DIG THIS WITH BILL MESNIK AND RICH BUCKLAND- THE SPLENDID BOHEMIANS

"Who Can We Turn To- Tony Bennett's Long Ride Home".
Even though we all knew The Mystery Train had been patiently awaiting the arrival of this great man , the depth of sorrow felt for such a loss combined with the immense gratitude for such a life is not discovered until the moment of truth.
Tony Bennett was the truth, as he was incapable of exuding even a single false note.
Anthony Dominick Benedetto has departed for The Grand Hotel at 96 years of song, art and humanity.
After Sinatra left us, the weight of a lost art form fell upon Tony’s shoulders and he carried it with all of the dignity and love in his soul.
His career took an unexpected upswing in the late Eighties, when his son Danny Bennett took over as his manager.
And then Tony experienced a full blown grunge-era comeback in 1994, when he released an MTV Unplugged special, featuring  guest appearances by k.d. Lang and Elvis Costello. Bennett was 68 years old at this point. Bennett’s Unplugged album won Album of the Year at the 1995 Grammys, beating recent works by Eric Clapton, Bonnie Raitt, Seal, and the Four Tenors.
In recent years, even when Mr. Bennett could no longer recognize his own existence due to  Alzheimer's disease he could still recall where He Left His Heart and continued to  perform  with the best.  It breaks my heart knowing I will never encounter him in the flesh ever again.
My Mom's 90th birthday wish was to see Tony once again.
And on a cool March evening in Florida in 2017 we did just that.
At the end of an hour and fifteen minute set, Tony placed his microphone upon his stool and sang an a cappella rendition of "Fly Me To The Moon" to the 2500 in attendance.
It was our final encounter with the heaven he delivered to Earth.
My Mom June also passed at 96, one year ago yesterday.
Tony Bennett was a part of my family from the moment I had heard
"Boulevard Of Broken Dreams" at the age of 10.
Sleep well Tony.
“Who Can We Turn To Once Now that You've Gone Away?”
We will always cherish you.

There have been a few performers in my life that have hosted a secret clubhouse gathering, which provided me a respite from the grueling business of living - people whose comforting, yet compelling personalities, who, by sharing secrets, made me laugh heartily, or pulled me into a safe harbor of balanced perspective: Late nights under the covers with Jean Shepard, lonely, frustrating mornings of boredom with Howard Stern and his crew; and the first time I heard Elvin Bishop do this monologue. 

IN MY OWN DREAM was Paul Butterfield’s follow up album to THE RESURRECTION OF PIGBOY CRABSHAW - where the legendary harpist stepped up to a more orchestrated sound. Previously, Elvin Bishop had been the band’s second guitarist, wingman to the incomparable Mike Bloomfield, who caught most of the starry critical heat after the band’s initial rocket launch. 

Here Elvin takes the spotlight and charms with such relaxed, magical monological improv that it catapulted him into a huge solo career and a string of hits in the 70’s that was capped with the number five single FOOLED AROUND AND FELL IN LOVE. The foremost purveyor of southern good time boogie, at 80 years old Elvin continues to dole out big fun and happiness.

In DRUNK AGAIN we are in John’s Tavern with Elvin, who greets everyone jovially, chugs a few Gordon gins, flirts with a sassy bassline, gets tight (“drunk as grandma’s old yeller hog”), and proceeds to blow the roof off the place with his guitar pyrotechnics - a one of a kind performance - breathtaking!

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/12/arts/music/prince-buster-trailblazer-of-ska-dies-at-78.html

Cecil Bustamente Campbell was born in Kingston, Jamaica, on May 24, 1938. He performed with teenage groups in Kingston; he also became a boxer, taking the name Prince Buster.

In the 1950s he began working for one of Jamaica’s top producers and sound-system disc jockeys, Coxsone Dodd. By the end of the decade he had opened a record store, Buster’s Record Shack, and was playing street parties with his own sound system, the Voice of the People. He decided to start producing songs as well as spinning them.

Jamaicans were listening to, and imitating, the American R&B that reached the island on radio stations from New Orleans and Miami. Prince Buster’s productions were more deliberately Jamaican. His production of the Folkes Brothers’ “Oh Carolina,” recorded in 1959, meshed the traditional Nyabinghi drumming of a Rastafarian musician, Count Ossie, with what would come to be known as a ska beat.

That beat, in songs like Eric Morris’s “Humpty Dumpty,” made for huge hits in Jamaica and also had an impact in 1960s Britain. Prince Buster’s instrumental “Al Capone” was a Top 20 hit there in 1965.

