obit Archives - Ramblin' with Roger

Roberta Flack (1937-2025)

with Donny Hathaway

The first Roberta Flack album I ever heard was Chapter Two (1970). It belonged to my sister Leslie. The opening track was Reverend Lee (Gene McDaniels), a PG-13 song about a “sexy Southern Baptist minister.” My all-time favorite Roberta song is Gone Away (Donny Hathaway, Leroy Hutson, Curtis Mayfield), which I’ve used in my depressing quartet of songs when I broke up with someone. A song I didn’t appreciate as much at the time as I did subsequently is Business Goes On As Usual, a song by Fred Hellerman and Fran Minkoff, which is a stark reflection of consumerism and war. I eventually purchased it and every other album mentioned here.

I bought Quiet Fire (1971), her third album, which starts with the anthemic Go Up Moses (Roberta Flack, Jesse Jackson, Joel Dorn). There are some lovely covers, but my favorite is To Love Somebody (Barry and Robin Gibb), especially the second half.

Roberta Flack & Donny Hathaway (1972) paired two Atlantic Records artists to great commercial success, reaching #3 pop and #2 RB. The first single was You’ve Got A Friend (Carole King), #29 pop, #8 RB, #36 AC. Be Real Black For Me (Charles Mann, Donny Hathaway, Roberta Flack) would appear on the six-CD anthology 100 Years of Black Music. But the hit was Where Is The Love (Ralph MacDonald, William Salter), which got to #5 pop and #1 RB and AC.

Finally

I finally purchased First Take (1969), which reached #1 on the pop and RB album charts. It was propelled by The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face (Ewan MacColl) after Clint Eastwood included it in his 1971 film Play Misty for Me. The single went #1 pop and AC for 6 weeks, and #4 RB. The first song on the album was Compared To What (Gene McDaniels).

The Killing Me Softly album (1973) went to #3 pop and #2 RB. It featured Killing Me Softly With His Song (Charles Fox, Norman Gimbel) that went to #1 pop, #2 AC.

Rubina Flake

Feel Like Makin’ Love (1975) is the singer’s first album, under the pseudonym Rubina Flake, to be produced by Flack herself. I Can See The Sun In Late December (Stevie Wonder), at nearly 13 minutes, is about 6 minutes too long, but interesting. She’s Not Blind (Stuart Scharf) is my favorite song on the album. The title track (Gene McDaniels) went to #1 on pop, RB (5 weeks) and AC (2 weeks) charts.

Blue Lights in the Basement (1977) starts with the song Why Don’t You Move In With Me (Gene McDaniels); the intro is grand. When I saw Roberta at First Night in Albany, NY, in the late 1990s, she could not replicate the great piano line. The Closer I Get To You (Reggie Lucas, James Mtume) is a duet with Donny Hathaway that went to #2 pop, #1 RB for 2 weeks, #3 AC

Roberta Flack (1978) was a contractual obligation album. If I Ever See You Again did go #1 AC for 3 weeks, #24 pop, #37 RB

Dakota

Roberta Flack Featuring Donny Hathaway (1980) featured only two pieces with her old singing partner. You Are My Heaven (Eric Mercury, Stevie Wonder) #8 RB, #46 AC, #47 pop, is the last song Hathaway would ever record. “After having dinner with Flack at her residence in the Dakota, Hathaway had then returned to his suite on the fifteenth floor of Essex House, later fatally falling from the window of his suite.”

I missed buying a couple of her albums before Oasis (1988). The title track (Marcus Miller, Mark Stephens) went to #1 RB, # 13 AC

The last album of hers I bought was Let It Be Roberta: Roberta Flack Sings the Beatles (2012). Roberta lived across the hall from John and Yoko in the Dakota building in New York City. Here, There, and Everywhere is the only live track.

My post from 2012. Obits from Variety, Rolling Stone, and THR. From the latter: “In November 2022, it was revealed that she had been diagnosed with ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, and could no longer sing. In 2016, she suffered a stroke, and she retired from performing two years later.”

Roberta Flack Performs “Killing Me Softly” and “Just Like a Woman” | Carson Tonight Show. Air date: July 13th, 1973

Coverville 1524: Roberta Flack Tribute and Mitch Ryder Cover Story

What would Joyce Bascom do?

feed the hungry

My wife and I attended the funeral of Joyce Bascom on Saturday, October 12. She had died two months earlier. Her life epitomized the Christian life in the best way possible. One might ask, “What would Joyce do?” in a given situation.

