We go back to one of my favorite movie soundtracks today for Movie Music Monday.
There were many pop and soul singers who made cameos in The Blues Brothers! They include Aretha Franklin, John Lee Hooker, James Brown, and Ray Charles. It also includes a man who had been making music since the 1930’s! I’m talking, of course, about the legendary Cab Calloway.
Cab was a regular performer at the Cotton Club in Harlem. He was an amazing scat singer and led his own band. His career spanned over 65 years!
In the film, Cab plays Curtis, a friend of Jake and Elwood Blues. He lives in the basement of the orphanage that the Blues Brothers were raised in. When they need to raise money for the orphanage, they hold huge concert. It is here that Cab gets to shine on stage.
It was on this day in 1931 that Cab and his band recorded the song that would forever be connected with him – Minnie The Moocher. He performed this song in the Blues Brothers.
From wiki:
The lyrics describe the story of a woman known as “Minnie the Moocher”, a “moocher” being American slang for a person who constantly asks others for money or who takes unfair advantage of generosity. She is described as a performer of the sexually-suggestive Hoochie Coochie dance. The lyrics are heavily laden with drug references, and describe Minnie’s vivid dreams after drug use. The character “Smokey” is described as “cokey”, meaning a user of cocaine; the phrase “kick the gong around” was a slang reference to smoking opium. The song ends with Calloway wailing “Poor Min!” insinuating an untimely end for the protagonist. The “hi-de-ho” scat lyrics came about when Calloway forgot the lyrics to the song one night during a live radio concert.
First, here is the original:
And from the Blues Brothers, featuring Mr. Fabulous, Alan Rubin on Trumpet:
Growing up I was a huge fan of the Sunday comics. There were quite a few that I read daily, one of which was Calvin and Hobbes. This book was suggested to me by a friend who knew I liked the strip.
I wasn’t sure what to expect when I saw the title, but it became clear after I started reading. Before I go on, here is the Goodreads Synopsis:
For ten years, Calvin and Hobbes was one the world’s most beloved comic strips. And then, on the last day of 1995, the strip ended. Its mercurial and reclusive creator, Bill Watterson, not only finished the strip but withdrew entirely from public life.
In Looking for Calvin and Hobbes, Nevin Martell sets out on a very personal odyssey to understand the life and career of the intensely private man behind Calvin and Hobbes. Martell talks to a wide range of artists and writers (including Dave Barry, Harvey Pekar, and Brad Bird) as well as some of Watterson’s closest friends and professional colleagues, and along the way reflects upon the nature of his own fandom and on the extraordinary legacy that Watterson left behind.
This is as close as we’re ever likely to get to one of America’s most ingenious and intriguing figures – and it’s the fascinating story of an intrepid author’s search for him, too.
Before I started reading, I saw some of the reviews. Honestly, they were quite divided. People either loved or hated the book. The fact that there was such polarization only made me want to dive right in.
Bill Watterson would ultimately win any game of hide and seek. He is extremely private. He never wanted the fame and public persona that came with writing the strip. He also never wanted merchandising money from his characters, which is why there is no official Hobbes doll (though that was pitched). He drew the strip because he loved drawing it. That’s all.
Martell speaks with friends, fellow cartoonists, and fans as he tries to give us a peak into the mystery life of Watterson. He is upfront at the beginning of the book and tells you what is to follow. So people who felt that there would be this magical interview with him in the book are only hating on it because it was not what they expected.
I found the book to be an interesting look at the artist, and the strip. It was interesting to hear of the evolution of it. It was also interesting to follow Watterson in the pre-Calvin days to see how he eventually came to write about Calvin.
There were a couple of slow parts, but all in all I enjoyed it. It made me want to go back and read some of those great old strips. If you are a Calvin and Hobbes fan, you will probably enjoy this.
It was announced earlier this month in Variety that Roy Orbison is the latest artist to have their life turned into a movie. Roy is a five-time Grammy Award-winning singer, songwriter, and musician behind classic hits like “Oh, Pretty Woman” and “Only the Lonely.” Per Variety, Denis O’Sullivan, the producer behind the Oscar-winning Bohemian Rhapsody is set to produce the Orbison film.
