Another friend gone: Anne Hagman McDermott

The photo above shows Anne Hagman McDermott as I most remember her, in the company of a group of friends. I'm at the right, in my Mets cap (Annie was a Mets fan); she is behind me and to my left in the photo, with a hand on Jeanine Flaherty's shoulder. Her husband, Joe McDermott, is to her left. Others in the photo are, left to right photo-wise, Jack Deacy, Barry Murphy, and Ethan Eldon. The occasion was a gathering of Lion's Head alums  several years ago at the White Horse Tavern, a Greenwich Village fixture known in its heyday, like the Head, for attracting writers and artists.

I was introduced to Annie by my friend Allen Sack sometime around the cusp of the 1970s and '80s and we maintained a friendship that was a steady source of joy for me. We were with friends at the Head watching a Mets game when she proposed a version of West Side Story featuring the Mets instead of the Jets. She suggested,"When you're a Met, you're a Met all the way, from your first training camp to your last ball in play." Allen came up with "Ojeda, I just met a lefty, Ojeda!" My contribution was to have the players' wives and girlfriends get together during preparations for the World Series and having them sing, "They don't know how to play in the American, pitchers don't bat in the American, etc." That's now obsolete with the unfortunate universalization of the designated hitter rule.

Annie once unwittingly almost got me into a fight at the Head. It was a bitterly cold night. I came in and took the only vacant stool, at the corner of the bar nearest the door. To my left was a man I'd never seen before. Annie was around the corner, seated next to the wall. The stranger kept giving Annie, who was single at the time, pick-up lines, to which she responded politely but noncommitally. After a while, Annie said good night to all around her and went out the door. The stranger followed her and held the door open while he implored her to stay or to go with him. Annie continued to respond politely, though negatively, while freezing air billowed into the bar. Someone, probably the bartender, yelled, "Close the goddamned door!" Annie, hearing this, skedaddled. The stranger slammed the door shut and confronted me with "F--- you!" I was about to give a response along the lines of, "Sir, I'm not the one who complained, but I'm grateful to whoever did." Just then Nancy Duggan, a tough as nails redhead, came in and took the seat Annie had vacated. It was a classic instance of drawing fire. The guy turned from me to Nancy and deployed a line of breathtaking sophistication: "Hey, babe, you ever think about using your equipment?" Nancy shot back, in a voice approaching a snarl, "Ye-e-eah, I use it ALL the TIME." I decided this was a terrific time to visit the men's room. When I came out two minutes or so later, the guy was gone.

Yes, Annie could be, as the saying goes, kind to a fault. I don't doubt that, if she or someone for whom she cared (which was just about anyone) was in danger, she would have responded appropriately. She was a vital component of the Lion's Head scene, which proved vital to her in that she met her husband, Joe McDermott, there.

Goodbye, Annie. You are sorely missed.

Some thoughts on English and Portuguese history, an admirable woman, and two boroughs of New York City

Today King Charles III was crowned. This led me to think of the last British monarch to bear his name, Charles II (portrait by Philippe de Champaigne, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons). He was more fortunate than his father, Charles I, whose reign ended with his beheading. The young Charles was sent into exile in France. He returned to England and was crowned in 1660; his reign lasted until his death in 1685

While he has been called the "Merry Monarch" his reign was far from untroubled. In 1665 a terrible plague struck England, and the following year saw the Great Fire of London. What caused tension throughout his reign was his sympathy for Catholicism, inherited from his father and undoubtedly strengthened during his French exile. 

In 1670 Charles entered into the Secret Treaty of Dover, in which he pledged to support France in its war against the Dutch Republic and to convert to Catholicism at an unspecified time (he did so, on his deathbed). This led to the Third Anglo-Dutch War, concluded in 1674 by the Treaty of Westminster, under which, among other things, the Dutch returned their colony of New Netherland to the English, who renamed it New York. 

New York City's Borough of Brooklyn, where I have lived for the past forty years, is co-extensive with the County of Kings, so named in honor of Charles II. Our neighboring County, and Borough, of Queens is named for his consort, Catherine of Braganza (portrait by Peter Lely, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons). She was a Portuguese infanta, or princess, whose marriage to Charles at the age of 21 was, like almost all European royal marriages, diplomatically arranged. Her dowry included Bombay, now Mumbai, thereby helping to establish the British foothold in India. The marriage didn't get off to a good start. She developed a nosebleed and fainted when told that Charles had made his favorite mistress, Barbara Palmer, her Lady of the Bedchamber, or personal attendant. 

Despite this and many other discourtesies, Catherine remained faithful to Charles until his death. To his credit, Charles resisted entreaties to divorce her when she suffered three miscarriages and failed to produce a legitimate heir to the throne. After Charles died she remained in England through the short, unhappy reign of her brother in law, James II, and  the "Glorious Revolution" of 1688, which sent James into French exile and gave the crown to his daughter, Mary, and her husband, William of Orange, whose marriage had been arranged by Charles to placate Protestants and secure realtions with the Dutch. Under William and Mary, Protestant power was solidified by Parliament, which passed an "Exclusionary Act" barring Catholics from the throne. Catherine returned to Portugal in 1692, where she spent her later years active in affairs of state, serving on two occasions as regent for her brother, Peter II, and helping to secure a treaty between Portugal and England. She died in 1705 and is buried at the monastery of São Vicente de Fora.

As a Brooklynite I hate to say this, but, Queens, you got the better of the two royals.

Gordon Lightfoot (1938-2023), "Seven Islands Suite"

No, this isn't turning into a music blog. It's that every week lately seems to bring news of the death of a musician I've loved. I'm 77, so it's not surprising that many of the musical idols of my younger days,  of whom a good number were ten or so years older than me, are now reaching their actuarial expiry dates.

I loved Gordon Lightfoot both for the quality of his songs and for the fact that his voice was in a range I could handle. I've told this story before. In conversation with Lester Bangs of beloved memory, who disdained any music that wasn't a "full frontal assault", I confessed to liking Lightfoot. Lester gave a dismissive "Hmph!" He said something like, "I know Gord. Do you know what he does when he's trying to write a song and needs inspiration? He goes to a hardware store and stares at the labels on cans of paint." That night, when I got home to my apartment, I pulled out my Lightfoot albums and scanned the song titles for color imagery. None there. 

