June 2017 - Page 5 of 6 - Ramblin' with Roger

Music Throwback: Nights in White Satin

“It was a series of random thoughts and was quite autobiographical.”

Perusing my Across the Charts book of the Billboard charts of the 1960s, I noticed that the single Nights in White Satin by the Moody Blues only got up to #103 on the US charts in early 1968. This was the first single off their second album Days of Future Past.

The group changed greatly between its first album, The Magnificent Moodies from 1965, and the second, both in terms of musical style and personnel. Denny Laine, who sang lead vocals on the group’s first big hit, a cover of Go Now, is best known as later being a mainstay of Paul McCartney’s OTHER band, Wings.

From Songfacts:
“Nights in White Satin was written by Justin Hayward, who joined the band the previous year after Denny Laine left the group. He got the idea for the song after someone gave him a set of white satin sheets, and wrote it in his bed-sit at Bayswater. Haywood told the Daily Express Saturday magazine May 3, 2008: ‘I wrote our most famous song, Nights in White Satin when I was 19. It was a series of random thoughts and was quite autobiographical. It was a very emotional time as I was at the end of one big love affair and the start of another. A lot of that came out in the song.'”

From the Wikipedia:
“The album, plus two singles therefrom, Nights in White Satin and Tuesday Afternoon…, took time to find an audience. In the Moody Blues’ native Britain, the two singles from the album didn’t initially catch on; Nights in White Satin made only No. 19 on the British singles chart in early 1968, and Tuesday Afternoon didn’t chart at all.

“However, the British public learned to appreciate Nights in White Satin subsequently; it made No. 9 on the UK singles chart on re-issue in December 1972 and No. 14 on the charts on another reissue at the end of 1979, and is now regarded as the Moody Blues signature song by British audiences. In the US, Nights in White Satin did not make the Billboard Hot 100 in 1968, although it reached No. 2 on re-release in 1972; Tuesday Afternoon was more successful on initial release stateside, peaking at No. 24 on the Billboard Hot 100.”

I am fascinated that a song that was pretty much of a dud in one release can become a hit four years later. It was apparently music ahead of its time.

LISTEN to:

Tuesday Afternoon HERE

Nights in White Satin (single) HERE or HERE

Nights in White Satin (album cut) HERE

June rambling #1: Seven and Seven Is

Once I could have told you ALL the guys with 500+ homers.

Geez, I forgot to mention that I got together with some former JEOPARDY! contestants on the first Friday in May at a bar in Albany. I remember that because I had to rush from the First Friday event at my church. Anyway, nice people. Yes, and smart.

Mark Evanier writes about being The Advocate — “the functional person who handles everything for the sick person. I had to watch over their needs, get them whatever they required, intervene with the hospital and caregivers when necessary and run the aspects of their lives they could no longer handle, including personal finances. In simpler terms, I had to just be there for them.” Maybe I got a little teary.

I was going to write why I think the US pulling out of the Paris Climate Agreement won’t be that bad, since mayors and governors and industry will step up. But with The Weekly Sift guy explaining The Paris Agreement is like my church’s pledge drive, plus what John Oliver said (or here), and what Hank Green said and what Ben & Jerry wrote and what Arthur wrote, I’m not feeling compelled.

Covfefe department: Do trademarks present an ethical violation? These probably do. Plus the swamp and failed Twitter intervention and the corrosive privilege of the most mocked man in the world.

Chuck Miller, my former Times Union blogger buddy – we’re still buds, but he’s not with the TU blogs anymore, explained in these pages in early April. Anyway, he is doing a new thing, and I am mentioned. The only problem is that he didn’t link to a certain song, so I did, below.

Chuck also writes about Teri Conroy, who also used to be in the TU blog farm. I’ve met her and she really IS a saint.

Su-sieee! Mac, one our ABC Wednesday participants: “Am I allowed to say I’m a cancer survivor when I didn’t know I had cancer?”

My local library branch (Pine Hills in Albany) gets a new art installation every few months. Among the artists this go round is Peach Tao, whose dinosaur woodcuts are really cool. I went to the opening on June 2. The art will be there until October 28.

Jaquandor has been doing his Bad Joke Friday for a while. Some are quite terrible. So naturally, sometimes I encourage him.

