Ladies and Gentlemen – Mr. Eddie Deezen!

I have been meaning to do a little interview with Eddie Deezen for a couple of years. I was always afraid to ask. You see, we’ve been friends on Facebook for some time and I’ve found that we share a lot in common. He has shared a lot of great personal stories about his interactions with other Hollywood celebrities, as well as some amazing trivia on just about everything.

I had noticed that he did a few podcasts with other Facebook friends and thought, “Maybe, he’ll allow me to ask him some questions for my blog.” As scared as I was to ask, Eddie said yes almost immediately. What follows in the transcript, if you will, of our chat. My questions are in bold and his answers follow.

Today is Eddie’s birthday, by the way, so what better way to celebrate than sharing a few minutes with him?

Keith: You and I have been Facebook friends now for almost 10 years. You have a very active social media presence. For fans like me, it is a wonderful way to connect with you. Like a true friendship, you share your life with us and you share your laughs with us. Many celebrities avoid social media or have someone run their page for them. What is it about social media (Facebook) makes you love it so much?

Eddie Deezen: I love Facebook. I am 100% pure Facebook. I know I could reach more fans and have more followers on other sites, on Facebook I am limited to just 5,000 fans. This is the only thing about Facebook I dislike. The 5,000 friend limit makes no sense to me. I am a compulsive writer and joke writer. I fill up notebook after notebook with my jokes and stuff. With Facebook I have an avenue of people to see my stuff. Before I joined Facebook in 2009, I would write jokes and stories and trivia to a list of about 200 friends. My Facebook friends are wonderful. I love them very much. Also, I get told by people who are not on my Facebook friends list that they read my posts too. So that makes me happy.

One of the things I look forward to on your Facebook posts is your personal stories about your movies, behind the scenes tid-bits, and your interaction with other actors. Many folks know you as Eugene from Grease. You have shared so many wonderful stories about John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John (and others). Do you have a favorite Grease story you love to share?

My favorite Grease story would be how I got Grease in the first place. Ok, I went to my Grease audition in my little suit, with a bow tie and I put Vitalis or some greasy stuff in my hair (The movie was called “Grease”, so I figured Grease in my hair made sense). I went in to Paramount Studios (by the way, Paramount has always been my favorite studio) and the place was packed with guts in leather jackets and girls in poodle skirts and saddle shoes.

I read for Allan Carr the producer), Randal Kleiser (the director) and Joel Thurm ( the casting director). As I was talking to them and reading my two or three lines, I saw them nudging each other. I figured the nudges were a good sign. Anyway, a few days later, my agent calls and tells me I got the part. I was ecstatic, I called my parents and my friends and told them I was going to be in a movie with John Travolta and all.

Then, a few days later, my agent calls me and tells me “Eugene is a small role and the studio decided they’re going to cut out your role from the film”. Of course, I felt like jumping off a cliff. My agent said “We’re going to church to pray”. I swear to God, we go in, my agent gives me a match and tells me to light candies and pray at the alter. I prayed fervently to God. “Please God, let something good happen”. A few days later, the studio calls my agent and tells her they want me back in the movie.

True story. Divine intervention? Or just a lucky break? Who knows? I have wondered about this first 48 years now. You can believe whatever you want, but this really did happen..

That is a GREAT story! I’m glad you got back into the film! Speaking of Grease, you worked with comedy legend Sid Caesar. Did you have any interesting interactions with him?

Well, I was chauffeured home each night with Sid Caesar. I was carefully instructed “Don’t speak to Mr. Caesar unless he speaks to you first”. So I would sit in the back seat and Mr. Caesar would sit in the front seat and I would just sit silently as he spoke to our chauffeur. One day He turned around to me and said “So you’re the water boy, huh?”. I replied sarcastically “ Oh, is it okay if I speak?”. This was very rude of me, but I was a twenty year old kid. Very immature.

Mr. Caesar was a very intelligent man. I would listen to him pontificate about history and religion and stuff. Our chauffeur was named Kirk or Kurt. He was a nice guy.

One of my favorite movies of yours is 1941. What a cast for that movie! You had the chance to work with John Belushi. On Facebook, you have shared that Belushi was actually pretty quiet and was very nice to you. Can you elaborate on that?

