Tag: obit

Jim Bouton, Karen Hitchcock, Rip Torn, RIP

“certain flaws in my make-up”

Jim Bouton

Jim BoutonJim Bouton’s birthday was the day after mine. I used to religiously read the backs of baseball cards.

He pitched for my beloved New York Yankees beginning in 1962. He pitched well in successive World Series. Against the 1963 Dodgers, he lost despite giving up only 1 run in 7 innings. Then he won 2 games over the 1964 St. Louis Cardinals. The Yankees lost both series.

Jim Bouton continued to pitch for those mediocre/bad Yankees teams the rest of the decade until he was picked up by the expansion Seattle Pilots in 1969. Writing the book Ball Four, a diary of that season, plus recollections of his time with the Yankees, Pilots, and Astros that has made him memorable.

“The book was a frank, insider’s look at professional sports teams, covering the off-the-field side of baseball life, including petty jealousies, obscene jokes, drunken tomcatting of the players, and routine drug use, including by Bouton himself.

“Upon its publication, baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn called Ball Four ‘detrimental to baseball’, and tried to force Bouton to sign a statement saying that the book was completely fictional. Bouton, however, refused to deny any of Ball Four’s revelations.”

Ball Four was updated several times, including the chronicling of his brief return to Major League Baseball in 1978. I’ve only read the original, and it was both revealing and entertaining. It changed the sports biography/autobiography forever.

Rip Torn

Rip Torn was one of those great names like Rock Hudson and Tab Hunter that you figured was made up. But the surname was real -he was born Elmore Rual Torn Jr.

I noticed him in episodes of TV dramas when I was growing up. He was on seven episodes of 30 Rock. But he was best known for playing Artie on the Larry Sanders Show. I also saw him in movies such as The Seduction of Joe Tynan and Men in Black. Whatever I saw him in, he was always good.

An interesting item: “Appearing as an interview subject in Studs Terkel’s 1974 oral-history book Working, Torn confessed, ‘I have certain flaws in my make-up. Something called irascibility. I get angry easily. I get saddened by things easily.'” I definitely relate to that!

Kren Hitchcock

When I noted the death of Karen Hitchcock, the former head of the University at Albany, I checked out her Wikipedia page. While it correctly points out some difficulties, it seemed rather one-sided. It failed to note her concerns that provided to be spot-on.

The piece discussed tensions between Hitchcock and the SUNY Chancellor Robert King, the latter whom I distrusted over unrelated concerns. Their fight was over the eventual separation of the College of Nanoscale Sciences and Engineering from the University at Albany. She had opposed spinning it off for reasons I found academically credible. I thought the division gave CNSE head Dr. Alain Kaloyeros way too much autonomy.

All three died in the past few days.

Leon Redbone (Dickran Gobalian), RIP

He crossed the delta for that beautiful shore at the age of 127

Leon Redbone
From LeonRedbone.com
As far as I know, the first time I ever heard of Leon Redbone was when I bought one of those Warner Brothers Loss Leaders album, either Desert Blues (Big Chief Buffalo Nickel) from THE WORKS or more likely, Polly Wolly Doodle from THE PEOPLE’S RECORD.

The music had a timeless quality. The VOICE was always intriguing. A Rolling Stone article in the early 10970s, before he even had a recording contract, “described his performances as ‘so authentic you can hear the surface noise [of an old 78 rpm].'”

His whole persona was a mystery. “‘It is with heavy hearts we announce that early this morning, May 30th, 2019, Leon Redbone crossed the delta for that beautiful shore at the age of 127,’ said a statement from Redbone’s camp.” He was 69 when he died, according to most sources. His own family never got an explanation of his nom de musique.

“According to a Toronto Star report in the 1980s, he was once known as Dickran Gobalian [of Armenian origin], and he came to Canada from Cyprus in the mid-1960s and changed his name via the Ontario Change of Name Act… His parents lived in Jerusalem but moved in 1948 to Nicosia, Cyprus, where Redbone was born. By 1961, the family had moved to London, England, and by 1965 to Toronto…”

“Redbone usually dressed in attire reminiscent of the Vaudeville era, performing in a Panama hat with a black band and dark sunglasses, often while sitting at attention on a stool, with a white coat and trousers with a black string tie.”

He was never the guy with the big hit on the charts. Seduced got all the way to #72 on the US Billboard charts. But he was a working concert performer who also appeared in several commercials as well as in movies and TV.

His Top 5 Greatest Hits (!)

Seduced

Polly Wolly Doodle

Mississippi Delta Blues

Just You And I

Or spend a bunch of time on his Tribute Channel

John Beaudin tribute

Greg Haymes a/k/a Sarge Blotto, RIP

The music video for I Wanna Be A Lifeguard, with the lead vocal by Sarge, was played on music television’s very first day on the air in August 1981.

greg haymesIt occurred to me that I’d known Greg Haymes, also known as Sarge Blotto, almost since I moved to Albany in 1979. Greg DEFINED Albany for me.

FantaCo, that comic book store on 21 Central Avenue in the city, where I worked starting in May 1980, also sold a handful of music-related items. That would mean Japanese imports of Beatles EPs and Goldmine magazine.

It would include Hello, My Name Is Blotto, What’s Yours? a four-song EP by a bunch of folks who, like the Ramones, weren’t REALLY related. The store sold a second collection called Across and Down. Blotto performed Lightning Strikes on a regional compilation called Hudson Rock, another item we sold.

A Blotto member also found a couple of copies of a single called Wings in Japan by the Spastic Phono Band, which you can listen to HERE. I secured a rare recording at that time.

