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Rhymin’ Paul Simon turns 80

Simon covering Simon

Paul Simon turns 80, and I needed to find an angle. Ten years ago, on this date, I wrote about my favorite Paul Simon solo cuts. And ten years ago on November 5, on Art Garfunkel’s birthday, I noted my preferred Simon and Garfunkel tracks.

There are some artists whose music I tend to continue to buy because I’ve enjoyed their body of work. Not necessarily every album but most: Paul McCartney and Bruce Springsteen come to mind.

I continue to buy Paul Simon-related albums. Paul Simon Songbook is the 1965 album of solo Paul, most of which ended up on early S+G albums. It didn’t come out on CD until 2006.

Two Teenagers – The Singles 1957-1961. This includes many of the recordings of the duo BEFORE they were Simon and Garfunkel, both as a duo (Tom and Jerry, e.g.) and solo artists, (Jerry Landis, Artie Garr, et al.) Worthwhile.

In 2012 (I think), I sent my copy of Graceland (1986) to a friend of mine Who Had Never Heard It. Then I bought another copy with a few remixes of songs, though NOT the 12″ inch version of Boy In The Bubble, alas.

I got Stranger to Stranger in 2016, when it came out. It took a few plays for it to “take” in my ear, but I like it.

Do it again

The most interesting concept is 2018’s In The Blue Light , a “fresh perspectives on 10 of the artist’s favorite (though perhaps less-familiar) compositions drawn from the five-decade span of his illustrious solo career.” Four songs are from You’re The One (2000), but none are from Graceland.

“Jesse Hassenger of The A.V. Club gave the album a B- and wrote, ‘It would be easy to get bogged down in treating Blue Light as a compare/contrast exercise, but what’s most impressive about is the way that it sounds more or less of a piece as its own record.'”

Nevertheless, here are a couple of examples:

One Man’s Ceiling Is Another Man’s Floor from There Goes Rhymin’ Simon (1973), In The Blue Light

Some Folks’ Lives Roll Easy from Still Crazy After All These Years (1975), In The Blue Light

Musician John Mellencamp is 70

Blood on the plow

In the late 1970s, I heard about a singer named Johnny Cougar. Without having heard a single note from the musician, I had immediately dismissed him. I later learned that a “suit” insisted that John Mellencamp change his name because the Germanic surname was too hard to market.

When he achieved some commercial success, he could get his record company to list him as John Cougar Mellencamp in 1983. But it wasn’t until 1991 that the Cougar went away.

Mellencamp claims to have invented alt-country, and perhaps he did. For sure, he helped organize the first Farm Aid benefit concert with Willie Nelson and Neil Young on September 22, 1985. It’s now an annual event that has raised over $60 million for family farmers who are struggling financially.

Big Daddy

I’ll admit I haven’t heard that much of Mellencamp’s music since the late ’80s. I did listen to some recommended cuts on his Wikipedia page and liked quite a lot of them. He doesn’t seem to have the rock star instinct, though. When he released Big Daddy in 1989, which he said at the time was his best album, he decided not to tour. He was heavily involved with painting at the time.

John Mellencamp has been lauded by folks such as John Fogarty, the late Johnny Cash, and Bruce Springsteen, who has played with him occasionally. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2008. A decade later, he got into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.

Rolling Stone contributor Anthony DeCurtis said: “Mellencamp has created an important body of work that has earned him both critical regard and an enormous audience. His songs document the joys and struggles of ordinary people seeking to make their way, and he has consistently brought the fresh air of common experience to the typically glamour-addled world of popular music.”

On CBS Sunday Morning, he told fellow Indianian Jane Pauley that smoking got him the voice he wanted. He’s riding her on this motorcycle but where are their helmets?

Some songs

Chart action per Billboard pop charts

Rumbleseat, #28 in 1986
Save Some Time To Dream. This is from his 2010’s lo-fi CD No Better Than This, the only album of his I actually own save for a greatest hits collection.
R.O.C.K. in the U.S.A. (A Salute to ’60s Rock), #2 in 1986 – if a little cheesy, I got what Mellencamp was going for. And I appreciate the ocarina, which I associate with “Wild Thing” by The Troggs
I Need A Lover, #28 in 1979. It’s a very long intro
Cherry Bomb, #8 in 1988

Paper’s In Fire, #9 in 1987. Lisa Germano’s fine violin
Authority Song, #15 in 1984. He says it’s his band’s version of “I Fought the Law”
Lonely Ol’ Night, #6 in 1985
Jack & Diane, #1 for four weeks in 1982. I’ve become a sucker for this song for the past quarter-century because my wife’s cousin Diane married a guy named Jack a while before I met them. I was really fond of Jack, as he, my late FIL Richard, and I talked about baseball at length, especially from the 1950s and 1960s, every family reunion. Jack was a Brooklyn Dodgers fan. When he died in 2021, dear Diane made sure some of Jack’s books were sent to me.
Rain On The Scarecrow, #21 in 1986. “Do you want to buy a farm?”

