearsing to be in the church production of The Lion King. The rehearsal for February 23 was very intense, and she did not feel up to going to school that day and missed that night’s rehearsal. But when she was too tired to go the next day, I took her to the doctor. Ultimately, she had a blood test, stayed home Wednesday but went to school Thursday and Friday.
Saturday, March 1 was the Lion King dress rehearsal. Christy, the director, who was featured in this article, had said they could rechoreograph The Daughter’s part. The first time through, she did it as planned, but in subsequent takes, she took the shortcut. I was worried that she’d be too exhausted for the show.
Sunday, March 2: the performance. I wasn’t the only one who commented that she was very good as young Nala, the lion cub. She sang well, she knew all her lines from fairly early on in the rehearsals, and she was definitely one of the best dancers in the show. (Oh, here is King Of Pride Rock/Circle Of Life (Reprise), NOT from the church production.) We went out for dinner with my in-laws, then we went home and she fell asleep on the sofa at 5 p.m.
March 3-7: another truncated week of school. The blood test was negative for Lyme disease and about 14 other things. March 10, she goes to school all day, but by the next morning, she’s having trouble walking. So The Wife takes her to the MD again. Wednesday, March 12, at the advice of the MD and the neurologist, we take her to the ER at Albany Medical Center at about 4 p.m. She doesn’t get admitted until 2:30 a.m., and to her room until 4 a.m. After much poking and prodding and an MRI that lasted an hour before she said, “I can’t do this anymore,” there was only a conclusion about what she did not have: no invasive infection, no Guillain Barre. Out of the hospital that Friday, and she slept 13 hours when she got home.
Next stop: physical therapy. Can this just be extreme growing pains affecting her joints, and the areas above and below, plus her back? I dunno, but I’m hopeful the therapy will make her feel stronger.
I suppose it was inevitable that when the billing went from The Supremes to Diana Ross and… that she would eventually leave the group, and she did. In many ways, I preferred the songs of those first two solo albums of hers, which I bought, to the Supremes albums that came out just before she left the group. Still, I never bought any of her other solo albums. Didn’t see her in any of her movies, not even the Oscar-nominated Lady Sings the Blues, though I did see snippets of The Wiz on television.
At some level, I thought that what felt like Berry Gordy’s favoritism towards her made me cranky. It wasn’t until much later, when I was watching the soap opera Another World in the late 1990s, and discovered actress Rhonda Ross was the biological daughter of Ross and Gordy, did I discover they had had a romantic relationship.
Of course, I watched her on the Kennedy Center Honors in 2007, and she was most deserving. I did hear her on the radio a lot, and, finally, bought her greatest hits collection, from which I am picking my favorites from her solo career. LISTEN to all.
7. Upside Down, from Diana, 1980. Some dance beat drivel that I found annoyingly infectious. Went to #1.
5. Touch Me In The Morning (from Touch Me in the Morning, 1973). Another #1 song. I don’t always like Diane’s voice, but I love it here.
4. I’m Coming Out, from Diana. I NEVER heard this song, I believe, until I bought the CD. Anthemic, and I understand she often starts her shows with this song.
3. Mahogany (Do You Know Where You’re Going To), from Diana Ross, 1976. Theme from the movie. I just noticed she had albums called Diana!, Ross, Diana, Ross, and TWO called Diana Ross; this is from the second one.
2. Ain’t No Mountain High Enough, from Diana Ross, 1970. The song was the motif for the Black History Month performance that my sister Leslie, a couple of others and I organized and performed for a high school assembly. It’s amazing how Diana took that tune, a hit for Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell, and made it her own #1 song.
It was a teen music magazine in which John Sebastian alerted me to the fact that the UK and US versions of Beatles albums were not the same.
