Today (September 30th) is my brother, Dicky’s 65^th birthday, and ‘though he won’t be making it to the party, I’ll be raising a glass in his honor.

One of the lesser-recognized advantages to being a younger sibling in a large family is the large swatch of popular culture you become exposed to and can assume as your own.  The 15-year age difference between my older and younger brothers covered a multitude of fads through the years. So after his first brain operation in early 2005, when Dicky drolly referenced Spike Jones’ 1959 song, “Teenage Brain Surgeon” I instantly imagined it (sung by Thurl “Tony the Tiger” Ravenscroft) and envisioned the album cover with Spike and friends hovering over the Frankenstein Monster … one of the cherished parts of our family’s hi-fidelity collection.

Although the experimental procedure was a success (“the entire recovery room was ebullient,” Dicky later observed), Glioblastoma multiforme, or “Glio” as they call it in the brain surgery biz, results in a notoriously aggressive tumor that even when whittled away by computerized-laser surgery, and bombarded by radiation and chemotherapy, has a hydra-like way of bursting back.  This he knew. When adjoined to a Stage 4 diagnosis he also knew that every monkeyshine counted.

Born in 1911 in Long Beach, California, Lindley Armstrong Jones was all about monkeyshines.  His father was a railroad agent with the Southern Pacific and early on he acquired the nickname, Spike due to a scrawny physique that resembled a railroad spike. Having procured his first drum kit at the age of 11, he was taught to play kitchen implements as musical instruments by a railroad restaurant chef.

After countless gigs with theater pit orchestras, Jones had become a highly accomplished percussionist and managed to parlay an appearance with the Victor Young (studio) orchestra into a series of radio engagements, including those hosted by Burns and Allen, Al Jolson and Bing Crosby.  As a matter of fact he was percussionist on Crosby’s original recording of “White Christmas” in 1941.

But soon after forming his band, the City Slickers (perennially on-tour as the Musical Depreciation Revue), the name Spike Jones had become synonymous with musical zaniness and satire.   Although a two year strike by the American Federation of Musicians prevented him from releasing commercial recordings until well into 1944.  He was able to make records for radio broadcasts and for “Soundies”.

Soundies were basically music videos (on film) that could be viewed on coin-operated “film jukeboxes” found in bars, nightclubs, arcades and malt shops.  Today’s 1942 selection, “Clink! Clink! Another Drink” featuring a vocal by Mel Blanc (voice of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Tweety and Sylvester, as well as Barney Rubble) is just such an example.

“Clang, clang, who cares a dang? What’s the difference when you’re on a spree?” could just as well have been a theme song for that madcap final stretch, at least my apportionment of it.  Although we hadn’t always been close, sometimes going years without seeing or talking to each other, by the time Dicky got sick I was living in the next town and my work schedule was such that I could serve as a driver for many of his medical appointments.

With the invariable (sometimes maddening) slippery-slope delays that meant that I truly had to plan around my driving days.  It also meant that there was lots of time to catch-up and just-plain-visit.

My brother reveled in in the arcane, whether talking about a particular shade of blue (cerulean for example), or the pronunciation of a little used word (like adumbrate), or girl’s softball strategies (he had two sons and no daughters, but had played in the Army and by golly he was going to pass on that knowledge, so he became a coach).

Although it didn’t start out that way, ours ended up a multi-faith family (six kids, six faiths) and of course Dicky had much to convey about the debate raging amongst “his” Conference of Catholic Bishops over proposed textual changes to the Nicene Creed (I could only point out that “my” UUA’s slightly less nuanced debates generally concern such broader topics as: whether or not there is a God).

But my brother was an attorney and the one topic that was guaranteed to illuminate even the dankest of waiting rooms was “The Law” in all its impenetrable vagaries. I can only affirm that in my observation he wasn’t proven wrong in his assessment of the then-new Chief Justice John Roberts when he simply opined, “Stare decisis, bro.”

“Starry Decisis?”

“He’ll be fine, we’re talking Legal Studies 101, ‘Stare decisis et non quieta movere,’ which clearly is Latin for ‘stand by decisions and don’t disturb the undisturbed.’

If we timed it right and the appointments didn’t overrun by too many hours there would be time for some lunch, and if I didn’t have any meetings scheduled or wasn’t under a deadline I would join him in a drink or two when we got there, always toasting with the happy acknowledgement…“Because we can.”

That’s when the conversations would really get interesting. I venture to say that anyone brought up in an old New England family is sure to be privy to the occasional skeleton in the closet.  I knew I was privy to a few and was exceedingly pleased when he wasn’t aware of them.  But then he escorted a few of his own to the table and it was if all those little skeletons began to cha’ cha’ cha’ in a little Danse Macabre around the dishes. Terrible circumstances, breathtaking insightfulness.

I note this date now and remember the cherished observations, the confessed regrets and especially the advice.  Trust me, Dicky was remarkably adept at mounting that big brotherly pedestal for every living second that I knew him.

