birthday Archives - Page 48 of 50

Shafted into Soaps: Richard Roundtree is 70

Richard Roundtree turns 70 today.

In 1990, I was a Census enumerator, which meant I wold go door to door to count people. I used to watch the noon news, then started viewing whatever was after it. There was a soap opera featuring Richard Roundtree. Yes, Shaft himself! It was called Generations, and I ended up watching it at 12:30 pm until it died in 1991. (It had started in 1989). It was the first soap, reportedly, where about half the cast was black. Roundtree played Dr. Daniel Reubens, implicated for a crime he did not commit.

I never actually saw any of the Shaft movies, though I did see an episode or two of the short-lived (1973-1974) TV series based on them, but I was intrigued that this semi-famous movie actor was in this daytime TV show I had never heard of. The bad thing about watching it is that, eventually, I started watching Days of Our Lives at 1, and got sucked into that until some over-the-top plot line drove me away. Subsequently, I started watching Another World at 2, and I viewed it until two weeks before the end in 1999, when I got married and went on my honeymoon. But I’ve read the synopses.

My grandmother and great-aunt used to watch the CBS soaps (Guiding Light, Edge of Night, Secret Storm, and others) when I was a kid, and I’d see them quite a bit, especially the latter two (on at 3:30-4:30). As you probably know, lots of actors moved from the soap to prime time TV. I saw Henry Simmons on AW and then he spent the last 6 years on N.Y.P.D. Blue. AW’s Amy Carlson was on Third Watch, then the 4th Law & Order show.

Anyway, Richard Roundtree, who developed breast cancer in 1993 and had a double mastectomy and chemotherapy, is still a working actor. I remember him well in his guest appearance on the television series The Closer as the retired Marine colonel who was the father of a sniper.

He turns 70 today, and I wish him well, and forgive him for being my gateway drug to soap operas, an addiction I’ve now overcome.

Brian Wilson is 70: my favorite Beach Boys songs

Time to pick my Top 20 Beach Boys songs, which is sometimes changeable, though #1 has been rather consistent. Happy 70th birthday, Brian Wilson!

L-R: Wilson, Marks, Johnston, Jardine, Love

I’m watching the Grammys maybe four weeks after it aired, fast-forwarding through the stuff that didn’t interest me. Then what to my wondering eyes should appear but the Beach Boys – the REAL Beach Boys! It wasn’t a tremendous performance, with lots of “guest stars”, but it was genuine. Brian Wilson has toured occasionally, notably performing the SMiLE album. Al Jardine played with various friends and relatives. Mike Love has toured as the Beach Boys with longtime group participant Bruce Johnston. David Marks, an early Beach Boy, was also there.

Dennis Wilson drowned in 1983, and Carl Wilson died of cancer in 1998; I visited the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in April 1998 and saw nice tributes to the Carls, Perkins, and Wilson. So for me, without Jardine, and the oft-feudin’ cousins, Love and Brian Wilson, it can’t really be the Beach Boys.

The five are touring now, a 50th-anniversary summit; hear an hour of highlights from several of The Beach Boys’ recent shows. And with their new album, the Beach Boys Surpass the Beatles for Billboard 200 Record.

Time to pick my Top 20 Beach Boys songs, with links, a roster which is sometimes changeable, though #1 has been rather consistent.

20. California Girls. LOVE the intro – it is so lush. Then a geography lesson.
19. Friends. It’s a waltz. It’s about friendship.
18. When I Grow Up (To Be A Man). I was a sucker for the count-up. “14, 15, 16, 17…”
17. Transcendental Meditation. What a juxtaposition – an out-of-tune sax against the title theme. It makes me laugh.
16. Wouldn’t It Be Nice. In my freshman year in college, this was THE song for me.
15. Breakaway. This was released as a single and got all the way to #63, which I always thought was a shame.
14. Help Me, Rhonda. There are at least a couple of versions of this song; I need it to be the one with the bow-bow-bow bit.
13. Do It Again. A reiteration of the Beach Boys mission, it felt. And here’s the 50th-anniversary edition.
12. Barbara Ann. As a kid, this was so much fun to sing along with. Apparently, the song has been repopularized by the movie Despicable Me 2.
11. Darlin’. Just because it gets to the point, without a long intro.

