music Archives - Page 173 of 268 - Ramblin' with Roger

January rambling #2: JEOPARDY!, and recess

‘I feel like a dime among nickels.’

I received one of those recorded scam IRS phone calls this month, threatening to put me in jail. Mine came from the Syracuse, NY area from a known scam phone number.

2015 Was Hottest Year in Recorded History.

No boots on the ground… What does it mean?

Abortion Is as Old as Pregnancy: 4,000 Years of Reproductive Rights History.

No relation: The Green brothers explain January 1 and Oregon “militia”, the latter before the recent arrests.

Fiscal Woes Drowning Clearwater: Iconic Festival May be Scrapped.

I saw this moving piece (90 seconds) on CBS Sunday Morning: The Man and the Dog.

The decline of play in preschoolers — and the rise in sensory issues. Conversely, Recess four times a day is good for learning.

Now I Know: Behold the Power of Cheese and One of These Things Just Isn’t the Same (about twins).

WHATEVER happened to the laptop computer? (1985).

Rejection: A Wilderness Guide for Writers (Evanier) and Jaquandor.

Sharp Little Pencil: Bright Brit (For Alan Rickman).

Frank S. Robinson: Joe Krausman, Monkeyshines, and heightism. Joe writes on Facebook: “Carlos Rommulo, once president of the General Assembly of the UN, was very short. He went to Texas, and when asked how do you feel being short among so many tall men, he said, ‘I feel like a dime among nickels.'”

Watch Bill Nye Weigh In on ‘Star Wars’ vs. ‘Star Trek’ Debate.

Yankees without number (1.9999…).

Dustbury’s Six Degrees of Separation.

Tweets from Gettysburg.

The strange life of Q-tips, the most bizarre thing people buy.

Don’t believe that splashy finding that 10 percent of college graduates think Judge Judy is on the Supreme Court.

A Venezuelan beetle named for SUNY chancellor.

Celebrity anagram illustrations from illustrator Steve Rampton and Decluttr.com.

RIP, Abe Vigoda

Mark Evanier, and Abe Vigoda’s Dead (Premortem Mix).

The Godfather – Tessio is taken away to be killed.

The graphic above is from here.

JEOPARDY!

3-day winning streak on ‘Jeopardy’. Not only is Amelia Hershberger from Albany, NY, reason enough to root for her, she attended Greenville Central School (as did my wife), she graduated from SUNY Albany (as did both my wife and I, albeit us in grad school), and she was a political science major (as was I).

Final ‘Jeopardy!’ clue stumps all 3 contestants, who all bet everything. The two people tied for first bet rationally; the woman in a distant 3rd could have bet nothing, or $5,999, or anything in between, and won. (Some really uninformed comments here.) BTW, would you have gotten the Final? I did, but I am of a certain age.

This has passed, but ‘Jeopardy!’ hopefuls can try out online features quotes yours truly.

Loo

I was looking through my draft posts. From 2008, and the original source is lost to me:

And to that end: IllumiBowl is a night light for your toilet.

Music

Coverville 1109: A Tribute to David Bowie. Plus David Bowie on Extras, and SamuraiFrog has some Bowie links; he’s right re: Kayne.

Renaissance Geek: Music for MLK Day.

Chuck Miller: Shane Howard and Lawrence Welk.

Of course, you can do mashups of classical music.

Muppets: She Loves You.

I linked to this before, as part of the Kennedy Center Honors, but it’s Aretha, FCOL.

HuffPo: A Shade of Jade: Interview With Rebecca Jade. That would be niece #1.

In Defense of the Eagles, and Not Being a Jerk About Recently Deceased Musicians.

Old music is outselling new music for the first time in history.

Google alerts (me)

Shooting Parrots: Sunday round-up and The Art of a Scammer.

Chuck Miller: Where rejection is growth.

Google alerts (not me)

Top teams win as Hucknall Wednesday Pool League heads for a tight finish. “Station B’s winners in their 8-0 romp at home to Chequers were George Roy, David Butler, Jason Smith, Danny Butler, Roger Green and PJ Singh on singles and the pairings of Andrea and Roger Green and Danny Butler and Jason Smith.”