I especially remember one particular long-cut through the western suburbs of Boston.  I had collected Dicky from his chemo appointment at the Dana Farber Institute (never easy to pick out a bald, middle-age man in that lobby) and he was hankering for some Minestrone soup. So we agreed on a place we both knew.  Although I had easily driven this route one hundred times, he was adamant that he knew a better way.

“Take that right.”

I tried to argue but he put on his stentorian tone, like he was arguing in court (did I mention that he never lost a case?).  “Take that right!”

I did. We traveled for a couple of miles.  I’d never been down this road and finally turned to my well-medicated brother.  “What now?”

He looked around, shrugged.  “I don’t know where we are.”

“But you insisted that we take this route.”

He shrugged again, “What do you expect when you take directions from someone with Stage 4 Glioblastoma, who has undergone three brain surgeries?”

“Clink, Clink, because we can,” my brother.  Here’s to that courage, sangfroid and sense of humor to the end…  Okay, and to those pink elephants too.  

LISTEN TO TODAY’S SELECTION – Saturday 29 September

Clink! Clink! Another Drink

 Clink, clink, another drink

Plenty in the cellar when it’s gone

Drink, drink, the glasses clink

Making tinkly music till the dawn is breaking

 Clang, clang, who cares a dang?

What’s the difference when you’re on a spree?

Over the teeth, behind the gums

Look out stomach here she comes

Hi! Have another drink on me

 Gurgle, gurgle, gurgle, gurgle

Gurgle, gurgle, gurgle, gurgle

 Trinkle, trinkle, trinkle, trinkle

Slice of cheese and bite of pickle

Doesn’t even cost a nickel

Now to wash it down

 Clink, clink, no more to drink

I had a cellar full, but now its gone

Drink, drink, the glasses clink

Like the anvil chorus and my head is splitting

uh, brinking, uh, busting. Oh brother!

 Oh, ow, what’ll I do now

Pink elephants running after me

Oh, that stuff is smooth as silk

From now on I’ll stick to milk

Nothing else to drink for me

Springsteen was once refused a gig there.  Dylan played for free back in ’61, stealing the stage between other singers’ sets, just so he could say he performed there. In 1967 Bonnie Raitt chose to attend Radcliffe mainly due to its proximity to this celebrated venue, which promptly closed in 1968.  Fortunately for Raitt, and for those of us who have lived in the Boston area at some point during the past four decades, the place was born anew the following year.

Initially opened in an empty storefront at the then-dingy outskirts of Harvard Square, which is what 47 Mt. Auburn Street was considered in 1958, the Mt. Auburn Jazz Coffee House was conceived by a couple of female entrepreneurs who, just back from Paris, envisioned it as a high-brow, smoky kind of venue for live music and poetry.

But they weren’t a welcome addition to the neighborhood and the Cambridge police quickly shut it down, citing a blue law that prohibited more than three stringed instruments from being played in a public establishment that served food and beverages.  So the energetic proprietors obtained a non-profit educational charter and reopened their venue as the “private” Club 47, where patrons became members at the door.

In its early days jazz was featured most nights but because the musicians liked to take Tuesdays off, a young Boston University student who was initially listed on the playbill as “Girl with Guitar” was hired to provide the evening’s entertainment. Her name was Joan Baez and after building a major following (that made it possible for other folk acts to take the Club 47 stage) she continued to perform there well into the ‘60s.

By that time the club had been moved to 47 Palmer Street and garnered a reputation as a folk and bluegrass venue with a focus on the music, rather than on selling drinks (as it generally was in Greenwich Village).  Frequent performers in those days included: Phil Ochs, Tom Rush, Pete Seeger, Geoff & Maria Muldaur, Judy Collins, Jim Kweskin, Gordon Lightfoot, Emylou Harris and Joni Mitchell.

It also became one of the first Northeast venues to feature such black blues musicians as Muddy Waters, Jackie Washington, Taj Mahal and Mississippi John Hurt, despite the fact that (at first) none of the local hotels would rent them a room.  In a “can you imagine” response, staff and patrons stepped-in to give them places to stay.

When the folk-rock wave arrived, despite objections from some of its “traditionalist” regulars, Club 47 played a role in the new genre’s popularity by booking such acts as the Lovin’ Spoonful.  Blues-rock was featured too, with acts like the Butterfield Blues Band.

When it reopened in 1969 under new management, it was technically as a “gift shop” (those blue laws again) called Passim…which literally is text that is “found throughout” something that has been published, and generally denoted in a footnote. Interested in a more intimate venue, the new owners cut down on the seating and stuck to traditional jazz, blues, ethnic folk and singer/songwriter folk. While performers from the “early days” continue to appear at Club Passim, so do such “later” acts as:  Shawn Colvin, Patty Larkin, Suzanne Vega and Alison Krauss.