10. Good Vibrations. Yes, it was overplayed and overrepresented in collections of 1960s music. Still, it’s a classic piece, with a difficult theremin segment.
9. Don’t Talk (Put Your Head on My Shoulder). I COULD put a half dozen songs from Pet Sounds on this list. There’s a great Linda Ronstadt cover of this tune.
8. In My Room. I had the tiniest bedroom in the country when I grew up, a wall carved out of a hallway. But it was my sanctuary, where I read and looked at my baseball cards.
7. Our Prayer. Short, but beautiful.
6. Don’t Worry Baby. One of the very first albums I ever owned via the Capitol Records Club was this odd compilation called Big Hits Hits from England and U.S.A. Two songs each from the Beatles, Peter & Gordon, Nat Cole, Cilla Black, plus one by Al Martino. This beautiful song was one from the Beach Boys.
5. Feel Flows. One of my college albums was Surf’s Up, much of which I could add to this list. I rediscovered this song on the end credits of the movie Almost Famous.
4. I Get Around. The other BB song from Big Hits.
3. Sail On, Sailor. Such a rugged, muscular vocal. And the guitar line kicks.
2. Til I Die. Makes me almost overwhelmingly sad.
1. God Only Knows.
“I may not always love you
But long as there are stars above you
You never need to doubt it
I’ll make you so sure about it”
I find this terribly romantic. I’m taken by the story of Brian and Carl praying before recording it, and Carl is angelic here.

Happy 70th birthday to Brian Wilson.

Paul McCartney is 70: 12 songs

When I first heard this song about John Lennon, I thought it was too cloying. Moreover, I thought Lennon would think so too.

The thing about Paul McCartney that I appreciate is that, these days, he’s still trying. Oh sure, he’s doing legacy stuff such as reissues of some of his old albums, including recently, Ram. But he’s showing up on the TV show 30 Rock and touring in Latin America, even reimagining old songs. He keeps putting out new music at a reasonable pace, even if that last album had a bunch of old songs; the less familiar I was with a song, the more I liked it. He has played for his queen and will perform at the London Olympics opening ceremonies.

Here’s my Top 12 Macca songs, with links, at least this week. I could have picked a dozen more. I’ve stayed away from live songs, and re-recordings of Beatles songs.

12. Nineteen Hundred and Eighty Five – the last song on the extraordinary Band on the Run album.

11. Let Me Roll It – another song from Band on the Run. I especially like the guitar line and the somewhat disconnected vocal.

10. My Valentine – a sweet song for his bride Nancy from the mostly cover album Kisses on the Bottom. Apparently, Natalie Portman and Johnny Depp used incorrect sign language in the promo.

9. Oo You – from that first McCartney solo album. Love the quality of the vocal, and the fact that it’s all Paul.

8. Jenny Wren from the 2005 album Chaos and Creation in the Backyard. It does remind me of the Beatles song Blackbird a bit, but it is lovely. Here’s a shorter version.

7. Every Night – again, from the first album.

6. Here Today – from Tug of War. When I first heard this song about John Lennon, I thought it was too cloying. Moreover, I thought Lennon would think so too. But after seeing Macca perform it in a live concert (on TV), I changed my mind.

5. Band On The Run. The title cut, of course.

4. What’s That You’re Doing? The OTHER Stevie Wonder collaboration from the Tug of War album. By this point, Stevie was doing MOR stuff such as I Called to Say I Love You, so I was happy that he and Paul got a bit funky. And I’m always a sucker for a Beatles reprise.

3. My Brave Face – from the Flowers in the Dirt album. As I recall reading, Elvis Costello gave Macca permission to play Beatle Paul bass lines.

2. Jet – from Band on the Run. Again.

1. Maybe I’m Amazed – from McCartney. I remember hearing that Paul was going to be on The Ed Sullivan Show, and then being sorely disappointed that his “appearance” was actually this video. The strength of the song, though, won me over.

I have about half of Paul’s solo output, but I ended up gravitating to two or three albums for these cuts.
***
Apparently, Macca saved Mark Ronson from drowning, when Ronson was a kid.

A live webcam trained on the crosswalk on Abbey Road in London where a certain Beatles cover photo was shot.

Morgan Freeman is 75

The last two movies I’ve seen of Morgan Freeman’s were Invictus, in which he played Nelson Mandela quite convincingly, and the kid-friendly Dolphin Tale. Such range.

I was already in college, but I really enjoyed watching the Electric Company. And one of my favorite actors was this guy who played a number of characters, but especially Easy Reader. Little did I know that being stuck on children’s television was literally driving Morgan Freeman to drink.