Sting of The Police turns 70

Think

Sting_in_April_2018 — **By Raph_PH – QueenbdayRAH210418-34, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=76810661**

As the 40th anniversary of MTV, not to mention mark Knopfler’s 72nd birthday, was being celebrated in early August 2021, I started listening to the intro to Dire Straits’ Money For Nothing. It was only then that I heard the similarities between the vocal of Sting on the “I Want My MTV” segment and the Police song Don’t Stand So Close To Me. It’s SO obvious in retrospect.

Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner CBE has been an enormously successful and well-regarded musician and songwriter. As Wikipedia noted, the initial sound [of the Police] was punk-inspired, but they switched to reggae rock and minimalist pop.” He had had a lengthy solo career, influenced by everything from jazz to madrigals over the years. Sting also has a strong activist bent over many years, participating in myriad events.

But I’ve always been amused how much an ex-girlfriend absolutely HATED his voice. I couldn’t play any of his music while she was in the room, and I had/have a lot of his tunes.

The Police were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2003. Solo and with The Police combined, Sting has sold over 100 million records and received 17 Grammy Awards.

Songs

All songs by Sting and chart action are the Billboard pop charts unless otherwise indicated.

Murder By Numbers – The Police. This song used to irritate me greatly, but it’s not the tune’s fault. It’s that I bought the LP of Synchronicity and it did not appear, only on that new-fangled compact disc technology the music was trying to force down our throats in the early 1980s. It WAS on the B-side of the massive Police hit Every Breath You Take. Rick Beato notes why this song is fantastic.

King Of Pain – The Police, #3 for two weeks in 1983. Do I love this because Weird Al did a great early parody, with King Of Suede? Maybe.

I Hung My Head. Johnny Cash done stole this song from him, but JR just does that.

Every Breath You Take – The Police, #1 for eight weeks in 1983. Beato spends nearly an hour breaking down the power of this song.

Why STING is Uncopyable

Fortress Around Your Heart, #8 in 1985. Lyrics of love as war. Beato explains the intricacies of the song here, starting at 2:07.

Spirits In The Material World – The Police, #11 in 1982

Gabriel’s Message. From that first A Very Special Christmas collection.

The Bed’s Too Big Without You – The Police. I suppose I related to this in my younger, lonelier days.

Fields of Gold, #23 in 1993.

Message In A Bottle – The Police, #74 in 1979.

Can’t Stand Losing You – The Police.

Fragile. I’ve related to this a LOT over the years.

Cueca Solas

They Dance Alone. A heartbreaking song about the survivors of the Disappeared.

If I Ever Lose My Faith In You, #17 in 1993. There’s a modulation here that always knocks me out

Don’t Stand So Close To Me – The Police, #10 in 1981; ’86 version, #46 in 1986. Someone on Quora suggested that the Police were a band with a happy ending. Maybe a couple of decades later

Roxanne – The Police, #32 in 1979. The first hit.

Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic – The Police. #3 for two weeks in 1981. Such a joyful song. Beato loves it. Shawn Colvin does a nice cover.

If You Love Somebody, Set Them Free, #3 for two weeks (#17 soul) in 1985. Sting was way ahead of me linguistically with this. Not only did I buy the album this appears, but the 12-inch with three different versions.

Synchronicity II – The Police, #16 in 1983. I have repeated these lyrics to this very angry song more than once. “And every single meeting with his so-called superior Is a humiliating kick in the crotch.” Musically, Beato at 8:13 touts it.

On Show #8359, Thursday, March 18, 2021, Sting was a category on JEOPARDY! And at the end, he recreates the Think music.

Coverville 1373: The Sting and The Police Cover Story IV

Chrissie Hynde (The Pretenders) is 70

“The farms of Ohio had been replaced by shopping malls”

One of my all-time favorite debut albums is Pretenders, released in 1980. It was by a group I thought was British. In fact, the lead singer. and primary songwriter was Chrissie Hynde, originally from Akron, Ohio.

She bounced around in the London and Paris music scenes for half a decade before the Pretenders were formed in 1978 with Pete Farndon (bass). James Honeyman-Scott (guitar, vocals, keyboards), and Martin Chambers (drums, vocals, percussion).

The second album, the less-than-inspired titled Pretenders II (1981) was solid. But then, Farndon was fired from the band in June 1982 and died less than a year later. “On 16 June 1982, Honeyman-Scott died of heart failure as a result of cocaine intolerance.”

