I'm just a guy who likes the classics. I love Old Time Radio Shows. I love Classic TV. I love Classic Movies. I love songs from the "Great American Songbook". I dig songs from the first decade of Rock and Roll. Don't get me wrong, I am not opposed to newer things. My musical taste ranges from Classical to Classic Rock and Country to Rap. I love a good book and am always looking for something to read. I tend to lean toward historical fiction, biographies, mysteries, and more.
I have always believed that our past (and the things we've experienced in it) make us who we are today. That being said, after reading through some old My Space blogs (yeah, that's about how long it's been since I blogged regularly), I decided that I should once again write. Welcome to my blog. I hope you find it interesting, thought provoking, and entertaining in some way.
CONTACT ME AT - nostalgicitalian@yahoo.com
A while back, I asked some blogger friends if they’d want to write a piece for my Share Your Nostalgia feature. In the past we have looked at Favorite Childhood Toy and Favorite Childhood Book. Today, we go back to Saturday mornings. This was when we sat in front of the TV with our favorite cereal and watched hours of cartoons. So I asked my guests to write about their favorite cartoon or cartoon character growing up.
Today’s guest blogger is someone that I recently connected with on WordPress. I enjoy her writing so much that she has already contributed a guest blog here. Her blog, Regular Girl Devos, is full of gems. Some of her features are a Monday Motivation piece, Quotes that will make you think, Praise pieces, blogs to Find Your Purpose, and various Stories. I’m glad to have Dana here again. I wonder what her take on cartoons is …
Thank you, Keith, for inviting me to write about such a fun subject! I’m going vintage, so hop in my time machine as I dial in the spring of 1963…
My mom worked to make ends meet, so I spent my days at grandma’s house. Every Monday, grandma and I would go to the grocery store. As she drove the old Chevy, I would stand on the bench seat next to her, excited for the treat soon to come.
In my bare feet, I ran past the western pony ride in front of the store to the Kiddierama Cartoon Theater Booth, just inside next to the checkout lanes. Slipping past the red velvet-like curtain, I would slide onto the wooden seat and wait for grandma to push the button on the outside. It was dark, but not scary. As we were usually there on Mondays, I wouldn’t have to share my little movie theater with anyone. Soon, images would flicker on the small screen and the music would play.
I delighted in the dancing woodland creatures, insects, and even trees and flowers. I experienced all kinds of music, from classical to swing-time jazz and barbershop quartets. When it stopped, I hopped out to push the button again—no coins needed!
I remember many of these musical animated short films, but until I began my research, I didn’t realize how many studios produced them. Disney began making Silly Symphonies in 1929, and Terrytoons began the same year. Walter Lantz Productions followed with Swing Symphony, MGM had Happy Harmonies, and Warner Brothers had Merrie Melodies and Looney Tunes.
Most of those I saw in that little booth were from the early days and I loved them! Stories told only with music and dancing violins, what is not to like? Here are a few links to my favorites:
Of course, the most popular animated musical movie was Disney’s “Fantasia,” released in 1940. The cartoons produced during the “Golden Age of American animation,” from 1928 through the 60s, are the best!
Because I also love vintage movies, I enjoy the cartoons starring classic Hollywood actors like Clark Gable, Bing Crosby, and Jimmy Stewart, just to name a few. One, by Merrie Melodies, is called “Hollywood Steps Out.” It includes caricatures of over 40 of Hollywood’s most popular performers. Here is a link to IMDb if you would like to learn more: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0033724/?ref_=ls_t_2
If you appreciate vintage comedy, watch this one by Looney Tunes from 1942 of Abbott and Costello called “The Tale of Two Kitties.” It is hilarious!
Does anyone else remember these tiny theaters in the stores?
“A cheerful heart is a good medicine, but a downcast spirit dries up the bones.” Proverbs 17:22
Welcome back to The Music of My Life. I began this feature last May on my birthday. Over the past 11 months, I have featured 10 songs from every year of my life. The songs featured were released in that week’s particular year. It may have been a bigger hit the following year, but I decided to stick with the rules I had put in place.