The video is of Lightfoot doing my favorite of his songs, "Seven Islands Suite", at Massey Hall, Toronto, in 1974.    

Harry Belafonte, "Jamaica Farewell"

Harry Belafonte died last Tuesday at the age of 96. According to his New York Times obituary his singing career began while he was a teenager, and he began to be recorded in the early 1950s. His "Day-O (Banana Boat Song)", made it to the pop charts in 1957, but didn't do quite as well as an almost contemporaneously recorded version by the Tarriers, a folk group consisting of Alan Arkin (later better known as an actor), Bob Carey (who was Black, thereby making this the first well known racially integrated American folk group), and Erik Darling my pleasant encounter with whom you can read about here. The Tarriers' version is an amalgam of two Jamaican folk songs put together by the American folk singer and songwriter Bob Gibson, who had visited Jamaica. The songs were "Day-O" and one called "Hill and Gully Rider". I'm pretty sure the first version I heard had the "hill and gully rider" chorus, so likely was the Tarriers' version.

"Day-O" was included on Belafonte's album, Calypso, which was the first long playing album to sell a million copies. The video above is of Belafonte singing "Jamaica Farewell", which was also on Calypso and charted in 1957 after "Day-O".  It was written and composed by Irving Burgie, a Brooklyn native whose mother was from Barbados, and who wrote the lyrics for the Barbadian national anthem, "In Plenty and in Time of Need". He was a prolific songwriter, who wrote many more songs for Belafonte, some of which, like "Island in the Sun", became hits. He also performed as a singer, using the name "Lord Burgess".

There is some controversy over whether "Day-O", an adaptation, on which Burgie collaborated with Belafonte, of a Jamaican folk song, or "Jamaica Farewell", written by Burgie but considered part of a Jamaican folk tradition called mento, should be considered "calypso", a musical style that originated in Trinidad and Tobago. According to MasterClass, calypso "spread throughout the West Indies." MasterClass includes Belafonte in its list of "5 Notable Calypso Musicians" and calls "Day-O" calypso, no doubt because it shares calypso's call-and-response format and rhythmic structure. "Jamaica Farewell" lacks the call-and-response, but MasterClass calls mento a "subgenre" of calypso. "Origins of Mento", on jamaicanmusic.com, disputes this, arguing that while the two styles "share many similarities, they are separate and distinct musical forms."

One thing that cannot be disputed is that Harry Belafonte had a profound and lasting effect on American popular music, as well as that of other nations. His talent was not limited to singing. He also saw success as an actor, having met his close friend Sidney Poitier while they were both in an acting class, and as a television host. He is the only person to have won an Emmy, a Grammy, a Tony, and an Academy Award. The last was in a noncompetitive category; he was given the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award for his work to advance civil rights in the U.S. -- he became a close friend of and co-worker with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.. -- and in South Africa, and for his efforts to provide relief for victims of famine and other disasters worldwide.

Update: read about an event in Belafonte's life, that helped to sharpen his commitment to civil rights, here.

Born to Be Wild: Ann-Margret rocks!

Ann-Margret, at 81, has recorded "Born to be Wild", an album of covers of rock classics, with help from Pete Townshend, himself no spring chicken, among others. The clip above is of her doing the title song. The cover photo is from 1967, and shows her on a Triumph Tiger motorcycle. This New York Times story gives all the details.

Maybe there's still time for me, at 77, to realize some of my adolescent fantasies. 

Oh, no! There's now an "AI Assistant" named for me.

Will anyone now believe that anything I write is really mine, not a product of this robot?

Happy Easter! Zissen Pesach! Ramadan Mubarak!

According to Magee Hickey on WPIX 11 Easter, Passover, and Ramadan, three important holidays of the three Abrahamic faiths, overlap only once every thirty years or so. This is one of those years. She quotes Rabbi Aaron Raskin of Bnai Avraham synagogue here in Brooklyn Heights:

"When all these holidays come together it's a time of unity ... [t]o see how we complement one another to see how we can work together to make the world a better place."

Holiday blessings to my Christian, Jewish, and Muslim friends; to all others, enjoy a glorious spring.

King's College Cambridge Choir, ""All Glory, Laud and Honour"

This morning's Palm Sunday service at Grace Church, Brooklyn began, as it customarily does, with the joyful hymn "All Glory, Laud and Honor", sung in the video above by the choir of King's College, Cambridge. Following the clergy and choir, we left our pews and sang it in procession, holding our palm fronds in one hand and our programs, with the lyrics, in the other. We sang, with help from the choir, as we left the sanctuary, went through the courtyard, and out along the sidewalk at Hicks Street.

The service ended on a somber note with "O Sacred Head Sore Wounded"; a hymn I associate with Good Friday. Ten years ago I posted a video of the Concentus Musicus Wien performing J.S. Bach's O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden, from the St. Matthew Passion, which is the basis for "O Sacred Head Sore Wounded". In my commentary on that post, I noted that Bach had used a tune by Hans Leo Hassler. I also noted in that post that the tune was later used by Tom Glazer for "Because All Men Are Brothers" and by Paul Simon for "American Tune".

Scarlatti Harpsichord Solo: The Cat's Fugue, Elaine Comparone

 

The prolific Italian Baroque composer Domenico Scarlatti (1685-1757) wrote many single movement fugues for solo harpsichord. One of these, his Sonata in G Minor (K.30) became known as the Cat's Fugue because of a story that it was inspired by the sound made when Scarlatti's cat, Pucinella, walked across the keyboard. The rendition in the video above is by Elaine Comparone. Martha and I were once treated to a brief recital by Ms. Comparone at her apartment when a friend of both hers and ours who had retired to Cuernavaca, Mexico, was staying there during a visit. We have a Lyrichord CD of Ms. Comparone playing the Cat's Fugue along with other Scarlatti solo sonatas.

Sarah Stone plays Bach's Cello Suite No.1 - Prelude -- Happy Birthday J.S.!

In honor of Johann Sebastian Bach's 338th birthday, here is our friend and superb cellist Sarah Abigael Stone playing the prelude to his Cello Suite No. 1.