John was always extremely kind and nice to me. I loved him so much. We had met previously in New York. He was at the premiere of my movie “I Wanna Hold Your Hand”. At the party after the premiere I sat with John and we chatted for about 15 minutes. He was serious and thoughtful. No jokes. He spoke earnestly. I loved seeing him on the set of “1941”

The last time I saw John was around 1980. I was just leaving a really bad audition. I felt bad and who comes walking down the street but John Belushi. He saw I was sad and said “What’s the matter, Eddie?”. I said, “ I just had a terrible audition, John. These guys hated me”. He replied “They’re assholes”. And he just walked away. That was the last time I ever saw John Belushi.

To John’s credit, he was probably right!

I wasn’t going to ask, but I’d kick myself if I didn’t ask you to share a bit about Murray Hamilton and the dummy from the Ferris Wheel scene….

Murray was a wonderful, very nice guy. We had many great talks up on that Ferris wheel. Murray was a big time smoker. He smoked three or four packs a day. So every once in a while he would have trouble breathing up there. Steven had a. Oxygen tank he kept for Murray. If Murray was having trouble breathing, Steven would let us down and Murray would take a few hits of oxygen.

One of my favorite holiday films is the Polar Express. Your work as the Know It All kid is just wonderful! How did you and Tom Hanks get along? Is he as nice as he seems?

Tom has always been my favorite movie star. The first day of the table read, there were a bunch of us all gathered to greet Tom. He was the biggest movie star in the world. He spots me in the bunch, walks up to me first and says, “Hi Eddie. I’m Tom”. No shit Sherlock.

He was a total pro. Never flubbed a line or missed a cue. One day I made a bad mistake. I screwed up a line or some such thing. Our director, Bob Zemeckis, said “cut”. “What happened, Eddie?”, he asked me. Before I could say anything, Tom cut in. “That was my fault”, he said. He took the blame for my mistake. He was like an older brother to me.

After we finished filming “The Polar Express”, he took me to three Dodger games at Dodger Stadium. We sat in his box seats. We sang the National Anthem and “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” together. He was just as cool as you’d expect him to be.

That’s awesome. What an experience for you!

You got to work with Dick Shawn in an episode of Magnum PI.

He seemed like a pretty unique guy. His comedy was so different and manic at times. I don’t think there is anything I’ve seen him do that didn’t intrigue me. What was it like to work with him?

Dick Shawn was a wonderful, nice, lovely, friendly, terrific, and delightful guy. I loved working with him. My career was pretty much movies, not a whole lot of television. But that “Magnum P.I.” episode I did (“Squeeze Play”) was probably the best thing I ever did on tv. I loved the entire Magnum cast and crew. Dick Shawn was a marvelous comedian and a fantastic straight man too. I loved playing his nephew.

You also shared the screen with two of the hottest gals of the 1980’s: Heather Thomas in Zapped! and Morgan Fairchild in Mob Boss.

Correct me if I am wrong but don’t you have a story about kissing Morgan Fairchild?

Yes, I did a movie called “ Mob Boss” with Morgan. Ok, we had a scene where the nerdy guy (me) kisses the ultra-sexy woman. We embrace and kiss and my glasses are all steamed up. Well, before we did that scene, Morgan said to me, “Eddie, do you want to rehearse?”. YOU THINK?? So she held me and kissed me at different angles and straight on, Etc. By the way, Morgan was a marvelous kisser. Her lips were so soft. She was also the most lovely lady ever. I loved her so much. She was a fabulous comedienne. Great straight woman too.

It was so much fun to work with Heather Thomas, too. Heather was a doll. She was very cool and incredibly nice. The episode of “The Fall Guy” I did with her was very fun to shoot. I loved all the cast and crew of “The Fall Guy”.

As a voice over actor, you have appeared in countless cartoons and series.

I always love when I hear your voice on something my kids are watching. You showed up recently on an episode of Handy Manny and also on Oswald. Do you find voice acting to be easier than acting on screen or are the about the same? Do you prefer one over the other?

Well, I have never been great at memorizing lines. Now, on camera stuff, you have to learn your lines by heart. For “The Polar Express”, our director Bob Zemeckis, knew my problem, and he let me read my entire role using cue cards.

I enjoy voiceovers and doing cartoons because you can just read your role from a script, no memorization involved. But as a performer, you get a bigger rush doing a movie, because it’s fun seeing yourself onscreen.

A show that many folks don’t remember is the Weird Al Show from the late 90’s. Can you tell me how you got to play “Guy Boarded Up in the Wall?”