Many of us who attended college in the Boston area during the ‘70s well remember Mary McCaslin who often performed there with her husband (the late) Jim Ringer on fiddle.  Jocularly referring to themselves as the “Bramble and the Rose” this “circular” selection was one of their more popular numbers.

 LISTEN TO TODAY’S SELECTION – Tuesday 25 September

Circle of Friends

 I know they’re all part of you

You need them by your side

The ladies still think of you

In the circle of your arms is where they’ like to be again

And you just go round and round in your circle of friends

 Ah yes, your circle of friends

You know how a circle never ends

There’s always one or two good friends around

Like a backdoor to go to in every town

 I try not to think about you

Because it tears me apart

Though I know I’ll be without you

It’s going to be a while before this tearing cycle ends

Because there’s always part of you in our circle of friends

 Ah yes, our circle of friends

You know how a circle never ends

There’s always one or two good friends around

Like a backdoor to go to in every town.

 It’s dark and empty here

Time goes by so slow

I’ll never hold you near

But I know I’ll need someone before this long night ends

So once again I’ll turn to my circle of friends

Ah yes, my circle of friends

You know how a circle never ends

There’s always one or two good friends around

Like a backdoor to go to in every town.

Like a backdoor to go to in every town.

Here we circle back to Phillip David Ochs, whose musical gifts were evident at an early age.  At 15, for example, he was principle clarinet soloist with the Capital University Conservatory of Music in Ohio. But it was the mid-’50s and the young man was becoming increasingly interested in what was going on in the burgeoning Rock n’ Roll and Country hemispheres, while such boyhood movie heroes as John Wayne and Audie Murphy were giving way to the rebellious likes of Brando and Dean.

By the early ‘60s Phil Ochs had adopted a persona that was part Elvis Presley / part Che Guevara, reflecting his two abiding interests, music and politics. With a passel of self-written “topical” songs under his arm he moved to New York, and quickly became an integral part of the Greenwich Village coffee house scene.  But Ochs insisted on calling himself a “singing journalist” rather than a folk singer, claiming that his songs were “built” from stories he’d read in “Newsweek” Magazine.  In 1964 he landed a record deal that led to his debut album, “All the News That’s Fit to Sing”.

Although Ochs would loosen up a little on the “singing journalist” designation, the inspiration for today’s selection was the tragic murder by stabbing of 28-year-old Kitty Genovese in Queens, New York.  Although surrounded by witnesses, the lack of response as she cried for help soon made national news, particularly in light of the newly coined “bystander effect” (aka Genovese syndrome).  Now recognized as a social/psychological phenomenon, the bystander effect comes as a result of a “diffusion of responsibility” that occurs when individuals do not offer help in an emergency, because they see that other people are present.  The greater the number of bystanders, the less likely any one of them will help.

Featured on his fourth album, “Pleasures of the Harbor” in 1967, and perhaps his best known song, Ochs cleverly combined his disturbing lyrics with a happy honky-tonk tune to great effect and the single release began to receive plenty of airplay…until (so typical of Ochs’ “kismet”) some radio station managers began to complain, despite the clearly-intended irony, about the line: “smoking marijuana is more fun than drinking beer.”

The record label responded with two alternate versions, one that simply took out four musical notes (as in “smoking …. is more fun than drinking beer.”) the other removing the entire verse altogether.  Whether due to the complaints or the attempted remedies the song soon lost any momentum and vanished from mainstream playlists.

LISTEN TO TODAY’S SELECTION – Monday 24 September 

Outside A Small Circle Of Friends

 Look outside the window, there’s a woman being grabbed

They’ve dragged her to the bushes and now she’s being stabbed

Maybe we should call the cops and try to stop the pain

But Monopoly is so much fun, I’d hate to blow the game

And I’m sure it wouldn’t interest anybody

Outside of a small circle of friends

 Riding down the highway, yes, my back is getting stiff

Thirteen cars are piled up, they’re hanging on a cliff.

Maybe we should pull them back with our towing chain

But we gotta move and we might get sued and it looks like it’s gonna rain

And I’m sure it wouldn’t interest anybody

Outside of a small circle of friends

Sweating in the ghetto with the colored and the poor

The rats have joined the babies who are sleeping on the floor

Now wouldn’t it be a riot if they really blew their tops?

But they’ve got too much already and besides we’ve got the cops

And I’m sure it wouldn’t interest anybody

Outside of a small circle of friends

Oh there’s a dirty paper using sex to make a sale

The Supreme Court was so upset they sent him off to jail.

Maybe we should help the fiend and take away his fine.