Sane in the City by Sophie Malleret: a tribute to our friend, Barbara Cahn, 1952-2023

Barbara Cahn and her husband, Alan Ginsberg, have been treasured friends of Martha's and mine throughout our now almost thirty two year marriage. Yesterday we received from Alan the shocking and saddening news of Barbara's sudden, unexpected death. The video above, by Sophie Malleret and forwarded to us by Alan, gives a view of her activities in the LaGuardia Corner Garden and at her wheel in her pottery studio. She was a lover of all things beautiful and a superb artist, and brought joy into the lives of all who knew her. We miss her terribly.

Twelve days until Opening Day and things are looking bad for the Mets.

Edwin Diaz, arguably the best closer in Major League Baseball last season, has been lost for the entire 2023 season because of a knee injury he incurred in the celebration of Puerto Rico's victory over the Dominican Republic in the World Baseball Classic. This comes shortly after starting left handed pitcher Jose Quintana, whom the Mets acquired off free agency during the off season, was sidelined until at least July by a rib lesion. This leaves the Mets likely with an entirely right handed starting lineup until Quintana's return. Since the injury to Diaz, centerfielder and lefty slugger Brandon Nimmo has been put on the DL with an ankle injury and is considered unlikely for the start of the season. 

Spring training still has some days to go, and already the Mets' injury list, in addition to the players mentioned above, includes relief pitchers Sam Coonrod, Brooks Raley, and Bryce Montes de Oca. In one bit of heartening news, the Mets have acquired reliever Dennis Santana off waiver from the Twins.

As spring training continues and as the regular season unfolds, the Mets are bound to suffer more injuries; some to key players. Of particular concern are the aging starting pitchers Max Scherzer (38) and Justin Verlander (40), and outfielder/slugger Starling Marte (34).

Am I ready, this early, to give up on my hopes for the Mets this year? In June of 2008 I wrote a diatribe in which I gave up hope for that year's Mets. A month later I walked back that prediction. As it turned out, the Mets kept winning until near the end of the season, and had they won the final regular season game, would have had a one game playoff against the Brewers for the last NL post-season spot. Instead they lost that last game to the Marlins. Last year proved similar to 2008 except that the Mets were consistent winners through the season until September, when the Braves overtook them to win the NL East. This left them facing the Padres in a playoff for the wild card, which the Mets lost in three straight. 

Despite all, I'm sticking with the old saw, "Ya gotta believe!" 

Edwin Diaz photo: D. Benjamin Miller, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

FourWinds FleadhTV TG4 The Rollicking Boys Around Tandragee

Four Winds is a band that does "Irish Traditional Music in a modern and creative context, while maintaining deep roots in the tradition." In the video above, they are, left to right, Daoiri Farrell, Tom Delaney, Caroline Keane, and Robbie Walsh. 

I wish you all beannachtaí na féile Pádraig, "blessings of St. Patrick."

Malachy McCourt beats the Reaper

Laurie Gwen Shapiro, in this New York Times story, tells how Malachy McCourt, at age 91, was "kicked out of hospice for not dying quickly enough." He now looks forward to marching on St. Patrick's Day in his electric wheelchair. He also has, post hospice, "resumed his role as a co-host of a Sunday morning radio show on WBAI."

Ms. Shapiro tells of Malachy's long career as a bartender, bar owner, radio show host, actor, playwright, and autobiographical author. She doesn't mention his ownership, in the mid 1970s, of the Bells of Hell, which was my regular hangout from the summer of 1976, shortly after Malachy had sold it, until the fall of 1979, when it closed. I was told that during Malachy's ownership Con Ed had shut off the Bells' electricity several times because of overdue bills, which is why the Bells had an antiquated  mechanical cash register and a copious supply of candles. 

For many years, Malachy was an almost mythical figure to me. During my post Bells years of hanging out at the Lion's Head I got to know his brother Frank, from whom I heard, while we were sitting at the bar, some of the stories that later appeared in Angela's Ashes. I finally met Malachy, and enjoyed some pleasant conversation with him, about fifteen years ago at a party hosted by another Lion's Head alum, Jack Deacy, and his wife, Bonnie Stone.

In her reply to Dermot McEvoy's email yesterday to the listserv he maintains for Lion's Head alums, Mary Breasted Smyth told of how she met Malachy in 1972 at the Lion's Head when she and Malachy were being interviewed, on different subjects, by Ken Auletta. Mary's first book was Oh! Sex Education. Read the linked review and see how her book anticipated, from 1970, the controversies that political figures like Florida Governor Ron DeSantis are exploiting today. In her reply to Dermot's email Mary mentions how Malachy lost his job as host of a radio program on WMCA when a listener called and asked Malachy's opinion about President Nixon's firing of Watergate Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox (who was my Constitutional Law professor in 1968-69). Malachy's response was, "I'd say he's a right Cox-sacker!"

 Photo: David Shankbone, CC BY-SA 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Wayne Shorter, 1933-2023 - "Footprints"

"An important cog in the ever turning wheel of universal humanism has passed through leaving all he touched better than it was before. He was and will always be: purveyor of pentatonic perfection; master of blues inflected melodies; hero of vertical and horizontal harmonic implications, giant of saxophone regardless of register; improviser extraordinaire in any and all musical environments; mercurial wit and biting humorist with uncommon humility and depth of understanding, seer, reader, and interpreter of ancient and modern myth…..jazz messenger. Rest In Peace." - Wynton Marsalis

Burt Bacharach, 1928-2023, "What the World Needs Now is Love"

Burt Bacharach, who died on Wednesday, had a peripatetic life. He was born in Kansas City, Missouri, spent his teenage years in Forest Hills, Queens, New York City, began his formal musical education at McGill University in Montreal, then continued it in New York and California. He was "classically trained," with teachers who included composers Darius Milhaud, Henry Cowell, and Bohuslav Martinů. He considered Milhaud, who was influenced by jazz and by Brazilian music, and who, according to Bacharach's NPR obituary encouraged him "to follow the kind of music he felt compelled to write," to have been his greatest influence. When he was 28 he got an early career boost when he became arranger and conductor for shows by Marlene Dietrich, and "traveled the world with her for over a decade."