Yes, Weird Al is a marvelous, very nice guy. He also knew of my problem remembering lines and he wanted me on his show. So he created the “Man in the Wall” character. I was “ on camera” but I was behind a wall, so I could just read my lines. It was a very fun gig.

Your fans are well aware of your love for the Beatles and their music.

A while back, my blogger friend, Dave from A Sound Day ran a feature. He had some of us bloggers write about the Beatles and if they were still relevant today. I wrote my piece about songs I would use to introduce the band to someone. So, if YOU had to introduce someone who had never heard of the Beatles or their music, what 5 (or ten if you wish) songs would you play for them?

My favorite Beatles song is “A Hard Day’s Night”, so I would have to include that one. Now, you did not ask first my favorite Beatle songs, however, you asked first five or ten Beatle songs I would use to introduce a new fan to the Beatles. So here are my choices:

Love Me Do
She Loves You
I Want to Hold Your Hand
Help!
Yesterday
In My Life
Penny Lane
A Day in the Life
Strawberry Fields Forever
Let It Be

There are so many great Beatles tunes to choose from, and you have some classics there!

You and I share many of the same likes, the Beatles being one of them. However, you are also as big a Stooge Fan as I am. I have loved The Three Stooges since my dad introduced me to them as a kid. You have said often that Curly is your favorite.

It is hard NOT to like him. Is there any one thing in particular that makes him your favorite?

Yes, Curly Howard is my all- time favorite comedian. He was as great as Charlie Chaplin or Buster Keaton physically. Plus, he was a hilarious verbal comedian, something Chaplin and Keaton were not. He made 97 shorts. About 70 or 80 are comedy classics. He was amazingly prolific. He was all finished and retired by the age of 42. 42!!!! He just wore himself out. He was spent and got progressively sicker. The poor guy was gone at the age of 48. 48!!!

You could really see how sick he was in his last few shorts. The world certainly got a lot less “funny” when he passed away. So, do you have a favorite Stooges Short?

My favorite Three Stooge shorts are “Punch Drunks” and “Micro-Phonies”

Those are both in my top ten Stooges shorts, too. One last question for you, my friend. Do you think Shemp gets a bum rap for following Curly?

Well, yes. Shemp is obviously anticlimactic because he followed Curly. That’s Iike following Elvis or Paul McCartney, anyone would suffer in comparison. That said, Shemp was a fair to good comedian. He was not great. He did not have Curly’s innate sense of humor or timing or sense of what makes a line funny or what makes a gag funny.

He had his great moments, yes, but he has a lot of very unfunny scenes too. Plus, his character was not as original or lovable or magical as Curly’s. I always love what Leonard Martin said about him- Shemp was an indisputably good comedian, but he never had Curly’s “otherworldliness.” A perfect word that captures it all. Curly was otherworldly.

I’d forgotten that you wrote a piece about Shemp for Mental Floss back in 2011. It’s a great piece that readers can see on the Mental Floss Site.

Eddie, thank you for taking the time to answer my questions. Thank you for your friendship. I truly hope to meet you in person one day. Maybe a trip to the Stoogeum in Pennsylvania one day? I wish you all the best and lots of happiness on your birthday, my friend! Cheers to another year of friendship and laughs!

Thanks Keith. I’m glad to answer these questions for you. You are a wonderful guy and I am proud to have you as a friend both on Facebook and in my life. That trip to the Stoogeum sounds like a plan on my bucket list, so let’s hope! See you on Facebook!

I need to once again extend a huge thank you to Eddie for taking the time to chat with me. If you are a fan, Eddie also does do personalized messages for birthdays and such on Cameo. I had him do one for my dad a year or so ago! You can check out the information on Eddie’s Cameo Page.

Happy Birthday, Eddie! May your day be filled with laughter and happiness!

Turntable Talk #35 – Sans Sophomore Slump

It is time for another edition of Turntable Talk hosted by Dave from A Sound Day. This is round #35, which means next month I’ll have been contributing to this feature for 3 years! Wow. As long as Dave keeps coming up with interesting topics, I’ll keep writing.

This time around, Dave says that “we’re going Sans Sophomore Slump. We all remember the triumphant debuts to the scene by The Knack, Meat Loaf, the Ramones…but how many recall, let alone listen to ‘But the Little Girls Understand’, ‘Dead Ringer’s or ‘Leave Home’… the follow-ups for them? This month, pick a SECOND album by a group or singer you thought was a standout and at least as good as the first.