When we first attended our church, she was among the first people to welcome us, not just to say hi but to show genuine interest in who we were, where we came from, and how we started attending there. She was a very engaging person.

She was married to Paul, who she had known since grade school, for over 60 years until he died in 2015.

As noted in her obituary, she was actively involved in numerous causes, “including volunteering with the Red Cross, Traveler’s Aid, and Planned Parenthood. She worked tirelessly for the rights of all people, with a special focus on equality for the LGBTQ+ community.” Specifically, she was “chair of the More Light Committee, working to build inclusion in the Presbyterian church.”

What I learned at her funeral was that after her grandson Christopher was killed in an accident involving a drunk driver, she would meticulously clip articles about similar incidents and send them to an association dealing with driving while intoxicated. The organization created storyboards they could share with the media, creating a narrative that helped turn the tide.

In 2008, “Joyce was awarded the James and Pearl Campbell Peace and Justice Award by The Capital Area Council of Churches.”

Joyce “has always been a horse-girl since her father got her that first pony as a child… At the age of 84, many years after her last horse had passed away, Joyce got ‘back on the horse’ – taking riding lessons once a week.”

Action

After her funeral on Saturday, my wife and I were walking back to our car. A woman was walking up in the middle of State Street, holding the top of her head and limping. I could see even from a distance that the top of her head looked red.

She was walking by us and then decided to walk over to us. Apologetically, she shared how she had been mugged and hit on the head, with her wallet, her money, and her identification gone. She had been to hospitals, and spoke about the extraordinary wait for care at Albany Med (notoriously true, unfortunately).

Social services told her she couldn’t receive help in Albany because she was receiving aid in her hometown in western Massachusetts. So she reluctantly asked for some money, and we gave her a twenty, which was all we had before we went to the bank.

We offered her a ride, but she demurred. My wife remembered that she had had some sandwiches in the refrigerator at church from a meeting five days earlier. They were probably a little bit underwhelming in taste, but they were still okay to eat. So my wife put them in a plastic bag we had in the car, offered them to this woman with the caveat as mentioned earlier, and she happily took them.

Afterward, I realized this was what Joyce Bascom would do, if not more. That’s why I enjoyed knowing her.

Kris Kristofferson (1936-2004)

singer/songwriter

The music of Kris Kristofferson seemed to have bookended my adult life until now. During my first marriage, we had an album the record company had just reissued as Me and Bobby McGee, previously called Kristofferson. It had many songs that other people were making famous, such as Help Me Make It Through The Night and For The Good Times. After the Rhodes scholar, working as a janitor, landed a helicopter on Johnny Cash’s lawn, the Man In Black covered Kris’ Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down.

But I particularly enjoyed a couple of other songs on that premiere album. The first track, Blame It On The Stones, features a chorus swiped from Bringing In The Sheaves and lyrics telling us to “blame it on those Rolling Stones.”

Another great song was The Law Is For Protection Of The People. “A rule’s a rule, as any fool can see.” We don’t need certain people “scaring decent folk like you and me. No, siree.” I love that album, and I might still have it on vinyl.

I also had the next album, Silver Tongued Devil and I. It featured The Pilgrim, Chapter 33. I used to quote the line, “He’s a walking contradiction; partly truth and partly fiction,” inordinately frequently. It seems particularly apt to describe many people I’ve known.

A find

While going through my father-in-law’s music collection after he died in 2020, I discovered a two-CD set of Kristofferson’s music titled Singer/Songwriter. One disc features him singing his songs and the other features about a dozen and a half artists covering Kris. It’s quite a fine album. He doesn’t have the prettiest voice, but it has a certain amount of character.

Speaking of character, on “Oct. 16, 1992, Columbia Records threw its longtime artist Bob Dylan an event at Madison Square Garden to celebrate the 30th anniversary of his first album with the label.” Sinead O’Connor, who had made a controversial appearance on Saturday Night Live, was booed by the MSG audience, but Kris supported her onstage.

Kris Kristofferson did his final live performance at Willie Nelson’s 90th birthday party concert in April 2023. With Cash, Waylon Jennings, and Kris gone, Willie’s the surviving Highwayman.

Oh yeah. He was in the movies, too, but I only saw a few, all at the cinema. In the early 1970s, he appeared in Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore. The only reason I saw Rollover (1981), also starring Jane Fonda, was that part of it was shot at the UAlbany campus. My family saw the two Dolphin Tale (20111, 2014) films.