Orbison was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987, a year before he died of a heart attack at the age of 52 in December of 1988. He was just seeing a resurgence in his career thanks to his work in The Traveling Wilburys and his last album, Mystery Girl.
The Orbison family is partnering with Compelling Pictures, an independent production and financing company, to develop both the biopic as well as a long-form documentary on Orbison’s life. It is tentatively titled You Got It, after Orbison’s hit single from 1988 of the same name. The film reportedly will be “a romance more than a traditional biopic,” per the announcement, and will feature a look at Orbison’s relationship with his wife, Barbara, who also served as the singer’s manager and played a huge role in his comeback in the 1980s.
Bohemian Rhapsody’s O’Sullivan and Jeff Kalligheri will produce while Orbison’s children, Alex Orbison, Roy Orbison Jr., and Wesley Orbison will serve as executive producers with their Roys Boys production company.
“The Orbisons are elated to find the perfect partners in Compelling Pictures for the Roy Orbison biopic. Denis and Jeff’s vision for this journey through Roy’s life is incredible,” said Orbison’s sons in a joint statement. They also played a part in the albums made recently with rearranged Orbison hits with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.
Roy’s story is an interesting one and a tragic one. I hope that the movie addresses some of that. In 1966, his wife, Claudette, was killed in a motorcycle accident. Two years later, his two oldest sons died in a house fire when his Nashville-area home burned down. These tragedies weighed heavily on him and his songwriting.
He continued working, but his career wasn’t the same after those tragedies. He married his wife, Barbara Orbison, in 1969. She later became his manager and helped him reboot his career in the 1980s. In 1981, Orbison won his first Grammy Award for “That Lovin’ You Feeling Again,” a duet with Emmylou Harris.
Compelling Pictures said of the project in a joint statement, “Roy Orbison is a singular talent who holds a special place in our hearts, both as a favorite singer for ourselves and our loved ones, and also as a symbol for the incredible strength and resilience of the human spirit. It’s been an honor getting to know Wesley, Roy Jr., and Alex and their families, and we believe this unique love story between Roy and Barbara – rife with humor, tension, and emotion, all accentuated by these incredible songs – will reach the rafters like one of Roy’s impossible notes.”
I know Christmas is over, but my neighbor still has his lights out, so here is a Christmas photo for this week’s Friday Photo Flashback. Christmas 1980.
What you have here is 10 year old Keith. (Good Lord, it’s Christmas! You’d have thought I would brush my hair!) I am holding the cribbage board that my Grandpa and Grandma D gave me. This would have been Grandpa’s last Christmas.
I don’t recall exactly when he started to teach me how to play cribbage. Maybe I was 8 or 9. I know I was easy to beat, as I often forgot to count things. My grandpa taught me how to play on his board. The board was old and I think he had it around the time of World War II. When he passed away, my grandma said he would have wanted me to have it. (I still do!)
If you beat him on his board, he let you sign the back of it. If memory serves me right, there are three signatures on it. One of his buddies, my dad, and me. I had bought a small board to play on and we played on it a couple times. If my grandpa “skunked” me, he got to sign the back of my board. The two games we played on my board – he won both times!
He used to call me Charlie. “Skunked Charlie on this board (date) H.D. And we know who Charlie is don’t we” is his first signing. The first allowed him to write a shorter bit next. “Did it again 12-31-80 – on New Year’s Eve!
I still have the “29” cribbage board. There are a couple signatures on the back from friends who have skunked me on my board, too.
At one point, I taught my second son, Dimitri, how to play, but he hasn’t been over for a while. I guess I will just have to teach Ella or Andrew how to play …
Thank you to all who sent healing thoughts or prayers for my wife. Her surgery went well and she was able to go home the same day. She is having some pain, but she is in good hands.
Keith, her hot Male “nurse”, has been taking care of her. He’s helping her in and out of bed when she needs to get up. He is tracking her medication schedule. He is making her comfortable.
At the same time, Keith (her hot Male “maid”) is busy cleaning the house. He really knows his way around a vacuum cleaner. He is also a wiz at running the dishwasher. He kinda sucks at cleaning the bathroom, though. He hates that. Who wouldn’t?!
Keith, her hot night watchman/security guard, makes sure the the house is locked up and all is secure at night. His nightly rounds are quiet so she can sleep.