But we’re busy reading Playboy and the Sunday New York Times

And I’m sure it wouldn’t interest anybody

Outside of a small circle of friends

 Smoking marijuana is more fun than drinking beer,

But a friend of ours was captured and they gave him thirty years

Maybe we should raise our voices, ask somebody why

But demonstrations are a drag, besides we’re much too high

And I’m sure it wouldn’t interest anybody

Outside of a small circle of friends

Oh look outside the window, there’s a woman being grabbed

They’ve dragged her to the bushes and now she’s being stabbed

Maybe we should call the cops and try to stop the pain

But Monopoly is so much fun, I’d hate to blow the game

And I’m sure it wouldn’t interest anybody

Outside of a small circle of friends

Known to man since…man was man, circles in their natural form would have been observed in the heavens and on the sands.  It’s a mathematical maxim that all circles, by their very nature, are similar.  Although no one knows where, it has been firmly established that sometime toward the end of the Neolithic Age this maxim was applied dimensionally and the wheel was invented.  And so began this long season of modern civilization.

In their literal sense wheels have played a part in many of mankind’s most significant endeavors, both honorable (as with spinning wheels, water wheels, steering wheels, alloy wheels, etc.) and disgraceful (as with torture devices like the Catherine or “breaking” wheel).  Metaphorically, wheels have been agents for some of mankind’s more illuminating notions, as with the symbolic Wheel of Fortune (referring to the capricious nature of Fate, not the game show) or Buddhism’s cyclical Wheel of Life.

Which brings us ’round to another week of “circle, ring and wheel” themed songs, beginning with today’s selection that was first recorded and made famous by Linda Ronstadt in 1974, before it was recorded by the person who actually wrote it, Anna McGarrigle.  Performed with her sister Kate, this affecting version of “Heart Like a Wheel” was featured on McGarrigle sister’s eponymous debut album  in 1975.

 LISTEN TO TODAY’S SELECTION – Sunday 23 September

Heart Like A Wheel

 Some say a heart is just like a wheel

When you bend it, you can’t mend it

And my love for you is like a sinking ship

And my heart is like that ship out in mid ocean

They say that death is a tragedy

It comes once and it’s over

But my only wish is for that deep dark abyss

‘Cause what’s the use of living with no true lover

And it’s only love, and it’s only love

That can wreck a human being and turn him inside out

That can wreck a human being and turn him inside out

When harm is done no love can be won

I know this happens frequently

What I can’t understand

Oh please God hold my hand

Is why it should have happened to me

And it’s only love and it’s only love

And it’s only love and it’s only love

Only love, only love

Only love, only love

Whether military, civilian or church-based, brass bands have been using pretty much the same instruments since the 1840s when a number of technological advances had been made in instrument design, especially the introduction of efficient piston valves.

The mid-19^th Century saw an enormous surge in the British working class that had been brought on by industrialization and major companies (particularly in coal mining areas) began to sponsor brass bands, ostensibly to boost the morale of their workforces.  The fact that these groups and their supporters would then be caught up in competing against one another at the local, regional and national levels didn’t go unnoticed by the same corporate concerns, who were also interested in keeping their workers from organizing into radical groups.

By the early 20^th Century, when brass bands were at their peak, there were as many as 20,000 players in the UK.  Presumably this includes those playing on behalf of the Salvation Army, which began “deploying” its own brass bands in 1878 and, within the realities of a more secular era, has served to provide a rich resource of musicianship in an age of industrial (and “industrial-sponsored”) decline.

Brass band music remains popular to this day, with competitive and non-competitive community brands providing live entertainment to music lovers throughout the United Kingdom. Which is why Peter Skellern, a successful songwriter and musician from Lancashire, has long specialized in performing standards, occasionally backed by such groups as the Grimethorpe Colliery Band from South Yorkshire.

Born in 1903, Ray Noble was an English bandleader, composer, arranger and actor who led the New Mayfair Dance Orchestra in the 1920s. Many of his recordings became popular in the United States and, using American musicians, he had a successful run at New York’s Rainbow Room in the mid-1930s, after which he moved on to a Hollywood acting career where he typically played an upper-class English twit.

He wrote this (our final Love themed) song in 1933 and it topped the chart for five weeks.

LISTEN TO TODAY’S SELECTION – Saturday 23 September 

Love Is The Sweetest Thing

 Love is the sweetest thing

What else on earth could ever bring

Such happiness to ev’rything

As Love’s old story

 Love is the strangest thing

No song of birds upon the wing

Shall in our hearts more sweetly sing

Than Love’s old story

 Whatever heart may desire

Whatever fate may send

This is the tale that never will tire

This is the song without end

 Love is the greatest thing

The oldest yet, the latest thing

I only hope that fate may bring

Love’s story to you

Admittedly it wasn’t a stellar idea.  But then not many things conceived by an average teenage mind are.  The McGillicuddy brothers and I were standing in line outside Boston Garden to see The Who in concert and I had opted to hide my two 16 ounce bottles of Haffenreffer (aka “the Green Phantom”) in the slightly baggy leather sleeves of my football jacket. Just past the ticket takers there was a security pat down.

