books Archives - Page 3 of 23 - Ramblin' with Roger

Most awarded songs #1

Top Pop Singles

Elvis Presley in Jailhouse Rock (Photo by �� John Springer Collection/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images)

I bought Joel Whitburn’s Top Pop Singles book recently. This is the 17th edition, very different from the previous iterations, most of which I’ve purchased since at least edition 12. For one thing, it’s broken into TWO books, one covering 1955-1989, and a second, to be published, for 1990-2022.

The previous version, covering 1955-2018, runs 1200 pages. The new one is 850. So what’s been added? Top 10 albums. The Pre-Rock Era hits of values, rhythm and blues, rock, and country.

Also The Most Awarded Songs. This covers a range of categories: ASCAP, BMI, RIAA, Rolling Stone magazine, plus Grammys and Oscars, and more.

150. You Are The Sunshine Of My Life – Stevie Wonder, #1 in 1973. Grammys, RS, RIAA. This is from the Talking Book album, which went to #3 for three weeks. Unsurprisingly, I own it on LP and CD. I was always taken by the fact that the first two voices are NOT Stevie but Jim Gilstrap then Gloria Barley.

149. Y.M.C.A. – the Village People, #2 for three weeks in 1979. Grammys, RIAA. I must own this on vinyl. This is a perennial at wedding receptions and other festive occasions. Incidentally, I was actually on the board of the Albany YMCA in the late 1980s. And I played racquetball there from 1983 until it closed in 2010.

The third of June

148. Ode To Billie Joe – Bobby Gentry, #1 for four weeks in 1967. Grammys, RS, RIAA. I belonged to the Capitol Record Club at the time, and because I did not send my negative option card back in time, I received the Ode To Billie Joe LP, which spent two weeks at #1. I still have it. Here’s a 2007 blog post I wrote, naturally on the third of June.

147. Le Freak – Chic, #1 for six weeks in 1978. Grammy, RRHoF. I have this on some compilation CD.

146. Papa’s Got A Brand New Bag – James Brown, #8 in 1965. Grammys, RS. There are over 100 hits in the book for the Godfather of Soul. When I was growing up, we used to get Jet magazine, put out by the same folks that put out Ebony. James ALWAYS dominated the charts in the 1960s, often with songs I had never heard. This song I have on the greatest hits CD.

145. Stayin’ Alive – the Bee Gees, #1 for four weeks in 1978. RRHoF, RS, RIAA. Of course, now known as the CPR song. From the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack, which spent 24 weeks at #1. I had it on vinyl at the time, and the son of my girlfriend at the time gave me considerable grief for owning a “disco” album. I now have it on CD.

144. Jailhouse Rock – Elvis Presley, #1 for seven weeks. Grammys, RRHoF, RS. My father hated Elvis, so my knowledge of Elvis was done rather surreptitiously. The video for Jailhouse Rock, from the movie, was oddly captivating. Now, I have the song on two different greatest hits CDs.

A seven-minute single?

143. Hey Jude – the Beatles. #1 for nine weeks in 1968. Grammy, RRHoF, RS. I actually have this on the single, the Beatles Again/Hey Jude LP (#2 for four weeks), and various CDs (Past Masters, blue album). This song ONLY went to #4 in the UK and #3 in Canada. Ken Levine is not a fan of the song.

142. Piece Of My Heart – Big Brother and the Holding Company, #12 in 1968. The Cheap Thrills album, featuring Janis Joplin, was #1 for eight weeks. Yes, I own that LP, as well as a Joplin greatest hits CD.

141.Sexual Healing – Marvin Gaye, #3 for three weeks in 1983. Grammy, RRHoF, RS, ASCAP. I hadn’t bought a Marvin Gaye album in a while. Then he moved from Motown to Columbia and put out the Top 10 album Midnight Love, which I bought. When Motown put out a Gaye boxed set, which I purchased, Sexual Healing was included.

I might not have gotten this book except that my MIL gave me a generous check for Christmas. I suppose I COULD have spent the money on paying bills, but that sort of violates the spirit of the gift, or so I’ve decided to believe.

The New York Mets are best worst

From first to third

New York Mets

Kelly reviewed the book So Many Ways To Lose: The Amazin’ True Story of the New York Mets, the Best Worst Team In Sports, by Devin Gordon. You can read the review about what the heck that title means. But the 2021 season pretty much encapsulates this.

From Baseball-Reference.com: The Mets were in first place in the National League East for 91 days, if one counts only the days a team played and was in first at the end of the day, or 114 days if one counts all days of the season including off days. They topped their division as late as Friday, August 13. They ended up 77-85-0, 3rd place in NL East. It was in large part because of a season-ending injury to pitcher Jacob deGrom on July 18, he with an astonishing 1.08 ERA.

There’s a friend of my sister’s named MJ, who swears I turned her on to the Mets in the mid-1960s, after their truly awful early seasons, but before they won the Series in ’69. Curious, because I had thought of myself as a Yankees fan in those days.

There was a farm team in Binghamton (actually Johnson City) that was usually a Yankees farm team. I saw Al Downing, who as an LA Dodger gave up home run 715, I saw play there. The stadium was razed in the late 1960s to build a new Route 17 (now I-86).

