Heaven has a new angel; Dolly Parton, 1946-2026

I've been neglecting the blog lately. My remunerative work, my labor of love for the Brooklyn Heights Blog, and other things have kept me busy. My last two posts, dated July 8 and 27, were obituaries, the first of a cat and the second of a friend of over sixty years. I was hoping that my next post wouldn't be another obituary. My wife quotes the folk wisdom that deaths come in threes.

"Coat of Many Colors" is my favorite of Dolly Parton's songs. I had assumed it was autobiographical until I learned she was one of twelve siblings. Could her mother have had the time to put so much effort into making a garment for one of them? Then again, I don't doubt that her mother was a remarkable woman. Another of her songs, "Jolene," her biggest hit, is by her own telling autobiographical. It's about a bank teller she suspected of flirting with her husband, Carl Dean, whom she met outside a Nashville laundromat the day after her high school graduation. They married two years later, and their marriage lasted almost sixty years. He died on March 3, 2025.

There's little I can write that would add meaningfully to the outpouring of praise and remembrances that quickly followed the news of her passing. I did write about her on this blog in a review of Run Rose Run, the novel she co-authored with James Patterson. In that post I noted that I first heard of Dolly when a Rolling Stone article mentioned that Jerry Garcia admired her singing. I wrote in my earlier piece that I didn't like her voice as much as those with what I called the "harder edged" quality exemplified by Emmylou Harris or Lacy J. Dalton. Since then I've come to appreciate its delicate, airy quality to which I've given the term "willowy." 

For a good summation of what made her great, I turn to Robert Reich, whom those who follow me on Facebook know I admire:

To me, Dolly Parton represented the very best in America. Her kindness, compassion, laughter, love of life, hardscrabble beginnings, humanity, ambition, and extraordinary talent were what this country is — or should be.

Farewell, Dolly. Your willowy voice will be a welcome addition to the heavenly coir.

Thirty five years of marriage!

 

The photo above is from our "unofficial" wedding that took place on June 22, 1991 at the home of our friends David and Mollie Keller in Connecticut. We had planned to have it be official, with The Reverend William Ellsworth, father of our friend Kathy, officiating. Unfortunately, we found the process of getting a marriage license in Connecticut to be difficult, requiring us to take a day off from work to go and get a blood test, then to go up again to complete the paperwork. Fortunately, Martha remembered her former co-worker at the New York City Department of Records and Information Services, Johnnie Johnson, who had left DORIS to take over the marriage bureau at the Brooklyn Municipal Building. Her parting words to Martha were, "If you ever want to get married, you can come to me."

So we did, and with Mollie as our witness, we were joined in matrimony in accordance with the laws of New York on June 3, 1991. The three of us then celebrated with a fine meal at Henry's End. But we weren't to be denied our original plans so, on June 22, with relatives and friends assembled, we stood in the Kellers' back yard, next to a garden, where Reverend Bill pronounced us man and wife in the eyes of God. A few days after that we had a delayed reception at the loft apartment of our friend, now of blessed memory, Dorothy Wick.

Good luck has had a way of thwarting my plans to sabotage my life. It was luck that on my 44th birthday I chose to walk from my home in Brooklyn Heights to a housewarming party on Manhattan's Upper West Side hosted by my friend Jo Ann, a fellow lawyer and co-worker, and her husband, Gary, an artist. Both were from Savannah, Georgia, and merriment was fueled by a big bowl of Chatham Artillery Punch. Well warmed by this potent concoction, I noticed a woman across the room who had, if you'll forgive my use of a well worn phrase, a smile that lit up the room. I arranged an introduction, and told her she shared the name of my maternal grandmother. Our conversation survived this. 

It's now survived over thirty six years, thirty five of them in a matrimony that produced our daughter, Elizabeth Cordelia Scales, now the mother of our two granddaughters, Ada and Sigrid. Thank you, Martha, for putting up with a dreamy romantic who has a weakness for wine, whisky, and wondering; something for which your Irish heritage prepared you. You love the Beatles, as do I, so I'll close this with a song that expresses my love for you:

Joy Luck Trio Give a Stunning Performance at Bargemusic.

The Joy Luck Trio, consisting of (left to right in the photo) Karen Han on ehru, Donna Weng Friedman on piano, and Gao Hong on pipa, had their first Brooklyn performance at Bargemusic on Sunday, May 3. As I've noted before, I'm a fan of syncretism in music (and in other things). Joy Luck, in my estimation, does an awesome job of combining Asian and Western instruments and musical traditions.