And I may have gotten away with it if the guy hadn’t asked me to raise my arms. As soon as I did both bottles came shooting through the space around my armpits and “Smash!” “Smash!” onto the concrete floor.  Luckily the crowd behind me continued to press on.  The security guy shook his head, pushed the mess aside with his foot and told me to “get outta’ here.”  Tuesday, March 9th, 1976 was just that kind of evening.

It seemed to take forever for The Who to reach the stage and when they finally did Keith Moon collapsed behind his drums after only the second song. “Viral influenza” was the plausible reason given in the next day’s “Globe” and the concert was rescheduled for April 1^st.

Somehow we’d ended up with better seats for this one. Moon was fit as a fiddle, Entwistle did his placid Entwistle thing and Daltrey’s voice was transcendent.  But it was Townshend, the creative force behind it all, that my friends and I mainly wanted to see.  As some reading this will attest, we were big fans.

We certainly knew the backstory about Peter Dennis Blandford Townshend, who was born into a musical West London family in 1945, and how he and his school chum, John Entwistle formed a Dixieland duet when they were 16 (Townshend on banjo, Entwistle on horns) and then moved on to a Skiffle band called the Detours, which was fronted by another schoolmate, Roger Daltrey.  We knew that the band began to make a name for itself after gravitating to R&B and Rock n’ Roll and that the lads were advised that if they wanted to land a recording contract they needed to write their own songs…and replace their drummer.

It was 1964 and the band changed its name to The Who.  Initially influenced by what Ray Davies of the Kinks was coming up with, Townshend became the group’s primary songwriter. Soon after they hired Moon “the Loon” to take over on drums.  Yes they called themselves the High Numbers for a while, but quickly came to their senses and reverted to The Who before their breakthrough single “I Can’t Explain” became a Top Ten hit in the UK.

Of course we knew ALL about Townshend’s signature moves (the leaps, the windmill guitar strokes) and stage antics, especially the smashed guitars, while Moon took great delight in blowing up his drum kits. With an astonishing array of mega-albums, and rock operas, and iconic music festival and movie appearances through the years, and especially in light of  their kinetic live performances, by the the late ’60s “Rolling Stone” Magazine had placed them in the “holy trinity” (along with the Beatles and the Stones) of British Rock.

Oh, we were big fans, but we were just catching the end of the group in its prime.  That 1976 tour would prove to be Keith Moon’s last.  Infamously, he would OD on prescription drugs in Harry Nilsson’s London apartment (where Cass Elliott had also died). Although the group continued to tour (I caught them again in the late ’80s in Toronto) they were no longer on an ascendent path. Years later, John Entwistle would die of a heart attack.

Awesomely, with musical careers now spanning half a century, Daltrey and Townshend (with a whole bunch of session musicians) still continue to tour as The Who on occasion.  Certainly the old stage antics have diminished greatly but Pete Townshend can rest on the laurels of the hundreds of songs he has written, most of them included on The Who’s eleven studio albums, with others presented as solo efforts.

Which at long last brings us to today’s (Love themed) selection, featured on “Empty Glass” Townshend’s first solo album in 1980.

 LISTEN TO TODAY’S SELECTION – Friday 21 September

Let My Love Open the Door

 When people keep repeating

That you’ll never fall in love

When everybody keeps retreating

But you can’t seem to get enough

Let my love open the door

Let my love open the door

Let my love open the door

To your heart

 When everything feels all over

When everybody seems unkind

I’ll give you a four-leaf clover

Take all the worry out of your mind

Let my love open the door

Let my love open the door

Let my love open the door

To your heart

 I have the only key to your heart

I can stop you falling apart

Try today, you’ll find this way

Come on and give me a chance to say

Let my love open the door

It’s all I’m living for

Release yourself from misery

Only one thing’s gonna set you free

That’s my love

That’s my love

 Let my love open the door

Let my love open the door

Let my love open the door

Let my love open the door

 When tragedy befalls you

Don’t let them bring you down

Love can cure your problem

You’re so lucky I’m around

Let my love open the door

Let my love open the door

Let my love open the door

To your heart

In the summer of 1917 King George V founded The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire as means of filling in some gaps (“mind the gap”) in the Honours System.  His Majesty especially wished to honour those who so diligently served in non-combatant capacities during the still-raging Great War.

Now composed of five (civil and military) classes, with only the first two entitling the recipient to use “knight” or “dame” (or “Sir” or “Madame”), here in descending order of distinction are The Orders of Chivalry:

• Knight Grand Cross or Dame Grand Cross of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (GBE)

• Knight Commander or Dame Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (KBE or DBE)

• Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (CBE)

• Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (OBE)

• Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (MBE)

As she has done for nearly 60 years, HRH Elizabeth II (i.e. the British Monarch) serves as Sovereign of the Order and on the advice of the Government appoints all members of the Order, which is limited to 300 Knights and Dames Grand Cross, 845 Knights and Dames Commander, and 8,960 Commanders. Although there is no limit to the total number of members of the fourth and fifth classes, no more than 858 Officers and 1,464 Members may be appointed per year.