Keith, her hot male nanny, has the children under control. They are back from Nana’s now and he has to make sure they are fed, dressed, and staying out of trouble.
Keith, her hot male chef, has made sure she is eating and drinking. Just the other day he brought her gourmet donuts for breakfast.
So the right team is in place and she is being taken care of. We’re all working towards her full recovery.
Again, thank you all for your kind words, prayers, and thoughts.
Welcome back to The Music of My Life, where I feature ten songs from each year of my life. In most cases, the ten songs I choose will be ones I like personally (unless I explain otherwise). The songs will be selected from Billboard’s Year-end Hot 100 Chart, Acclaimed Music, and will all be released in the featured year.
This week, we look at 2011. I turned 41 that year. I was still working on the radio and I was still DJing a lot. I was surprised as I looked ahead to see that there was still some good tunes to choose from. The closer we get to 2025, I am not so sure.
When the song Safe and Sound was written, the band wasn’t even known as Capital Cities yet. “It started as a little idea we came up with – it wasn’t a fully fleshed-out song, per se,” Ryan Merchant told Billboard magazine. “We noticed that, when we showed it to people, there was this unanimous feeling that there was something special about this music, and we started to develop it. It took 10 different versions before we finally came to what you hear on the radio now, where we decided to add a trumpet for the main bridge part, which I think was one of our best decisions on the song. And we brought out this vintage keyboard that provides the foundation for the song. So the song really took a long time to get right, because we knew it was such an important song for us.”
What exactly does the song mean? Merchant says, “It seems like every generation feels like it’s living in the worst of times, and of course there are horrible things happening, but the average person is better off now than he or she was 50 years ago. In some ways ‘Safe and Sound’ is an antidote to the human tendency to think in apocalyptic terms and not really look at the logic of the world around us. Things are getting better and there’s a lot to be positive about.”
For me, I can still remember the first time I played it. I remember thinking how good it sounded in my headphones.
Safe and Sound
Someone Like You from Adele is about getting over an ex, hoping to find another who can bring back those feelings that made it so special. Not everyone can do that. As a matter of fact, I couldn’t do that! However, I was able to find someone who brought feelings that I had never experienced and a love that means more to me than anything.
It was a feeling that inspired Adele to write the song, “I was trying to remember how it was I felt at the beginning of a relationship,” she said. “Because as bad as a break up can be, as bitter and horrible and messy as it can be, that feeling when you first fall for someone is the best feeling on earth, and I am addicted to that feeling.”
This album runs the gamut of emotions. It is no wonder that so many of the songs were hits and won awards. Adele said, “The experience of writing this record was quite exhausting, because I would go from being a bitch to being completely on my knees.”
Someone Like You
Next a song I just like. Tonight Tonight starts with the line, “It’s been a really really rough week…” Who can’t relate to that? However, as the song gets going, it’s more of a feel good sound. I loved watching the high school kids dance and jump around when this one played.
The band was formed in Nashville and took their name from their first “dedicated fan.” Her name? Chelle Rae.
Tonight Tonight
I was programming a Classic Rock station when the next song came out. It got me in trouble. Maybe I am wrong, but I felt that if a classic rock band released a song that I felt “fit” the format, the listeners would want to hear it. So when the Cars released Sad Song, I added it.
The song played a few times before a VP of Programming called to ask why I was playing it. I told him, “It sounds like a classic Cars song, why wouldn’t I play it?” I was told to stop playing it and that is where the matter ended. It is also why most terrestrial radio sucks today.
Take a listen and tell me that this doesn’t fit a classic rock station …
Sad Song
Another great dance song that sounded good on the radio and worked well at dances was Moves Like Jagger. Now anyone familiar with the Rolling Stones can conjure up a visual of some sort of Mick Jagger dance. Mick was a master mover and his moves were something else. He was just fun to watch.
Adam Levine told MTV News why he likes to move like the veteran Stones’ frontman: “I’ve been a student at the Jagger School of Interesting Movement for 17 years. I’m graduating next fall, with honors,” he said. “[His moves are] a very carefully calculated, but slightly spastic, incredible rhythmic experience, in which all of your limbs and every bone in your body is moving at completely different times, and it’s impossible to re-create. Nobody has moves like Jagger, that’s kind of the point. That’s why the song is so fun, it’s fun to try.”