The clip above shows Bacharach at the White House during a 2012 tribute to him and to his lyricist partner Hal David, who was unable to attend, and died later that year. He gives a spoken entry and sings the opening verse of "What the World Needs Now Is Love," which he then accompanies on piano while it is sung by Stevie Wonder, Diana Krall, Sheryl Crow, Michael Feinstein, Mike Myers, Lyle Lovett, Rumer, Sheléa, and Arturo Sandoval.

A myriad of singers have sung and recorded songs by Bacharach and David. A particular exponent of their works during the 1960s and '70s was Dionne Warwick. In the clip above (audio with a montage of photos) she sings "Anyone Who Had a Heart" (1964). Again from the NPR obituary, she rebutted the notion that Bacharach's compositions were "simple" by noting that song has frequent time signature changes.

Aly Bain with Jenna Reid - Sophie's Dancing Feet / Andy Brown's Reel

 

I had the pleasure, and honor, of meeting the great Shetland fiddler Aly Bain after a Boys of the Lough concert at Town Hall in the mid 1980s. My introduction was enabled by my date's having been his sister in law. In the video above he's joined by another fine exemplar of the Shetland fiddle tradition, Jenna Reid. They do a segue of two lively traditional fiddle tunes, "Sophie's Dancing Feet" and "Andy Brown's Reel." Backing them is a true all-star group of musicians: traditional Irish music stalwart Dónal Lunny on bouzouki, a Greek instrument that has become widely used in Irish music; Jerry Douglas, whose work on dobro guitar has spanned bluegrass, jazz, and Celtic music; Russ Barenberg, known for his contributions to old time and bluegrass music, on guitar; Phil Cunningham, a many talented Scottish musician known primarily as an accordionist but who here plays piano; and English multi instrumentalist Michael McGoldrick on whistle.

Go Iggles!

The Philadelphia Eagles, or "Iggles" as true Philadelphians call them, have won the NFC championship, and so will face the AFC champion Kansas City Chiefs in the Super Bowl. After the Eagles won the NFC championship game, the Empire State Building was illuminated with green and white, the Eagles' colors. The New York Daily News demurred, noting that the Eagles are "locally despised". 

I'll confess that I'd rather see another team that wears green, the New York Jets, heading to Arizona in February. Still, I'm casting my lot with the Eagles this year. I have nothing against K.C.; I've had some good times there; sampling, among other things, Arthur Bryant's Barbecue. But I'm a Keystone State native (albeit from closer to Pittsburgh than Philly). Thanks to my wife's genealogical research I know that my great-great-great-great grandfather Samuel Miles served for a year as mayor of Philadelphia. He declined to serve a second term, probably to devote his attention to business matters. Also, my daughter, her partner, and my granddaughter live in Chester, Pennsylvania, part of the Philadelphia metropolitan area.

So, go Iggles!

UPDATE: It looks like I cursed them; never seems to fail. It was an exciting game, anyway. 

R.I.P. Tom Verlaine

Lately this blog has been a sad series of death notices of musicians I've loved: Jeff Beck, then David Crosby, and now Tom Verlaine, guitarist, singer, and songwriter of the band Television. Verlaine, born Thomas Miller, took his professional name from the French Symbolist, and later Decadent, poet Paul Verlaine. While Television was considered part of the punk rock scene that emerged in the mid 1970s, their style differed from the minimalistic three chord approach of groups like the Ramones or the Sex Pistols. Verlaine and Television's other guitarist, Richard Lloyd, played complex runs that reflected jazz influences as well as, according to Verlaine, inspiration from surf guitar bands like the Ventures. You can hear them, along with Verlaine's vocal, on the clip above of Television's live performance of "Foxhole."

How I learned to love David Crosby

The past few months have seen the passing of three musicians who profoundly influenced the development of rock music: Jerry Lee Lewis, Jeff Beck, and now David Crosby, who died Wednesday at the age of 81. The clip above, made in 2018 when Crosby was in his late 70s, shows him, along with mandolinist Chris Thile, doing "Déjà Vu", the title song of the first (1970) album by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. 

I first became aware of David Crosby in 1965 when I was nineteen and a student at the University of South Florida, and heard on the University Center café jukebox the Byrds' cover of Bob Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man". What excited me was the "jingle jangle" of Jim (later called Roger) McGuinn's Rickenbacker guitar and the group's celestial singing harmony. I didn't know it at the time, but it was Crosby's high tenor and precise melodic sense that gave the harmonies their special quality. 

Crosby later became my least favorite Byrd. What precipitated this was "Mind Gardens", to me at the time (1967) the one great blot on the Byrds' otherwise superb fourth album Younger Than Yesterday. My musical taste at the time was broad, encompassing classical, baroque, folk, country, bluegrass, blues, and soul, along with rock. Thanks to the Beatles I was beginning to appreciate Indian raga, and to Dave Brubeck jazz. "Mind Gardens", though, was a step too far for me at the time. Crosby's solo vocal and the instrumental accompaniment didn't follow any convention I could understand; it simply sounded discordant. Despite its ultimately optimistic lyrics, it seemed to me to lead nowhere. 

Jon Pareles, in the New York Times, provides a list of what he considers Crosby's "Fifteen Essential Songs". About "Mind Gardens" he writes:

"An artifact of psychedelia's experimental heyday, 'Mind Gardens' is a parable about protection and openness, with an Indian-tinged vocal line rising above a multi-tracked droney web of guitar picking: acoustic and electric, picked and sustained, running forward and backward and completely reveling in disorientation."

Now, with the benefit of half a century plus more of living, which have included a generous share of disorientation, I've come to appreciate "Mind Gardens", along with other Crosby songs like "Everybody's Been Burned", also from Younger Than Yesterday, which ends with the lines, "But you die inside/ Every time you try to hide/ So I guess instead I'll love you."

R.I.P. Jeff Beck; another rock great lost.

Certainly one of rock's most exciting guitarists, Jeff Beck, died today. In the clip above he plays "Little Wing" as a tribute to Jimi Hendrix. Vocal and drums are by Naranda Michael Walden.