The MBE, with its motto “For God and the Empire,” is by far the largest of these honorary orders, with over 100,000 living members worldwide.  One among them is Birmingham raised Joan Anita Barbara Armatrading who, at the age of 50, received her “membership” at a Buckingham Palace ceremony in 2001.

“It was absolutely brilliant, to have received the honour from Prince Charles,” she said at the time. “I just think he is a great guy and he has done such incredible work with the Prince’s Trust.”

That was a memorable year for Armatrading who, after five years of study, also received her BA (Honours of course) in History from the Open University, where she is now a trustee. Surely it rates right up there with 1976 when this, her breakthrough single, reached Number 10 on the UK Singles Chart.

It’s the Fourth in a series of Love-themed songs for the week.

LISTEN TO TODAY’S SELECTION – Thursday 20 September 

Love and Affection

I am not in love

But I’m open to persuasion

East or West

Where’s the best

For romancing

With a friend

I can smile

But with a lover

I could roll my head back

I could really laugh

Really laugh

 Thank you

You took me dancing

‘Cross the floor

Cheek to cheek

But with a lover

I could really move

Really move

I could really dance

Really dance

Really dance

Really dance

I could really move

Really move

Really move

Really move

 Now if I can feel the sun

In my eyes

And the rain on my face

Why can’t I

Feel love?

 I can really love

Really love

Really love

Really love

Really love

Love Love Love Love

Love Love Love Love

 Now I got all

The friends that I want

I may need more

But I shall just stick to those

That I have got

With friends I still feel

So insecure

 Little darling I believe you could

Help me a lot

Just take my hand

And lead me where you will

No conversation

No wave goodnight

Just make love

With affection

 Sing me another love song

But this time

With a little dedication

Sing it, sing it

You know that’s what I like

Once more with feeling

Give me love

Give me love

Give me love

Love…

 Make love with affection

Sing me another love song

But this time

With a little dedication

Sing it, Sing it…

You know that’s what I like

 Once more with feeling

Sing me another love song

But this time

With a little dedication

Sing it, Sing it

You know that’s what I like

 With affection

With a little dedication

Once more with feeling

You know that’s what I like

Love…

He was a popular guy, some see him as a hero.  After his death in 2004 from prostrate cancer, his 69 year old eyes were duly donated to the Eye Bank for Sight Restoration in Manhattan and two grateful recipients received his corneas. Otherwise he was just an every-day regular ’round his Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood, where his signed glossy photo can be found in nearly every local establishment, and the intersection in front of his high rise residence at 53^rd and 8^th has been renamed: Jerry Orbach Way.

Born in the Bronx in 1935, Jerome Bernard Orbach was the only child of Emily, a radio singer turned greeting card manufacturer and Leon, a Jewish immigrant from Hamburg who was a vaudeville performer turned restaurant manager. Orbach, whose mother was Catholic, was raised the same (a background replicated by his most famous character) while frequently relocating with his family to: Mount Vernon, NY, Wilkes-Barre and Scranton, PA, Springfield, MA and Waukegan, IL.  After studying drama at the University of Illinois and Northwestern University, he returned to New York to study under Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio.

Best remembered, of course, for his twelve year run as world-weary Lennie Briscoe in “Law & Order” (acclaimed as one of TV Guide’s top 50 television detectives of all time) and for his role as Jennifer Grey’s father in the film “Dirty Dancing”, Orbach had a number of other noteworthy roles; as a gritty New York cop in “Prince of the City”, as a gangster in Woody Allen’s “Crimes and Misdemeanors” and as the singing/speaking voice of Lumière the candelabra (“Be our guest”) in Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast”.

Actually the role of Lumière wasn’t much of a stretch for Jerry Orbach who, long before he was known as a wisecracking, streetwise cop, was an award winning Broadway Musical star with leading roles in the debut productions of “Chicago”, “The Fantasticks”, “42^nd Street” and “Promises, Promises” for which he won a Tony in 1968.

Written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David for that very production, it was Jerry Orbach and co-star, Jill O’Hara who were the first to sing today’s selection, and whose original recording was nominated for a Best Song Grammy in 1969.  Since covered by such disparate vocalists as: Liza Minnelli, Tom Jones, Herb Alpert, Chet Atkins, The Carpenters, Elvis Costello, Ella Fitzgerald, Bobbie Gentry (who scored a British hit with it), Dusty Springfield, Mark Lindsay (remember Paul Revere and the Raiders?) and Mary Chapin Carpenter, it was Bacharach and David’s perennial favorite, Dionne Warwick who topped the Billboard Charts with it in 1970.

So what would the oft-married and divorced “Lennie Briscoe” have made of this number?  Well, as he once said in one of his typical Law & Order Scene-of-the-Crime (deadpan) lead-ins: “Love – a dangerous disease instantly cured by marriage.”

