By Skidmore Music Co. Inc. – https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47da-4f77-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99#/?uuid=510d47da-4f77-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=75609690
There were 13 #1 songs in 1923, 100 years ago. Yes! We Have No Bananas was two of them. Frank Silver and Irving Cohn wrote the song for the 1922 Broadway revue Make It Snappy. Eddie Cantor sang it in the revue.
The Wikipedia page offers context. “Silver explained the origin of the song to Time Magazine: ‘I am an American, of Jewish ancestry, with a wife and a young son. About a year ago, my little orchestra was playing at a Long Island hotel. To and from the hotel, I was wont to stop at a fruit stand owned by a Greek, who began every sentence with ‘Yes.’ The jingle of his idiom haunted me and my friend Cohn. Finally, I wrote this verse, and Cohn fitted it with a tune.'”
In addition to those listed below, recordings by the Great White Way Orchestra with Billy Murray got to #3, Benny Krueger to #8, and Sam Lanin to #15 that same year.
It was later covered by Benny Goodman and his Orchestra, Spike Jones & His City Slickers, and at least five dozen other versions.
The tune also inspired a response song, “I’ve Got the Yes! We Have No Bananas Blues”, recorded by Cantor, which got to #2, and Belle Baker to #11, also in 1923.
Russ Feingold, Elaine Chao, the late Louie Anderson
Here are some people born the same month as I was. The crux of the matter is that all this year, I’ve been briefly mentioning folks born in 1953, and I will continue to do so. But these ones are my fellow Marchians. Martians? Whatever.
Chaka Khan (23rd): She was born Yvette Marie Stevens in Chicago. I first knew her as the vocalist for the band Rufus, who had hits such as Once You Get Started in the mid-70s. As a solo artist, I’m Every Woman (#21 pop, #1 for three weeks RB in 1978), written by Ashford and Simpson; and I Feel For You (#3 pop for three weeks, #1 for three weeks RB in 1984, gold record, Grammy winner), penned by Prince.
Also check out I’ll Be Good To You (#18 pop, #1 for two weeks RB in 1990, Grammy winner) from from the great Back On The Block album by Quincy Jones; this track features Ray Charles and Chaka on a song written by and originally performed by The Brothers Johnson.
But my FAVORITE song of hers has to be the Rufus track Tell Me Something Good (#3 pop for three weeks, #3 RB in 1974, gold record, Grammy winner), written by Stevie Wonder.
She’s been nominated to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame seven times, four times with Rufus, and thrice as a solo artist.
My endorsement
Russ Feingold (2nd) served as a United States Senator (D-WI) from 1993 to 2011. He “cosponsored the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (McCain-Feingold Act)… Russ was the only Senator to vote against the initial enactment of the USA PATRIOT Act during the first vote on the legislation and was well-known for his opposition to the Iraq War and as the Senate’s leading opponent of the death penalty. “
He is now the President of the American Constitution Society. And in 2005 (!), I wrote in this blog that he was my preferred candidate for President in 2008.
Armen Keteyian (6th) is a reporter on both the hard news and the sports beats. “An 11-time Emmy award winner, he has spent 30 years as a network television correspondent for World News Tonight, CBS Sports and News,… and 60 Minutes. He has also authored or co-authored 10 books.”
More music
Jimmy Iovine (11th) co-founded Interscope Records, co-produced the Oscar-winning film 8 Mile that starred Eminem, and scads more. I know him as a producer for albums by Patti Smith, Meat Loaf, Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty, Dire Straits, Stevie Nicks, U2, Pretenders, and many others. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2022.
Carl Hiassen (12th) “was born and raised in a bizarre place called Florida, where he still lives. His books have been described as savagely funny,riotous, and cathartic. Oddly, they are beloved even by readers who’ve never set foot in the Sunshine State.”
Louie Anderson (24th) was a ubitiquitous comedic presence on television. In a show called Baskets (2016-2019), which I never saw, he played the mother figure and won an Emmy. He was on a lot of game shows, including a particularly lame one called Funny You Should Ask (2017-2019); he did not look well. Louie Anderson died on January 21, 2022. His website is still up so you can still buy his books, but I can’t find a mention of his passing.
Elaine Chao (26th) was Secretary of Labor (2001-2009) in the George W. Bush administration, making her the first Asian-American to serve in a Presidential cabinet. Then she was Secretary of Transportation (2017-2021). She had been the target of racist verbal taunts by her former boss, Trump. Her husband since 1993, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, has not responded publicly to the comments. But now she has.