Then MTV happened. The music video for I Wanna Be A Lifeguard, with the lead vocal by Sarge, was played on music television’s very first day on the air in August 1981. The awe and mystery that was Blotto put Albany, and the band, on the music map.

The guys primarily interacted with Raoul Vezina, FantaCo’s resident artist, and front-of-the-store guru. When he died unexpectedly in November 1983, it was unsurprising that the fellows in the band all went to the funeral.

Afterward, and I’m not sure how it happened, I ended up at a restaurant in Troy with the band, swapping Raoul stories and complaining about the church service. (The priest, several times, referred to the deceased as “Ralph.”)

Eventually, I left FantaCo, and did the librarian thing. But I would run into Greg Haymes fairly regularly at some concert or art opening, usually while he was doing his job as a reviewer for the Albany Times Union. My wife agreed he would be at an eclectic mix of performances. He refused to allow me to promote him to Lieutenant.

His greatest gift might have been Nippertown, the online magazine he and Sara Ayers produced. It was “based in the greater Capital Region and Hudson Valley regions of New York and western Massachusetts, writing about local art, music, theater, film and anything else that interests us.” It published from May 2009 until April 10, 2019.

Metastatic cancer, while in his mid-60s. “A prolific writer, musician and visual artist who was a vital part of the Capital Region arts scene for more than 40 years.” I can scarcely believe it. Fellow musicians, writers, and fans are all devastated by the loss of his generous and talented spirit.

Here’s Chuck Miller’s take, which includes musical links.

Rev. Robert Pennock (1926 – 2019)

The funeral of Robert Pennock will be on Saturday, February 16 at our old stomping grounds, Trinity UMC.

Bob PennockThe third funeral I will sing at this calendar year is for the Rev. Robert Pennock.

At the FOCUS churches service in early February, I happened to be sitting behind Nancy, an alto at Trinity United Methodist Church in Albany. I used to sing with Nancy there until 2000 and “the troubles.”

Nancy enjoyed my familiar voice behind her. It prompted me to say that back in the 1990s, that Trinity choir was really good. And Bob Pennock was a large part of that.

I generally sat near Bob in the choir loft. When I joined the ensemble in early 1983, my choir singing skills were rusty. As the bass soloist and section leader, he was quite helpful in getting me on track.

He and his wife Holly often hosted choir functions at their home. I watched his younger kids, David and Jessica, grow up in the church.

There was a move at Trinity in 1997 or early 1998 to consider changing the organizational structure of Trinity. It was allowed by the United Methodist governing body. But it was Bob who rightly said, “Where are the checks and balances?” The proposed plan, it seemed, gave too much power to the pastor.

As a minister ordained the year I was born, he immediately recognized the potential for usurpation of congregational authority. He voiced what I, who had served as chair of the Administrative Board, had only been thinking.

Someone said, “Give [the new structure] a chance,” and it was passed. Just as predicted by Bob, the pastor achieved more control without accountability, which led to my departure and that of others less than three years later.

I would see Bob only sporadically after that, including at least twice at a small rural church he served as pastor in the early 2000s.

The funeral of Robert Pennock will be on Saturday, February 16 at our old stomping grounds, Trinity UMC. We will sing two John Rutter pieces, The Lord is My Shepherd from the Requiem, and The Lord Bless You and Keep You, music I first learned while I was singing with Bob and Holly.

Backup singer Clydie King (8/21/1943 – 1/7/2019)

Clydie King recorded with Phil Spector, B.B. King, Steely Dan, Barbra Streisand, Linda Ronstadt, Joe Cocker, Dickey Betts, Joe Walsh, Arlo Guthrie,  Graham Nash, Elton John, Phil Ochs, Carly Simon, Neil Diamond, and Ringo Starr, among others.

Clydie KingI’m writing about the late Clydie King by request. Someone I know IRL saw and liked the piece I had done about composer Norman Gimbel, another obscure but important musical force who had also recently passed.

Again, you may not know her, but the backup singer warranted an extensive obituary in the New York Times. As is true of many black singers of that era, she grew up in the church. “After her mother’s death was raised by her older sister.” She toured with artists such as Ray Charles, Joe Cocker, and Bob Dylan.

Clydie recorded with Phil Spector, B.B. King, Steely Dan, Barbra Streisand, Linda Ronstadt, Joe Cocker, Dickey Betts, Joe Walsh, Arlo Guthrie,  Graham Nash, Elton John, Phil Ochs, Carly Simon, Neil Diamond, and Ringo Starr, among others. She was one of The Blackberries, a trio which backed Humble Pie. In a 1971 interview, she estimated that she had sung on 300 records by then.

She is so noteworthy that she could/should have been in 20 Feet from Stardom, a great documentary about the supporting singers. I don’t believe she was in it, but her friend Merry Clayton was represented. They both sang on Rolling Stones albums. It was King who cajoled Clayton to sing with her on the Lynyrd Skynyrd anthem Sweet Home Alabama.

“Like other backup singers, King’s attempt to carve out her own career resulted in several solid, but commercially unsuccessful, albums.” You can find her discography here and on her Wikipedia page.

The Rolling Stone piece has links of Dylan and King singing together, mostly in his born-again period. .”She was my ultimate singing partner,” says Dylan. “No one ever came close. We were two soulmates”

The Definitely Dylan radio show connects to several tracks, not all related to Bob. In several articles, there are references to a romantic relationship between Dylan and King.

Listen to:

About Love – #45 on the soul charts in 1971
Loneliness (Will Bring Us Together Again) – Brown Sugar (Clydie King), #44 on the soul charts in 1973

Ramblin' with Roger
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