1986

By happenstance, I caught the ESPN Films’ 30 for 30 Documentary “Once Upon a Time in Queens”. It chronicled the 1986 Mets season. But it also discussed the 1984 and 1985 seasons, and how they built to their improbable World Series victory. It includes many interviews, including Keith Hernandez, Darryl Strawberry, Dwight Gooden, Mookie Wilson, Lenny Dykstra, and Kevin Mitchell.

Executive Producer Jimmy Kimmel is correct. “The characters and events captured in this documentary are so outlandish it is hard to believe this documentary isn’t a work of 80’s-era fiction. Whether you are a New Yorker, a Mets fan or even a fan of baseball makes no difference. This is the definitive, must-see story of a team and a time whose antics and even existence now seem unimaginable.”

Back in 2012, I documented seeing the ’86 Game Six on TV, with my friend Cee dressed as Gary Carter.

NYCNY

When the Yankees and the Mets played in the 2000 Subway Series, I was a bit torn. The Yankees had won in 1996, 1998, and 1999, so I was thinking the Amazins deserved a shot. It was not to be. On the other hand, I had all but forgotten that they lost to the Kansas City Royals in 2015.

There’s now a stadium in downtown Binghamton. The team that plays there is the Rumble Ponies, the Double-A farm team of the New York Mets. I’ve only been there once or twice, but maybe next year, something the MLB Mets are undoubtedly saying right now.

What to do with your stuff when you’re dead

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I may have mentioned this first part before. My wife periodically asks me, “What do you want to happen to your stuff when you’re dead?” She wasn’t quite that coarse. But to mind’s ear, it SOUNDED that way.

Recently, my daughter has been also uttered the refrain. I don’t know, but I’m still using them, thank you.

In my wife’s case, it’s a function of my mother-in-law dealing with my late father-in-law’s stuff, so I get it. But the question still makes me irritable.

There may be some of my music and books – surely the largest physical representation of my “stuff” – that they may actually want to keep! Surely, my daughter should want the book Soulsville, USA, even if she doesn’t KNOW she wants it. Likewise my Motown, Stax, Beatles-adjacent, and other albums.

We’re giving ’em away!

That said, there are some books I could part with. Top Pop Albums for 1996, 2001, and 2009 I’m giving up if anyone wants them. But I’m holding on to the 2005 and 2016 versions, the former renamed The Billboard Albums. Why keep the 2005 version but not 2009? Because 2009 dropped the tracks on the albums, re-instated in the 2016 version. And I keep 2005 because it weighs less than the 2016 version and meets most of my needs.

I just got Top Pop Country Singles 1944-2017. So the version ending with 2012 I’d gladly give up.

I’ve somehow got two copies of Marvel Masterworks, Daredevil Volume 5, covering DD issues 42-53. They’re mostly by Stan Lee and Gene Colan, but also Roy Thomas and Barry Windsor-Smith.

And I have a case of “And don’t call me a racist!” The book was compiled by Ella Mazel.

Musical CD duplicates:
25 – Adele
Secret Identity – the Andrew Allen Trio
Sky Signal – Audible
The Long Black Veil – The Chieftains
Open Ground – Kyle Fischer
Cowgirl’s Prayer – Emmylou Harris
Metal Cares – Picastro
Long Knives Down – Rainer Maria

Optimally, anyone who wanted these locally could pick up one or more of these, and multiples of the Mazel book. Or I could drop them off. Beyond that, I’ll ship the rest, in the US only because international postage and regulations are pains. Email me at rogerogreen (at) gmail (dot) com.

More important to me than stuff

I’m more interested in what becomes of my blog when I go. My blog is paid for through March 2027. Still, I’d like to find someone to dump the spam emails, accept the real comments, and update the plugins.

Fortunately, I know most of the blog will live on via the Wayback Machine. At this writing, it was last captured just after my last birthday, on March 8, 2021.

What I discovered, though, is that I used to insert these Continue Reading breaks, the content below which I can’t retrieve. So I have been systematically been getting rid of the MORE tabs.

Also, the first five years of this blog were on Blogger. When I moved it, some of the punctuation was wonky. I’d now get a sentence such as Thatâ€™s why thereâ€™s no such thing as an â€œaspiring writer.â€ I know what it means, but it’s ugly. I’m going through those posts as well.

As for Facebook and Twitter, I suppose I should figure something about those too. But they’re just not that important to me.

16 candles for the Ramblin’ blog

Daily since May 2, 2005

16 Candles. I remember that track. The song by The Crests was released at the end of 1958. It got to #2 in the pop charts for two weeks and #4 on the soul charts in early 1959.

16 Candles was kept out of the #1 pop slot by Stagger Lee by Lloyd Price, a song that also kept Donna by Richie Valens from reaching the top of the charts.

The Crests was an “interracial doo-wap group formed in Manhattan, NY.” It included Johnny Maestro, later of the Brooklyn Bridge (The Worst That Can Happen); Harold Torres; Talmadge Gough; and J.T. Carter. Patricia Van Dross, older sister of Luther Vandross, left the group in 1958.