Pictured: Sydney Joyner, Caitie Grady, Rebecca Jade, Joy Yandell, Janaya Jones & Angela Chatelain Avila.
Manufactured outrage: phneh and giving a horse an apple and Super Bowl edition
How Poland, Long Leery of Foreigners, Opened Up to Ukrainians
SCOTUS will consider whether tech giants can be sued for allegedly aiding ISIS terrorism. You need to know about Section 230, the most important law for online speech.
MTG’s dream of a “national divorce” deserves a serious response
Masks Revisited. Despite common misreporting, a recent Cochrane review, limited in scope and problematic methodology, does NOT show that masks do not work. Check out this
Now I Know: The Crows Didn’t Mind Dick Cheney, Though and When Bees Get Too Buzzed and The Worst House Money Can’t Buy and The Secret Writer’s Secret and The TV News Program’s Key Mistake and Why This Reindeer Looks Like It Has a Lightsaber Hat
Culcha
BAFTA Awards. Two days after the awards came out, someone told me several of their friends posted online that the Oscars had taken place. Nah, it was lost in translation; probably, the friends missed that it was the so-called “British Oscars”
The book “Side by Side in Eternity:” by James Robert McNeil and J. Eric Smith is now available. I have my copy. There’s a chapter about Apollo 1, one defining event growing up.
The six-year making of the Wait But Why book What’s Our Problem: a self-help book for societies
Ana de Armas Thinks Social Media Has Ruined the “Concept of a Movie Star.” “For the most part, we’ve done that to ourselves — nobody’s keeping anything from anyone anymore.” This has been self-evident for a long while.
Milestones
60 of 23 and Michael Jordan donates $10M to Make-A-Wish for 60th birthday
Rebecca Jade, the first niece, was nominated for FIVE San Diego Music Awards, which will be taking place on April 25. You can VOTE EVERY DAY. Vote in category 20, Best R&B, Funk, or Soul Song for Show Me; category 21, Best R&B, Funk, or Soul Album, for A Shade of Jade (available for $9); category 25, Artist of the Year; category 26, Song of the Year; and category 27, Album of the Year. You could also vote in category 4, Best Jazz or Blues Album, for Peter Sprague Plays the Beatles – Day Tripper, featuring vocals by Rebecca Jade, which one can download for $10.
Rebecca ALSO appears in a musical called RESPECT about the great music of the female singers of the 1960s at Lamb’s Player Theater in San Diego through April 9. (Picture above.)
The Final JEOPARDY answer for Tuesday, January 10, 2023, was in the category CLASSIC TALE CHARACTERS. “In one 19th-century translation, she ‘perceived the dawn of day and ceased’ speaking nearly 1,000 times.”
To my mild surprise, no one got the correct answer. The contestants answered Little Mermaid, Sleeping Beauty, and Echo.
I knew immediately it was Scheherazade, though I wasn’t positive I knew how to spell it. While I read a story about this Arabian Nights tale, my greater recollection was from the music, which is often the case with me.
Specifically, there is an album by a group called Renaissance. It put out an album called Scheherazade and Other Stories. The title track, Song of Scheherazade, which took up the entirety of Side 2 on the LP, ends with these lyrics:
Scheherazade bewitched him
With songs of jeweled kings
Princes and of heroes
And eastern fantasies
Told him tales of sultans
And talismans and rings
A thousand and one nights, she sang
To entertain her king
She sings, Scheherazade…
Natal day present
I had heard the album several times when I was in college at SUNY New Paltz. But I did not own it.
As I noted seven years ago, in the winter to spring of 1977, I had graduated from college. But adrift, I ended up crashing at my parents’ house in Charlotte, NC. I was pretty miserable, helping sell costume jewelry and other geegaws. (If I had used a word as sophisticated as “geegaws” at the craft fair, I would be chided for allegedly putting on airs.)
My family asked me what I wanted for my birthday. I requested that Renaissance album, and I received it. But it was clear when my father heard it, he didn’t think much of it, which merely fed into my melancholy.
After the JEOPARDY show last month, my wife reminded me how much her college friend Alison played that album in heavy rotation. This prompted me to buy the CD, which now came as a three-disc (2 CDs, 1 DVD) set.
The first time I came to the end of the album, I wept, partly from the beauty of Annie Haslam’s voice and maybe a little from a sad memory.