This week, I guess I am breaking on of the rules. The rule was that I’d feature 10 songs per year. Last week (2015) I was able to get 10 songs, but from here on out I doubt I will be able to. Whether lyrics were just to raunchy, or some other reason, I found myself looking at songs I disliked or had never heard of. Every once in a while, I’d come across a song or two, but it has become very difficult.
So today, let’s tackle two years 2016 & 2017. It was during these two years that I was going through a very difficult time. These were the last days of my marriage and the beginning (and end) of the divorce. I was only occasionally doing a DJ gig here or there, so I became unfamiliar with many new songs.
Let’s start in 2016 first,
2016
My first pick for ’16 is an amazing song by Tim McGraw. Humble and Kind was written by Lori McKenna. She wrote the song at her home when her kids were at school. She set out to write down what she and her husband would want the children to know, fully aware that kids are bombarded with advice and most of it goes right through them.
“Honestly, it’s a very simple song,” she told The Boot. “It’s really just this list of things that I wanted to make sure we told them, in this rhyme form. I was lucky that the chorus made as much sense as it did. I did write it in that one sitting; it took me a few hours, but it was a lucky day.“
Tim McGraw says, “I guess I had it for a year and a half or so, and it was just her and an acoustic guitar playing it. The night that she wrote it, she sent it to me, and I listened to it over and over, and I just fell in love with the song and her version of it.”
“I knew I wanted to record it, but I just couldn’t quite get my head around how I wanted to do it,” he continued. “I couldn’t get past her demo of her singing it. It was just so beautiful and so touching. If anybody’s ever heard Lori just sit and sing with a guitar, she could sing anything to you and sell it to you. It’s so beautiful what she does.”
It is a fantastic song with a universal truth.
Humble and Kind
My wife and I don’t really have a “song” that we claim for ourselves. We’ve talked about it before and we have songs that were “possible” songs, but never came up with one. One of those possible songs was From The Ground Up.
While we were just beginning our life together, the fact that the song was written about a couple that had been together a long time didn’t matter. Because all relationships have to start from scratch and move forward.
This song finds Dan Smyers and Shay Mooney singing of a love between an elderly couple that’s rooted in commitment and grows deeper with every passing year. “‘From the Ground Up’ is a song that started with a conversation about our grandparents and the love that they shared for the 65-plus years that they were married,” Smyers said. “It tells the story of the life that they built through their power and dedication to each other, and the perseverance to endure whatever would come their way.” (from songfacts.com)
From The Ground Up
Next is a song that Time magazine hated. Justin Timberlake’s Can’t Stop the Feeling. They voted it the worst song of 2016. They said, “The insipid earworm – which was ostensibly recorded for an animated movie about trolls – became essentially unavoidable at any social gathering where someone in attendance was likely to use the phrase ‘cut loose.’ Forget the feeling – just please, please stop this song.”
This song was huge at the few DJ gigs I did do in 2016 & 2017. From songfacts:
Justin Timberlake told People he would never have written the song if it wasn’t for Trolls. “Listening to [producer] Gina Shay and [directors] Mike Mitchell and Walt Dohrn talk about the movie and how it was really inspired by the ’70s, I started bringing up the soundtrack from Saturday Night Fever, movies where the soundtrack was released before the movie and got people equally excited,” he explained. “The movie seems like an unabashed pop song to me, so I was like, ‘Let’s just write an unabashed pop song.'”
“Our task was to write a song that encapsulated the message of the movie, and by the way, we want people to be able to dance to it,” Timberlake said on the red carpet leading up to the Oscars. “When I was watching the movie it reminded me of disco, so that’s where I got the idea for a modern disco song.”
Can’t Stop The Feeling
Next is a powerful song from Alessia Cara – Scars To Your Beautiful. Cara said to her fans before premiering the song. “The standards that we have to kind of face as young women in everyday life just to feel, or look a certain way, or act a certain way, because there’s a lot of pressure being a young girl, and just girls and women in general,” she said. “So I wanted to make a reminder to just love yourself and appreciate yourself no matter what.”