By the end of the 1960s ska had given way to the slower rocksteady beat, a closer precursor of reggae. Prince Buster adapted, notably with his series of singles using his Judge Dread character. But in the early 1970s he gave up producing music and concentrated on business ventures, including record stores and a jukebox company, and moved to Miami.

https://www.islingtontribune.co.uk/article/life-and-violent-death-of-a-genius-called-joe

Music producer Joe Meek was never going to die a natural death.

That is the verdict of Clem Cattini, drummer of The Tornados, for whom Meek produced the groundbreaking record Telstar in 1962 – the first British record to top the US singles chart – in his poky studio at 304 Holloway Road.

Fans of Meek, named by weekly music magazine NME as the greatest producer of all time, are celebrating his legacy on the 50th anniversary of his death.

But recognition of his creative genius has been overshadowed by the manner in which he died on February 3, 1967, at the age of 37 – he committed suicide in his studio after shooting his landlady, Violet Shenton, dead.

An inquest jury found Meek deliberately killed Mrs Shelton, who ran a leather shop with her husband downstairs.

But half a century on, those with intimate knowledge of Meek’s life say her death was no more than a terrible accident involving a man driven to despair by financial troubles, fears over blackmailers who threatened to expose his homosexuality, a dispute with the feared Kray twins, and police interest following the gruesome murder of a teenage rent boy.

Meek shook the music world by producing three No 1 hit records from his little studio, where musicians would play in the bathroom, on the staircase and in the living room with Meek twisting, cutting, slowing down, speeding up and subverting the tracks as they played.

Clem, now 79, who worked with Meek at the Holloway Road studio, recalled: “The studio was bizarre. I mean the drums were in the fireplace.

“But it was incredible, the sounds he could get out of that studio, the equipment he used and what he recorded Telstar with. Modern equipment could not get anywhere near it.

“Musically, Joe was a moron, and I don’t mean that in a mean way, but he didn’t have a clue. But in terms of sound production he was incredible, the forerunner of the independent producer. He was just a genius with sound.”

Ooh, Baby, Ooooh wee!

Ooh, baby, oooooh wee!

It’s that Million Dollar Bash.

I hear that chorus and I’m smiling. It’s a celebration, a party. Dylan and the boys are off the hard road, and they’re just having fun in the Big Pink basement with the Revox tape recorder.  There has been some interpretative gobble dee gook about it being Dylan’s satirical payback to Andy Warhol and his pretentious Factory parties, with a salvo to Edie Sedgwick - the (“big dumb blonde) -, who dumped him, but really, that feels like a stretch. Those intimations might be there, but when Bob sings:

“Well, I’m hittin’ it too hard, my stones won’t take-

I get up in the morning but it’s too early to wake,

First it’s hello, goodbye, then push and then crash,

But we’re all gonna make it at that mIllion dollar bash!

It feels to me like an expression of sweet release. An appreciation for the moment at hand. And, imagining where the heads of the bar band turned folk-rock players assembled in that bucolic place were at…. -, the men who, for me, comprised the greatest American band in rock history - in the chrysalis from which they were about to emerge to ignite a musical revolution - I can feel the spontaneous energy of joyous creation. 

Oooh baby, Oooh weeeee!

Mickey Newbury was born Milton Sims Newbury Jr. in Houston Texas, May 19, 1940 to Maime and Milton Newbury. As a child, he was inseparable from younger brother, Jerry; a friendship that continued throughout his life. In high school, Mickey decided to write songs. As a teenager, he shut himself up in his room, writing poetry and learning to play guitar. He organized a doo-wop group called The Embers.

In 1959, Mickey joined the Air Force and was assigned to England for three years. When he returned to the United States, he pursued his dream of being a songwriter. He lived in a ’54 Pontiac and traveled around Texas, Tennessee, and Louisiana playing gigs and working on shrimp boats. Eventually he found himself in Nashville, and in 1964, signed a publishing contract with Acuff-Rose. He moved to Nashville in 1965 and about this time, his first child Joe was born. Shortly thereafter, Jimmy Elledge was first to cover a Newbury song, Just as Long as that Someone is You.

1966 was the year the music industry noticed Mickey Newbury. Don Gibson had a Top Ten Country hit with Newbury’s Funny Familiar Forgotten Feelings, while Tom Jones scored a world hit with the same song. In 1968, Mickey saw huge success; three number one songs and one number five – across four different charts; Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In) on the Pop/Rock chart by the First Edition, SweetMemories on Easy Listening by Andy Williams, Time is a Thief on the R&B chart by Solomon Burke, and Here Comes the Rain Baby on the Country chart by Eddy Arnold. This feat has not been repeated. That year, Mickey’s first album, Harlequin Melodies, was released by RCA.