They opened the concert with The Swan (Le Cygne, 1886) by Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921), which they did as written except for some improvisations. According to my sketchy concert notes Han's ehru produced a "dreamy melody" while Hong's pipa yielded "versatile sounds." Friedman's piano was precise. This was followed by Hong's own composition, Flying Dragon, done solo on pipa. As its name implies, it had a soaring quality until the last note, which evoked the dragon's descent, and was made by Hong's dragging her thumbnail down a string, a move that produced a pleasing sound. Han then had a solo turn on ehru with Birds Singing in the Empty Mountains, by the Chinese composer Liu Tianhua (1835-1932). My notes indicate "conversational sounds" and "scope of timbre."

Next on the program came three pieces by the composer Stefania de Kenessey, who was present for the concert. These were from Microvids, a series of nineteen short pieces she composed after the worst of the pandemic had passed. The three performed at the concert were Reach for the Sky, Clouds, and Pure Joy. They were written for solo piano, but the concert performances included improvisations on ehru and pipa. It all worked brilliantly.

Hong then had another solo turn on pipa with a piece, Pastoral, that she said was inspired by the Mongolian countryside. Its evocation of a spacious landscape reminded me, in a good way, of Neil Young's instrumental, The Emperor of Wyoming. Friedman then had her solo turn on piano with The Three Maries (1939) by the Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887-1959). These three short pieces, Alnitah, Alnilam, and Mintika, were given the names of the belt stars in the constellation Orion that are sometimes called "The Three Marys." My notes on each in order were: "playful"; "loving"; and "reflective."

The last two pieces in the program were Hong's Nostalgia, which she described as "chasing a dream" and for which my notes are "plaintive, then lovely," and Horse Racing, by the Chinese composer Huang Haihuai (1935-1967) which evoked the propulsive rhythm of hoofbeats and concluded with a convincing whinny on the ehru.

I have friends who think that the purpose of music, or of any art, should be to provide pleasure. I believe that great art should not only please, but also challenge the listener, viewer, or reader to hear, see, or understand in a new way. For me, Joy Luck Trio fulfilled that purpose. It made me hear music in a way I never had before.

(Also published on Brooklyn Heights Blog)

Emmylou Harris, "Red Dirt Girl"; happy birthday Emmylou!

In the clip above she sings her song "Red Dirt Girl"  at the 2005 Farm Aid Concert in Tinley Park, Illinois. She was accompanied on guitar and harmony vocals by Buddy Miller, whom I'm delighted to see was wearing a t-shirt promoting the Texas gubernatorial run of my now late Lion's Head drinking companion Kinky Friedman. 

I first became aware of Emmylou Harris as the harmony vocalist on Gram Parsons' solo albums GP and the posthumously released Grievous Angel, on which Linda Ronstadt joins Emmylou on harmony on the track "In My Hour Of Darkness". On the cut "We'll Sweep Out the Ashes in the Morning", on GP, Emmylou got a turn as lead vocalist on one verse.

Sometime in 1976 I got my first Emmylou Harris album, her third to be released, Elite Hotel. It includes three Gram Parsons songs done beautifully: "Sin City", "Ooh Las Vegas", and "Wheels". The cut that moved me most, though, was her version of Rodney Crowell's heart tugging "Till I Gain Control Again", on which Linda Ronstadt does harmony, along with Jonathan Edwards and Fayssoux Starling.

Elite Hotel confirmed me as a fan of Emmylou in her own right, and I continued to collect her albums. I saw her in live performance once, at the short lived Lone Star Cafe outpost in Midtown. Happy birthday, Emmylou; thank you for all the enjoyment you've given me over fifty plus years. May you continue to enchant.

Andy Irvine and Donal Lunny, "My Heart's Tonight in Ireland"

I met Andy Irvine sometime in the late '80s when he performed at the Eagle Tavern on West 14th Street. I was introduced to him by my date, Zane Berzins, of blessed memory. She may have been the only native speaker of Latvian who was also fluent in Irish Gaelic. Later I learned that Martha, my future wife whom I had yet to meet, was at the same event. Beannechtai na feile Padraig!

"Sloth" by Fairport Convention, a timely song from 56 years ago.

This was Fairport Convention's second song at a Carnegie Hall concert I attended in October of 1974. Although it was written and recorded four years before, it likely seemed timely in 1974 because memories were still fresh of the October 1973 Yom Kippur War, which threatend to expand into World War III because it pitted an ally of the U.S., Israel, against those of the Soviet Union, various Arab nations. It seems timely now, as Russia allies itself with Iran.