Remembrances and appreciations, 2022

 On June 2, 1953, Coronation Day, I was with my parents and Rex, the bull terrier mix puppy I had been given as a seventh birthday present, at Stile End, a cottage built, if you believed what was on the doorpost, in 1597. We occupied half of the cottage, located at the edge of the village of Rushden in Hertfordshire. The other half belonged to its owners, a farm family named Warner. They were lovely people, and their daughter, Peggy, single and in her thirties, was my caretaker whenever my parents were out for a play in London or an event at the Officers' Club at Chicksands, the small outpost in Bedfordshire where my father, a U.S. Air Force captain, was stationed. 

In 1953 BBC television's signal didn't extend beyond metropolitan London, so we listened to the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II on our radio. She had been Queen since February 6, 1952, the day her father, King George VI, died. Her ascension to the monarchy took place while she and Prince Phillip were on tour in Kenya. In the almost year and a half from then until the coronation I saw many newspaper and magazine articles with photos of the, I thought, beautiful young Queen. She was also a prominent subject of conversation at the Sandon County Council School, where I was the only American but, in the course of two and a half years, became thoroughly anglicized in habits and speech.

I would no doubt have been surprised to know, at age seven, that her reign would last until I was almost seventy seven. Indeed, I would have been surprised to know I would live that long. I was a military brat, and thought that my destiny was to die gloriously in battle, after uttering some phrase that would later resound in history. The Queen was not known for stirring quotes, but this one seems very characteristic: "It’s worth remembering that it is often the small steps, not the giant leaps, that bring about the most lasting change." 

As I've noted before, with my advancing age, every year brings a larger number of contemporaries and admired or influential elders who have died. This year I won't try to make a comprehensive list; I'll stick to those who were most important to me, either because I knew them personally or found them especially impressive or influential. Besides the Queen, among those who were influential worldwide that we lost were Mikhail Gorbachev and Madeleine Albright. Although I'm not a soccer fan, I can't not mention Pelé.

F. Donald Logan was Martha's professor, mentor, and history major adviser at Emmanuel College. I got to know him when Martha and I visited Boston on several occasions, and enjoyed his hospitality, cooking, and love for Bailey's Irish Cream. He was a superb raconteur with a great depth of knowledge about medieval Europe, Church politics, and contemporary controversies. I enjoyed reading his The Vikings in History. Once, when I was attending a convention in Boston and Martha was unable to join me, Don let me stay in his Brookline apartment alone while he was on one of his annual trips to London, thereby saving my clients a hotel bill.

Clark Green schooled me in the fine art of church ushering during his term as Head Usher at Grace Church. Another Grace parishioner I will miss is the always delightful Shirley Baldwin. A neighbor missed by Martha, me, and many is Lesley Carter, a charming Scottish woman whom I would often encounter during my daily walks as she walked Bear, her massive and placid brown Labrador. Whenever we stopped to chat, Bear would attract kids who would shower him with attention, which he received gladly. I lost a Facebook friend whom I never met in the flesh, Walter William Milner, whose intelligence and wry English wit I'll never forget.

Among the ever dwindling roster of Lion's Head alumni, ones I will keenly miss are former co-owner Al Koblin (the Kettle of Fish, which Al mentions in the linked interview, later moved into the spot at 59 Christopher Street previously occupied by the Head), Cheryl Floyd, Jules Kohn, Marie Murphy, and Virginia Lucy Zox, known to all as "Sha", who served on the waitstaff and was a constant source of joy. She became a character in Head alum Robert Ward's novel The Stone Carrier. Thanks to friend Dermot McEvoy for keeping me, and many others, abreast of news concerning former Head regulars.

Among the musicians lost were all-around wild man Jerry Lee Lewis (for a comprehensive biography see my late friend Nick Tosches' widely praised Hellfire), composer Ned Rorem, jazz saxophonist Pharoah Sanders, singer-songwriter and producer Thom Bell, singers Gary Brooker, Loretta Lynn, Christine Perfect McVie, Meat Loaf, Olivia Newton-John, Anita Pointer, Bobby Rydell, and Ronnie Spector, guitarists and singers Ronnie Hawkins and Danny Kalb,  mandolinist and singer Roland White, and drummer Dino Danelli. 

The stage and cinema world lost, among many others, actors Kristie Alley, Angela Lansbury, James Caan, William Hurt (whom I had the pleasure of seeing in 1989 when he played Augie-Jake in Joe Pintauro's "Beside Herself" at Circle Repertory Company, for which I then served on the Board of Advisors), and the incomparable Sidney Poitier; comedian and fellow USF alum Gallagher; and directors Peter Bogdanovich and Jean-Luc Godard.

The visual arts lost painters Carmen Herrera, Sam Gilliam, Jennifer Bartlett, and Paula Rego, along with sculptors Lee Bontecou and Claes Oldenburg and New Yorker cartoonist George Booth. Among those lost to the world of literature are my law school classmate John Jay Osborn, Jr., author of The Paper Chase; historian David McCullough; historical novelist Hilary Mantel; drama critic, biographer, and playwright Terry Teachout; satirist P.J. O'Rourke, with whose political views I didn't always agree but whose writing I often found delightful; Barbara Ehrenreich, author of the indispensable Nickel and Dimed; and restaurant critic Gael Greene, whose novel Blue Skies, No Candy. was once described as an exemplar of the "shopping and f---ing" genre. 

One writer lost last year with whom I was unfamiliar is Peter Straub, whose works are described in his linked New York Times obituary as "novels of terror, mystery and the supernatural" but who "insisted that his work transcended categorization". As he observed, "Adult human beings live with the certainty of grief, which deepens us and opens us to other people, who have been there, too." He was the father of Emma Straub, also a novelist, and the co-owner of Books Are Magic, which now has a location two blocks from where I live. 

Now I'll turn to appreciations. As always, I must start with my wife, Martha Foley. For those who don't know, I fractured my left ankle on November 24, 2021. Since then I have had two surgeries and periods of rehabilitation, and now face a third surgery this coming Thursday, January 12. This has been a most trying period for Martha, who has had to do household chores and shopping that I would otherwise do,  tend to my medical needs, and work for her clients as well as volunteering at the Brooklyn Women's Exchange. I'm hoping this coming surgery will resolve all remaining problems. My thanks to the physicians at NYU Langone Health, including Doctors Kenneth Egol, Pierre Saadeh, Mikel Sadek, and Mona Bashar, and the physicians' assistants, nurses, and technicians, who have provided me with the finest of care.