 LISTEN TO TODAY’S SELECTION – Wednesday 19 September

I’ll Never Fall in Love Again

 What do you get when you fall in love?

A guy with a pin to burst your bubble

That’s what you get for all your trouble

I’ll never fall in love again

I’ll never fall in love again

What do you get when you kiss a guy

You get enough germs to catch pneumonia

After you do, he’ll never phone ya’

I’ll never fall in love again

I’ll never fall in love again

Don’t tell me what it’s all about

‘Cause I’ve been there and I’m glad I’m out

Out of those chains those chains that bind you

That is why I’m here to remind you

What do you get when you fall in love?

You only get lies and pain and sorrow

So for at least until tomorrow

I’ll never fall in love again

I’ll never fall in love again

Oh, out of those chains those chains that bind you

That is why I’m here to remind you

What do you get when you fall in love?

You only get lies and pain and sorrow

So for at least until tomorrow

I’ll never fall in love again

I’ll never fall in love again

Born “under a wandering star” in Dallas in 1945, Stephen Arthur Stills was raised in a military family, spending his boyhood in Florida, Louisiana, Costa Rica, Panama and El Salvador, developing an appreciation for folk, blues and Latin music along the way.

After dropping out of college to see if he could make it as a musician he played in several bands before arriving on the Greenwich Village coffee house circuit. There he joined a nine-member vocal harmony group called the Au Go Go Singers (at the Café Au Go Go).

In time Stills and some of his fellow singers, including Richie Furay, formed a folk rock band and toured around Canada.  While in Thunder Bay he met a young guitarist who was “doing what he always wanted to do, (playing) folk music in a rock band,” named Neil Young.

By 1966 Stills and his pal Richie had made there way to Los Angeles, where in addition to working as a session musician, Stills auditioned for a part in a new television show called “The Monkees”.  Although the producers expressed interest, he was turned down due to a contractual conflict with his session work.  So Stills recommended his multi-instrumentalist friend, Peter Tork for the role.

Hoping to form a band, Stills and Furay happened to be driving down Sunset Boulevard when they recognized a rather unique car, the 1953 black Pontiac hearse that Neil Young had been driving when they met him back in Thunder Bay, Ontario   With a few other musician acquaintances (including Jim Messina) they all soon formed the band, Buffalo Springfield, taking the name of the side of a steamroller, made by the Buffalo-Springfield Roller Company, that was working outside their producer’s house.

Although the band released three albums, it was a tumultuous time with lots of infighting and line-up changes and soon Stills was looking for new horizons.  He met David Crosby, late of the Byrds and joined-in on Al Kooper’s “Super Session” album.  And while at a party in Laurel Canyon (either at Cass Elliott’s or Joni Mitchell’s house) he met Graham Nash, late of the Hollies, who accompanied him and Crosby in a jam session.

He also became romantically involved with Judy Collins.  Later, in a Rolling Stone interview it was noted that so many of his songs seemed to be about Judy.  “Well,” he replied, “there are three things men can do with women: love them, suffer for them, or turn them into literature. I’ve had my share of success and failure at all three.”

By this time Crosby Stills & Nash had released a top 40 studio album and were looking for additional personnel so that they could tour (Stills had initially approached Stevie Winwood, but he had just formed Blind Faith), and despite some bad blood between them during their Buffalo-Springfield days, Stills invited Neil Young.

While on their way to New York for a gig in the summer of ’69, the newly formed Crosby Stills Nash & Young (CSNY) performed its first live concert in Chicago, with their friend, Joni Mitchell as the opening act.  After the debut Mitchell flew on to New York City to appear on “The Dick Cavett Show” and CSNY headed to “some place called Woodstock,” where they famously opened with “This is only the second time we’ve performed in front of people. We’re scared shitless.”

Intriguingly, their next live appearance would be at Altamont, although the performance wasn’t included in the film, “Gimme Shelter”.  Having played at the Monterey Pop Festival with Buffalo Springfield, Steven Stills is one of the very few artists (along with David Crosby and the members of Jefferson Airplane) who performed at all three of the 1960s iconic rock festivals.

While two top charting albums followed, “Déjà vu” in 1970 and the live “4 Way Street” the following year, each member of CSNY also recorded solo albums.  Although not the most successful of the four,  Steven Stills’ eponymous record had the best line up.

When he was still a part of Buffalo Springfield, Stills’ good friend Jimi Hendrix was forming his group, the Jimi Hendrix Experience.  Looking for a bass player Hendrix had his manager leave a message for Stills to discuss the possibility of his making the leap. But Stills’ manager took the message and fearful that he might actually do it, he never passed it along.  The two musicians remained friends none-the-less and regularly jammed together, as they did on the fourth track (“Old Times, Good Times”) of the album, “Stephen Stills”

Although it was released after Hendrix’ death (it was dedicated to “James Marshall Hendrix”) “Stephen Stills” would be the only album in history on which both Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton (who played guitar on the fifth track, “Go Back Home”) supplied guitar work. Other performers included Ringo Starr, Booker T. Jones, Cass Elliott and as you’ll hear here, David Crosby, Graham Nash, Rita Coolidge and John Sebastian.