Why "Sloth"? It is one of the seven deadly sins, defined as the "culpable lack of physical or spiritual effort." I believe Richard Thompson, who wrote the lyrics, had in mind the indifference, or unwillingness to make the effort to protest, that allow war to begin. The second verse begins, "She's run away." I suspect that the "She" refers to peace.

I've referred to that 1974 concert before in a post about the late Sandy Denny.

George Thorogood & the Destroyers with John Hammond (1942-2026) doing Bo Diddley's "Who Do You Love?"

At New Orleans' House of Blues sometime in the 1980s George Thorogood invited John P. Hammond, who died yesterday, to join him onstage in a rendition of Bo Diddley's "Who Do You Love." Hammond's growling vocal and his skill on blues harp, accompanied by Thorogood's guitar, made this a memorable performance. Hammond was the son of John Henry Hammond (1910-1987), record producer and civil rights activist, who promoted the careers of Black musicians. Young John's godfather, from whom he got his middle name, was Paul Robeson.

Neil Sedaka (1939-2026), "Oh, Carol" - a teenage trauma resolved through songwriting

Neil Sedaka, who died today at 86, was a prominent contributor to the soundtrack of my adolescence. From 1959 through 1960 he had a series of catchy pop hits that were staples on the radio and at James Monroe Junior High School dances. One of these, "Oh! Carol" (1959, clip above) was inspired by his own adolescent trauma. He dated a classmate at Abraham Lincoln High School, Brooklyn, named Carol Klein. It seems the relationship ended unhappily. She, later known to the world as Carole King, along with her husband Gerry Goffin, wrote a joking reply song, "Oh, Neil". 

Today, Carole King posted a tribute to Neil Sedaka, noting that he had inspired her to become a songwriter.

Andy Statman and Michael Daves, "Surfin' Slivovitz": musical syncretism at its finest

I'm fond of syncretism, "the combination of different forms of belief or practice" (Merriam-Webster). Christmas, of which we are now on the eighth of the twelve days, is a syncretic holiday, combining Christian celebration of Jesus' birth with Roman and other pagan rites appropriate to the winter solstice. Where I especially enjoy syncretism is in cuisine, where I encounter it regularly when I enjoy a bánh mì for lunch, combining Vietnamese fillings with a French baguette, and in music. As I noted in a previous post, most of what we consider American popular and church music has African influence.

Andy Statman is a musical syncretist. He first became known as a bluegrass performer on mandolin, but became interested in combining bluegrass sounds with jazz, and with the klezmer music he knew from his Jewish childhood. In the video above he plays mandolin, while Michael Daves plays guitar, on "Surfin' Slivovitz," which Andy wrote and which combines elements of bluegrass, klezmer, jazz, and '60s California surf guitar music. Their performance took place at the Jalopy Theatre and School of Music, which annually presents the Brooklyn Folk Festival.

Slivovitz is a potent plum brandy made in Eastern Europe that has a special place in Jewish tradition.

"Jesus, the Light of the World"

This song is from the album An American Christmas, Carols, hymns and spirituals, 1770-1870 (Erato 5181459, 1993), performed by The Boston Camerata, at the time under the direction of Joel Cohen, who is now Artistic Director Emeritus. According to the album's notes, its source is "The Finest of the Wheat: Hymns New and Old for Missionary and Revival Meetings and Sabbath Schools (Chicago 1890) 'Geo. D. Elderkin, arr.'" The notes continue:

As the nineteenth century waned, the revival hymns, with their simple, keyboard-derived harmonies and rollicking refrains, displaced many a genuine folksong; but the best of them have an appeal of their own.

It's also noted that this song's "opening phrase ... bears an uncanny resemblance to the Going Home theme of Dvorak's New World Symphony, composed circa 1893." The author goes on to wonder if Dvorak had heard the song and "been reluctant to acknowledge his debt to such a lowbrow source." I had long believed that the source of the Going Home theme (Going Home is the title of a song Dvorak's student, William Arms Fisher, set to the theme) was a Black spiritual. That is given some credence in this Dvorak website under the heading "sources of inspiration" although it also quotes the composer as denying he "acually used" any melodies from Black or Indigenous American sources in his work. 