More songs

Jody and the Kid – Kris

Help Me Make It Through The Night – Kris

For The Good Times – Ray Price

Me and Bobby McGee – Roger Miller

Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down – Johnny Cash

To Beat The Devil – Waylon Jennings

Lovin’ Her Was Easier (Than Anything I’ll Ever Do Again) – Waylon Jennings

Why Me – Kris

I’d Rather Be Sorry – Kris and Rita Coolidge

Nobody Wins – Rita Coolidge

Please Don’t Tell Me How The Story Ends – Ronnie Milsap

The Hawk – Tom Verlaine

Highwayman – The Highwaymen (a Jimmy Webb song)

Paperback Writer – Kris (Lennon/McCartney)

James Earl Jones (1931-2024)

2 Tony awards

The first time I specifically remember seeing James Earl Jones in a movie was in The Great White Hope (1970), where he played a Jack Johnson-like boxer. I went to the cinema with my high school girlfriend and her father. Both Jones and Jane Alexander had won Tonys for their Broadway performances. The performances were very good, though I thought the film was too stagy.

More likely, I watched him on television series in the 1960s, such as the great East Side/West Side (1962) or the courtroom drama The Defenders, in which he played two different characters. I have the Along Came a Spider episode in season 1 on DVD! I’ll have to check that out.

It’s possible I saw him on the soap operas Guiding Light and/or As The World Turns, which my maternal grandmother and great-aunt watched religiously.

I was recently making a list of my favorite movies. Field Of Dreams is definitely on it, and James Earl Jones’ near-monologue is a primary reason.

The VOICE

But it’s the voice, in everything from Star Wars (1977 et al.)to The Lion King (1994) to the CNN tag – all represented in this brief Simpsons clip – that he was best known for. Listen also to his narration of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven. Per Mark Evanier, he even did an episode of Garfield.

It’s strange for someone who stuttered so severely as a child, born on January 17, 1931, in Arkabutla, MS, that he stopped speaking for a time because of his abusive grandmother’s treatment. “Mr. Jones profited from a deep analysis of meaning in his lines. ‘Because of my muteness,’ he said in ‘Voices and Silences,’ a 1993 memoir written with Penelope Niven, ‘I approached language in a different way from most actors. I came at language standing on my head, turning words inside out in search of meaning, making a mess of it sometimes, but seeing truth from a very different viewpoint.'”

I also saw him in the movies, including The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars & Motor Kings (1976), Coming to America (1988), The Hunt for Red October (1990), Sneakers (1992), The Sandlot (1993), and more recently, Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964).

Indeed, I watched him in anything that aired on TV, including Homicide: Life on the Street, Picket Fences, Law & Order, and NYPD Blue, and his portrayal of Alex Haley on Roots: The Next Generation.

The Brooks and Marsh book on TV described his role as a police captain on Paris (1979), a short-lived program, as lacking “believability… Jones, a highly respected actor, strutted through this role speaking in booming, stentorian tones as if it were Richard III.” But I watched it; it was James Earl Jones! On this show, he met his second wife, Cecilia Hart, who predeceased him.

“His Acting Resonated Onstage and On-screen”

Alas, I never saw him on stage. “A commanding presence on the Broadway stage, Jones earned four competitive Tony Award nominations for Best Actor in a Play, winning twice for his performances as Jack Jefferson in The Great White Hope in 1969 and Troy Maxson in August Wilson’s Fences in 1987. He received a Special Tony Award at the 2017 ceremony…

“In September 2022, the Shubert Organization rechristened its 110-year-old Cort Theatre as The James Earl Jones Theatre… ‘For me standing in this very building 64 years ago at the start of my Broadway career, it would have been inconceivable that my name would be on the building today,’ Jones said in a statement… “Let my journey from then to now be an inspiration for all aspiring actors.'”

Jones was a 2002 Kennedy Center Honoree and received Lifetime Achievement Awards from SAG-AFTRA in 2009 and the National Board of Review in 1995. Here’s a 1996 interview, a life in pictures, a critic’s appreciation of an “ideal elevator companion,” and the New York Times obituary.

Given the fact that he was 93 and had lived what most would consider a “good life,” I was surprised at how utterly sad I was at his passing.