Regional journalist turned TV wrestler dies aged 76. “Tributes have been paid to Roger Green…, who started out at the Portsmouth Evening News before working simultaneously Fleet Street and as a grappler in the ring.”

Music Throwback Saturday: songs from The Beatles album Please Please Me

Musically, John admitted it was his attempt at “sort of Motown, black thing.”

My love for the Beatles is quite substantial, as most people who know me can tell. Here’s an article about how they influenced many other artists, and there are plenty more examples.

But they too were influenced by other musicians. I was reading Steve Turner’s “The Beatles: A Hard Day’s Write,” subtitled “the stories behind every song.” Fairly often, the members of the group are quoted as having been inspired by a piece for their own creations. So I thought I’d put some of their songs, from the Please Please Me album, and related singles, up against the source material, with links to all.

I Saw Her Standing There”:

Paul explained…the bass riff was stolen from Chuck Berry’s 1961 song ‘I’m Talking About You’. “I played exactly the same notes and it fitted our number perfectly. Even now when I tell people about it, I find few of them believe me. Therefore, I maintain that a bass riff doesn’t have to be original.”

I’m listening for it, and I barely can hear it.

Misery:

The ‘la-la-la-la-la’ outro appears to allude to Pat Boone’s ‘Speedy Gonzalez’, a single that entered the British charts in July 1962 and didn’t leave until October.

Even as a kid, I HATED Speedy Gonzales as a terrible stereotype.

Please Please Me:

The song’s… chorus having been suggested by the 1932 Bing Crosby song ‘Please’, written by Leo Robin and Ralph Rainger, which starts off by playing with the homophones ‘pleas’ and ‘please’.

Love Me Do:

During 1962, the American star Bruce Channel had enjoyed a British hit with ‘Hey Baby’ which featured a harmonica solo by Nashville session musician Delbert McClinton. When [John] met McClinton in June 1962…he asked him how he played it.

McClinton, who I was unfamiliar with until the late 1970s, tells his version of the story.

Do You Want To Know A Secret?:

[John’s] mother used to sing to him…’Wanna know a secret? Promise not to tell? We are standing by a wishing well’ (‘I’m Wishing’, words and music by Larry Morey and Frank Churchill)… from Walt Disney’s 1937 film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. George later revealed that the musical inspiration… came from ‘I Really Love You’, a 1961 hit for the Stereos.

George later covered I Really Love You.

There’s a Place:

Paul claimed the title was derived from the West Side Story song There’s a Place for Us (i.e., Somewhere) from 1957. Musically, John admitted it was his attempt at “sort of Motown, black thing.”

The Beatles, of course, covered several Motown songs, such as You’ve Really Got a Hold on Me, Money, and Please Mr. Postman.

Ask Me Why:

Reminiscent of Smokey Robinson and the Miracles’ 1961 song What’s So Good about Goodbye.

And, of course, Motown covered many Beatles tunes.
***
Bonus Beatles music: In Spite Of All The Danger

Happy birthday to Beatles fan Fred Hembeck.

Music Throwback Saturday: Time and Tide

In 2014, Basia was awarded “one of Poland’s highest orders – the Knights Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta.”

Basia Trzetrzelewska, pronounced just as it looks (says the kid who grew up in a Slavic neighborhood) “is a Polish singer-songwriter and record producer better known by her stage name Basia.”

I have one of her albums, 1989’s London Warsaw New York, though I don’t know how, and it is quite pleasant. But nothing on it captured me the way the 1987 single Time and Tide did.

In fact, I heard it so often, and enjoyed it so much, I’m surprised it went only to #26 on the US pop charts, and #19 on the adult contemporary charts. It got to #61 in the UK.

She continues to record and perform. In 2014, she was awarded “one of Poland’s highest orders – the Knights Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta ‘for the outstanding achievement in promoting Polish culture in the world’ and from the Polish Minister for Culture… a Decoration for Merit to Polish Culture.”

Check out her website.

Listen to:
Time and Tide
Brave New Hope from the 1989 album; the chorus goes, “Now is the time…”
Clear Horizon: The Best of Basia.