By the late nineteenth century the influence of African musical traditions on American folk and popular music was undeniable. I believe this influence can be heard in "Jesus the Light of the World," in its rhythmic pattern and harmonies. It's possible Dvorak heard it and got inspiration from it.

In any event I love the song, which invites us to "[c]ome where the dewdrops of mercy are bright ... ."

A dazzling concert of baroque and contemporary music; the fruitful product of a marriage

The couple in the photo above are Joseph Di Ponio and Stephanie Corwin. Joseph is a composer and a co-director of Ensemble Ipse, "a contemporary music ensemble dedicated to showcasing the wide variety of practices in the current new music scene." Stephanie plays both modern and baroque bassoons (she is holding the latter in the photo) and is a member of Repast Baroque, which "is committed to sharing the spirit of seventeenth- and eighteenth century chamber music with audiences in New York and beyond." The other three members of Repast are in the photo's background. Left to right they are: Natalie Rose Kress, violin; Gabe Shuford, harpsichord; and Sarah Abigael Stone, viola da gamba, who serves as Repast's artistic director. During the bleak days of the pandemic, I got cheer online from Sarah's "Bach Everyday."

Given the different musical focuses of Ipse and Repast, it's tempting to think of Joseph and Stephanie as a musical odd couple. They were, nevertheless, determined to find a way for the two groups to interact and produce a concert that could please members of both of their groups' usual audiences. This came to fruition last Sunday in a concert, "Science Fiction: the Music of the Spheres," at the First Unitarian Congregational Society, Brooklyn. 

The concert began with Sarah's instrumental arrangement of Sfogava con le stelle from Il quarto libro di madrigali (1603) by Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643). The program notes quote the lyrics (unsung in this performance) of the madrigal as being about "a lovesick man" who was "venting to the stars" in which he saw "beautiful images of my idol whom I adore" and begged them to "so demonstrate to her my loving ardour." The music captured this sense of longing. 

We then moved from the early seventeenth century to the present with "Other Fields of Gravity" by Molly Herron, who describes it as her impression of what it would be like "to be at the very edge of earth's gravitational pull" where she would "feel the gentle tug of other fields of gravity." Each of these would have "its own texture, taste, color." The music, conducted, as all the contemporary works in the concert were, by Matt Ward, evoked these senses. This was its world premiere, as it was for all the contemporary pieces in the concert.

Next was a revisit to the seventeenth century with Sonate concertate a 2 in stil moderno No.8 (1621) by Dario Castello (1602-1631), a Venitian of whom little is known other than his music, which was within the avant garde of the time, "push[ing] the boundaries of harmonic expression and virtuosity." This piece showcased performances by Natalie on violin and Stephanie on bassoon. 

We returned to present time with "Harmonious Diesis" by Judith Berkson. "Diesis," according to the program notes, "refers to a small musical interval, represented here by the small pitch difference between both ensembles (Ipse is tuned to A=432Hz and Repast to A=415Hz)." This may seem a recipe for discomforting dissonance. Instead, the composer argues, it is "[l]ike hearing a musical memory while processing something new, where the difference between the past and the present is experienced through sound." I agree with her characterization. At the conclusion of the piece, Gabe's harpsichord became "the terrain for the tunings to diverge and merge with one another."

Joseph got to show his chops as a composer with "A Continuity of Rooms" which, like "Other Fields of Gravity," explores the interaction between a large entity, in "Other Fields" earth and in "A Continuity" an art museum, and more distant or lesser entities, in "Other Fields" the moon, sun, and planets; in "A Continuity" galleries and the corridors connecting them. Both pieces, in my view, succeed in evoking a sense of the relationships between entities greater and smaller and, in "A Continuity," inclusive.

After a break we returned to hear "Mars Hill" by Stephanie Griffin, who is also Ipse's violist. The piece takes its title from the town of Mars Hill, North Carolina, where the composer spent time in the Emerson Dorsch Artist Residency, and is dedicated to its founders, Tyler Emerson-Dorsch and Brook Dorsch, and its executive director, Ibett Yanez del Castillo. It opens with "high pitched morning sounds" initially produced by a duet between Margaret Lancaster on piccolo and Alex Shiozaki on violin. It then "winds its way down in register until the sky explodes with stars and visions of distant planets orbiting in perfect harmony around another imagined sun." Special praise must be given to percussionist Colleen Bernstein for her deft handling in rapid succession of drums, triangle, tiny tinkling bells, and a gong.