Fun Trivia: When this song climbed to #1 on the Hot 100, Mick Jagger became the first artist to have both topped the Hot 100 (as lead singer of the Rolling Stones) and be name-checked in the title of a #1 by another act.
Moves Like Jagger
The next song was one that I played at the Adult Contemporary station. It has such a unique sound to it that it really stuck out to me. I remember getting a call from the program director after the first time I played Somebody That I Used To Know because I had destroyed the artist’s name.
It is not “Got-Yee.” It is much classier – “Go-tee-ya”
The song was a number one in the states, in the UK, and other places world wide. American Songwriter magazine asked Gotye why he thought the song has proved so successful? He replied:
“I think it’s the kind of slow build and drama that it has, the two-part story, and the multiple perspective aspect that has struck people. It’s written openly enough that it expresses that confusion you can have after a broken relationship, and the way you can feel emotionally quite up and down.
You can feel nostalgic and rosily melancholy, in a way. But sometimes we often feel quite bitter about things, when you have nothing to do with that relationship or maybe with that person anymore, at least not actively. It can be quite a confusing feeling. So maybe the way the song expresses those feelings appears to strike people as quite true, and quite relevant with their experiences.”
Somebody That I Used To Know
Call Me Maybe by Carly Rae Jepsen was all over the radio in 2001. The song was huge. Other singers loved it, too. Justin Bieber tweeted: “‘Call Me Maybe’ by Carly Rae Jepsen is possibly the catchiest song I’ve ever heard lol,” and his then-girlfriend Selena Gomez added, “This smile is because of Carly Rae Jepsen. We have not stopped listening to your song girl!”
The singer explained that when she and her guitarist Tavish Crowe are on the road together, during downtown she’ll sing out ideas whilst he plays off some chords on an acoustic guitar. “Actually, the chorus lyrics came out really easily,” she added, “the entire thing: [singing] ‘Hey I just met you, and this is crazy.’ We thought it was a nice little pre-chorus or something. We brought the idea to Josh and he was like, ‘That’s your chorus right there, keep that, that’s it.’ After a little while of production and just working together we had the song done. It was really easy to write.”
Carly was asked by NPR whether guys ever use this song’s lyrics as a pickup line. The Canadian songstress replied: “It’s happened a few times, yes. And they usually think that they’re the first person to do it. Some guys start with, ‘Hey, I just met you and this is crazy…’ It’s not very original.”
I have used some bad pick up lines in my day, but never this one.
Call Me Maybe
One Direction didn’t want to be known as another boy band. Songwriter Carl Falk wrote What Makes You Beautiful for them. I love his story.
“It was the first song we did for One Direction. It was hard at first for us to be convinced that a boy band like One Direction would work. How do you do this without sounding outdated or copying someone else? What we thought and what was clear about ‘What Makes You Beautiful’ was we had a vision of going back to the ’90s, and bringing a little bit of that sound from 1999 — like the sound choices and instruments — and just do an updated version of that.
If you look at the One Direction fans who are between 10 and 14 years old,” he added, “they haven’t grown up listening to music that I did when I was growing up, like’I Want It That Way’ [from the Backstreet Boys] or ‘Bye Bye Bye’ [from N Sync]. So we started to experiment with sounds and riff and everything. It didn’t take long.
The title was done already. We all loved it. It’s kind of cool to say, “You don’t know you’re beautiful. That’s what makes you beautiful.” That takes it from being a beautiful title to a really smart concept. So everything just clicked.
I tell my wife she is beautiful all the time, but she always tells me I need my eyes checked. I wish she could see the beauty that I see.
What Makes You Beautiful
I have never seen the Twilight movies and I have never read the books. However, they inspired a beautiful song from Christina Perri. A Thousand Years was that song.
SHewrote the song based on the emotions that she felt reading about the star-crossed love affair between Edward and Bella throughout Stephenie Meyer’s series. “When we went to watch the screening, they told us to see where there was temporary music added and just jump into those scenes a little harder,” she explained to MTV News. “But I’m fortunately a fan of the movie and the characters, and I feel like, by reading these books, I can step into that feeling that Edward and Bella have for each other. So [songwriter] David Hodges and I sat down, and it just came out in one afternoon. I feel like it was all meant to happen; I feel like it was all waiting inside me, waiting to come out.”