On to pleasant matters. Our daughter, Elizabeth Cordelia Scales, and her partner, Drew Rodkey, have presented us with a granddaughter, Ada Xiomara Rodkey. They live in Chester, Pennsylvania, just south of Philadelphia, and we have enjoyed two visits, the most recent over Christmas. We're also grateful to Drew for the work he did on our apartment and furniture during their visit. We look forward to seeing them again soon.

Finally, thanks to all my friends and readers for your support and encouragement. I wish you all the best of everything for 2023.

Homage to the King

Elvis Presley was born on this date, January 8, in 1935.

In 1956 I was ten years old and riding with my father in our '55 Chevy on a two lane blacktop in the pine woods of Northwest Florida. Dad had the radio tuned to a station that played country music. The DJ said, "And now, here's Elvis Presley." I'd heard of him, and seen his photo on the cover of a magazine. I presumed, from the way he wore his hair, and his clothes, and that he drove girls crazy, that he was a crooner; perhaps a next generation version of Frank Sinatra. But what I heard was the clang of a single guitar chord, followed by, "You ain't a-nothin' but a hound dog!" in a voice that snarled. I thought, "This is a song this guy has done as a joke, but I love it!" 

Wherein I connect Edward Hopper with Neil Diamond -- trust me!

Edward Hopper's "A Room in Brooklyn" (1932) came to me courtesy of my friend Adrian Rice. My first reaction was, "Wow! Here's a view of some row houses seen from a bay window, just as I have from mine here in Brooklyn." I've long been a Hopper fan, and eagerly await a visit to "Hopper in New York" at the Whitney Museum.  

In accordance with my love for connecting visual arts with music -- see here and here -- the painting immediately brought to mind a song I first heard on the radio some time around 1968 to '69, Neil Diamond's  "Brooklyn Roads":

The odd thing is, when I first heard the song, I understood the title to be "Brooklyn Rows". I knew that Brooklyn, like Cambridge, Massachusetts, where I was at the time, was characterized by row houses. Besides, "rows" was a perfect rhyme with "those", which ends the preceding line. Also, "rows" is the way he sings it, with no noticeable "d" at the end of the line.

What I think happened was that someone at MCA, Neil Diamond's label at the time, thought that "Brooklyn Rows" would sound odd to the suburban detached houses or college dorms audience to whom the song would be pitched, so changed it to "Brooklyn Roads." This wouldn't be the first (or certainly last) time a record company exec would change a song's lyrics; consider how I think Columbia Records changed the Byrds' version of Welsh poet Idris Davies' "The Bells of Rhymney".

Repast Baroque Ensemble performing music of the Italian baroque.

Martha and I have been fans of the Repast Baroque Ensemble; indeed, have been friends of the musicians, for almost a decade. This video shows them performing Fuggi dolente core ("Flee broken heart"), a sonata by the seventeenth century Italian composer, Biagio Marini. The musicians are, clockwise on the video: Amelia Roosevelt, violin (she plays two parts, recorded separately and synced for the video); Sarah Stone, viola da gamba; Gabe Shuford, harpsichord; and Stephanie Corwin, bassoon. Ms. Corwin's husband, Joseph Di Ponio, did the superb editing.

Repast has had a recent change in its core musician roster. In order to devote time to environmental and climate matters Ms. Roosevelt has yielded her position as first violinist to the equally capable Natalie Kress. Amie will remain very active with Repast as its executive director.

We are eagerly anticipating Repast's next concert, "Dutch Masters: Painting and Music in the Early Baroque", on Saturday, January 28 at the McKinney Chapel of the First Unitarian Congregational Society, in Brooklyn Heights. It will also be held on Sunday, January 29 at 3:00 p.m. at the Manhattan Country School. It plays to my fascination with connections between music and the visual arts -- see here and here. It will feature an expanded musical line up, with parts for recorder, theorbo, and a second viola da gamba.

The Wayfarers: Appalachian roots music from Southeastern Ohio

If you've been following this blog for a while, you know that my taste in music is wide ranging. It includes pre-baroque through contemporary "classical"* music, all kinds of jazz, folk (American, English, Irish, and Scottish), blues, R&B, soul, country, Cajun, rockabilly, calypso, surf, British invasion, punk, psychedelica, reggae, '70s and '80s rock, and (yes) hip-hop.

One style of music of which I've long been fond is "old time" or "roots" music, including its predecessors and offsprings Appalachian, bluegrass, hillbilly, honky-tonk, and recently "Americana", formerly "folk rock", which combines rock and traditional country styles, and which has its origins in Bob Dylan, the Byrds, and in Gram Parsons' Cosmic American Music, A few days ago I was introduced to the music of The Wayfarers, a young (at least from my perspective) band whose "style encompasses Appalachian dance music, traditional mountain fiddle tunes, and pre-bluegrass music of the 1920's - resulting in a dose of nostalgic Americana." The group includes Josh Hartman on guitar, Brandon Bankes on mandolin, Matt Opachick on fiddle, Justin Rayner on banjo, and Nathan Zangmeister on washtub bass.

In the video above they play two very lively fiddle tunes, "Angeline the Baker" and the enchantingly titled "Sal's Got Mud Between Her Toes". It's 3:34 of sheer joy. 

 * I put "classical" in scare quotes because I've long wondered what to call music composed in our times that is played to audiences in places like David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center. I asked my friend, the composer Theodore Wiprud, what music he and his contemporaries are making today is called. How can you call contemporary music "classical"? Ted said some call it "symphonic", but noted that much of it is made for small chamber groups or for solo instrumentation. I've also seen it called "serious" music, but I wouldn't want to be the one to tell Wynton Marsalis that jazz (or tell Mick Jagger that rock) isn't "serious." Same for "artistic." I'm left with "music I enjoy that doesn't fit any other category."