Next on the program was "Zero Body Problem" by Max Giteck Duykers. The program notes for this consist entirely of a three paragraph quotation from Richard D. Mattuck's A Guide to Feynman Diagrams in the Many-Body Problem. "Feynman" is the late Richard Feynman, nobel prize winning physicist known for his work on quantum field theory. After much discussion of many body problems the quotation from Mattuck concludes: "And within modern quantum field theory, the problem of zero bodies (vacuum) is insoluble. So, if we are out after exact solutions, no bodies at all is already too many." My scrawled notes on the program about this piece are "Slow, then lively." The "lively" part may be an expression of the notion "too many." In any event, I didn't find the music "insoluble"; I found it challenging but enjoyable.

The concert ended as it began, with Monteverdi; this time with Sarah's arrangement of O stellae coruscantes (1607) which, the program notes, is a "sacred contrafactum of Sfogava con le stelle" (1603), the Monteverdi pi ece that began the concert. While the earlier piece expresses romantic longing, the later sees heavenly bodies as "genial images of Him whom I worship" and concludes with "Praise Him eternally." It was approriately worshipful.

Credit goes also to the musicians not mentioned above who played exceptionally well: Christa Van Alstine, clarinets; Caleb van der Swaagh, cello; and Geoffrey Burleson, piano, who during a break explained for me some special effects he created with small devices placed on the piano's strings.

Yes, I enjoyed this concert, from start to finish. Not everyone did. During the contemporary pieces a few people got up and left. Some years ago I might have done likewise. How did I change my mind? By listening. In part it was some works by David Lang, whom I met when our chidren were schoolmates, and in part just by hearing contemporary pieces on WQXR. I came to appreciate music that didn't always conform to familiar patterns of chord progression, rhythm, or harmony. 

Is one of the things music can do, beyond providing us with familiar pleasures, expanding our ability to respond to aural experiences previously unfamiliar to us? I can't help recalling the time in 1956 when I was ten years old and with my father, riding in our '55 Chevy along a two lane blacktop in the loblolly pine woods of the Florida Panhandle. Dad had the radio tuned to a local station that played country music. The DJ said, "Now, here's Elvis Presley." I'd heard of this guy and seen pictures of him wearing a lavender suit with frilly trim. I'd read that he drove girls crazy, so I assumed he was a crooner, in the mode of Frank Sinatra or Vic Damone. Then I heard the clang of a single major key guitar chord, followed by "You ain't nothin' but a hound dog" in a growling voice, and lots of frenetic rhythm. I thought, "Obviously this is a song Elvis Presley has done as a joke, but I love it!" 

Jimmy Cliff (1944-2025) has crossed the final river.

Jimmy Cliff, born James Chambers in 1944 during a hurricane that destroyed his mother's house in St. James, Jamaica, died today at age 81. His first recorded song, when he was 14, appropriately was about a hurricane. After that he tried various musical styles, including covers of pop and rock hits and some original songs, with some success. After living in London for several years he returned to Jamaica. Thanks in part to his longstanding relationship with record producer Leslie Kong he began making music that appealed to Jamaican audiences. 

In 1972 he became a movie star, playing Ivanhoe "Ivan" Martin, a young man like Cliff who came from poverty and tried to make it in music, but unlike Cliff, was cheated by crooked agents and producers and so turned to dealing drugs. The movie, The Harder They Come, produced by Perry Henzell, had a spectacular soundtrack that was released as an album in 1973. It includes cuts by Cliff as well as other reggae stars, including Desmond Dekker and Toots and the Maytals. 

The songs best remembered from the soundtrack are the uptempo, optimistic ones, the title track and "You Can Get It If You Really Want". But Cliff's music also reflects the difficulties he faced growing up, and knew he continued to face even after achieving success. For example, there's "Many Rivers to Cross," the song in the video at the top of this post.

Bonnie Raitt & Keb Mo - "No Gettin' Over You"

Yesterday was Bonnie Raitt's 76th birthday. She's a spring chicken; I'm three and a half years her senior. In the video above she sings one of her songs along with Keb Mo, whom I had the pleasure of hearing live at St. Ann & the Holy Trinity Church here in Brooklyn Heights some years ago. This rocks!

Flaco Jiménez (1939-2025) "Is Anybody Goin' to San Antone"

When I first heard Leonardo "Flaco" Jimenez doing his accordion magic, he was in distinguished company. It was on the album Doug Sahm and Band, which I acquired not long after its release in 1973. Along with Doug and Flaco, the musicians on the album included Bob Dylan, Dr. John, David "Fathead" Newman, David Bromberg, and Kenny Kosek. With all that I heard Flaco's accordion, an instrument for which I hadn't yet developed a great liking, doing wonderful things.