Knowing now that Twilight’s vampires inspired the song, all of a sudden one of the lines makes sense: “I have loved you for a thousand years, I’ll love you for a thousand more.” Because, you know, vampires are supposed to be immortal and all.
A Thousand Years
Another song that popped out of the radio at me in 2011 was Adele’s Rumour Has It. At first, it bugged me because I felt like that was all she sang. But as I went back and listened, I could tell that she wrote this from personal experience.
Songfacts says, The song sounds like it could be about the famous folks who show up in the tabloids, but it’s not. Adele says the inspiration was a lot closer to home.
After being away from home for about 18 months, she returned to the UK and reconnected with her old friends, meeting up for lunch and going out at night. She was shocked when her friends asked her about rumors that they had heard about Adele. “My own friends were gossiping about me and believing stuff that they’d hear,” she said. “I was mortified, really. I had to set the record straight with my own girlfriends who know and love me.”
She wrote the song with OneRepublic’s Ryan Tedder. He told the US breakfast show Today that this song was inspired by Adele’s frustration at false speculation about her love life. He recalled how an angry Adele stormed into one of their recording sessions exclaiming: “People in London, my friends are saying, ‘Rumour has it that Adele has gone off and done this with this guy and she’s done this with another guy,’ and I didn’t do any of it, it’s a rumour!'”
Tedder responded: “There it is. We’re gonna write a song called Rumour Has It.”
Rumour Has It
With that, we wrap up 2011. Did I miss any of your favorites? Tell me about it in the comments.
Next week, we move on to 2012. My list includes one of the dumbest dances ever to hit the dance floor, a motivational song about getting through rough times, a non-sleepy song, and a song that we often shouted at work during some rough times. I hope to see you then.
It was on this day in 1950 that the face of television changed forever and a blueprint for shows like Saturday Night Live was born. The first broadcast of Your Show of Shows happened 75 years ago.
The show starred Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca. It featured Carl Reiner and the talented Howard Morris. It was a 90 minute show that was broadcast live every week. The show’s writers included Mel Brooks, Selma Diamond, Neil Simon, and Mel Tolkin (just to name a few).
The show has been featured in several lists of the greatest television series. Carl Reiner has stated that the time he spent on Your Show of Shows was the inspiration for The Dick Van Dyke Show. Most of the series has been preserved to some extent, but only some sketches have been released on home video.
The show featured several regular musical sketches. In 1955, Rock and Roll was hitting the radio. One of the musical sketches was the mock rock group The Three Haircuts (Caesar, Reiner, and Morris). They were a vocal trio who always sang in unison and usually bellowed the lyrics. After this bit aired on TV, RCA rushed the guys into the studio to record a studio version of You Are So Rare To Me and released it.
This clip is the first time You Are So Rare to Me aired. They follow it with an even crazier song called Flippin’ Over You. Sit back and enjoy the lunacy that was Your Show of Shows with The Three Haircuts.
Actor John Vernon was born today in 1932. I don’t think there is one movie that I didn’t think he was great in. If I had to pick a favorite, it would have to be Animal House, where he played the frustrated Dean Wormer.
One of my favorite scenes is where he is giving the Delta House boys their mid-term grades….
His whole interaction with Belushi cracks me up.
The soundtrack of the film has some really great tunes. The best one is Shout, which was originally done by the Isley Brothers. The version in Animal House was performed by a fictional band called Otis Day And The Knights. Otis was played by the actor DeWayne Jessie.
The movie became a huge hit, and within days Jessie was getting requests to perform. He quickly put together a real band called Otis Day and the Knights and became a touring act. They mostly hitting college campuses. They were still touring into the 2010s.
In 1989, they released and album called, appropriately, Shout.
For those who have asked, I have finally received the answer to the numbness in my hands. The results of the EMG showed that I have mild/moderate carpal tunnel syndrome. It is worse on the left side.
I suppose it is nice to have an answer, but at the same time I am still left with questions. What about the swelling I had in not only my hands, but my feet? What about the pain in all my joints that day? Carpal Tunnel explains part of the stuff, but not all of it.