The classical side
This story reminded me of another piece of music titled Scheherazade, written in 1888 by Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov. A 2007 NPR story by Scott Simon explained the power of music.
“For centuries, composers have tried to spin tales in music. My understanding of how important the concept could be was cemented by Leonard Bernstein when I went to a New York Philharmonic rehearsal. Bernstein raised his hands up and asked, ‘Do I have to tell you the story of this Haydn symphony?’
“These typically reserved musicians were practically jumping up and down, nodding their heads in anticipatory glee, like children at storytime. Bernstein was the consummate storyteller, often elaborating on or, dare I say, even fabricating some of the finer details for dramatic effect. But the memory was indelible for me, and the lesson was clear: It’s all about the story.”
When I wrote my post about Thom Bell, I left off some songs I liked that he did not write but did produce. As it turned out, they were all by the Spinners, or the Detroit Spinners or Motown Spinners, as they were known in the UK. There was a British folk group called The Spinners in the late 1950s.
The group started back in 1954 as The Domingoes became The Spinners in 1961. It released a couple of Top 100 songs that year, including their first recording, That’s What Girls Are Made For (#27 pop, #5 RB), on Tri-Phi Records.
Motown bought up the Tri-Phi roster in 1963. Per Wikipedia, “With limited commercial success, Motown assigned the Spinners as road managers, chaperones, and chauffeurs for other groups, and even as shipping clerks.”
They were moved to Motown imprint V.I.P. In 1970, they finally had a hit with It’s A Shame (#14 pop, #4 RB), produced by Stevie Wonder and written by Wonder and Syreeta Wright. But Motown wasn’t a great fit for the group.
A new ocean
Aretha Franklin recommended they sign with her label, Atlantic, and they did in 1972.
Could It Be I’m Falling In Love (#4 pop in 1973, #1 RB, #14 adult contemporary, gold record) was co-written by Melvin and Mervin Steals, two songwriter brothers working for Atlantic sometimes credited as “Mystro and Lyric.” The house band MFSB provided the backing. Bobby Smith sings lead through most of the song while Philippé Wynne handles vocal duties on the outro.
One Of A Kind (Love Affair) (#11 pop, #1 for four weeks RB, #19 AC in 1973, gold record) was written by Joseph B. Jefferson. Wynne was the lead singer.
Mighty Love (#20 pop, #1 for two weeks RB in 1973) was written by Joseph B. Jefferson, Bruce Hawes, and Charles Simmons.
Biggest hit
Then Came You (#2 RB, #3 AC in 1974, gold record) was credited to Dionne Warwicke and the Spinners (from 1971 to 1975, Warwick added a final ‘e’ to her last name). Sherman Marshall and Phillip T. Pugh wrote the track.
“Released during a time that Warwick’s chart fortunes were at an ebb after moving to Warner Bros. Records in 1972, the Philadelphia soul single was a rare mid-1970s success for the singer. Sung as a duet with the Spinners’ main lead singer Bobby Smith, the song became Warwick’s first-ever single to reach number one on the US Billboard Hot 100. It became her highest-charting R&B record of the 1970s, and it was also the first number-one pop hit for the Spinners. It was nominated for a Grammy.”
When I was growing up, I was annoyed with folks who denigrate musicians who aren’t making the “right” music. Charlie Pride’s country music, Jimi Hendrix’s rock, and Dionne Warwick sing Bacharach -David was not considered appropriate by some people, which I thought was stupid. Still, I was happy that Dionne got her soul cred with this track.
Games People Play, also known as “They Just Can’t Stop It The” (Games People Play) (#5 pop, #1 RB, #2 AC in 1975, gold record) written by Jefferson, Hawes, and Simmons. It featured lead vocals by Bobby Smith. The house band MFSB provided the backing. It “featured guest vocalist Evette L. Benton (though producer Bell disputed this in a UK-based interview, claiming Evette’s line was actually group member Henry Fambrough – his voice sped up), and led to the nickname “Mister 12:45″ for bass singer Jackson, after his signature vocal line on the song.”
I love the fact that there was a bass vocal solo; I can barely reach the lowest notes.
Here are some people born the same month as I was. The crux of the matter is that all this year, I’ve been briefly mentioning folks born in 1953, and I will continue to do so. But these ones are my fellow Marchians. Martians? Whatever.
The Final JEOPARDY answer for Tuesday, 
When I wrote my post about