After that, Flaco joined the Texas Tornados, another Doug Sahm led group that included Freddy Fender (born Baldemar Huerta), a star in his own right, and Augie Meyers, whose stylings on his Vox Continental organ (an instrument also used by Ray Manzarek of The Doors) thrilled me since I'd first listened to the Sir Douglas Quintet in the '60s. The video above is of the Tornados doing "Is Anybody Goin' to San Antone," a song that was made a hit by Charley Pride, the first Black artist to be inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. I chose the Tornados' version of this song as an example of Flaco's style because of the delightful interplay of his accordion with Augie's Vox organ, and because of my own connection to San Antonio, where I spent a couple of formative childhood years. 

As I've told elsewhere, it was in San Antonio that my mother, who grew up in central Pennsylvania, learned to buy fresh tamales, wrapped in cornhusks, that we would often have for dinner, and where, for my fourth birthday, I was given a "Billy the Kid" outfit that included a hat, denim shirt and jeans, boots, a belt with a holster, and a cap pistol, from Joske's of Texas. When I returned to San Antonio in the '90s for a convention I went to what had been Joske's but had become part of a national chain, hoping to get a pair of "cowgirl" boots for my then three year old daughter. I was told they didn't carry such things. I then learned that the place to go for Western attire was el Barrio. 

I now know that Flaco and I had San Antonio in common; he was born and raised there. When I first moved to Brooklyn Heights in the mid '80s I often indulged the taste for tamales I had acquired in San Antonio at a now long gone little restaurant called Old Mexico. On weekends an accordionist, whose name I'm sorry to say I've forgotten, would play there. I told him I enjoyed his music, and that I was a fan of Flaco's. He said he had recently seen Flaco perform, that he was as good as ever, but that Flaco wasn't flaco (Spanish for "skinny") any more.

Adios, Flaco. Perhaps the heavenly choir will appreciate some accordion accompaniment

Tom Lehrer (1928-2025) - "Fight Fiercely Harvard"

Tom Lehrer, who died yesterday at 97, began writing songs when he was a student at Harvard College, majoring in math, in the 1940s. One of his earliest efforts, "Fight Fiercely Harvard," in the clip above, was a fey take on college football fight songs. The presence of "albeit" in the lyrics tells us we're not exactly on the scrimmage line. Unfortunately, current events have made the song timely, though not in a way related to football.

Though he enjoyed success as a songwriter and performer, for Lehrer music was an avocation. He had a long career as an academic mathematician and scientist, a pursuit that inspired several of his songs, including Lobachevsky (this and the next two linked songs are from live performances and begin with some, I think, amusing chatter). Many of his songs, like We Will All Go Together When We Go ("When the air becomes uraneous/We will all go simultaneous"), had dark, sardonic lyrics set to lively, happy tunes. He was a fan of the light operas of Gilbert and Sullivan, Victorian London's precursor to Broadway, and used the tune of "I am the Very Model of a Modern Major General,"from The Pirates of Penzance, for The Elements, another math and science inspired song. Although he was on the Harvard and MIT faculties for many years, in his later ones he taught at the University of California at Santa Cruz. Life in California inspired him to write (I'm Spending) Hannukah in Santa Monica. 

Despite his talent, popularity, and wisdom in many fields, Tom Lehrer was a humble man. At the beginning of his website, Tom Lehrer Songs, he released all his works to the public domain. He had a good. long life, but will be missed.

Connie Francis (1937-2025), "Lipstick On Your Collar."

As her New York Times obituary notes, Connie Francis is mostly remembered for dreamy ballads like her first million seller, Who's Sorry Now (no question mark in the title). She did occasional rockers like "Lipstick On Your Collar" (video above, with an introduction by Dick Clark). She grew up in Newark's The Ironbound, a neighborhood that was probably grittier in her childhood than now as, like many inner city areas, it is undergoing gentrification. When Bobby Darin decided Connie was his Dream Lover, her father showed him the door at gunpoint. 

"Lipstick On Your Collar" is my favorite of her many hit songs. I like it because it shows her tough side. I like it for the same reason I like Doris Day as Calamity Jane.