But I’ve never seen the John Hughes movie.

I suppose those paragraphs epitomize what I try to do in the blog. Find a hook for the topic, sometimes using information gleaned from something called books. And I have a fair amount of them in the office where I almost always write.

In fact, it’s the books, or more correctly, the built-in bookcases which contain mostly my books, many of them reference materials about music, television, and movies, that kept me in here during the pandemic. Meanwhile, my wife ended up in the guest room, where she now does her email, school planning, and church meetings.

How I write a daily blog

This sounds obvious, but it does help. What makes blogging easier is knowing what I am going to blog about. There are about 30 holidays, birthdays, and anniversaries. Then I’m going to write about my daughter once a month. All I need to write is about 300 more posts per year. Piece of cake!

Sometimes an event happens in the world, and I need to write about it; the death of someone significant to my understanding of the world, e.g. I might bunch a few together, as I did when Cicely Tyson, Hank Aaron, and others who died within two weeks of each other.

Often, I don’t know that I have something to say until I do. After the Atlanta-area shootings, I thought I’d just put some links in my twice-monthly linkage dump. But then they became so numerous I realized that I should probably create a blog post.

I try to write every day. If I go more than a day without writing, it becomes more difficult to restart. For me, writing begets writing. So I have to muse about SOMETHING. If I know I’m going to note the 1991 #1 hits in October 2021 – and I am, BTW – and I don’t have anything else in mind, I could write about that. I haven’t, yet; maybe tomorrow.

For the birds

My late blogger buddy Dustbury “noted that he and I have something in common: we are both magpies. As he put it: ‘The Eurasian magpie… is wicked smart, especially for a bird… I am not quite sure how ‘magpie’ became a descriptor for humans who flit from topic to topic unless it has to do with the bird’s tendency to be attracted to Shiny Things, but I’m pretty sure I fit that description, and I have several readers who seem to do likewise.”

He was not wrong. In early 2021, I watched five movies in five days and wrote posts about them soon thereafter. But I didn’t post five movie posts in a row because I didn’t want to. I sense that you don’t want me to either. The strength, and weakness I suppose, of this blog, is that it ping pongs all over the place. That’s because my mind does that.

Consequently, I don’t post in the order that I write. Frequently, I have something already scheduled for a date, but something more pressing/timely pops up. I will, and in fact, do move posts around. A lot, sometimes.

This has the added benefit that, as often as not, I have no idea what I’ve decided to post on a given day until I actually see it. Surprise! And, as I’ve often mentioned, it’s not until then that I see the damn typo or wrong word choice (site instead of cite, e.g.).

Long-form

Just recently, my wife asked me if I might want to “publish” sometimes, to which I said, “I DO publish, every day.” But I knew what she meant, write a book or something. The problem is that I don’t know what it would be about.

Now Jaquandor, HE writes books. I’ve read a couple of them and I liked them. Go read HIS books.

I never tried to get a doctorate because I couldn’t imagine spending the time necessary on one topic. And, as I get older, I realize that I keep learning “stuff” about myself, the world. It’s not that I have no preconceived notions, for surely I do. It’s just that they often tend to get dashed on the rocks. Reason enough to keep blogging, I suppose.

Review: The Stringer graphic novel

Mark Scribner

The details about the declining US press are so accurate. You might think that the graphic novel The Stringer was a piece of nonfiction. Surely writer Ted Rall has captured the essence of newsrooms experiencing severe budget and layoffs.

As the publisher’s description notes, “veteran war correspondent Mark Scribner is about to throw in the towel on journalism when he discovers that his hard-earned knowledge can save his career and make him wealthy and famous.” All he has to do is reframe his entire journalistic ethos.

The title, incidentally, describes “a newspaper correspondent not on the regular staff of a newspaper, especially one retained on a part-time basis to report on events in a particular place.” They are generally poorly paid, with little or, usually no job benefits or security.

The Stringer shows how “fact-based journalism,” which means reporters on the ground, has often taken a hit. What’s more important in an age of social media, is to get eyeballs to view your “content” on social media. It might make someone rich and famous but at the potential cost of one’s soul.

Mark Scribner, as shown by Rall and Pablo Callejo, has figured out the system and how to game it. The book is an “action-packed timely statement about how a society without a vibrant independent culture of reporting can degenerate into chaos and a warning of the dangers of sophisticated new technologies that enable the manufacture and modification of ‘truths’ with no basis in fact.”

Would Bryan Cranston approve?

Some have compared Scribner to the Walter White character in the TV series Breaking Bad. He was once a decent person who, due to circumstances, ended up committing acts that he once could not have imagined doing. And cynically rationalizing it.

Publishing Weekly calls the conclusion “well-crafted overkill,” and I would agree, though I found Scribner more than “two-dimensional.”

Ted Rall is “a nationally syndicated political cartoonist, columnist, graphic novelist, editor, author, and occasional war correspondent.” Rall and Callejo have worked together previously on The Year of Loving Dangerously, a semi-autobiographical tale about getting booted out of college, then grifting.

The Stringer is available from NBM Publishing, Amazon, and Target.