Mickey met New Christy Minstrel member Susan Pack on a blind date in 1967 and would not see her again until 1969. Soon thereafter, they were married and living on a houseboat on Old Hickory Lake outside of Nashville. Over the next four years, Mickey released three albums that raised the bar on Music Row. Produced at Cinderella Studios outside of Nashville, and utilizing Nashville’s best musicians, Newbury’s trilogy of albums - Looks Like Rain, Frisco Mabel Joy and Heaven Help The Child are often referred to as masterpieces.

Following the birth of their first child, Chris, in 1973, the Newburys moved to Oregon, to Susan’s home town, just down the street from her parents, to raise their family. A daughter, Leah, followed in 1977. In 1980, Mickey was inducted into the Nashville Songwriter’s Hall of Fame.

During the 80s, Mickey took a break from the music business to concentrate on his growing family and golf. Stephen joined the family in 1983 and Laura was born in 1986. In the early 90’s, he started writing, recording, and performing again, encouraged by his friends Bob Rosemurgy, Marty Hall, and Owsley Mannier. In 1995, Mickey’s health began to fail, but he continued to produce beautiful music. 1995 to 2002 were some of his most productive years, during which time he almost doubled his catalogue. He also directed his attention to other ventures, beginning work on children’s books based on his story-songs. On September 29, 2002 he succumbed to a long time lung disease and passed away in his sleep at home in Springfield, Oregon.

Mickey Newbury’s songs have been covered by hundreds upon hundreds of artists; over 1,000 covers have been documented. Mickey also recorded 25 albums over 35 years. Though he considered himself a songwriter first and singer second, his own albums are critically acclaimed and highly desired by a very passionate fan base the world over.

Many consider him to be the best of the best. Kris Kristofferson says, “God, I learned more about songwriting from

Born Charles Westover in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in 1934, the singer-songwriter known as Del Shannon dies by suicide on February 8, 1990. In a period when the American pop charts were dominated by cookie-cutter teen idols and novelty acts, he stood out as an all-too-rare example of an American pop star whose work reflected real originality. His heyday as a chart-friendly star in the United States may have been brief, but on the strength of his biggest hit alone he deserves to be regarded as one of rock and roll’s greatest.

Legend has it that while on stage one night at the Hi-Lo Lounge in Battle Creek, Michigan, in 1960, the young and unknown Del Shannon stopped his band mid-song to have his organ player repeat, over and over, an unusual chord sequence he had just ad-libbed: A-minor to G. Charlie went to work the next day in his job as a carpet salesman with those chords stuck in his mind, and by the time he took the stage that night, he’d written a song called “Little Runaway” around them—(A-minor) As I walk along I (G) wonder, what went wrong…”. It would be three more months before Shannon and his band could make it to a New York recording studio to record the song that Shannon now saw as his best, and possibly last, shot at stardom. As he told Billboard magazine years later, “I just said to myself, if this record isn’t a hit, I’m going back into the carpet business.” Del Shannon sold his last carpet a few months later, as “Runaway” roared up the pop charts on its way to #1 in April 1961.

“Hats Off To Larry” and “Keep Searchin’ (We’ll Follow The Sun)” were Shannon’s only other top-10 hits in the United States, but he enjoyed a much bigger career in the UK, where he placed five more songs in the top 10 over the next two years. Like most stars of his generation, Shannon was primarily regarded as an Oldies act through the '70s and '80s, but he was in the midst of a concerted comeback effort in early 1990, with a Jeff Lynne-produced album of original material already completed and rumors swirling of his taking the late Roy Orbison’s place in The Traveling Wilburys. 

This only added to the shock experienced by many when Shannon shot himself in his Santa Clarita, California, home on February 8, 1990. Shannon’s widow would later file a high-profile lawsuit against Eli Lilly, the manufacturer of the antidepressant Prozac, which Shannon had begun taking shortly before his suicide. That suit was eventually dropped, but the case brought early attention to the still-unresolved question of the possible connection between suicidal ideation and SSRIs, the class of drugs to which Prozac belongs.

This is a fun one… (but, they’ve all been fun for me).  It’s  being performed by the immortal Stubby Kaye, or “Unkie” as he’s known around our house because he’s the great uncle of my daughter-in-law. Her brother is the spitting image of the musical comedy great, which demonstrates the endurance of Stubby’s DNA. The other performer on the recording is Mr. Jonny Silver. 