Many of her fans, as well as people hearing it for the first time, have said how much this song meant to them. I can agree with them.
Scars To Your Beautiful
Play That Song by Train was a song that was playing in the background while I was doing something. I was able to pick out the familiar melody, which made me wonder “What is this? Is this a current song? Who is this?”
(Songfacts) The song is built around the melody of the much covered classic “Heart and Soul” written by Hoagy Carmichael and Frank Loesser in 1938. American band leader Larry Clinton recorded the most successful version in 1939, reaching #1 on the chart. Modern listeners probably best known it as the song that Robert Loggia and Tom Hanks play and dance to on a giant foot-operated electronic keyboard in the 1988 movie Big.
The video shows Train singer Pat Monahan dancing around a sunny Los Angeles as he listens to the song. There is a nod to Big as we see him at one point moving back and forth on a giant keyboard. It’s kind of hard not to feel good when you hear that melody.
Play That Song
2017
If the melody of Feel It Still by Portugal The Man sounds familiar, there is a reason. Songfacts explains:
The melody on this track kicks it like it’s 1961, interpolating the Marvelettes hit “Please, Mr. Postman.”
Ooh woo, I’m a rebel just for kicks, now…
Oh yes, wait a minute Mister Postman…
“That ‘Please Mr. Postman’ melody is every bit of the way we grew up,” John Gourley said in his Songfacts interview. “I grew up with dog-mushing parents – which I know is a bizarre thing for anybody outside of Alaska. And even within Alaska, it’s such a small community within the state. So I grew up around really long drives. We were off the grid our whole lives until I left. Like, an hour drive to town. Sometimes a two-hour drive to town. That’s four hours, both ways. So we would just listen to oldies radio, and ‘Please Mr. Postman’ is a staple.
I always wanted to sing something to that melody. It’s a totally different song, and that to me is what music is about. What songwriting is about is paying homage and creating something new. It’s no longer ‘Please Mr. Postman.’ Now, it’s ‘Feel It Still.'”
Feel It Still
I didn’t know much about Imagine Dragons until I started working at the Adult Contemporary station. I played quite a few of their songs there, including Thunder. What struck me about this song is that he is a boy with dreams of being on stage. His classmates make fun of him for dreaming about being a star. The tables turn in the second verse, as the Dragons frontman (Dan Reynolds) flips the script on those who mocked him.
Now I’m smiling from the stage While you were clapping in the nose bleeds
Karma strikes back. Reynolds says, “‘Thunder’ is: ‘I’m so happy for a really (crappy) middle school and high school existence and getting kicked out of college. It’s reflecting on all those things and saying, ‘Good, I’m happy for all that because that brought me to this place of being. It created angst inside of me that bred art.'”
Thunder
Speaking of Karma, Taylor Swift sings about it and a bit of revenge in Look What You Made Me Do. This is another song that interpolates another as it follows the rhythm of Right Said Fred’s I’m Too Sexy.
Right Said Fred frontman Richard Fairbrass explained how Swift interpolated their tune:
“The title of ‘Look What You Made Me Do’ is based upon the verse of ‘…Sexy.’ That’s basically it. What’s weird about ‘Sexy’ is that when people sing it, they sing the verse, not the chorus – nobody sings that. Everybody sings: ‘I’m too sexy’ – it’s the verse that people have latched onto, not the chorus.”
In Taylor’s song they adapt that rhythm and attitude of the ‘Sexy’ verse as a chorus – so they’ve just interpolated it differently, that’s all it is. I’d be an idiot to complain about it. We’ve been really lucky to have been picked by somebody like Taylor, who is obviously very cool and very successful and open-minded and relaxed about it. She’s not like some people.”
Fun Fact: Taylor Swift’s bathtub in the music video is filled with $10 million worth of Neil Lane diamonds.
Look What You Made Me Do
Ed Sheeran’s Perfect was a song that I suggested as a possibility for “our song” to my wife. It is a truly beautiful love song.