Farewell, Concetta Rosa Maria Franconero from The Ironbound. You gave much to many. You also endured much, both emotionally and physically, but you always prevailed. Maybe you and Roberta Flack can thrill the heavenly host with a duet.

Music recently lost two greats: Sly Stone and Brian Wilson

I've been crazy busy, but I feel I must join, if belatedly, in commemorating two brilliant artists we lost recently, both of whom profoundly affected the course of pop music in the 1960s, a time when I was especially attuned to it.

I first heard "Everyday People" by Sly and the Family Stone sometime during my second year of law school, probably on WBCN, then Boston's "underground" FM rock station. It grabbed me for its sound, a bold blend of the principal styles of Black pop music at the time: R&B, funk, and soul. Some writers claim it also incorporates "psychedelica." I don't hear it, though it may be true of some of the group's other songs.

What most caught my attention, and admiration, were the lyrics. Unlike most male pop singers, Sly began, not with a boast or a statement of despair, but with humility: "Sometimes I'm right, I can be wrong./ My own beliefs are in my song." In the next verse he made the statement everyone remembers: "Different strokes for different folks!" He begins the next, and also the final verse with a plea: "We've got to live together!"

It's a song as meaningful and relevant today as it was in 1968.

The Beach Boys rode a wave of popularity in that began in 1963 when "Surfin' USA" reached number three on the Billboard chart . Like much rock and roll, the song drew directly on Black roots. The music is credited to Chuck Berry, as it uses the tune of his "Sweet Little Sixteen", slightly arranged by the co-credited Brian Wilson, who wrote the lyrics with assistance from his cousin and fellow Beach Boy Mike Love.

"Surfin' USA" began a series of hits, almost all of which were written or co-written by Brian, that glorified two prominent aspects of Southern California teenage culture: surfing and cars. These were mostly songs by and about guys; "Surfer Girl" and "Car Crazy Cutie" were among the exceptions. The songs celebrated "manly" virtues such as fearlessness in the face of monster waves and keeping cool in a hotly contested drag race. 

The song I chose to feature in the clip above, "Don't Worry Baby," released in 1964, shows Brian turning from the macho pose of his earlier songs, and showing vulnerability. It begins with his protagonist having vague misgivings - "Well it's been building up inside me/ For oh I don't know how long" - but his girlfriend provides comfort and reassurance - "Don't worry baby/ Everything will turn out alright." Then we learn the specific reason for his anxiety:

"I guess I should've kept my mouth shut/ When I started to brag about my car/ But I can't back down now/ Because I pushed the other guys too far"

His  big mouth has led to his being challenged to a race. Does his girlfriend beg him to ignore the challenge and not race? No way:

"She told me baby, when you race today/ Just take along my love for you/ And if you knew how much I loved you/ Baby nothing could go wrong with you"

Was she right? Did he survive, even win, the race? So it seems, although the song doesn't tell us. After all, he's a narrator still around to tell the story. Moreover, the optimistic feeling of the song convinces us that he didn't suffer the sad fate of Tommy in Ray Peterson's "Tell Laura I Love Her."

I was surprised to learn that the lyrics of "Don't Worry Baby" aren't exclusively Brian's. The title, and chorus, are his, as is the general story line. He was inspired by the Ronettes' hit, "Be My Baby." Working off this, possibly with inspiration from his girlfriend Marilyn Rovell, who later became his first wife, he got the title, "Don't Worry, Baby" and the general idea for a story line, along with the chorus. He gave this to his frequent collaborator Roger Christian, who presented Brian with lyrics in a parking lot. Brian took them home and composed the music. 

That Brian's songs were almost all the products of collaborations doesn't, in my view, diminish his status as a genius. If anything, I think, it improves it. His ability to envision a song's concept and to find an ideal collborator - Christian being a natural for car songs as he was a racing enthusiast who earned the monicker "poet of the strip" - speaks to his brilliance.

Sly Stone photo: Sarfatims, CC BY 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Brian Wilson photo: IthakaDarinPappas, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

 

The Who - Won't Get Fooled Again (Shepperton Studios / 1978) - Happy 80th, Pete Townshend

This performance of a perhaps timely song shows Pete's guitar and vocal heroics at their most manic, with Roger Daltrey singing and doing his frenetic thing as well. John Entwistle is steady on bass. Sadly, it was drummer Keith Moon's last performance before his untimely death. I wondered who did the synth. According to Google's "AI Overview" (which seems an appropriate source for something about a synth), it was Pete himself:

"He used an EMS VCS3 Mk1 synthesizer to process the sound of a Lowrey Berkshire Deluxe TBO-1 organ. The organ was played with a marimba repeat effect set to fast, and then the output was fed into the synthesizer and a LFO (Low-Frequency Oscillator) to create the arpeggiated sound. The intro to the song, including the synth part, was recorded using a backing track." 