This jaunty track, composed by one of Broadway’s brightest bards, Frank Loesser, is served up with gravity-defying lyrics that are sensuously juicy, surprising, and ever-joyfilled: (“Call is hell, call it heaven, it’s a probable 12 to 7, that the guy’s only doin’ it for some doll!”) Of course, the raw material from Damon Runyon ain’t bad, either - a good time was guaranteed to Broadway theatergoers during the season of 1950. 

Stubby had a bright, clarion voice  - like a cornet - a necessary quality for yesterday’s unamplified thespians wanting to hit the back row - and the man performs lustily with his megaphone of mirth. He was a staple of the Great White Way, and this one of a kind performance was captured on film as well. 

Funny story: I auditioned for a dinner theatre production of Guys and Dolls once - I was responding to an open call in Backstage. I didn’t know the title song, but I thought it’d be a fine idea to listen to the recording at the Lincoln Center Library to bone up before attempting it at the appointment. Who was I kidding? These lyrics required a lot more preparation than a couple of silent run-throughs, and when I got in the room and begun: “What’s playin’ at the Roxy…?” My mind went blank, and I just kept repeating that question, like a mantra, as the flop sweat poured over my eyebrows into my mouth. I was out of my league. 

This example of a “sunny song” is a little different from the previous ones because what makes me happy when I hear it is not the message itself. Or, rather, the medium is the message. The message is under the surface, or perhaps on the surface, or threaded throughout it. It’s a message about team work - a premier example of interracial / inter-gendered cooperative, coming together to create a mosaic masterwork of such intricacy that you can’t tell with whom it begins or ends. 

Jon Hendricks, the master of vocalese, the “James Joyce of Jive”, wrote the lyrics to this1945 Woody Herman instrumental rhumba, and L,H,&R revivify it with breathy delicacy. There is a fractured story about a guy searching Istanbul for a dancing girl, “Bijou” (his jewel)  that has captured his imagination. But, it’s really just the repetition of that name, Bijou, bouncing back and forth from voice to voice, that crochets the musical magic into an unforgettable fabric. 

I first became aware of Lambert, Hendricks, and Ross, and the vocalese technique, through the unpredictable medium of Joni Mitchell, who covered Annie Ross’s “Twisted” on one of her albums. And that rendition led me to this cut, whose brilliant shards of musical and lyrical data immediately shot into my brain, implanting an ear worm that still brings a smile as it plays in my head 50 years later.  And, when I was creating my list of sunny songs, it was right there, just like the memory of a perfect, perfumed summer evening. 

https://www.pastemagazine.com/movies/the-byrd-who-flew-alone-the-triumphs-and-tragedy-o

Mention Gene Clark as one of your favorite musicians and almost invariably the response will be a raised eyebrow followed by the words “Gene who?” Namechecking alone won’t cut it. Mentioning that he was a founding member of the Byrds might trigger a vague memory, but many still won’t be able to actually place him, or any of his songs. And yet David Crosby’s post-Byrds mega-fame with CSN, and Roger McGuinn’s iconic 12-string Rickenbacker & granny glasses (vis-a-vis Dylan’s “Mr. Tambourine Man” in particular) have pretty much guaranteed their admittedly rightful places in our collective cultural memory. Meanwhile, Gene Clark, a uniquely gifted songwriter who played a pivotal role in the rise of folk rock, psychedelia and country rock, but who could never seem to catch a break, has seemingly disappeared into the past.

How did this happen? Well, that’s a long, sad story in itself. For Gene Clark’s small but fiercely loyal cult of fans, carrying his torch through the decades has largely amounted to a silent crusade. But thanks to a long overdue critical reevaluation, reinforcements are on the way. Robert Plant and Alison Krauss’ 2007 collection Raising Sand won a Grammy for Album of the Year, with two Clark compositions—“Through the Morning, Through the Night” and “Polly,” a devastating, heart-rending pair of songs—anchoring the proceedings. Earlier this year, a tour was launched by an ad hoc group of indie stars from bands Beach House, Grizzly Bear, the Walkmen and Fleet Foxes—plus British folk legend and early Clark advocate Iain Matthews—performing the lost masterpiece No Other in its entirety to sold-out crowds on America’s East Coast.

But the best entry point for new fans to discover a treasure trove of some of the best music nobody’s ever heard is a new documentary, The Byrd Who Flew Alone: The Triumphs and Tragedy of Gene Clark.