Albert Pujols became the ninth hitter in Major League Baseball to hit 600 or more home runs. Once I could have told you ALL the guys with 500+ homers, which used to be a lock for the Baseball Hall of Fame*. But as a result of the era of performance-enhancing drugs, Bonds and Sosa, for two, have not yet made it.
1 Barry Bonds 762
2 Hank Aaron * 755
3 Babe Ruth * 714
4 Alex Rodriguez 696
5 Willie Mays * 660
6 Ken Griffey, Jr.* 630
7 Jim Thome 612
8 Sammy Sosa 609

What Does Wonder Woman Actually Represent? and Revisiting the story that redefined her. Reckon Eddie and I need to see this movie.

The first shopping cart was introduced in OKC 80 years ago this week.

MUSIC

Dustbury expands on my reference to Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood.

Liverpool Plays Pepper (link good only in June 2017) and When I’m Sixty-Four – MonaLisa Twins and Sgt. Pepper at 50.

Hey, Animaniacs, shouldn’t it be 50 state capitals, plus the federal one?

K-Chuck Radio: The Adjustments of Popular Songs.

Seven and Seven Is – Love. (CM)

How Gregg Allman and Cher stunned Canisius High ‘assembly’ in 1976.

Musicians I have seen perform live

“Here are nine people who will lose their protected coverage under AHCA/Trumpcare and one who won’t. Guess which one.”

Y’know, just a torrent of people were doing this thing on Facebook, and presumably elsewhere, where one picks out nine concerts they’ve been to, and one they have not.

And it’s made me cranky. It’s not just that it is a litmus test about “How well you know me?” It’s the premise of something going viral based on lying, I guess, that’s put me off. Or maybe I’m just a contrarian.

The pushback I’VE seen about this phenomenon has been more about that it’s braggadocio, which I understand. I’ve just been lucky, I reckon. I used to go to the certain festivals where I listened to multiple artists, so that helped, a LOT. Also, there have been some great series of FREE music in Albany over the years.

Making the list has also been a real test for me to recall how many artists I actually HAVE seen, because memory. Suddenly it’s “Oh, yeah, I saw Don McLean at the Dutchess County Fair in the 1970s!” Or “Roberta Flack was at the Palace Theatre on First Night in Albany in the 1990s!”

I never saw the Grateful Dead, but I WAS at this show:

November 6, 1975 Elting Gym, SUNY, New Paltz, NY Kingfish/Keith and Donna
Kingfish and Keith and Donna toured the East Coast in November. In the Bay Area, with Jerry Garcia a regular in nightclubs since 1970, Deadheads were very casual about the opportunity to see Grateful Dead spinoffs. In the East, however, the chance to see 4 members of The Dead (Weir, Kreutzmann, Keith and Donna) plus an ex-New Rider (Dave Torbert) in the same night was somewhat of a big deal. The Kingfish/Keith and Donna bill played medium sized theaters that neither band could have played at home.

So I’ve decided that you can try to guess which of these artists, who I have been present when they performed live at some point in my life, that I’ve seen more than once. Or not, it’s up to you. I THINK it’s five, but, you know, that memory thing again.

Joan Armatrading
Joan Baez
Bridget Ball and Chris Shaw
Marcia Ball
Tony Bennett
Blotto
David Bromberg
Jackson Browne
Dave Brubeck
Marc Cohn
Judy Collins
Chick Corea
Elvis Costello
Crosby, Stills, and Nash
Bob Dylan
Jonathan Edwards
Roberta Flack
Bela Fleck
The Four Tops
Keith and Donna Godchaux
The Go-Go’s
The Grand Slambovians
Nanci Griffith
Herbie Hancock
John Hiatt
Joe Jackson
Elton John
Billy Joel
Kingfish
Diana Krall
Alison Krauss
Ladysmith Black Mambazo
Amos Lee
Sean Lennon
Lyle Lovett
Paul McCartney
Bobby McFerrin
Don McLean
Joni Mitchell
Neville Brothers
No Doubt
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
Jean-Luc Ponty
Billy Preston
John Prine
The Roches
Linda Ronstadt
Santana
Boz Scaggs
Seals and Crofts
John Sebastian
Pete Seeger
Paul Simon
The Slambovian Circus of Dreams
The Specials
Bruce Springsteen
Slam Stewart
Sweet Honey in the Rock
Talking Heads
James Taylor
Koko Taylor
Livingston Taylor
The Temptations
They Might Be Giants
McCoy Tyner
Loudon Wainwright III
Lucinda Williams
Maria Zemantauski

And if you know I’ve left off someone, please let me know. It’s not just possible, it’s extremely likely.

If I HAD participated, the band I would have lied about was The Who, who were in Albany, maybe three blocks from where I was was working in 1995, but I didn’t see them.