Ed Sheeran wrote this waltz-time love song for his girlfriend Cherry Seaborn, who is an old school friend. After writing it he had no idea whether or not she really likes the track. “I just recorded it and sent it because she was living in New York at the time so I didn’t see her reaction,” he told BBC Radio 2. “I think she liked it.”
Ed calls the song a bit “cheesy,” but I truly like it.
Perfect
The final pick for this week is a song I played at both stations I was working at. I was doing part time work at the country station and part time work on the adult contemporary station. Meant to Be played on both stations. It felt weird to say Florida Georgia Line on the AC station and even weirder to say Bebe Rexha on the country station.
Bebe Rexah said the song was one that helped her get through some personal issues:
“I’ve recently been going through heartbreak, and I listen to the song, and it makes me feel better and like there’s some type of destiny and if something doesn’t work out then, there’s something better waiting for you,” she said. “I think that’s something we need more than ever with all the events going on in the world. People want to feel safe and like everything’s going to be OK.”
Just how did FGL and Rexha get together for this song? FGL’s Tyler Hubbard says,
“Man, it was pretty organic. We ended up, last-minute, kinda out of the blue, getting together with her in LA when we were [there] writing, and wrote it kind of on a whim, late-night. The next thing you know, we just kinda hit gold, if you will. A really special song kinda fell out of the sky, as we call it. It doesn’t happen like that every time we get in a room to write.”
The song really has the life lesson of “It will happen if it’s meant to be” in it.
Meant To Be
Well, that wraps up 2016 and 2017. I had trouble finding my songs, did I miss one of your favorites? Tell me which ones in the comments. Next week, we’ll combine 2018 and 2019. On my list a song that has one of the weirdest videos I have ever seen. Also on the list some movie music, a country ear worm, and a touching song about grandparents. See you then.
A while back, I asked some blogger friends if they’d want to write a piece for my Share Your Nostalgia feature. In the past we have looked at Favorite Childhood Toy and Favorite Childhood Book. Today, we go back to Saturday mornings. This was when we sat in front of the TV with our favorite cereal and watched hours of cartoons. So I asked my guests to write about their favorite cartoon or cartoon character growing up.
Today’s featured guest blogger is one of the first bloggers I connected with after starting this blog 7 years ago. I don’t recall who found who first, but I believe we connected talking about old toys. Since connecting, I’ve found him to be like an old friend. Max runs the Power Pop Blog and features some great music. Max and I have a lot in common and today proves it as he picked on of the characters on my list of favorites. Take it away, Max …
“There’s no need to fear…Underdog is here!“
Thanks, Keith, for hosting this and coming up with this great idea! I watched a few Underdog episodes for the first time in years, and it was worth it.
When I was growing up, we kids had two prime times for cartoons. Saturday mornings were our Super Bowl, packed with classics from Warner Bros. and Hanna-Barbera. Even Land of the Lost—though live-action—was a can’t-miss favorite. But not all the best cartoons aired on Saturdays. Every weekday morning, from 6 to 7 a.m. before school, we had another dose of animated fun, with shows like Rocky and Bullwinkle and Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse keeping us entertained.
Underdog debuted October 3, 1964, on the NBC network under the primary sponsorship of General Mills, and continued in syndication until 1973 (although production of new episodes ceased in 1967, for a run of 124 episodes.
Underdog’s secret identity was Shoeshine Boy. He was in love with Sweet Polly Purebred, who was a news reporter. I would watch this cartoon before going to school in 1st and 2nd grade. Underdog would use his secret ring to conceal pills that he would take when he needed energy. NBC soon put an end to that.
For many years, starting with NBC’s last run in the mid-1970s, all references to Underdog swallowing his super energy pill were censored, most likely out of fear that kids would see medication that looked like the Underdog pills (red with a white “U”) and swallow them. Two instances that did not actually show Underdog swallowing the pills remained in the show. In one, he drops pills into water supplies; in the other, his ring is damaged, and he explains that it is where he keeps the pill—but the part where he actually swallows it was still deleted.