Inspired by a line that Billy Preston often used, “If you can’t be with the one you love, love the one you’re with,”  Stills asked Preston if he could use it in a song.  Preston instantly agreed…and the single peaked at Number 14 on the Billboard Charts.

LISTEN TO TODAY’S SELECTION – Tuesday 18 September 

Love the One You’re With

If you’re down and confused

And you don’t remember who you’re talking too

Concentration slips away

Cause you’re baby is so far away

CHORUS

Well there’s a rose in the fisted glove

And eagle flies with the dove

And if you can’t be with the one you love honey

Love the one you’re with

Don’t be angry – don’t be sad

Don’t sit crying over good times you’ve had

There’s a girl right next to you

And she’s just waiting for something to do

CHORUS

Doo doo doo doo

Turn your heartache right into joy

Cause she’s a girl and you’re a boy

Get it together come on make it nice

You ain’t gonna need anymore advice

CHORUS

Doo doo doo doo

Driven by it its inclusion in the 1994 film, Four Weddings and a Funeral, this cover by Scottish Pop Rock group, Wet Wet Wet topped the UK Charts for 15 consecutive weeks.  But just as it was about to equal the record of 16 weeks held by Bryan Adams, lead singer Marti Pellow had it be pulled from the stores.  He claimed that everyone had grown bored of “Love is All Around” and that he had overheard people complaining about it.

Certainly one person who never complained was Reginald Maurice Ball, aka Reg Presley, the song’s composer who used the royalties from Wet Wet Wet’s cover to fund research into a subject he was passionate about: crop circles.  He later published his findings in his 2002 book, “Wild Things They Don’t Tell Us.”

Crop circles are those strange formations we’ve all seen featured in Hollywood films, or on some of the wilder cable television channels, that usually appear in the darkness of night, spawning a plethora of explanations ranging from natural phenomena to the paranormal (i.e. messages from extraterrestrials) and old folkloric tales.

Crop circle specialists, known as “Cereologists” discount human involvement, acknowledging that humans have long attempted to discredit the phenomenon, and emphatically point out that crop circles are usually found near ancient megaliths like Stonehenge or other points of archeological interest. This is why many New Age spiritual groups have incorporated them into their belief systems and why they are culture dependent, appearing in Western countries and Japan but never in Muslim societies.

In his book Presley expresses his belief that Earth has been visited by extraterrestrial visitors on a number of occasions, and that crop circles are evidence that the world’s governments secretly acknowledge but take great precautions to hide from their citizenries. He also disputes the mainstream scientific community’s claims that crop circles have long been formed with great precision by jokesters…who use a rope that has one end tied to an anchor point, and the other end attached to a board that is used to crush the crops.

“Wild Things They Don’t Tell Us” was an obvious choice for Reg Presley, of course, whose group, the Troggs reached Number 1 on the Billboard Charts (Number 2 in the UK) with the Chip Taylor song, “Wild Thing” in 1966. Followed closely by a Presley penned hit, “With a Girl Like You” it was the following year that he wrote this song that was inspired by the Joy Strings Salvation Army Band song, “Love That’s All Around”

Reaching Number 5 in the UK and Number 7 on the Billboard Chart, the Troggs original may not have reached the heights of its famous Wet Wet Wet cover, but for a brief time in 1967 the world felt “it” in its fingers none-the-less, to the eventual appreciation of conspiracy theorists and music fans everywhere.

 LISTEN TO TODAY’S SELECTION – Monday 17 September

Love Is All Around

I feel it in my fingers

I feel it in my toes

Love is all around me

And so the feeling grows

 It’s written on the wind

It’s everywhere I go, oh yes, it is

So if you really love me

Come on and let it show, oh

You know, I love you, I always will

My mind’s made up

By the way that I feel

There’s no beginning

There’ll be no end

‘Cause on my love you can depend

I see your face before me

As I lay on my bed

I kinda get to thinking

Of all the things you said, oh yes I did

You gave your promise to me

And I gave mine to you

I need someone beside me

In everything and I do, oh yes I do

 You know, I love you, I always will

My mind’s made up by the

Way that I feel

There’s no beginning

There’ll be no end

‘Cause on my love you can depend

Got to keep it movin’

Ooh, it’s written in the wind

Oh, everywhere I go, yeah, ooh well

So if you really love me, love me, love me

Come on and let it show

Come on and let it show

(Come on and let it)

(Come on and let it)

Come and let it show, baby

(Come on and let it)

 Come on, come on, come on let it show, baby

(Come on and let it)

(Come on and let it)

Come on and let it show

Come on and let it show, baby

Come on and let it show