My complaint notwithstanding, there are some clever variations on the theme, such as the “nine professions that I dated (one lie).” Or “Here are nine people who will lose their protected coverage under AHCA/Trumpcare and one who won’t. Guess which one.” Choice #10 being “Any member of the US Congress.”

Don’t pass a car that’s waiting to turn left

I had some choice words for that driver.

At a level FAR greater than in previous years, my family has been involved in several near-collisions in 2017, specifically in March and April. None of them involved the weather, and most of them took place in the daytime.

A majority fit into the category of the title, which I stole from the Monday traffic column in our local daily, compiled by Tim O’Brien. He, like several folks with the Times Union, is leaving for greener pastures after dealing with the parsimonious Hearst Corporation daily rag for years.

ITEM: The Wife is turning left; we’ll call her car A. The car facing her is also turning left, car 1. A vehicle behind her, NOT the car immediately back, but the car behind THAT, car 3, gets impatient with the wait, passes car 2 and 1 on the right. Car A sees car 2, but barely breaks in time in the turn to avoid getting hit by car 3.

ITEM: The Wife is turning left. The car facing her is also turning left, car 1. She doesn’t see, but I do, the bicycle passing car 1 on the right. If I hadn’t called it to her attention, it was likely that she would have T-boned bike 2, the rider of which, BTW, was not wearing a helmet.

ITEM: I’m riding my bike, going straight ahead; I’m vehicle A. Car 1, signaling left, is patiently yielding the right of way to vehicle A. Car 2, however, is having nothing to do with THAT, and passes car 1 on the LEFT, across the crosswalk and practically into my path before slamming on its brakes. As it tuns out, it was a nice day, and car 2 had its windows down. I had some choice, albeit repeatable, words for that driver.

Not all the near-collisions involved left turns. The Wife was turning right from a one-way street onto a two-way. But the driver coming from our right apparently thought he too was on a one-way, because he wasn’t staying right. IF she hadn’t aborted the turn at the last moment, we would have hit him for sure. The Daughter, in the back seat, got pretty shook up about this, and understandably so.

There are a couple other traffic examples in recent months, but you get the gist. As Phil Esterhaus used to say, “Be careful out there!”

V sign is for victory, peace, plus Bobby Vee

“Velline, then 15 years old, and a hastily assembled band of Fargo schoolboys (including his older brother Bill) calling themselves the Shadows volunteered for and were given the unenviable job of filling in for Holly and his band at the Moorhead engagement. “

British wartime leader Winston Churchill with his famous V for victory sign. Image from the archives of Press Portrait Service, 1946 image.

Odd that the V sign can signify both war and peace. From the Wikipedia:

“The V sign is a hand gesture in which the index and middle fingers are raised and parted, while the other fingers are clenched. It has various meanings, depending on the cultural context and how it is presented.

When displayed with the palm inward towards the signer, it has long been an offensive gesture in some Commonwealth nations. In the 1940s, during the Second World War, a campaign by the Western Allies to use the sign with the back of the hand towards the signer (U+270C ✌ Victory hand in Unicode) as a “V for Victory” sign proved quite effective.

During the Vietnam War, in the 1960s, the “V sign” was widely adopted by the counterculture as a symbol of peace. Shortly thereafter, it also became adopted as a gesture used in photographs, especially in Japan.

ca. 1960 — Pop singer Bobby Vee. — Image by © Michael Levin/Corbis

Bobby Vee was born Robert Thomas Velline in Fargo, ND on April 30, 1943. He died October 24, 2016.

From the Wikipedia:
“Vee’s career began in the midst of tragedy. On February 3, 1959… three of the four headline acts in the lineup of the traveling Winter Dance Party— Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and the Big Bopper — were killed in the crash of a V-tailed 1947 Beechcraft Bonanza airplane, along with the 21-year-old pilot, Roger Peterson. (Dion DiMucci… had opted not to travel on the plane.) It crashed near Clear Lake, Iowa, en route to the next show on the tour itinerary, in Moorhead, Minnesota.

“Velline, then 15 years old, and a hastily assembled band of Fargo schoolboys (including his older brother Bill) calling themselves the Shadows volunteered for and were given the unenviable job of filling in for Holly and his band at the Moorhead engagement. Their performance there was a success, setting in motion a chain of events that led to Vee’s career as a popular singer.”

Take Good Care Of My Baby – #1 pop for three weeks in 1961, written by Gerry Goffin and Carole King
The B-side, which got to #2 pop, was Run To Him

The Night Has a Thousand Eyes, which went to #3 pop, #2 adult contemporary, and even #8 soul in 1963

Come Back When You Grow Up, #3 pop in 1967 with The Strangers