The shows introduced such characters as King Leonardo, Tennessee Tuxedo, Commander McBragg, Klondike Kat, and more. Underdog was voiced by Wally Cox. Underdog always talked in rhyme and I’m a sucker for that in this and Dr Seuss. Two of the villains every week were Simon Bar Sinister and Riff Raff.
W. Watts Biggers teamed with Chet Stover, Treadwell D. Covington, and artist Joe Harris in the creation of television cartoon shows to sell breakfast cereals for General Mills. The shows introduced such characters as King Leonardo, Tennessee Tuxedo, and Underdog. Biggers and Stover contributed both scripts and songs to the series.
When Underdog became a success, Biggers and his partners left Dancer Fitzgerald Sample to form their own company, Total Television, with animation produced at Gamma Studios in Mexico. In 1969, Total Television folded when General Mills dropped out as the primary sponsor (but continued to retain the rights to the series until 1995; however, they still own TV distribution rights.
Underdog became a pop culture icon, with reruns airing for decades. The character was featured in toys, comics, and even a 2007 live-action film starring Jason Lee as the voice of Underdog. The theme song remains one of the most recognizable in cartoon history.
It was on this day in 1966 that one of the greatest soul songs was released. The story of how it came to be is one of my favorites. I’m talking about Sam & Dave’s “Hold On, I’m Coming.”
As the story goes, songwriter David Porter was in the bathroom. His songwriting partner was Isaac Hayes (who would later be a solo act). They had not been particularly productive that day and Hayes was getting frustrated waiting for Porter to “finish his business.” Hayes finally yelled for Porter to hurry up so that they could get back to work. Porter responded, “Hold on, man, I’m Coming!” After saying this, Porter immediately finished up and rushed out of the bathroom. He grabbed Hayes and said excitedly, “Hold on, I’m coming” would be a great title for a song. The rest is history.
The song only reached #21 on the charts. This is because many radio stations took the phrase as … something one might say in a bedroom … and thought it too provocative to play. If they had only listened to the actual lyrics, they might have gathered how innocent the song was. Apparently, offering emotional support to help the lady through some tough times was frowned upon by radio station programmers.
Did you know that Booker T. Jones played on the record? He recalled the story to Uncut magazine:
“I think everything else had been taken – Issac (Hayes) was playing piano, I don’t think we had an organ on it – and for some reason, when they were just about to finish recording the song, they decided they needed a tambourine. So I jumped up on the drum kit and played a tambourine into one of the mics.”
A while back, I asked some blogger friends if they’d want to write a piece for my Share Your Nostalgia feature. In the past we have looked at Favorite Childhood Toy and Favorite Childhood Book. We continue to visit Saturday mornings. This was when we sat in front of the TV with our favorite cereal and watched hours of cartoons. So I asked my guests to write about their favorite cartoon or cartoon character growing up.
My next guest blogger is my pal, Christian from Christian’s Music Musings. Christian features music from every era on his site. My favorite feature is his “Sunday Six,” where he features six random songs. The songs are often a mix of various genres and various eras. He grew up in Germany, so let’s see if that has any influence over his choice….
Childhood Nostalgia: My Favorite Animated Show
Share Your Nostalgia hosted by fellow blogger Keith (Nostalgic Italian) is in its third round, and I’m happy to be back with another contribution. This time, the ask was to write about our favorite animated show or favorite animated character while growing up.
While I loved watching Peanuts cartoons on TV while growing up back in Germany, I figured it might be more interesting to talk about a German animated program: Die Sendung mit der Maus (“the showing starring the mouse”), one of the most successful German children’s programs. In fact, after some 54 years and more than 2,500 episodes, it’s still on!
Launched in 1971, the program airs on Sunday mornings. The subtitle is Lach- und Sachgeschichten (“funny stories and educational stories”), which are presented in the form of short cartoons and short educational films.
The key protagonist of the cartoons is the mouse. To solve problems the mouse encounters, she has some supernatural powers, e.g., open her belly to grab a tool or rip off her tail to use it as a rope.