The delights of the Fenimore Art Museum: Part 2: decorative arts, Hirschfeld caricatures, and Americans in Venice

Across the hall from the Florida Highwaymen exhibit was a sign indicating that the gallery there featured "Fanfare for America: 19th Century Decorative Arts." The objects on display (photo) were not actual 19th century pieces; they were made by members of the Historical Society of Early American Decoration (HSEAD) which seeks to "record and preserve examples of Early American decoration" and to "promote . . . the elevation of the standards of its reproduction and utilization . . . and to cooperate with other societies in the accomplishment of purposes of mutual concern." These items were exquisite in their execution and beauty.

Our next stop was at the gallery featuring works of Al Hirschfeld, Caricaturist to the Stars. Above is his drawing of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. As former Texas governor Ann Richards said, "Ginger Rogers did everything that Fred Astaire did. She just did it backward and in high heels."

According to the late playwright Terrence McNally, with whom I enjoyed a brew or two at the Lion's Head,"No one 'writes' more accurately of the performing arts than Al Hirschfeld. He accomplishes on a blank page with his pen and ink in a few strokes what many of us need a lifetime of words to say."

Hirschfeld also drew some stars of the 1960s music scene. How many do you recognize?

Our last gallery visit was to an exhibit of works by American artists done while or after visiting Venice. I'm a lover of things maritime, so my eye was caught by Jane Peterson's "The Lagoon, Venice" (ca. 1920). I thought her composition and use of light were superb. Ms. Peterson was born in Illinois but studied art at Brooklyn's Pratt Institute. 

I next turned to "Chapel of the Crucifix, St. Mark's, Venice" (1871) by Frank Hill Smith, a Boston native who was both a painter and an interior decorator. This may explain his choice, and sensitive execution, of an interior scene. Note the small figures of the priest and two seated parishioners at the painting's lower right. 

We look forward to next summer and our annual visit to the Glimmerglass Festival, which will always be accompanied by a visit to the Fenimore Art Museum.

Run Rose Run, by Dolly Parton and James Patterson

Until a few weeks ago I was one of, I'm sure, a minority of regular American book readers who had never read anything by James Patterson. This isn't because of distaste for his kind of fiction. Until about twenty years ago, I was a fairly frequent reader of "thrillers" and mysteries. What killed that habit was the internet. For one thing I started this blog. Shortly after I did, I became a contributor to, and later editor of, the Brooklyn Heights Blog. Time spent researching and writing cut into time for purely recreational reading. 

While I was ignorant of Mr. Patterson's work, other than by reputation, I wasn't of Dolly Parton's. I've been a fan of country music since my childhood, when it was what I heard on the car radio when my parents and I made our annual triangular trip from Florida to visit relatives in central Pennsylvania and southern Indiana. I first knew of Ms. Parton when I read that Jerry Garcia was a great fan. Despite that recommendation, I can't say she's my favorite woman country singer. Her voice seems a little too saccharine. I prefer the harder edged sounds of Emmylou Harris, or Lacy J. Dalton. I love it when Dolly joins Emmylou and Linda Ronstadt on harmony, for example on Rodney Crowell's "Even Cowgirls Get the Blues" from Emmylou's album Blue Kentucky Girl, and later on Neil Young's "After the Gold Rush" on the splendid Trio album the three of them made in 1987.

I have other reasons for liking Ms. Parton. Her philanthropic activities are well known; especially her Imagination Library, which provides free books for children. I give her kudos for purchasing two Baldwin built narrow gauge steam locomotives from Alaska, now named "Klondike Katy" and "Cinderella." that power the Dollywood Express on tours through the Great Smoky Mountain foothills. I've been a train buff since early childhood when, on visits to my grandmother in Tyrone, Pennsylvania, Dad would take me to the station to watch traffic, much then steam powered, on the four track main line of the Pennsylvania Railroad. Trains are also a popular theme in country music.

So, to the book. Friend, it's good. Good; not great. It starts with something improbable. A young woman, AnnieLee Keyes (not her real name, but that isn't revealed until the end), is standing by a Texas highway looking for a ride "East." She gets a ride from the driver of an eighteen wheeler and, when she wakes up and finds him feeling her thigh, pulls a gun from her jacket pocket and forces him to pull over and get out, leaving the keys for her. She thanks her "asshole" stepfather for teaching her how to drive stick, double clutch, and listen to revs. Thanks to this she's able to get going, but what about braking and maneuvering? Sheesh! People take special training to learn how to drive "big rigs."

The next thing we know about AnnieLee, she's arrived at her destination, Nashville, somehow without wrecking, or being arrested for driving, a very large stolen vehicle with a trailer likely loaded with hot merch. Why Nashville? She's a musical prodigy; someone who can spin a song from a moment's thought, and can play guitar. 

She finds a dive bar, the Cat's Paw Saloon, that proves to be her cat's paw into the Nashville music scene. She convinces the bartender to let her borrow a guitar and have a turn at the mike, where she thrills the small audience with songs she's written. This catches the attention of a young musician, Ethan Blake, who offers to buy her a drink. She refuses, and walks out as he goes to the stage to do his act. As we might suspect, this is the beginning of a long and tortuous relationship, made difficult by the need both see not to reveal or commit too much, or, in AnnieLee's instance, much of anything.

It's through Ethan that AnnieLee meets Ruthanna Ryder, "one of country music's grandest queens" and also owner of the Cat's Paw. Ruthanna has one intriguing parallel to Ms. Parton: she runs a charity that gives books to needy children. Beyond that, they seem to have little in common. She never wants to sing in public again. When she reluctantly yields to Ethan's insistence that she come to the Cat's Paw to hear AnnieLee, she is surprised and impressed, and lets a gob-smacked AnnieLee know. She adds that, though she doesn't do it often, "I'm going to help you out." Her advice: "Get out of Nashville while you still can."

"It's a hard, tough business  . . .  A tiny thing like you? You'll get chewed up and spit out like a hunk of gristle. Sure, you might taste success, but you're more likely to end up broke and alone."

AnnieLee's response to this includes an F-bomb. Of course, this isn't the end of the adventures these three characters -- AnnieLee, Ethan, and Ruthanna -- will have together, each while dealing with their fears, regrets, and secrets. AnnieLee, with help from Ruthanna and Ethan, will "taste success" in plentiful draughts, while escaping occasional attempts by mysterious men to kidnap her. The last of these will lead to another improbable occurrence: her surviving a four story fall from a hotel balcony.