When I worked in country radio we often referred to the “Class of ’89.” This was a group of four guys who all stormed onto the scene in 1989. Those guys were Clint Black, Travis Tritt, Alan Jackson, and Garth Brooks.

The four of them were so popular that the brought an entire new group of listeners to the genre. Much of their music focused on storytelling, which also made for some amazing music videos. They helped to make Country music more popular than ever.

Garth Brooks’ self titled album was released in April of 1989. It peaked at #13 on the Billboard 200 and went to #2 on the Top Country Albums chart. From the album, there were four singles, two of them went on to become number 1 hits.

Much To Young (To Feel This Damn Old) went to #8 on the charts for Garth. Not Counting You also went top 10, and was the first hit that Garth completely wrote himself. The Dance and If Tomorrow Never Comes were both #1 smashes! Today, they have reached “classic” status. If Tomorrow Never Comes was so big that it won the Academy of Country Music’s Song of the Year in 1990.

So how do you follow that kind of success? If you are Garth Brooks, you release your sophomore album and watch in amazement.

Like the other members of the class of 1989, fans wanted more of their music! Garth released No Fences in August of 1990 and it was just HUGE! It went to #1 on the Billboard Top Country Albums chart. It went to #3 on the Billboard 200 and stayed in the top 40 on that chart for a whopping 126 weeks!

As for the singles from the album, they have gone on to become Garth classics (just like the ones from album #1). All four singles from the album went to #1 on the Country chart!

The Thunder Rolls not only went to #1, but won the CMA Video of the Year for 1991. The video is a powerful one. When Garth plays the song at live shows he adds another verse where the cheater gets what’s coming to him.

Two of a Kind, Working On a Full House, Unanswered Prayers, and Friends in Low Places also all reached #1. Friends in Low Places also won the Academy of Country Music’s Single of the Year for 1990.

That song is familiar to country music fans and non-fans alike. It still plays everywhere. It was always on the Mobile Beat Top 200 songs for mobile DJs. It plays at parties, weddings and even sporting events. I’d love to see the money that this one song alone makes for Garth Brooks.

Garth’s Sophomore album, No Fences, helped to pave the way into super stardom for him. A simple search of “Awards won by Garth Brooks” will show you just how popular and successful Garth went on to be. One has to wonder what might have happened if No Fences bombed.

Thanks again to Dave for hosting this edition of Turntable Talk. I appreciate him reaching out and including me in such an amazing feature. As always, I look forward to the next topic.

Thanks for reading!

The Music of My Life – 2012

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.

We’ve come to 2012 – the year I turned 42. Once again, as I look over the list, many of these songs took on personal meaning after 2012. I was probably programming the Classic Rock station and beginning the sleep program in college in 2012. So let’s look at my ten picks.

____

When I worked in radio, I had to watch American Idol to be able to talk about it on the air the next day. I truly loved Kelly Clarkson. I was glad that she won in the inaugural year of the show. She has also proven herself to those who thought she’d be here one day and gone the next.

What Doesn’t Kill You (Stronger) appeared on Kelly’s fifth album and went to number one on the charts. Would you believe it was inspired by one of the great philosophers? The song was inspired by a quotation from German philospher, Friedrich Nietzsche who said, “That which does not kill us makes us stronger.”

Kelly told the folks at MTV why they chose Stronger as the name of the album:

“There were a few different titles that were going around and I think the reason why we came up with Stronger was just because every song was about empowerment and almost like overcoming stuff,” she explained. “So, even if it was a bad situation and a sad song, it was about overcoming that. So by the end of the song, it’s kind of more inspiration than sad. So I think that’s why [we named it that], and I think after 10 years of doing it you feel a little stronger personally and musically. People know you better. It’s just easier, I think.”

For me, the song took on new meaning while going through my divorce. Believe me, there were times during it that I was so frustrated. The yelling, the fighting and all of that was just awful. But, I came through it. It didn’t kill me, but it certainly made me stronger.