Die Sending mit der Maus also features a blue elephant who is smaller than the mouse. He is portrayed as curious, pretty strong, spontaneous and loyal, and likes to laugh when the mouse has a mishap.
There is also a yellow duck, which is smaller than the mouse but bigger than the elephant. She is mischievous and generally causes some chaos when showing up, which happens more rarely than the elephant.
Seeing is believing. Here’s a clip of a short funny cartoon starring the mouse and the elephant.
And here’s a clip of a short educational film around the essential question whether ducks get cold feet when walking on ice! 😊
While as a small kid admittedly I mainly enjoyed the cartoons with the mouse and her two friends, looking at program footage today, I find combining short funny cartoons with educational films a great concept for kids to learn.
Since I’m a music blogger, I’d be amiss not to mention there is a song about the mouse titled Hier kommt die Maus (“Here comes the mouse”). Written and produced by German TV entertainer Stefan Raab, together with Hans Posegga and Lars Dietrich, Hier kommt die Maus was released in February 1996 to coincide with the show’s 25th anniversary.
And, yes, Hier kommt die Maus even enjoyed some chart success. In Germany, it peaked at no. 2 for one week and remained in the charts for 19 weeks. The song was also popular in Switzerland, climbing to no. 12 and remaining in the charts there for 12 weeks.
In case you’d like to see more of the lovely mouse, I’m leaving you with a longer clip. And don’t feel funny. While the target audience for the show is kids in kindergarten and elementary school, Wikipedia notes the average viewer age is about 40 years, since parents and grandparents oftentimes join children in front of the TV – who could blame them!
The stars aligned for today’s Movie Music Monday. With one movie, we can celebrate two birthdays. The movie is Wedding Crashers.
This 2005 movie is a romantic comedy that stars Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn. Also in the cast are Bradley Cooper, Isla Fisher, Jayne Seymour, and birthday boy #1 – Christopher Walken.
The film follows two divorce mediators (Wilson and Vaughn) who crash weddings in an attempt to meet and seduce women. In a movie that features various wedding scenes, you are bound to get a lot of different music. At the reception, you will get dance music, while the ceremony and dinner music would be of a different genre.
This brings me to birthday boy #2 – Franz Joseph Haydn. He was an Austrian composer who was instrumental (pun intended) to the development of chamber music. Chamber music would be piano trios and string quartets. He was often called the “Father of the String Quartet.” His music was said to have a “feeling of bliss” to it.
American Pianist Charles Rosen said this about Haydn’s piano trios,
“Haydn’s ability to create an emotion that was completely his own and that no other composer could duplicate — a feeling of ecstasy that is completely unsensual, almost amiable. There is no recipe for producing this effect …”
In all my years DJing weddings, I had the opportunity to provide music for many wedding ceremonies. There are quite a few classical pieces that are ceremony “standards.” One of those is Franz Joseph Haydn’s String Quartet in D Minor op. 42, which appears in Wedding Crashers.
Happy heavenly birthday to Mr. Haydn and Happy 82nd birthday to Christopher Walken!
A while back, I asked some blogger friends if they’d want to write a piece for my Share Your Nostalgia feature. In the past we have looked at Favorite Childhood Toy and Favorite Childhood Book. Today, we go back to Saturday mornings. This was when we sat in front of the TV with our favorite cereal and watched hours of cartoons. So I asked my guests to write about their favorite cartoon or cartoon character growing up.
The guest blogger who will get the topic rolling is my friend Randy from Mostly Music Covers. I loved his site from the moment I discovered it. His site is a wealth of cover songs, many of them I was unfamiliar with. Check out his site and see if someone has covered your favorite song. Let’s find out what Randy has picked …
My thanks to Keith for asking me to contribute to this round of his trips down memory lane. I didn’t have to think about it at all when he asked about our favorite animated program as a kid.