Improbables aside, this was a book that kept me going; 409 pages in three days. The writing is concise and compelling. As I noted above, I was not familiar with Mr. Patterson's style. It may be best described as a lack of "style." There are no flourishes. He is sparing in his use of adjectives; he does not tell you something is "horrifying"; he describes it and lets you draw the conclusion. 

Although I'm convinced Ms. Parton could write a novel by herself -- she has written an autobiography -- stylistic uniformity makes me assume Mr. Patterson did all, or almost all, of the composition of the novel's text. Where does that leave Ms. Parton's claim to co-authorship? We know she wrote the lyrics, quoted in the text, of AnnieLee's songs (all of which, including some not quoted in the novel, can be heard here). Beyond that, I'm sure she contributed considerable knowledge of the Nashville music scene -- on that score I have also to recommend my friend Marshall Chapman's autobiographical Goodbye Little Rock and Roller -- and a description of the level of pain a woman's feet can endure from wearing stiletto heels. 

The delights of the Fenimore Art Museum: Part 1, Ralph Fasanella and The Florida Highwaymen

 

The Fenimore Art Museum is on the outskirts of the Village of Cooperstown, New York, named for William Cooper, who founded it in 1786. The Museum is named for his son, James Fenimore Cooper, a novelist known for his depictions of Indigenous Americans and of frontier life. The Museum's building was originally the mansion, completed in 1933, of Edward Severin Clark, an heir to the Singer Manufacturing Company (best known for sewing machines) fortune. After his death his brother, Stephen Carlton Clark, gave it to the Museum, along with substantial collections of American fine and folk art. The Museum also has a large collection of Indigenous American art.

Upon our arrival at the Museum, Martha and I headed for the exhibition "Drawn from Life: Three Generations of Wyeth Figure Studies". Our visit in 2007 to the Farnsworth Art Museum in Rockland, Maine, and its extensive collection of works by Andrew Wyeth, had made us admirers. Unfortunately, the gallery holding the Wyeth exhibition was crowded, so we turned to the nearest other exhibition.

That was "Ralph Fasanella: Americans Unseen". This proved fortuitous. Ralph Fasanella (1914-1997) was born in the Bronx to Italian Immigrant parents. As a boy he helped his father on his ice route. He later worked at various jobs, became a union organizer, and prominent in leftist causes. Martha was already aware of him because of her previous work at the NYU Tamiment Library & Wagner Labor Archives. He was a self taught artist who didn't start painting until 1945, when he was over thirty. His early works were typically scenes of workers in their workplaces, like "Bench Workers (Morey Machine Shop)" (1954) above, in which Fasanella himself is the worker on the right, or crowded outdoor urban scenes, often depicting events like strikes or May Day celebrations.

The Fasanella exhibition at the Fenimore, according to the website text,

"explores Fasanella's portrait-making as a vital tool for staying connected with people in an intimate, emotional, personal way, in order to give meaning to their collective actions in society at large."

"Zingarella" (1973) above is, according to the explanatory text accompanying the painting, "an Italian word for a lively and vivacious woman." It is "loosely based on a friend, Virginia Simon, who encouraged Fasanella to draw in the mid 1940s."

"Marc's World" (1973) "depicts the artist's son, Marcantonio Fasanella, posed as a confident -- and a little cocky -- young man." Note the figure of a striptease dancer in the background, and the magazine on the floor. Marc Fasanella went on to get a PhD in Art and Art Education from New York University and now does consulting work on environmental design through Ecological Design Partners. According to his website linked above, he

"has also written and lectured about his father, a self-taught social realist painter, and wrote the monograph Ralph Fasanella: Images of Optimism which was published by Pomegranate Press in 2017."

Leaving the Fasanella exhibition, I made another fortuitous discovery. On the hallway wall outside was an exhibit concerning The Florida Highwaymen, twenty six Black artists who, according to the explanatory material, "from the early 1950s through the 1980s . . . used vivid and bright colors to capture the beauty of the untouched Florida landscape."  The Highwaymen "were self taught and painted on basic material like Upson board, a material made of compressed wood fiber, and used crown molding for frames."

Two Florida Highwaymen paintings were displayed. Both were untitled. The one on the left is by Mary Ann Carroll (1940-2019), the only woman member of the Highwaymen. "The painting depicts a singular palm tree surrounded by lush greenery and the inviting blue waters of the ocean." The one on the right is by Tracy Newton, considered a second generation Highwayman as he is a nephew of Harold Newton (1934-1994), considered a founding member of the group, and a son of Sam Newton (1948-), also considered one of the original twenty six, but who denies that either he or Harold was ever part of the group. "[Tracy's] landscape, done in the same style as his predecessors, depicts the changeable Floridian weather as a storm rolling in on the Atlantic Ocean."

There will be a second part to this account of our visit to the Fenimore, in which will be some Al Hirschfeld caricatures and some American artists' views of Venice.

Pete Seeger - "The Bells Of Rhymney" - live in Australia 1964

This song began as a poem, "Gwalia Deserta XV", by Idris Davies. "Gwalia Deserta" translates as "Wasteland of Wales"; what became "The Bells of Rhymney" when Pete Seeger discovered it and set it to music was the fifteenth part of a much longer piece. Mr. Davies was born and raised in Rhymney, a town dominated by coal mining. He began work as a miner at fourteen, but at 21 he suffered an injury and went on the dole. He educated himself at the local library and began writing poetry, at which he found some success. His works were promoted by both Dylan Thomas and T.S. Eliot. Mr. Davies died of cancer at the age of 48.

Pete Seeger recorded "The Bells of Rhymney" in 1957. but the song remained largely unknown outside of folk music devotee circles until 1965, when the Byrds recorded their version, which was included in their debut album, Mr. Tambourine Man, and is driven by the jangle of Jim (later Roger) McGuinn's Rickenbacker guitar. The Byrds' version has one interesting lyric change. The line. "Who robbed the miner?" is replaced by "Who killed the miner?" I can only speculate that someone in the Columbia Records hierarchy thought that accusing "the mineowner" of having "robbed the miner" (as opposed to killing him) by denying him a living wage and better working conditions sounded a bit too socialist.