So now I am wearing braces on my wrist/ hands at night. I am wearing one now because the numbness on my left hand is really bad today. Hopefully, this isn’t a permanent thing. It’s kind of hindering.
Today, I’d like to introduce you to another blogger friend of mine, Dana. At her blog, Regular Girl Devos, she shares stories of praise, stories of faith, meaningful quotes, and personal stories. I had reached out to her about my next Share Your Nostalgia feature (more on that soon) and she sent me this knowing I worked in radio. I loved it so much, I asked her if I could publish it here.
Here piece is one that I think a lot of my music blogger friends can relate to. Read on as Dana takes us back to 1970 ….
How Radio Changed My Life
In the summer of 1970, I was struggling with the dynamics of my home life. Holed up in my bedroom, the music from my radio was my escape, my safe place.
One Saturday morning, a friendly, cheerful voice announced the countdown of the American Top 40. Based on the Billboard Hot 100 weekly chart, he promised to play “the best-selling and most-played songs from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from Canada to Mexico.”
In an instant, Casey Kasem changed my life. Now I had something to look forward to, something to be excited about! Every Saturday, I had a date with Casey. He would play my favorite songs mixed with flashbacks and fun facts about the artists. Notebook in hand, I wondered if my favorite tunes would make it to number one, or slide back in the countdown. Not only that, but the “Long-Distance Dedication” letters he read gave me hope that someday someone would love me enough to dedicate a song to me.
Casey was a friend. He would describe his smooth baritone voice as “more like the voice of the guy next door.” Casey was an encourager. His signature sign-off was “Keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars.”
But Casey wasn’t my only radio friend. Back then, DJs in my area would answer the request line themselves.
Many an evening, I would make my escape from the raised voices in the living room and sneak the princess telephone from my mom’s room to mine. I would call my local radio station to request songs.
The evening DJ had a warm, smooth voice, like melted butter. Remembering me when I called, he asks if I was okay. Looking back, I wonder if he could hear what was happening outside my bedroom door. He would tell me, “Remember, as long as you have your radio, you are never alone.”
He was right. But later in life, I began tuning into another voice. Zephaniah 3:17 tells us, “The Lord your God in your midst, The Mighty One, will save; He will rejoice over you with gladness, He will quiet you with His love, He will rejoice over you with singing.” The music of God’s unfailing love and peace is more beautiful than I could ever imagine.
With a nod to Casey, let me encourage you today: Keep your heart with God and keep reaching for His peace!
__________
Thank you, Dana, for sharing such a great piece!It hit home on many levels.
Casey was a big part of my life, too! He used to air on Saturday afternoons in Detroit. My dad would often be outside washing the car or mowing the lawn and American Top 40 would be playing. I had a notebook, too! I would write down the Top 10 every week.
Casey’s show would be recorded in Hollywood right after the charts were released. He would go into a studio with that week’s script and lay down all of the vocal tracks. A producer would add the tunes later. They would be shipped to radio stations on vinyl records. The entire show would be on 4 records.
I was lucky enough to nab a few old shows back in the day.Almost all syndicated shows came that way. Eventually, they came on CD before coming digitally.
The reason Casey was a hit was because of what you said, “he was a friend.” A good on air personality knows that you talk to just one person. That one on one connection is where the “friendship” starts. He was so good at making it all seem effortless.
When I think back on my years in radio, one of the things I am most grateful for are the listeners who became friends. I have so many wonderful friends who I met by talking to them on the request line. I still talk with friends I made in 1988 at my first radio job.
I am sure that the DJ you spoke with had a gut feeling about whatever was going on. You’d be surprised at how much we can tell by just listening to a voice on the other end of the phone. Kudos to that guy!
Now the other Voice that you listen to, well, He will never steer you wrong! I am well aware of that Voice and without Him, I’d be very very lost. How awesome is it that He wrote a book for us to hear that Voice whenever we read it?
Thank you again for sharing such a great story, Dana. I can only hope that I touched the lives of my listeners like Casey and the other DJ did for you!
I am looking forward to reading your next piece in the next installment of Share Your Nostalgia.
Various Ramblings of a Nostalgic Italian 