40 Year Itch: Mary Had A Little Lamb

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Depending on which Paul McCartney you believe, "Mary Had A Little Lamb" was either a smart-ass response to the BBC's banning his "Give Ireland Back To The Irish" or a sincere attempt to write a children's song ( as The Beatles had with "Yellow Submarine" and "All Together Now") In any case it remains one of the most annoying songs Macca ever recorded.

 THE FLIP WILSON SHOW JUNE 1972


 The song peaked at #9 on the UK charts while in America, radio stations preferred to play the B-Side "Little Woman Love". Thank God!

Both can be found on Wildlife.


 FRENCH TV SEPTEMBER 24, 1972

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40 Year Itch: Save The Children

Some time between Save The Planet and Save The Whales, Jesse Jackson and his civil rights organization Operation PUSH ( People United To Serve Humanity)decided to save the children. The September 1972 concert event, named after one of Marvin Gaye's songs on his classic 1971 album What's Going On, featured a who's who of the year's biggest jazz and rhythm and blues performers: Marvin Gaye, The Temptations, Bill Withers, Roberta Flack, Quincy Jones and of course The Jackson 5 who performed Michael's most recent hit "I Wanna Be Where You Are" as well as a medley of their greatest hits.

 

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40 Year Itch : 1972 in Soundtracks Part 2

A continuation of Tuesday's post celebrating the best soundtracks of 1972.

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With its depiction of man-raping hillbillies, the 1972 thriller Deliverance didn't do the Deep South any favors. There are people in Rabun County Georgia still hurting from the movie 40 years later. On the other hand, bluegrass music got a nice shot in the arm...even if the soundtrack's most famous tune was recorded without permission. Had it not been for Roberta Flack, raised within half a day's drive from the Northeast corner of Georgia in Black Mountain, NC "Dueling Banjos" would have hit #1 in 1973.












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Ennio Morricone composed the soundtracks for more famous spaghetti westerns (A Fistful of Dollars, For A Few Dollars More,  and of course The Good The Bad and The Ugly) but his masterpiece may very well have been Giu La Testa ( which roughly translates into "Duck Your Head" or "Duck, You Sucker!" or "A Fistful of Dynamite").

Before a lush orchestra you'll hear a whistler, a chant of "Sean Sean Sean" and then the heartbreaking soprano of Edda Dell'Orso who sang on a number of Morricone soundtracks. The movie may be uneven but the soundtrack is hypnotizing.


)

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There are other soundtracks to Cabaret (most notably the original Broadway cast recording from 1966 with Joel Grey as Emcee and the 1998 revival with Alan Cummings)  but if you've got the 40 year itch you've got to have the one with Liza Minnelli. Directed by Bob Fosse, she won an Oscar for her performance as Sally Bowles.

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40 Year Itch : 1972 in Soundtracks Part 1

1972 was a monster year in film and movie soundtracks. Just look at some of the movies that came out that year: The Godfather,  Deliverance, Cabaret, Solaris and Aguirre Wrath of God. Porn went mainstream with both Deep Throat and Behind The Green Door among the top ten grossing films. 1972 also saw the best of the blaxploitation soundtracks Superfly as well as Marvin Gaye's Trouble Man and Bobby Womack's Across 110th Street. And who can forget The Harder They Come ? Here are some of 1972's most memorable soundtracks.

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   It says a lot about the power of a film that after just 137 minutes nobody will hear Beethoven's most famous symphony in the same way.
   Though the movie came out in 1971, the soundtrack to Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange wasn't released until 1972. Along with some straight,  though mostly truncated,  orchestral performances of classical numbers like various movements from Beethoven's Ninth Symphony and Rossini's "William Tell Overture", there are the standout synthesizer performances by Walter "Switched-On_Bach" Carlos ( She would undergo sex reassignment surgery in 1972 and become Wendy Carlos). All of the music --even "Gene Kelly's "Singin In The Rain" --will forever be haunted by the brutal imagery of the film.
    Check out the opening track :  Carlos's performance of Henry Purcell's "Music For The Funeral for Queen Mary". Listen closely and you can hear the sounds that inspired the entire Goth music movement.