The Gumby Show was one of a few stop-motion animated television shows from the 1950s and 60s. It was created by Art Clokey who did many of the voices as well. The principal method was to use Claymation. He created another show called Davey and Goliath that I quite enjoyed as well. The main character is the age of a young child. Gumby is a grey/green clay figure who, along with his orange horse friend Pokey, embarked on various adventures.
The Gumby and Pokey characters were of course made into toys, which were made of rubber. They had a simple wire skeleton of sorts so you could bend them into different poses. They came as a pair and were reasonably priced, making them widely accessible.
The Gumby Show ran from 1956-1969. Gumby was from a 1953 movie short called Gumbasia but the addition of Pokey first appeared on the Howdy Doo – Dee show in 1956. It was then spun off into it’s own series. They would typically find themselves in toy shops or interacting with various toys that come to life. For example, in the episode “Toying Around,” Gumby and Pokey have fun in a toy shop, and an inflated balloon carries Pokey high in the air, leading Gumby to find a method to rescue his friend. Another episode, “Robot Rumpus” features Gumby using robots to do his chores around the house while he and Pokey play, but the robots get out of control.
Consider that last theme of uncontrollable robots, so it’s not surprising that I and many others developed a strong admiration for Isaac Asimov and his “I, Robot” series.
I am not entirely sure what Gumby’s source of income was to be able to afford all this but as a kid you don’t think about those things. My recollection is that the adventures made the show not only entertaining but quite magical seeing the animated toys and creatures appear lifelike. I recall taking Gumby and Pokey to show and tell in Kindergarten and while they lasted a few years, the pair were eventually bent into oblivion. I don’t recall exactly when I grew out of the show but just like “Little Jackie Paper” we move on to the next thing.
I want to thank Dave from A Sound Day once again for the invitation to participate in Turntable Talk. He continues to come up with great monthly topics for this feature. This round brings us to the three year mark for this feature. It continues to be one of the features that I love to write for.
This time around, Dave found inspiration for our topic from the reunion tour that Oasis announced recently. Our instructions were to “pick an inactive act, solo or group, that you’d like to see back. Tell us who, why and what…one last tour? New album? Both?” There were some limitations – you could not resurrect someone who passed away for example. I wanted a bit more clarification and asked it health issues would rule out a choice. In other words, if an artist is not active because of some health problem, are they available? He said that would be ok.
That was important to my choice, as they currently are unable to sing. However, I would love for her to be able to do one more thing. I am talking about Linda Ronstadt.
It was 2011 when Linda announced her retirement. Two year’s later, she announced that she had Parkinson’s and could “no longer sing a note.” According to the Washington Post, her diagnosis was subsequently re-evaluated as progressive supranuclear palsy. The illness brought about the end of her singing career.
Linda was one of those artists who could do almost any genre. She made her mark in rock, country, Latin, pop, adult contemporary, and even opera! Her music is not limited to a specific genre and she has had great success with all of them.
She has won eleven Grammy Awards, three American Music Awards, two Academy of Country Music Awards, an ALMA Award and an Emmy Award. In 2014, Linda was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. That same year, she she was awarded the National Medal of Arts and Humanities. She also won the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2016.
So to answer Dave’s question, I would love to hear another new album from her. At 78, I doubt a tour would be feasible. If I am allowed to ignore her voice issues and allow her the ability to sing again, I think an album that is a combination of all of her different styles would be an amazing send off.
The album could contain cover songs or originals. There have been some amazing songs that I could easily hear her singing. She could record some sweet ballads or songs with a little country flavor. I would love to hear a couple more from the Great American Songbook or a nice jazz piece. And if her voice is up to it, a few pop/rock songs.
If you have a problem with me healing her voice, I still think an album would be possible. She’s recorded over 30 albums. There has got to be some songs that she recorded that didn’t make the cut for them. I can only imagine the songs that are locked away in a vault somewhere just itching to be heard. The album could be like the one they did of Stevie Ray Vaughn’s “vault” music after he passed away.
When I listen to Linda’s recordings, I find myself getting lost in that voice. It could be angelic, sultry, fun, seductive, gentle, hypnotic and mellow. That voice remains one that forever captivates me. It saddens me that her voice has been silenced and I would love to hear just one more album from her.