I saw Brubaker (1980) and the TV movies The Marva Collins Story (1981) and the Atlanta Child Murders (1985). I don’t think I really knew that he was MORGAN FREEMAN, though, until I saw a trio of 1989 films, all in the theater: Lean on Me, where he played principal Joe Clark who shook up an inner city school district; Driving Miss Daisy, where he was a chauffeur to a white woman while attempting to demand his dignity; and Glory, in which he helped lead the Civil War’s first all-black volunteer unit, while dealing with prejudice. All strong performances, though I didn’t love Miss Daisy, for whatever reason.

I barely remember Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991) at all, but was totally captivated by Unforgiven (1992) and the Shawshank Redemption (1994) and Freeman’s performances in them. Since then, I’ve seen Amistad (1997) – good; Deep Impact (1998), as the ineffectual President – eh; and Brice Almighty as God (2003) – enjoyable. I think his voiceover work on March of the Penguins (2005) helped make it the hit it became. There are plenty more I will want to see (Million Dollar Baby, the Batman pictures).

He was also noteworthy for his views about Black History Month. He said: “How are we going to get rid of racism? Stop talking about it!” I wish that were true. I don’t think we know HOW to talk about it without the knives being drawn. And I found his comments somewhat peculiar given the fact that he participated in a DNA study of his racial breakdown.

ABC News, at the time of his 2008 car accident, noted the “dark cloud” over the cast of The Dark Knight: besides Freeman’s incident, the accusation of assault against Christian Bale, and, of course, the death of Heath Ledger. Not sure I believe in that stuff.

The last two movies I’ve seen of his were Invictus, in which he played Nelson Mandela quite convincingly, and the kid-friendly Dolphin Tale.

Such range. A very fine actor, who turns 75 today.

Aretha, QoS, is 70

RESPECT by QoS is one of the five greatest cover songs EVER.

When Aretha Franklin burst onto the music scene in 1967, I suspect many people thought she was an overnight success. In fact, she had been signed by Columbia Records back in 1961, but because of the songs she was given to sing (“Rock-a-bye My Baby With A Dixie Melody”?), the producers she had, and/or the label’s promotion, she was unable to break through.

It wasn’t until she moved over to Atlantic Records, and recorded with the Muscle Shoals Sound Rhythm Section, that her true gift came to fruition. And when her period at Atlantic came to an end, changing over to Arista Records in the early 1980s, had a few more hits.

Most of my favorites are from the Atlantic period, though one was from the Columbia era, and one was something else altogether. Links to each song.

12. Spanish Harlem (#2 in 1971) – this is such a great reworking. And I love the word “BLLACK.”

11. You’re All I Need To Get By (#19 in 1971). The RESPECT reprise is great. (Couldn’t find a studio version; this is LIVE from 1978.)

10. Sisters Are Doin’ It For Themselves (#18 in 1985). With the Eurythmics. Love Annie Lennox and Aretha sharing phrases.

9. I Say a Little Prayer (#10 in 1968). Reworks the Bacharach-David tune to something playfully funky.

8. Eleanor Rigby (#17 in 1969). The first great thing – she tells it in the first person: “I’m Eleanor Rigby.” Secondly, the phraseology is SO not dependent on the original.

7. Rock Steady (#9 in 1971). Love the organ intro. “What it is, what it is, what it is.”

6. Chain Of Fools (#2 in 1968). The bridge is my favorite section.

5. Ain’t No Way (#16 in 1968). Heartfelt ballad with a lovely solo soprano by Cissy Houston, Whitney’s mom.

4. (Sweet Sweet Baby) Since You’ve Been Gone (#5 in 1968). When I used to listen to AM radio in the day, the DJs would often talk over the musical intro, which irritated me greatly. No talking over THIS intro, which was one chord.

3. (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman (#8 in 1967). The second appearance of this song in this blog in less than two months – previously in my Carole King post.

2. Sweet Bitter Love (1966). This title cut of a Columbia album was written by Van McCoy, who was better known for The Hustle a decade later. I first heard this song on a Columbia compilation album, Our Best To You: Today’s Great Hits… Today’s Great Stars, and loved it instantly. In the right (wrong?) frame of mind, it’ll make me cry.

1. Respect (#1 in 1967). Otis Redding, the original writer/performer of this song, famously said that Aretha “done stole [that song] from me,” making it her own. It became an anthem. One of the five greatest cover versions EVER.