DIG THIS WITH BILL MESNIK AND RICH BUCKLAND- THE SPLENDID BOHEMIANS

Today The Splendid Bohemians pay homage to three not only consummate artists of the guitar, but teachers of their craft as well - responsible for passing on the mysteries of their music to generations of thankful acolytes. 

ARLEN ROTH:

Arlen Roth is the ultimate sideman and guitar teacher who has played with everybody. His first book, Slide Guitar, was published by Oak Publications when he was 21. Roth is a Telecaster enthusiast who wrote the book Masters of the Telecaster detailing the techniques of many famous Telecaster guitarists.He has been called "Master of the Telecaster.”

THE REVEREND GARY DAVIS: 

A Piedmont style guitar master, The Reverend Gary Davis was a player who became a gospel singer, Christian minister, and teacher.The folk revival of the 1960s invigorated his performing career, when he performed at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965. Peter, Paul and Mary recorded Davis' version of “Samson and Delilah”, also known as "If I Had My Way", a song by Blind Willie Johnson, which Davis had popularized. The resulting royalties allowed Davis to buy a house and live comfortably for the rest of his life, and Davis referred to the house as "the house that Peter, Paul and Mary built.

RY COODER: 

He is a multi-instrumentalist, but is best known for his slide work, his interest in traditional music, and his collaborations with traditional musicians from many countries. He is a much sought after film soundtrack artist, and he produced the Cuban music album sensation - Buena Vista Social Club (1997), which became a worldwide hit; Wim Wenders directed the documentary film of the same name (1999), which was nominated for an Academy Award in 2000. Cooder was ranked at No. 8 on Rolling Stone magazine's 2003 list of "The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time.”

There was nobody like Lou Reed, and there is no Sunny Song like Dirty Blvd: a black and white hellscape, described by a cynic past being surprised by any indignity - yet, still managing to extract beauty and hope out of the filthy miasma. When the Statue of Bigotry says: “give me your hungry, your tired, your poor, I’ll piss on them” you know this Jeremiah is decrying the bitter truth about our present times. Still, at the very last moments of his life, Lou was doing poetic Tai Chi moves on his deathbed to ease himself into the portal of eternity.

In the song, the cursed, downtrodden boy, Pedro finds a book of magic in a trashcan and dreams of flying away from the dirty blvd. For an urban portrait this grim, it’s amazing how uplifting the song becomes, and as the final chorus swells and Dion jumps in to add: “fly, fly away…” my spirit is soaring.  

Lou was a Rock n Roll Animal through and through, but he was also a serious artist who aspired to lift the genre to the heights of great literature. And, on Dirty Blvd., those two poles are fused and magnetized, creating a Dante-esque journey from hell to heaven.  He had gotten to the place artistically where he could say anything, in language so direct and stark, and still get you to sing along. 

Richard Lewis
"This is Joyce, Richard’s wife. Thank you for your loving tributes. He would be beyond thrilled and so touched, as am I. In response to the many queries , I know Richard would appreciate donations in his memory to the Los Angeles based charity http://comedygivesback.com or the charity of your choice."

"If you wish to know who Richard Lewis truly was, I urge you to see his greatest dramatic achievement, a 1995 motion picture titled “Drunks”.
As a comedian there were few who could match his Lenny Bruce inspired delivery.
Lenny's daughter Kitty was a  friend of Mr. Lewis as she respected his comedic bravery.
The film is an enduring creation combining all of the creative and complicated parts that made this man one of the most unique artists of our time.
Richard was a grateful, kind and beloved recovering alcoholic and drug addict with 30 plus years of sobriety at the time of his death.
Lewis had been sober since the mid-1990s after ending up in the ER, feeling near death. He went on to become an advocate for others treading the same path, including actress Jamie Lee Curtis.“He helped me. I am forever grateful for him for that act of grace alone,” Curtis said in a series of Instagram posts paying tribute to her co-star in the sitcom “Anything But Love,” which aired on ABC from 1989-1992."
- Rich Buckland

 Norm McDonald
 Over the years Norm McDonald made numerous appearances on various late-night shows, including Late Night with David Letterman and Conan, eventually assuming a revered “comedian’s comedian” stature as he routinely left Letterman, O’Brien and anyone within earshot in stitches. In one memorable 2014 appearance on Conan — which O’Brien’s Team Coco later posted on YouTube under the title “Norm Macdonald Tells the Most Convoluted Joke Ever” — Macdonald reduces the talk show host and his sidekick Andy Richter to tears of laughter and frustration with a rambling, shaggy-dog tale about Quebec, beluga whales, baby dolphins and an outrageous pun that prompts O’Brien to admit, “I love you, I really do.”

Shecky Greene
Among the many notable stories about Greene's life used for material, perhaps his most famous include him driving his car into the the fountain in front of Caesars Palace and Sinatra saving his life when five men were beating him, per The New York Times.

On television, Greene starred as Pvt. Braddock in ABC's Combat! for eight episodes, and later made appearances in The Fall Guy and The A-Team in the '80s. His film work includes appearances in 1971's The Love Machine, 1976's Won Ton Ton: The Dog Who Saved Hollywood and Mel Brooks' 1981 hit History of the World: Part I, in which he played Marcus Vindictus.

Leo Gorcey
Leo  was every bit as recognizable to the average man and woman as Cary Grant, Clark Gable, Jimmy Cagney, Humphrey Bogart and Bob Hope.
The leader of the Dead End Kids, the Bowery Boys or the Eastside Kids, depending on the year, the diminutive Gorcey was the reason the series were successful. They sputtered and died after Leo opted out of Hollywood around 1956 and headed for his “ranch” on the Sacramento River near Los Molinos, living there for a good part of the time until his death, three wives and a dozen years later.

Noel Coward (1899-1973), that epitome of British sophistication, was an invention. He was entirely self educated, having left school at 9 years old to pursue a career on the stage. After a modest success as an actor, he switched to playwriting in 1924 with The Vortex - (in order to write a good part for himself) - and set the theatrical world on fire. The combination of his jaw-dropping verbal dexterity, bravado verging on ballsiness, and tender insight into the frailty of humanity bordered on the supernatural. In the 1920s he became the brightest of “The Bright Young Things,” the Beatles of his era.

His life story (too enormous to recount here) encompasses a litany of glittering highs, gut wrenching lows, dramatic intrigues, and an unparalleled output of creative work that would crash a computer. Yet, through it all the manufactured elan, the stylish ease with which he presented himself - as he encapsulated it his: “talent to amuse” never failed him.

This parody of Riviera society, recorded towards the end of his career, was written in 1938 for the Broadway revue Set To Music, and originally performed by Beatrice Lillie, a frequent collaborator. What’s amazing to me as I drink it in, is that despite being so specific in subject matter and execution, Coward’s universal appeal is undeniable.

THE NERVE REUNION

This is Bill Mesnik of the Splendid Bohemians with a musical tale that could Hit A Nerve with you:

Sometimes life surprises you, and families are created and sustained where you don’t expect. I belong to a garage band brotherhood, consisting of five late-life Peter Pans, swaddled in the moon-glow of teenage rock n roll dreams, and dedicated to the proposition that all musical talent, although not necessarily created equal, can restore rejuvenation to those who practice together. 

We call ourselves The Nerve (as in: “of all the…”), and we are: Steve Rockwell (guitar and vocals); Rees Pugh (drums and vocals); Preston Maybank (bass and vocals); myself - they call me “Professor” (guitar and vocals); and our harmonica emeritus Bob Pescovitz, who relocated to Bellingham, WA. We’ve played in bars, bowling alleys, house parties, and street fairs….. for over 25 years, and I love them dearly. 

When I retired and moved and hour and a half away, I thought, “Ok, that’s the end of that”, and even when our eternally optimistic leader Rocky vowed to organize a jam to anoint my new garage I have to admit I doubted that it would ever happen. But, lo, the waters parted last weekend and the Nerve reunited. 

I offer this document as proof that miracles, even ragged ones, can come true. The cuts are: Kansas City, Tough Enough (with Ben Math sitting in) , Go to Work, Go to Church (my original), and Clyde Played Bass - worked up by Preston in honor of my new grandson.  

                                                             Welcome To Hotel Bohemia

Eccentric. Rebellious. Amoral, quite often. But bohemianism was, maybe still is, about much more than just frightening the horses.

The writer Virginia Nicholson recently told the Today programme that "in a sense, we are all bohemians today".

But what is a bohemian, how do you spot one, and might you be a boho, too?

"Bohemian" was originally a term with pejorative undertones given to Roma gypsies, commonly believed by the French to have originated in Bohemia, in central Europe.

The Oxford English Dictionary's definition mentions someone "especially an artist, literary man, or actor, who leads a free, vagabond, or irregular life, not being particular as to the society he frequents, and despising conventionalities generally".

But the connotation rapidly became a romantic one. From its birth in Paris in the 1850s, and the huge success of Murgier's play Scenes de la vie de Boheme, the ethic spread rapidly.

Gypsy clothes became all the fashion, sparking a style which lives on today through lovers of boho-chic like Sienna Miller and Kate Moss. And artists and poets from Baudelaire to van Gogh characterised bohemian ideals.

Its foundations in the Romantic movement of the 19th Century imbued bohemians with an almost quasi-religious sense of purpose.

In Puccini's opera La Boheme, the poet Rodolfo and his friends do not shiver in their Parisian garret where Mimi's hand is famously frozen merely because of their poverty. Theirs, as Rodolfo has it, is a higher, if more sensual, calling.

I am a poet!

What's my employment? Writing.

Is that a living? Hardly.

I've wit though wealth be wanting,

Ladies of rank and fashion

All inspire me with passion;

In dreams and fond illusions,

Or castles in the air,

Richer is none on earth than I.

Although steeped in its French roots, the bohemian ideal transferred easily to many countries and cultures.

In Britain, the pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and the aesthetic movement of the 19th Century imbued bohemianism with a dangerous, dashing, social cachet. Later, the exploits of the Bloomsbury group - one of whom was Nicholson's grandmother, Vanessa Bell - thrust it into the cultural limelight.
Across the Atlantic, poets and writers like Jack Kerouac, William S Burroughs and Paul Bowles led their own offshoot. And the playwright Arthur Miller's prose conjures the musty essence of that temple of American bohemia, Manhattan's Chelsea Hotel, where "there are no vacuum cleaners, no rules and shame".

"Everyone has a view of what the bohemian is," says Nicholson. "The bohemian is an outsider, defines themselves as an outsider and is defined by the world as an outsider... A lot of people regard them as subversive, elitist and possibly just a little bit immature."

Bohemians were typically urban, liberal in outlook, but with few visible political passions and, above all, creative. Though critical of organised religion, they were keen - witness the pre-Raphaelites and Oscar Wilde - to defend and explore the religious spirit.

Above all, they defied the constrictions of hearth and home and the false morality which they believed underpinned it.

In essence, bohemianism represented a personal, cultural and social reaction to the bourgeois life. And, once the latter was all but swept away by the maelstrom that was the 1960s, the former was doomed, too.

UNTIL NOW!!!!

&a

David Lindley was one of a kind - The ultimate sideman.  “The Prince of Polyester” played a mind-boggling array of exotic stringed instruments and musical genres with swing and inventiveness. One of the pillars of the Southern California folk-rock sound that dominated the airwaves in the 70s, this Sancho Panza to the dueling Quixotes of Jackson Browne and Ry Cooder was founder of the legendary 1960s world music pioneers Kaleidoscope, and deeply beloved. 

When he went solo I guess it was too hard to pin him down commercially. For example, this satirical Hawaiian Slack-Key pastiche is one of several styles covered in his “Very Greasy” album - which also includes a cover of the Temptations Papa Was A Rollin’ Stone and Bobby Freeman’s Do You Wanna Dance (in a Ska rhythm). It’s a brilliant evocation of a drunken, middle-class, luau themed office party.

He was a humble genius, I suspect. When my wife went to see him in Santa Monica I asked her to have him sign my Kaleidoscope CD. She told me that when he saw it he was touched, remarking that he was surprised that anybody still listened to it. On the contrary, it remains a precious reminder of a musical giant who once bestrode the earth.

The earth shifted for me when I heard Uncle Dave Macon for the first time. This was when the Harry Smith Anthology was released on CD in 1997. The energy of this man, swingin’ his claw hammer banjo and elating me with his infectious humor, brought the sepia-toned 19th century to boisterous life, and I was smitten. 

I began listening to, and reading, as much as I could get my hands on, and although the “Dixie Dewdrop” died the year before I was born, he was kinetically alive for me, lifting me out of whatever funk I happened to have been in, into a realm of pure joy. 

What an inspiration for an aging aspirant: He was discovered by accident by Marcus Loew of the Loews Theatre chain at the age of 50, and elevated to the heights of radio stardom on the Grand Old Opry, and national recording acclaim. How fortunate that these technologies, though in their infancy, were around to document the power of this entertainment fireball.

He was a beloved amateur (in the truest sense of the word), who had simply enjoyed entertaining customers along his freight hauling mule line. This exemplifies Joseph Campbell’s  assertion that if you just follow your bliss, everything will flow from that. This was simply how he lived, and as one of his band members attested: “all day long, from morning til midnight, it was a show.” And, what a show it was!

HOTEL BOHEMIA IS DESIGNED TO LEAD YOU TO A DESTINATION CONSTRUCTED WITH THE HOPE OF EXAMINING THE HOLY PAST, THE PUZZLING PRESENT AND THE POSSIBILITIES OF OUR IMPENDING FORTUNES.
THIS PROGRAM IS DEDICATED WITH LOVE TO THOSE WHO INSPIRED THE ARCHITECTURE OF THIS HOTEL BOHEMIA PREVIEW:

MEL BLANC, PHIL OCHS, ANDY DEVINE, SAM LAY, EUGENE O'NEILL, ROBERT RYAN, NICK GRAVENITES, BEN WEBSTER, DAVID MAMET, AL PACINO, LEON FUCHS, CHUBBY CHECKER,  BUDD SCHULBERG , ROD STEIGER, MARLON BRANDO, ELIA KAZAN, AL JOLSON, MURRAY 'THE K" KAUFMAN, TRACEY DEY, THE ROCK, JOHN BELUSHI, DON RICKLES, FRANK SINATRA, JOHNNY CARSON, JEFF LYNNE, RODNEY DANGERFIELD, DIANA KRALL, EDWARD R. MURROW, ROBERT THOM, ED BEGLEY,  SYLVESTER STALLONE AND BILL MESNIK.

"I am a determinist. As such, I do not believe in free will...Practically, I am, nevertheless, compelled to act as if freedom of the will existed. If I wish to live in a civilized community, I must act as if man is a responsible being."
- Albert Einstein,

"Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future."
— John F. Kennedy.

1) All Going Down Together – Bobby Stevens of The Checkmates LTD-
From The 1971 Album "Life".
2) Down We Go- Kaleo-
By The Icelandic rock band Kaleo  in 2016 and released as the second single for their second studio album on Elektra Records.
3) Mr. Nasty – The Remars-
Written in 2016 by Film Director Steve Karras  ("About Face: The Story of the Jewish Refugee Soldiers of World War II") and performed By The Remars.
4) They Watered My Whiskey Down – Phil Burdett-
 Recorded in 1993 By United Kingdom Singer and Songwriter Phil Burdett And The New World Troubadours -From The Album Diesel Poems.
5) Oh Baby Don’t You Weep – Part One – James Brown and His Famous Flames
6) Oh Baby Don’t You Weep – Part Two – James Brown and His Famous Flames
Recorded in 1964 and based  upon the spiritual "Mary, Don't You Weep" it was recorded as an extended-length track and released as the first two-part 45 RPM  of Brown's recording career.
7) The End Is Not In Sight- Russell Smith
Written and Performed  by Russell Smith of The Amazing Rhythm Aces in 2002,  this song was first released by Jesse Winchester in 1974.

There was a crippling blizzard in Iowa in April of 1973. Over a foot of snow fell, coupled with 50-70 mph winds. But, inside my dormitory at U of I, I was warmed by the eternal sunshine of Pentangle’s evocation of the 12th century. The plangent voice of Jacqui McShee, accompanied by John Renbourn and Bert Jansch’s jazz infused “baroque folk” sustained me throughout that challenging season. 

Not usually one to subscribe to any woo-woo, New Ageist practices, I nonetheless became convinced that I had lived before as a medieval troubadour - a sensation that recently resurfaced when I was introduced to the Witcher saga, because I strongly identified with Dandelion, that narrative’s ironic balladeer. 

Ms. McShee was my gateway drug to the time-traveling vocal intoxications of Anne Briggs, Shirley Collins, Maddy Prior, June Tabor, Sandy Denny, Kate Rusby, and others. A.L. Lloyd and Richard Thompson became my “spirit guides” through the library of Child ballads; a path which eventually led me back home to the USA via Alan Lomax and Pete Seeger. Song research became my professional passion and mission. 

Willy O Winsbury (Child 100), a traditional Scottish ballad, has many variations and possible derivations, one of which originates in the recounting of James V’s courtship and marriage to Madeleine de Valois of France. In Pentangle’s deft retelling, Willy and Janet’s love triumphs over shame and death. You cannot ask for more than that. 

The original line up of Traffic had it all: mysticism, funk, folk, world music, and a healthy dose of irony. For an acid head like me they were the perfect accompaniment for a trip through shifting patterns of synchronicity. Of course, Traffic was helmed by the one and only Steve Winwood, who as a teenager impressed the world, shouting the blues on “I’m a Man,” and “Keep on Running” with the Spencer Davis Group, and was now considered a full-blown genius. But they also needed Dave Mason for ballast, because after he left the rising balloon, Winwood navigated the group into extended jazz noodle-ville - (but, that’s another story!) 

Who knows what tomorrow may bring from the group’s eponymous second album is a deceptively simple groove and mantra that resonates across genres, time-zones, and philosophies, releasing a blast of joy-filled dopamine to one’s synaptic receptors, even as one contemplates the evanescence of life. And, that swinging organ counterpoint is smoking! 

As I felt the waves of dislocation beginning to distort my perceptions, Winwood encouraged me to “step outside” of my mind, and “float across the ceiling…” I trusted him, and so I did just that. And, it was good.

Bizarre was originally formed in 1967 as a production company when Frank Zappa and his manager Herb Cohen negotiated their own production deal with Verve Records. The purpose of forming his own production company was to give Zappa complete creative control over his work and the works he planned to produce for others.

Bizarre Records was then established in 1969 along with a companion label, Straight Records, with the intention to release albums by avant-garde artists on Bizarre, and recordings by more mainstream artists on Straight. Both labels were distributed by Warner Bros. Records.

However, the original Bizarre Records concept failed to work out as expected due to issues with distribution and management. This led to some very unusual albums on the Straight label (Captain Beefheart, Alice Cooper), and Zappa and The Mothers of Invention were the only artists who stayed with Bizarre Records.

When the original distribution contracts with Warner Bros. ended in 1973, most Bizarre and Straight recordings were re-issued by Warner and/or Reprise, and Frank Zappa moved on to launch a new record label, DiscReet Records.


Discography
Albums

• Sandy Hurvitz – Sandy's Album Is Here at Last (r. d. : December 9, 1968) (c. n. : V6-5064)
• Lenny Bruce – The Berkeley Concert (r. d. : February 17, 1969) (c. n. : 2XS 6329)(1)
• The Mothers of Invention – Mothermania: The Best of The Mothers (r. d. : March 24, 1969) (c. n. : V6 5068)
• The Mothers of Invention – Uncle Meat (April 21, 1969) (c. n. : 2MS 2024)(2)[1]
• Wild Man Fischer – An Evening with Wild Man Fischer (April 28, 1969) (c. n. : 2XS 6332)(1)
• Frank Zappa – Hot Rats (October 15, 1969) (c. n. : RS 6356)(1)
• Various – Zappéd (r. d. : November 10, 1969; February 3, 1970) (c. n. : PRO 368),
• The Mothers of Invention – Burnt Weeny Sandwich (r. d. : February 9, 1970) (c. n. : RS 6370)(1)
• The Mothers of Invention – Weasels Ripped My Flesh (r. d. : August 10, 1970) (c. n. : MS 2028)(2)
• Frank Zappa – Chunga's Revenge (r. d. : October 23, 1970) (c. n. : *MS 2030)(2)
• The Mothers of Invention – Fillmore East – June 1971 (r. d. : August 2, 1971) (c. n. : MS 2042)(2)

Buck Owens (August 12, 1929 – March 25, 2006), and Dwight Yoakam (b. October 23, 1956) :  two master navigators of a very unique tributary along the stream of popular music, inspired and learned from each other - one, being the progenitor of the "Bakersfield Sound", and the other his adopted musical progeny.  

"The Streets of Bakersfield," originally recorded by Buck Owens in 1973, was revived as a duet between the two men in 1988, becoming  a chart hit and a popular video.  

Buck, whose career had gone dark after losing his friend and musical partner, Don Rich in 1974, was sparked back to life when Dwight came into his life.  Here Bill and Rich attempt to connect some of the musical catalogue and biographical dots  of these two musical giants.

DELICIOUS by Jim Backus and Friend (Jubilee, 1958)

This lascivious one-off came to me via Dr. Demento, the famed broadcaster and collector of novelty records. The evocative cocktail music by Mort Garson and Buddy Kaye sets the salacious scene. I immediately recognized the familiar voice of the tipsy seducer as Jim Backus  (known for Mr. Magoo and Thurston Howell III). But, who was that sexy siren playing footsie with him? It was Kay Connell, who couldn't reveal her name on the record, as she was under contract at ABC-Paramount - so she remains deeply obscure, known to recorded history only as Jim’s “friend”. 

Everyone loves to laugh; it’s contagious. JIm and Kay's chortling is so infectious that it sparks spasms of glee in anyone who hears it. I dare you to try to listen to this record while resisting the effervescent bubbles of mirth that these two wobbly wantons are serving up.

Jim Backus did some estimable dramatic acting, including as James Dean’s dad in Rebel Without a Cause, but he hit comedy pay dirt with Magoo, and later on Gilligan’s Island as the clueless millionaire. On this unique document, the actor demonstrates his powerfully persuasive comic gifts. 

The singer-songwriter’s singer- songwriter; the Americana artist’s Americana artist, John Hiatt doesn’t get anywhere near the respect he deserves. From way back in 1974, when 3 Dog Night made a hit out of “Sure as I’m Sittin’ Here”, up to today, Hiatt has written and recorded more classic songs than most, and although his voice sounds like vinegar on sand paper, I love his unique vocalizations. He is one of my favorite singers. 

Born in Indiana, just like that other heartland rocker-poet John Mellencamp, Hiatt represents a no frills, tell it like it is approach - (but with consummate lyrical style) - and, always with a wink. Even when he makes me cry with lines like,  from “Icy Blue Heart”: “To melt your icy blue heart, Should I start - To turn what's been frozen for years Into a river of tears?” - I smile, appreciating his unerring craftsmanship.

Hiatt provided a ligature in the sinew of my marriage. Chemayne and I met in ’87 in Atlanta - and the album Slow Turning accompanied our journey northward to New York City. We saw him at the Bottom Line, sitting at a front row table, and when he asked for requests, I suggested Feels Like Rain, because we had made love to it. He obliged. Later, in ’95, after we’d moved to L.A., Chemayne dispatched me to Starbucks (of all places), where Hiatt was making a personal appearance, to get his new CD autographed. When he handed back the disc to me, he called me “Sir”. A true Gentleman Road Warrior. 

"MY HEART TOOK A LEAP - THE POETIC INNOCENCE OF THE SHANGRI-LAS" -

RICH BUCKLAND'S EPIPHANY NOTEBOOK

Like so many pre teens growing up in the sixites I slept with a transistor radio under my pillow. That receiver was the best friend a 12 year old could possibly have. It told me only what I wanted to hear and unlike the parental tunes regulary dispensed, I could slide the dial to another frequency and change the feel and tempo. 1964 was an extraordinary year for popular music and youthful urges. My wireless companion delivered the sound of pleading voices reciting urgent love calls through the night air. The first feminine intonations that whispered directly to my adolescent hunger ariived through The Supremes in June of that year.  I would wait anxiously through the bedtime darkness to hear the DJ conduct another spin of the salvation revealed  within a Diana Ross plea requesting an explanation to what would become the eternal question of  "Where Did Our Love Go".  I was fully captured by the gentle elocution each conflicted tone incited.  She was conducting a sorrowful inquest, the meaning of which I was not experienced enough to comprehend and yet fully accepted.  It felt like a sensual revolution emanating from the magic of a wireless, spiritual trasmission, but more importantly a glorious awakening having nothing to do with sexual messaging. It was my initiation into the significance of lonliness. And then it became more complex. In August of that same period, a  group calling themselves The Shangri-las, dispatched a 45 revelations per second record titled "Remember (Walking In The Sand )"  It ignited something  dark and dramatic. This was my first migraine heartache and I understood the origin. It was the voice of Mary Weiss, the groups teen vocalist from Queens NY, the very  borough I lived in. She was singing  a story of such anguish,  I just wanted to embrace her and make it better. 

"Oh, no, Oh no, Oh, no, no, no, no, no. Remember (Walking In The Sand)".  

The song and it's production were the child of a music business misfit named George "Shadow" Morton"  But it was the urgent hurt of Mary Weiss that has lived within me going on 55 years. 

I recall ruminating, " If this is 12, what the hell will 13 be like." 

 I began to find out when the next Shangri-las recording was released in December.  The melancholy of "Remember"  surrendered to another George Morton composition sung as only Mary and her partners could. It was called "Give Him A Great Big Kiss" and made me feel better about our fate and the abyss she had us both falling into only four months earlier.  Teendom was just around my Queens, NY street corner.  Hope and the sound of rock and roll transmitted by Murray The K,  wrestled with the gusty winds which flowed beneath the Throgs Neck Bridge where my friends and I spent long summer days.

In retrospect Mary Weiss was my first true infatuation. The emotions were real, especially for a kid who cried over Jackie Wilsons "Lonely Teardrops" at age 7.  Rock and Rhythm and Blues produced awakenings and sensations with no age restrictions.

After 4 marriages I still have similar questions posed by The Shangri-las and The Supremes . 
 I owe a great debt to those remarkable women and their sacred voices. If we are fortunate, the eternal flame of yearning begs new understanding with each sunrise. Just give the one you love a Great Big Kiss and always Remember. 

Always.

Call it “dream logic”; call it a time-collapsing mind meld. It came to me in a dream: a snatch of nonsense lyric and melody, an ear-worm summoned up from 60 years in the past. I didn’t know what it was, why it was teasing me, or precisely where it came from, but there it was… “and, so on, so on, so forth…” What was it? 

I googled just that much, and up it came: “The Hut-Song,” sung by the eponymous elephant in Horton Hatches an Egg, a cartoon that I had watched as a toddler. And, digging back a bit further, I discovered that preceding that animated Dr. Suess adaptation, The Hut-Sut Song was a monster pop hit, with several cover versions - the most popular being Freddy Martin’s. Thereby, not only did I jump start my memory, but I made a new discovery, as well. So, here we are: A Sunny Song from the deep recesses of my sub-conscious. I’m including both versions because the pop hit has a whole backstory to explain the indecipherable lyrics.

I think the genesis of this whole mission was that I recently became a grandfather, and had been thinking about what books I’d like to read to the child. I was trying to remember the ones I read to my kids, and the ones that were read to me. I loved all the Dr. Suess books, especially “If I Ran the Circus”, and later, cogitating about what to include in the next round of Sunny Songs, this ditty bubbled up from deep within my gooey grey matter, and would not be denied. 

So, my next question would be: Why was Horton the Elephant singing that song? It’s a house of mirrors.

Bayside High School in Queens, New York began an early celebration of its 80th anniversary, making it one of the oldest public schools in the five boroughs.

At a ceremony Saturday, U.S. Rep. Grace Meng (D-Flushing), state Assemblyman Ed Braunstein (D-Bayside) and state Sen. Tony Avella (D-Bayside) gathered with students, staff and alumni of the storied school to mark the occasion. The lawmakers presented proclamations declaring the importance of the school and the significance of the anniversary.

Opened in 1936, and built during the Great Depression, Bayside High School was the first in the city to be constructed with federal funds from the New Deal-era Public Works Administration. The school cost $2.5 million.

Gregg Sullivan, chairman of the Friends of Bayside High School, ran through many of the great historical events the school had borne witness to.

“This school takes us through a number of great human events,” he said. “The Great Depression, World War II, the Korean and Vietnam wars and the J.F.K. assassination.
The school was also home to the very first Folk and Rock Concert to benefit education in Native American schools in the United States as produced by student Rich Buckland.

The historical significance of the school, and its 80 years as a single entity, were themes each speaker touched on.

“You have to love what Bayside has been and is for the community,” Avella said. “It is a historic school.”

Principal Michael Athy, speaking about his vision of the school—past, present and future—said the success of Bayside is due to its legacy as one of the most rigorous and community-oriented schools in the city.

Buck Owens (August 12, 1929 – March 25, 2006), and Dwight Yoakam (b. October 23, 1956) :  two master navigators of a very unique tributary along the stream of popular music, inspired and learned from each other - one, being the progenitor of the "Bakersfield Sound", and the other his adopted musical progeny.  

"The Streets of Bakersfield," originally recorded by Buck Owens in 1973, was revived as a duet between the two men in 1988, becoming  a chart hit and a popular video.  

Buck, whose career had gone dark after losing his friend and musical partner, Don Rich in 1974, was sparked back to life when Dwight came into his life.  Here Bill and Rich attempt to connect some of the musical catalogue and biographical dots  of these two musical giants.