Singer Linda Ronstadt.
Thanks again, Dave, for asking me to participate. I look forward to reading the other writer’s contributions. Until next month, I will quote Linda from her Cry Like a Rainstorm, Howl Like the Wind Album – “Adios.”
On Goodreads there are always people who will talk about the books they DNF (did not finish). I have had a few that I have wanted to stop reading, but never have. Some of them I finish and think, “Well, that was crap!” Most of the time I stick with it, a book will end up ok. The book I feature today is one that I almost stopped because I’ve never really believed in some of the stuff mentioned.
The book is The Little Venice Bookshop by Rebecca Raisin.
Before I go on, let’s look at the brief Goodreads Synopsis:
When Luna loses her beloved mother, she’s bereft: her mother was her only family, and without her Luna feels rootless. Then the chance discovery of a collection of letters in her mother’s belongings sends her on an unexpected journey.
Following a clue in the letters, Luna packs her bags and heads to Venice, to a gorgeous but faded bookshop overlooking the canals, hoping to uncover the truth about her mother’s mysterious past.
Will Luna find the answers she’s looking for – and finally find the place she belongs?
The story starts with a flashback of Luna and her mother. Her mom is a hippy wanderer. She travels the world going from place to place. Luna has that same free spirit, so naturally, she is also a wanderer. While on a trip with her best friend, her aunt calls with news that her mother has passed away and she needs to come home.
I’ve never been one who would put faith into tarot cards telling the future. I don’t believe in that kind of thing. I’m not going to make decisions by using a magic 8 ball. Luna’s character does. She speaks of that stuff, feeling the earth move, hearing a voice, etc… It’s very prominent in the beginning of the story. It was almost too much for me, and I almost topped reading the book because of it.
However, I stuck with it, and found the story to be very good. It read like a movie. It may have been made into a movie, I don’t know. I won’t go as far as saying it is like a Hallmark movie, because there is a bit more than that. It has a little romance (It’s Venice, of course it does), and mystery and a few surprises. It also is a story that answers the biggest question at the very end.
The author paints some really amazing pictures of Venice. It talks about the book shop being on a canal where a gondola drops you off at the door. I did a search and found that there is a bookshop like this in Venice and by the looks of it, it may be the inspiration for the shop in the story.
I got a call this week from my oldest son. He was so excited to tell me that he is getting his own place. He is ready to move into his own apartment. I’m very proud of him. He has been working a lot and getting himself in a place where he can do this.
As a parent, you truly hope that they have learned how to budget and keep all the bills in mind. He has always been pretty good with his earnings, so I think he will be fine. I hope that this means we’ll be able to get together for lunch or dinner more.
We’ve had some very special father/son moments. The one that stick out the most is our trip to Louisville Kentucky. He got onto the robotics team at his high school. That year they won their division and also went on to the state competition. While there, us parents cheered them on and they qualified to go to the national competition in Kentucky.
On our trip down, we stopped at a place for an amazing breakfast. On the way down, we hit a spot where there was a huge traffic jam. While we waited in traffic, I decided to see what we could do on the evenings after each round of competition. I found out that there was a minor league baseball team and their park was about 10 minutes from where we were staying.
I hoped that there was a home game during our stretch, and there was! I ordered tickets in the traffic jam and planned our outing. We had great seats and enjoyed all the things you enjoy at the ball park – hot dogs, pop (beer for me), nachos, etc.
We got their early enough to be able to swing into the team store. We were sure to get something (a bat I think) for his brother. We each got team baseball hats. That night at Louisville Slugger Field was a a fantastic father and son trip. We got the see the Louisville Bats win the game and walked away with memory neither of us will forget.
The robotics team did pretty good for their first time at the national competition, but there were other teams that had been there many times. I guess this is where you say, “It is not about winning or losing. It’s about the experience.” It certainly was a great experience.!
Various Ramblings of a Nostalgic Italian 