Rock on, Pete! 

Wall of Death, by Richard and Linda Thompson

This song has been going through my head for several days. I suppose it's a metaphor of the time we're living now, when everything seems precariously close to disaster. The video inspired me to look up Lillian La France. She was born Agnes Micek in Kansas in 1894, and became famous as a motorcycle stunt rider in the 1920s and '30s. She's perhaps best remembered for riding the "Wall of Death" which, as you can see from the video, is a circular track with steeply sloping walls so that, near the top, a rider and bike are horizontal to the floor, held from tumbling down only by centrifugal force. 

I first knew of Richard Thompson as guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter for Fairport Convention, a band I came to love in the spring of 1970 when I was walking past the dorm room of my law school classmate John Lovett, a Kentuckian and superb banjo picker. John's door was partly open, and from inside I heard spine tingling female and male harmony on what sounded to me like Anglican chant. I knocked and asked John who was doing the song. He said it was Fairport Convention, doing their arrangement of an obscure Bob Dylan piece called "Percy's Song", on their album Unhalfbricking. I didn't rush out and buy the album; I was prepping for finals and working on my third year paper. 

When I arrived in New York in June of 1970 I began collecting Fairport albums. The group was very prolific in the years 1968-'70, recording and releasing six albums: Fairport Convention (1968); What We Did on Our Holidays (January 1969); the aforementioned Unhalfbricking (July 1969); Liege & Lief (December 1969); and Full House (July 1970). Thompson played lead guitar and sang on all of these, and co-wrote several of the songs. 

In 1971 Thompson left Fairport to begin a solo career, although since the 1980s he has performed at Fairport's Cropredy Convention (formerly the Cropredy Festival), often with present or former members of Fairport. His first solo album, Henry the Human Fly (1972) , was panned by critics and sold poorly, although a reviewer in 2004 called it "a true gem." One of his backing vocalists on the album was Linda Peters, who soon after the album was released married Richard and became Linda Thompson. They then did six albums together. The first, I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight, recorded in 1973 but not released until '74 because the OAPEC oil embargo made production of vinyl discs expensive, was at first "ignored by reviewers," but "later came to be highly regarded." The next four albums received less praise. 

Their last together, Shoot Out the Lights, had a title that ironically referred to their first. It also reflected the state of their marriage at the time it was recorded; they were divorced before it was released in March of 1982. After that, they traveled to The U.S. for a promotional tour during which they were onstage together but otherwise kept apart. The album received much critical praise. Robert Christgau wrote in the July 6, 1982 Village Voice, "these are powerfully double-edged metaphors for the marriage struggle." The song titles tell a tale. They are, in order: "Don't Renege on Our Love"; "Walking on a Wire"; "Just the Motion"; "Shoot Out the Lights"; "Back Street Slide"; "Did She Jump or Was She Pushed?" (all songs were written by Richard, but this has lyrics by Linda); and, finally and fittingly, "Wall of Death."

I've only seen Richard Thompson in live performance once. It was in the early 1990s, when he did a free outdoor concert in Battery Park City, during which he did a splendid rendition of what is, in my estimation, one of his greatest songs, "1952 Vincent Black Lightning." I've delighted in his recordings for over half of my life, and, despite its lack of his guitar fireworks, consider "Wall of Death" one of my favorites.

Patrick Street: The Humours Of The King Of Ballyhooley

 

It being the time of year, sure 'n' begorrah we've been listening to lots of Irish music the past few days. This delightful ditty, the last track on the album Irish Times by the group Patrick Street, has become a welcome earworm. The tale it tells is a familiar one in folk music throughout the British Isles: a stranger meets a woman who catches his eye; he asks her to marry him; she says yes; and they live happily, producing a sizeable brood of children. The singer is Andy Irvine, whom I met in 1988 when he did a solo gig at the now long gone Eagle Tavern on West 14th Street. I was there with the now sadly late Zane Berzins, a native Latvian who was fluent in Irish Gaelic. She knew Andy, and kindly introduced us. I later learned that my future wife, Martha Foley, was also there. 

 It's a rollicking song for a celebratory day. Beannechtai na feile Padraig!