After that, there was an ever-changing lineup, with Chrissie the only constant. When the group was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2005, only the original quartet was selected.

The band now has 11 albums, but I’ve heard only the first four. Still, Chrissie has remained a busy working musician with collaborations with Emmylou Harris, Ringo Starr, and Brazilian musician Moreno Veloso, among many others.

Songs

The chart refers to the Billboard pop charts. Songs leading to my favorite.

Brass in Pocket, #14 in 1980 – I enjoy this, at least in part, because she initially didn’t like her performance. “When we recorded the song I wasn’t very happy with it and told my producer that he could release it over my dead body… Now I like that song because it’s one of those songs that served me well.”
Jealous Dogs – featuring barking, always appreciated
I’ve Got You, Babe, #28 in 1985 – this cover of the Sonny and Cher classic is actually a Chrissie song with UB40, though it appears on the Pretenders: The Singles
Pack It Up – something about “your insipid record collection” always cracked me up
Back On The Chain Gang, #5 in 1983 – essentially Hynde, Chambers, and a pickup band of lead guitarist Billy Bremner of Rockpile, guitarist Robbie McIntosh, and bassist Tony Butler. It was used in the movie The King of Comedy, starring Robert DeNiro and Jerry Lewis. Love the clanging metal sound.

I Go To Sleep – written by Ray Davies, as was Stop Your Sobbing. Sleep was recorded by the Applejacks and Marion, but not officially by The Kinks. Davies is the father of Hynde’s daughter Eva.
Don’t Get Me Wrong, #10 in 1986 – I like the “jangly” guitar sound
Cuban Slide – part of the Extended Play EP between the first two albums
Mystery Achievement – last song of the first album
God Only Knows – the 2014 BBC all-star version of the Beach Boys classic features Chrissie
Middle of the Road, #19 in 1984 – she had said that the song refers to Tao Te Ching, which she interprets as “the middle way”
Precious – the first song on the first album. Howard the Duck is namechecked, the revered 1970s comic book, not the reviled 1980s movie
My City Was Gone, B-side of Chain Gang – “I went back to Ohio.” Great social commentary with a killer bass line.

Ultimate Classic Rock’s Pretenders list

Actor Mark Harmon turns 70

2nd annual “Sexiest Man Alive.”

In the summer of 2021, Ken Levine answered the question, “What are familiar, long-running shows that you’ve never seen…?” Ken replied: “Never seen an episode of NCIS. (How can there be so many murders in the Navy?)”

For over a decade, this was true of me as well. The 2003 spinoff of JAG, another Navy show just didn’t seem to be my cuppa. But then my daughter started watching it a few years ago. Like a good parent, I had to check it out.

The star was/is Mark Harmon as Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs, head of his NCIS team. I have known who he was since he played college football. His father Tom was a college player, then a long-time sportscaster. When Tom was announcing the UCLA games, he referred to his son as “Quarterback”, as he did not want to call Mark by name. The nickname stuck.

From the IMDB, his first credit was on a show called Ozzie’s Girls.”Back in 1963, [Mark’s sister] Kristin, who was then 18, married pop star Ricky Nelson. And Nelson was the son of Ozzie and Harriet Nelson, two iconic stars from the early days of television. The two starred in The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet,” with their real-life sons Dave and pop star Ricky.

Career

Mark Harmon appeared in a number of TV shows and ads for products such as Coors beer. He caught my attention as Dr. Robert Caldwell in the medical show St. Elsewhere in the early 1980s.

In 1986, he was chosen as People Magazine’s second annual “Sexiest Man Alive.” That same year, he was astonishingly good playing the attractive serial killer Ted Bundy in the miniseries The Deliberate Stranger.

I may have seen him in other programs, but I specifically remember his excellent portrayal as Secret Service Agent Simon Donovan in four episodes of The West Wing in 2002.

In the past season of NCIS, the 18th, Gibbs was in a diminished role on the show. Meanwhile, the program brought in the character Marcie Warren, an investigative journalist, for five episodes. She was played by Pam Dawber, Harmon’s wife since 1987. Harmon was convinced to stay with NCIS for a “handful” of episodes in season 19.

Real-life hero

You may recall that in 1996, he “risked his life to save two teenage boys who were involved in a car accident outside of his home. Harmon used a sledgehammer from his garage to break the window out of their car, then pulled them free so they wouldn’t be burned to death, while his wife, Pam Dawber, called 911. He made every effort to downplay his role in saving their lives.

“‘None of that happens without Pam walking up the street and investigating it further. I don’t see it as any thought process. Either you do or you don’t. If the car blows up and kills me and the kids in the car, then you’d be doing this interview with my wife about how stupid it was.'”