What Doesn’t Kill You (Stronger)

Next is a song from another American Idol winner, Phillip Phillips. Honestly, I had no idea until I starting researching this post that he was from American Idol. After the first couple years, it got old to me and I stopped watching.Songfacts.com says:

Phillips was so ill with kidney problems during his Idol run, he had to be hooked up to IVs before going onstage and wear extra makeup to disguise his sickly pallor. Because he was so focused on his health, he never really knew what was going on with the show and didn’t expect to win in the final moment – which led to some confusion when his name was announced.

I was familiar with this song because I played it on the Adult Contemporary station. I liked the guitar work in it and thought it sounded a bit like Mumford and Sons.

Home

Entertainment relationships cannot be easy. It is almost rare to see one that lasts more than a couple years. Some of the break ups, though, have led to many a hit song (just ask Taylor Swift!). This song is said to be directed at Katy Perry’s ex, Russell Brand.

It is the lyric that hit me, once again, after the divorce.

“I’m wide awake, not losing any sleep/ I picked up every piece, and landed on my feet,”

Wide Awake was written for her movie, Part of Me. She says, “I was doing this movie and they asked me if I wanted to write an end-title song for the movie, and I was like, ‘I know exactly what I want to say.’ I was really kind of dying to write another song at that point. I didn’t want to wait until I did a whole new record, and it’s kind of the perfect last word of me at this moment.”

Wide Awake

The next song is on my list because of job dissatisfaction. It is Icona Pop’s I Love It.

There were a few of us who were kind of miffed that we weren’t getting things we needed to do our job. A co-worker said, “Well, they obviously don’t care.” He began to sing the line, “I don’t care … I love it” whenever something went wrong.

No supplies? “I don’t care …” Computer keeps crashing? “I don’t care…..” Someone asked what you thought of the situation? “I don’t care…..” Yeah, it was not a very positive vibe around that time.

Whenever I hear the chorus of this song, I think of my former coworker ad chuckle a bit.

I Love It

Owl City is really Adam Young. He did this as a duet with Carly Rae Jepson. Asked about the song, he said,

“I feel like every artist is inherently granted one shot to sing about having a good time in his or her life, and six months ago, I realized I hadn’t cashed in my chips yet. So I thought, ‘I’m gonna sit down and I’m gonna give this a shot… and get my friend Carly to sing on it’. The final product rarely exceeds your expectations, and this thing just kind of happened.”

Did he like working with Jepson? He says,

Who doesn’t love having a good time? This was a pretty big song at proms I did in 2012.

Good Time

One of the things about seeing a band live is the amount of audience participation. Some artists throw the microphone toward the audience so they can sing the next line. Sometimes there’s a question and answer chant between artist and audience. It’s gotta be cool for the artists to hear his or her song being sung by thousands.

The Ho’s and the Hey’s in The Lumineers song, Ho Hey, were not meant to be on the song. Yes, if the song was performed live, they had intended it to be something the audience would shout during the song. They decided after working on the song that they needed to be in the studio version.

Songfacts says,

The repetitive melodies and familiar section structure are kept interesting by the song’s sonic progressions that perfectly match the emotional developments in the song’s story. In the second verse, the lyrics move away from the dejection of the previous verse’s lyrics and take on a tone of hope and resolve. Fittingly, the melody is invigorated by a surprising octave jump and a more gravely, assured vocal performance. Also, a kick drum is introduced and synchronized with the “ho” and “hey,” which acts as a sort of exclamation point, encouraging the sing-along nature of the track.

I loved that the song sounded folky and stood out on the radio.

Ho Hey

In my years of DJing, I have seen dances come and go. In most cases, the dances are all the same with a different steps. One of the most annoying dances ever was Gangnam Style by Psy. The only reason it is here is because of the many times I had to play it at DJ gigs.

The lyrics are all in Korean except for the line, “hey… sexy lady.” It’s about a guy flossing his fashionable “Gangnam style,” and the sexy girl he’s after.

Here are a few of the lines translated to English:

I’m a guy who has bulging ideas rather than muscles
That kind of guy
Beautiful, lovable

A girl who covers herself but is more sexy than a girl who bares it all
A sensible girl like that

Yeah, the English doesn’t make it better.

Gangnam Style

Passenger is really a guy named Mike Rosenberg. He wrote Let Her Go. He told VH1,

“It didn’t take long to write, at all. Under an hour, I think. When I wrote it, I definitely felt like it had something… I never had a song on the radio, I didn’t believe I could have a song on the radio, because generally, folk music doesn’t get on commercial radio, it just doesn’t. I kinda thought that that kind of success was for other people, people who really tried to get that kind of success, because I never have.”