Willie Mays

Rickwood Field

**I have a postcard with this on the back which I bought in Cooperstown at least 30 years ago.**

On May 6, 2006, I wrote: “Back in 1994, I bought some beverage from McDonald’s and I ended up with a Willie Mays glass. It features a replica of his 1957 baseball card when he played with the New York Giants. That was the team’s last year at the Polo Grounds, before moving to San Francisco. (I still have the glass.)”

Not only did I have the glass, it was in the cabinet with other drinking glasses. I never used it. The rest of my family did. My wife used it on the morning of June 18 to drink water. When I learned that Willie Mays had died, I wrapped the glass in plastic and put it in a box to keep it. It could have broken any time during the previous quarter century, but only then did I know I needed to retire it.

I noted: “When I went to Cooperstown one year, I got to buy this plastic figurine of Willie. I loved it. The arms even moved! Then the dog bit off one of his feet, and one of the arms (the one with the glove) fell off, but I kept it for a good long time anyway.”

1962

I also wrote about him on May 6, 2011. Suffice it to say, Willie Mays was my favorite player. Not only that, I decided I loved San Francisco long before I had visited there, in large part because the Say Hey Kid played there.

The 1962 World Series was difficult for me because the New York Yankees, the parent team of the minor league Triplets of Binghamton, with Ford, Howard, Tresh, Richardson, Mantle, and ROGER Maris against the San Francisco Giants of Cepeda, McCovey, Davenport, Alou, Alou, Marichal, and of course, Mays. It was a great Series, with the NYY winning Game 7, 1-0.

The loss pained him. So the World Series victories by the Giants in 2010, 2012, and 2014 reportedly thrilled him, especially the first one.

The Globe

I could give you the stats. From the Boston Globe (paywall likely):

“Over 22 MLB seasons, virtually all with the New York/San Francisco Giants, Mays batted .301, hit 660 home runs, totaled 3,293 hits, scored more than 2,000 runs, and won 12 Gold Gloves. He was Rookie of the Year in 1951, twice was named the Most Valuable Player, and finished in the top 10 for the MVP 10 other times. His lightning sprint and over-the-shoulder grab of an apparent extra-base hit in the 1954 World Series remains the most celebrated defensive play in baseball history.

“He was voted into the Hall in 1979, his first year of eligibility, and in 1999 followed only Babe Ruth on The Sporting News’ list of the game’s top stars. (Statistician Bill James ranked him third, behind Ruth and Honus Wagner). The Giants retired his uniform number, 24, and set their AT&T Park in San Francisco on Willie Mays Plaza.” The center fielder had been baseball’s oldest living Hall of Famer.

But it wasn’t just his enormous five-tools talent, but his effervescent personality. “For millions in the 1950s and ‘60s and after, the smiling ball player with the friendly, high-pitched voice was a signature athlete and showman during an era when baseball was still the signature pastime. Awarded the Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama in 2015, Mays left his fans with countless memories.”

The Times

From the New York Times: “Mays captured the ardor of baseball fans at a time when Black players were still emerging in the major leagues and segregation remained untrammeled in his native South. He was revered in Black neighborhoods, especially in Harlem, where he played stickball with youngsters outside his apartment on St. Nicholas Place — not far from the Polo Grounds, where the Giants played — and he was treated like visiting royalty at the original Red Rooster, one of Harlem’s most popular restaurants in his day.”

MLB

I was afraid he was unwell when he declined to attend a Major League League game played in his native Alabama. “Rickwood Field is the oldest still-existing professional ballpark in the nation, and it’s best known for being the home of the Negro Leagues’ Birmingham Black Barons in the early-mid 20th century, a franchise that produced eventual Hall of Famers Satchel Paige, Mule Suttles, and Willie Mays.”

Mays, just days before he died, revealed in “a statement to the San Francisco Chronicle that he would not be attending Thursday’s [i.e., today’s] contest.

“’I wish I could come out to Rickwood Field this week to be with you all and enjoy that field with my friends. Rickwood’s been part of my life for all of my life. Since I was a kid. It was just ‘around the corner there’ from Fairfield [the town where Mays went to high school], and it felt like it had been there forever. Like a church. The first big thing I ever put my mind to was to play at Rickwood Field. It wasn’t a dream. It was something I was going to do. I was going to work hard to be one of the Birmingham Black Barons and play ball at Rickwood Field. That’s what I did. It was my start. My first job. You never forget that. Rickwood Field is where I played my first home game, and playing there was IT — everything I wanted. “

I should end with this benediction, which I’ve used before. Say Hey (The Willie Mays Song) – The Treniers