Dolly Parton is 70

Dolly Parton will be married 50 years to Carl Thomas Dean.

Maybe it was the inner prude in me, but when Dolly Parton first hit the national scene, I was somewhat bothered by the fact that she was better known for her ample bosoms than her enormous talent. Still, she seemed to be in on the joke, becoming so successful that she has a theme park – Dollywood – in her name.

What I liked, besides her singing and songwriting, was a good heart. This recent interview in Parade magazine expresses this well. She grew up dirt poor in rural Tennessee, and now raises money and awareness for several causes, especially education. In May 2016, Dolly Parton will be married 50 years to Carl Thomas Dean, a man as shy as she seems ingratiating.

Interesting that her first country single was called “Dumb Blonde,” one of the few songs from that era she did NOT write, appropriate because she is not. In 1974, “Elvis Presley indicated that he wanted to cover the song. Parton was interested until Presley’s wily manager, Colonel Tom Parker, told her that it was standard procedure for the songwriter to sign over half of the publishing rights to any song recorded by Presley. Parton refused. That decision has been credited with helping to make her many millions of dollars in royalties from the song over the years.”

Dolly Parton received the Kennedy Center Honors in 2006. You can read about her extensive musical history on her Wikipedia page.

The music links

The Last Thing on My Mind, a duet with Porter Wagoner; she was a regular on his weekly syndicated TV program, and this Tom Paxton cover went to #8 in the country charts.

In the Good Old Days (When Times Were Bad), later a standard, but reached only #25 on the country charts in 1968.

Mule Skinner Blues. Her first country Top 5 without Wagoner, getting to #3 for two weeks in 1970.

Joshua. Her first country #1, in 1971. Even got to 108 on the pop charts.

Coat of Many Colors. #4 country in 1971, and the name of the 2015 TV movie about her.

Jolene, #1 country, #60 pop, #219 in Rolling Stone magazine’s top 500 songs.

I Will Always Love You. #1 country in 1974. Written about her professional break from Wagoner. I believe this has been covered.

Here You Come Again, #1 country for five weeks, and notably, #3 for two weeks on the pop charts.

9 to 5. The title song from the movie I really enjoyed, #1 on both country and pop charts in 1981.

Those Memories Of You (#5 country) from the Trio album, with Emmylou Harris & Linda Ronstadt, as is To Know Him Is To Love Him (#1 country in 1978).

Travelin’ Prayer. A Billy Joel cover from a Dolly album I own.

There are plenty of other choices, as she has over 100 charted songs. These include including duets with several partners, most notably Kenny Rogers.

January Rambling #1: Of Oz The Wizard

This is what happens when you reply to spam email.

Gordon Parks’ Jim Crow photos still resonate, alas.

David Brooks of the NY Times: The Brutalism of Ted Cruz.

The father of a boy killed at Sandy Hook gets death threats from people who say the shooting was a hoax.

Amy Biancolli: Not alone at being alone.

Affluenza and F. Scott Fitzgerald.

What militants and the pungent salad radish have in common.

Mark Evanier’s scarlet fever.

The New Yorker: My Last Day as a Surgeon. “In May of 2013, the Stanford University neurosurgical resident Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed with Stage IV metastatic lung cancer. He was thirty-six years old.”

Google got it wrong. The open-office trend is destroying the workplace. “Workplaces need more walls, not fewer,” something I’m painfully aware of.

‘Lost’ Jerry Lewis Holocaust film sees the light.

Your favorite movies, re-edited, including Of Oz The Wizard, the movie arranged in alphabetical order, from Aah to Zipper. Don’t watch “of”, if you value your sanity.

Periodic table’s seventh row finally filled as four new elements are added, and the song to go with it.

British actor Alan Rickman, star of stage and ‘Harry Potter,’ dies at 69. Here are his Top 20 movie quotes.

2015: SamuraiFrog’s 50 favorite pop culture artifacts and the year in 4 minutes.

2016 in the Capital District: Salaries, food and taxes, have yourself a nice hot cup of coffee while you still can.

Metroland, RIP, and Albany’s alternative weekly Metroland nostalgic, bittersweet final issue.

TEDx: James Veitch: This is what happens when you reply to spam email.