The song itself stands out not only for its sound, but the way it is laid out. It’s almost odd. Songfacts explains:

Structurally, this is a very unusual song. Based on acoustic guitar and strings, it has a 25-second intro before going directly into the first chorus (“Only need the light when it’s burning low…”). On the line “And you let her go,” the song picks up, introducing drums and going into an instrumental break before finally hitting the first verse at 1:03.

Beginning with the chorus is the equivalent of a movie that is shown out-of-sequence (like Pulp Fiction) – we know the big scene, but don’t know what led up to it. Passenger tells us the conclusion up front, then explains what he went through – the anguish he endured before he could just let her go.

The chorus comes back three more times, including at the end of the song where it repeats twice, ending with the voice isolated on the last lines to accentuate the conclusion: “You let her go.”

It is probably that strange lay out that makes me like the song. That and it is about finally letting go of someone.

Let Her Go

IF you want proof that real life inspires hits, listen to ANY Taylor Swift song. As a matter of fact, here is the story of how she came to write We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together.

Songfacts says,

The empowering kiss-off to an ex was inspired by an incident when during a session in the studio with Max Martin and Johan Shellback, a friend of the singer’s former boyfriend happened to walk in. Swift told ABC News’ Nightline: “[My friend] starts talking about how he’s heard [my ex and I] were getting back together and that was not the case. When he leaves, Max and Johan are like, ‘So what’s the story behind that?’ And so I start telling them the story of ‘break up, get back together, break up, get back together,’ just, ugh, the worst.”

“Max says, ‘This is what we’re writing; we’re writing this song,'” continued Swift. “And I picked up the guitar and just started singing ‘we are never.’ It just happened so fast. It was so much fun.”

After the songs she has written about her many exes, I’m surprised anyone would want to date her.

We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together

The last song on the list is about never quitting. If you have dreams, you gotta keep going, keep trying. Pink’s lyrics state,

“Where there is desire there is gonna be a flame, Where there is a flame someone’s bound to be get burned. But just because it burns doesn’t mean you’re gonna die. You gotta get up and try.”

I think many can relate to this. Pick yourself up and get back in the race.

Pink has claimed this is her favorite video. She does some pretty risque dancing. As a matter of fact, she showed it to her mom and posted her reaction on her Twitter page. Pink says,

“My mom, after seeing the new video… ‘Wow, honey. I’m speechless. And uncomfortable. No one can ever say you play it safe.'”

Try

So that wraps up 2012. Did I miss one of your favorites? Tell me in the comments.

Next week we head into 2013. The list from that year looks like a playlist from the Adult Contemporary station and a high school dance combined. It’s actually a good year for good tunes. I hope you’ll come back next week and check it out.

Thanks for reading and listening.

Tune Tuesday

Today’s tune comes from the Between The Button’s album from the Rolling Stones.

It was on this day in 1967 that the Stones took Ruby Tuesday to #1. It was their fourth chart topper in the US.

Songfacts.com says that Keith Richards said of “Ruby Tuesday”:

“That’s one of those things – some chick you’ve broken up with. And all you’ve got left is the piano and the guitar and a pair of panties. And it’s goodbye you know. And so it just comes out of that. And after that you just build on it. It’s one of those songs that are easiest to write because you’re really right there and you really sort of mean it. And for a songwriter, hey break his heart and he’ll come up with a good song.”

Mick Jagger told Rolling Stone in 1995:

“‘Ruby Tuesday’ is good. I think that’s a wonderful song. It’s just a nice melody, really. And a lovely lyric. Neither of which I wrote, but I always enjoy singing it.”

This was supposed to be the B-side of “Let’s Spend The Night Together” but many radio stations shied away from that one due to the sexual implications, so they played “Ruby Tuesday” instead, helping make it a hit. It’s funny how pale in comparison the sexual implications of this song is compared to what actually gets played on the radio today!

Movie Music Monday – The Blues Brothers

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:

Take a bow, Hi-De-Ho Man ….

Book Recommendation – Looking For Calvin and Hobbes

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.

4 out of 5 stars.

A Movie I Can’t Wait To See

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 am truly excited for this movie.

Friday Photo Flashback

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 …

Hot Male “Nurse”

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.

The Music of My Life – 2011

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.

Thanks for reading and listening.