Zal Yanofsky, John Sebastian, Steve Boone, Joe Butler
Also used for ABC Wednesday, Round 15 – L is for Lovin’ Spoonful:
When I joined the Capitol Record Club back in 1965 or 1966, I got 12 albums for “free”, plus shipping and handling, and had to order 10 or 12 more at full retail price, plus S&H. There was this thing called negative option (they didn’t call it that) whereby if you didn’t return a postcard by a certain date, you’d get the next selection. I believe that is how I came to get the album Daydream by the Lovin’ Spoonful, the American group’s second album.
Though annoyed by my own disorganization, in fact, I LOVED this album so much that I subsequently bought the 2002 extended CD of this, which was fine, because the vinyl version was full of pops and scratches from being overplayed. And as a liner note reader, I noticed that all but one of the songs was written by one John Sebastian, who was the lead singer on many of them as well.
I bought other albums by the group, a single, and even a couple of Sebastian solo albums, but nothing did I love as much as that first combination of rock, folk, and blues. The story of the Lovin’ Spoonful is told, in part, in a song by the Mamas and the Papas called Creeque Alley; Zal refers to the late Zal Yanovsky (d. 2002), lead guitarist/vocalist for the Spoonful. LISTEN.
It was a teen music magazine in which John Sebastian alerted me to the fact that the UK and US versions of Beatles albums were not the same. He claimed that Drive My Car was his favorite song on Rubber Soul. At first, I thought he was confused – it’s on the US Yesterday and Today – but eventually, I figured out that he must have heard the UK pressing.
John Sebastian sorta sang and rambled a lot at Woodstock. “You’re truly amazing, you’re a whole city.” And he ended up having a #1 hit song based on a TV theme song. I met him once, briefly, on Central Avenue in Albany, at a club, but I don’t recall the conversation.
FAVORITE JOHN SEBASTIAN SONGS, all Lovin’ Spoonful unless otherwise indicated. LISTEN to all except #20. Chart listings are for US Billboard singles. 20. Four of Us (from The Four of Us – solo album) – it took up a whole side of the LP. It goes through so many musical styles, I think I admired its ambition more than anything.
19. Warm Baby (from Daydream -D). Most of the songs from this album will get no explanation.
18. I Had A Dream (from John B. Sebastian – solo album.) I admire its hippie optimism.
13. Rain on the Roof (from Hums of the Lovin’ Spoonful). Such a gentle song.
12. Butchie’s Tune (D). such a badly named song, about leaving.
11. Welcome Back (from Welcome Back – solo album). I just didn’t want to like a song that was the theme to a TV show, in this case, welcome Back, Kotter. But I do. AND it went to #1 in 1976.
9. Six O’Clock (from Everything’s Playing). One of the rare singles I ever purchased (and i never bought the album), it’s the opening wake-up noise that I liked. #18 in 1967.
8. Bald-Headed Lena (D). A truly goofy song and the only non-original on the album. Gargling?
7. It’s Not Time Now (D). I used the lyrics of this song to describe the 1980 Democratic primary season with Jimmy Carter, Ted Kennedy: Carter: I’d like to tell you that’s it’s fine, but it’s not time now. Brown: I can’t seem to get a word in edgewise anyhow. (Lyrics)
6. Do You Believe In Magic (from Do You Believe In Magic). Yes, I do believe it’s like trying to tell a stranger about rock and roll. #9 in 1965, the group’s first hit.
5. Darling Be Home Soon (from You’re A Big Boy Now). This is a sad, plaintive song. #15 in 1967.
4. Daydream (D). Sounds as though Sebastian just woke up. #2 in 1966.
2. Summer in the City (HotLS). I made feeble attempts to play this on the piano. It FEELS like it sounds: “Back of my neck getting dirty and gritty.” #1 for three weeks in 1966.
1. Jug Band Music (D) – a funny story-song that is about the restorative power of music.
My church was going to be celebrating William Shakespeare’s 450th birthday on the First Friday of this month, but it got canceled. Still, I have been on the lookout for celebrations of the same. Without searching, I came across these:
