Sinatra

Born on this date in 1915, as a young lad Frank had the guts to partner up on the dance floor with Gene Kelly. He pulls it off too. (Then again, Kelly had the guts to sing along with Sinatra. He doesn't do too badly either.)

Ira Gershwin

Ira was born on this date in 1896. He wrote songs with Harold Arlen and Kurt Weill and Jerome Kern. He also worked occasionally with his piano-playing brother. And if anyone has ever written better lyrics than these, I am unaware of it.

The way you wear your hat
The way you sip your tea
The memory of all that
No, no, they can't take that away from me

The way your smile just beams
The way you sing off key
The way you haunt my dreams
No, no, they can't take that away from me

We may never, never meet again
On the bumpy road to love
Still, I'll always, always keep the memory of

The way you hold your knife
The way we danced till three
The way you changed my life
No, no, they can't take that away from me
No, they can't take that away from me

Happy Birthday, Walt

BIrthday: Chuck Berry

Charles Edward Anderson Berry, who as every knows borrowed his unique style of playing from Marty McFly in Back to the Future, was born on this date in 1926. Here's some really sharp old footage:



Berry notoriously spent his career with various pickup bands. Occasionally those bands would amount to something on their own.



I don't know which is more awesome, Keith in the suit or Chuck doing the dance.



This one especially captures the span of Chuck's appeal.



Hail, hail, rock and roll. Hail, hail, Chuck Berry.

P. G. Wodehouse

There are some people in the world who think that the character name Gussie Fink-Nottle is about as good as it gets. And that's just one of the folks created, of course, by Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse in his legendary series of Bertie and Jeeves stories. Needless to say, one ought to read Wodehouse, who was a master of language, and for that matter, listening to him via audiobooks is highly recommended, but no one ever went wrong watching Fry and Laurie take on the roles.





Others have also played the parts, with various levels of success, and there was an Andrew Lloyd Webber show, your opinion of which may depend on your love, or lack thereof, for Andrew Lloyd Webber.



Old Plum, as he was known, got into a bit of trouble with the Nazis, raising the question of whether he was, in fact, a sympathizer or merely a naive dupe. Who knows? I have a sense from what I've read that he was pretty much just so wrapped up in his work that he was rather stupidly ignorant, but he's not the first artist to fall into that category. Anyhow, in addition to his books and stories, he did a lot of theater work, including the songs from this little ditty. Talk about a more innocent age...



In the hall of fame it will be Jeeves and Bertie who last the longest. Which is only right. Today is also Michel Foucault's birthday, but I have found that his work is seldom as comic as Wodehouse's, hence I have chosen to profile the one rather than the other.

Jim Henson

Henson's dates are 9/24/36-5/16/90. Amazing: he's been gone for over 20 years, and he is still a beloved personage. May it ever be thus.

Some early work:

Chuck Jones

There are those who suggest that What's Opera, Doc? is the best Warner Bros cartoon of all time. It was directed by Chuck Jones, born on this date in 1912. Don't watch this without a box of Kleenex nearby: it doesn't end well.



I know. You will now be forced to sing "Kill the Wabbit" to yourself for the rest of the day. Sorry about that. Then again, while this may be the filet mignon of Jones's animation, I have always enjoyed the everyday hamburger of the Roadrunner cartoons over the more accepted Bugs Bunny: sorry about that, but on a desert island, if I can have either the complete Bugs or the complete Roadrunner, I'm opting for the latter. Beep beep, and all that.



If you're seriously interested in Jones, here's an in-depth interview. If you're not seriously interested in Jones, you probably shouldn't be following this blog.

For Roald Dahl, on what would have been his 96th

You used to be able to watch Way Out on YouTube, but it's been pulled. It's the TV show Dahl hosted in the '60s, introducing the weird tales with his appropriately weird commentary. For a short while the show followed The Twilight Zone on Friday nights, but I think Dahl was just too wickedly British for the room, as compared to Rod Serling's gritty American pugnacity. It's too bad you can't see just a little bit of Dahl doing the show. He was perfect.

You can find various takes of his filmed work on YouTube, of course, but better you should read him if you wish to celebrate. Personally I would recommend Boy and Going Solo, both biographical works. And for your surfing pleasure, here's a couple of worthwhile pages that haven't been pulled down:

Big Sometimes Friendly Giant

Roald Dahl's 10 finest hours

Maria Muldaur

I reckon that I've now been listening to Maria Muldaur, born on this date in 1943, for over forty years, even before her solo debut in '73. She's had quite a career, working with all sorts of people, and while she's obviously a performer, she's also something of a musicologist, digging deep into attic for classic blues and jazz. The best album she's done lately is, I think, Heart of Mine, a collection of Dylan love songs. When we saw her not long ago, she was doing most music from Maria Muldaur & Her Garden of Joy, very lively and jug-bandy.

As you'll see, she is not behind the door when it comes to putting together a good band:



This is this first of a series. The rest are all on YouTube. (Debaters take note: she went to Hunter.)



And why not dip back to one of her biggest hits?



I'll see you in the audience the next time she hits the East Coast.

Harry Connick, Jr.

Today's birthday boy is known for a lot of things, which is all fine and dandy, but if you ask me, the best thing he does is sit down at the piano and just have at the thing:



You can decide for yourself whether or not you agree.

Buddy Holly and the roots of rock

Holly was born on this date in 1936, which means that he is closer to my mother's age than my age. Then again, look at him and the Crickets in tuxedos, with an army of prom queens (?) in the background.



In this next clip he absolutely gets down on the guitar in a way not normally heard. And I don't know about you, but personally I don't need the words on the screen



How influential was Buddy Holly? Don't ask me. Ask this guy:



Don McLean, like him or not (and I"m on the meh side, myself), should not own Buddy Holly. Considering Holly's influence—be yourself, be a group, get down, write and perform your own songs—he belongs to music. It didn't die. You can listen to Buddy Holly songs any day of the week. And you probably should.

The greatest singer of all time?

Decide for yourself. Unfortunately, we couldn't create a Freddie Angry Bird for what would have been his 66th birthday, so we'll post this instead. The subtitles are a little annoying, but it's good stuff.

Julia at 100

A tip of the hat to @ktmenick for this one.

70 years of Garrison Keillor

In other words, today is his 70th birthday; I don't mean to suggest that he's been on the radio for 70 years. This being a pretty hot time across the country, we should mark the day with a little Lake Wobegon cold weather.



Keillor is, of course, most famous for the Wobegon monologues, which for all practical purposes he extemporizes, but they're only a part of "A Prairie Home Companion," his weekly radio program. There's lots of music, for one thing, and Keillor is not shy about either his own songs or his pleasant singing voice, but he also brings on big guns to the show, like Shawn Colvin or Joe Ely or Steve Martin (in his banjo-playing persona). And there's plenty of comedy in addition to Wobegon, everything from the detective Guy Noir to the Lives of the Cowboys. Keillor is keeping alive classic old-timey radio, and while he regularly threatens to retire, fortunately he doesn't do so.

How could you better celebrate Keillor's birthday than to pop over to the PHC website and have a listen? The Ketchup Advisory Board will thank you for it.

Tony Bennett is 86 Years Old Today

Not long ago we went to the Museum of the Moving Image, which is way the hell out in No Man's Land, AKA Astoria. Walking back to the subway, we walked past The Frank Sinatra School of the Arts, a very successful high school founded by Tony Bennett in honor of the other great crooner of the 20th Century. Cool or what?

And Bennett still survives. His most recent new album was Duets II from last year. I'm partial to the the earlier Duets album from 2006, which is where all these videos come from. What can I say? Try them out for size.

First, there’s Bennett and k.d. lang singing and talking about Because of You. If you thought lang was, I don’t know, a country singer, this will be a revalation. (I think she has one of the best voices out there these days. She and Bennett recorded an entire album, “A Wonderful World,” in 2002, which seems to be playing in my house every time I turn around. If you had it in your house, you’d be playing it too.)



Next, this clip looks like something from a ’60s variety show until Diana Krall shows up to join Bennett in The Best is Yet to Come.



And meanwhile, if you thought k.d. lang was a country singer, maybe you thought that guy Bono was some sort of rocker? Try him out on I Wanna Be Around.



Tony Bennett is 86 years old? Happy Birthday, guy. And thanks.

Celebrating the birthday of a tie designer (and occasional guitar player)

Among those iconic rock guitarists whose sound is identifiable a mile away, one must include Jerry Garcia, who would have been 70 years old today. (He died of a heart attack in 1995.)

Here he is with the original Dead, one of the groups that personified the 60s in ways both good and bad.



Going to a Grateful Dead concert was a risky proposition. I saw them in 1971. They were sort of boring. On the other hand, at times they were transcendent. You can hear just about all their music online, because they encouraged their fans to record, and even set aside recording seats for the true enthusiasts. You can draw your own conclusions.



Here's a couple of straightforward Jerry just playing and singing and being really good at it.





No one pretends that drug abuse wasn't a factor in Garcia's early death. At least he outlived some of the others of his generation, like Joplin and Hendrix, who burned out before they barely got started.

Why Garcia designed a line of neckties, having obviously never worn one, is beyond my understanding. Gaiters and spats would have been as likely, if you ask me. Then again, they were really popular with Deadheads who wear neckties, which one assumes must be a rather small Venn intersection. Oh, well. The music lives on. (And so do the ties. Go figure.)

Music: Johnny Hodges

Johnny Hodges was born on July 25, 1906. He most famously played with Duke Ellington and is regarded by many as the greatest alto sax player of all time. Judge for yourself.





Hodges died of a heart attack in 1970. I love that not only can we hear him, but we can even watch him, whenever we want. What a wonderful world.

Music: By Jingo, it's Carlos Santana's birthday

On that first Santana album, sure, there's also "Evil Ways." I love "Evil Ways." I'll bring "Evil Ways" with me to that proverbial desert island. That's because, when I get to that island, they'll already have "Jingo."

Two versions, separated by a mere 40 years. The liveliest, happiest song of all time?





Santana is one of the most distinctive guitar players ever. A lot of people can play, but how many people can you identify by just a note or two, yet who endlessly fascinate with their creativity? When it comes to the gods of the six strings, he's got peers, but no betters. He's 65 today. No way that's retirement age!

Birthday 2: Disneyland (sort of)

Disneyland was supposed to open tomorrow (in 1955), and today was a preview for the press. But somehow the word got out, and they were breaking down the doors. And this is the day it was dedicated, so let's go with this one.

What was the park like in 1955? Well, why not take A Journey Through The 1955 Guidebook? It was produced before the park opened, so what you see is, mostly, what you get. Here's a link to the pdf if you want to own your very own copy.

Today the park is 57 years old. What I find more amazing is that this year, WDW is 41 years old. I expect Disneyland to seem like it's been around forever. But WDW? 41? It just doesn't compute.

Today's Birthday: P.D.Q. Bach

The 21st of Johann Sebastian Bach's 20 children was born today.



Actually, it was Peter Schickele who was born today. Same difference.