 

Wendy Carlos also did the soundtrack music to Kubrick's The Shining.

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Roam the halls of the dark, well guarded Coreleone family mansion in this soundtrack by the great Italian composer Nino Rota ( who did the soundtrack work on all The Godfather movies as well as films by Federico Fellini and Luchino Visconti) The American Film Institute ranks The Godfather #5 on their list of  all time great film scores. As with most film scores, you're going to hear a theme repeated over and over.
"The Halls Of Fear" is as dark as it gets. I would say if you have bad news to give at an office meeting, it might really set the stage by playing this first. I'll try it this week and let you know.

 

The love theme, "Speak Softly Love" was covered by all kinds of artists. Andy Williams had the big hit but I prefer this reggae version by Ken Boothe (  But then I seem to prefer Ken Boothe's reggae versions of just about everything).

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Improvisation. That's what Marlon Brando was doing throughout the sexually charged, originally X-Rated story of an American widower and his attempt to have an anonymous affair with a younger woman. ( Actually Brando was reading cue cards placed all over the set...including the ceiling). But in any case, improvisation is part of what jazz is all about and Argentine sax player Gato Barbieri does with the main theme, now a jazz standard. At once sexy sunny and cheesy, the Last Tango In Paris soundtrack deserves its place among 1972's best soundtracks.




Look for more soundtracks from 1972 later this week.

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40 Year Itch: Ray Charles Gets Political

1972 was an interesting year for Ray Charles. He was profiled in a New Musical Express article with the headlines "The Man Who Beat Drug Addiction And Blindness To Become A Legend". He recorded "America The Beautiful" and met with President Richard Nixon. But also, following the lead of Marvin Gaye and Curtis Mayfield, Ray got political with the funky Quincy Jones produced single "Hey Mister". Written as a letter to a Congressman, Ray points out "we're the richest country in the world and I just can't understand why we got so many hungry people."

Hey legislation why don't you try a new route

Listen to the people and hear what they're talking about

You see the poor people know they can't impeach you 

They just hoping that they cries will reach you

The song peaked at #47 on the R and B charts. On shows like Dick Cavett, Carol Burnett and even Bill Cosby, Ray performed his standard hits like the five year old "Eleanor Rigby" cover. Both "Hey Mister" and "America The Beautiful" can be found on the album Message From The People, which also features a minor hit in "Look What They've Done To My Song Ma" and opens with a stirring version of the black national anthem "Lift Every Voice And Sing".

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40 Year Itch Roxy Music In Concert

On September 16, the BBC broadcast a Roxy Music concert the Paris Theatre in London  featuring, in order, the songs "The Bob (Medley)", "The Bogus Man Pt 2", "Sea Breezes", "Virginia Plain"( a new single released a month earlier that would peak at #4), "Chance Meeting" and "Re-Make/Re-Model". "Whispering Bob" Harris is the announcer between each track.

Enjoy!

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40 Year Itch: Rocky Mountain High

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True story. My dad and stepmother were friends with John Denver. I grew up with Rocky Mountain High so it is with some self-enforced detachment that I have to say this is probably not his best album. I'd give the nod to 1971's Poems, Prayers and Promises.

Rocky Mountain High, released September 15, 1972, was Denver's first Top Ten album. And though it contains the title track,  a Top Ten hit that has become his most famous song and one of the state songs of Colorado, there isn't much else to recommend. "Goodbye Again" is a re-write of "Leaving On a Jet Plane" and the Season Suite just doesn't do much for me.

That said, I thought this might be a great place to share my dad's 1974 letter to Denver, shortly after we all saw him at the New Haven Coliseum. My stepmother went backstage that year. We'd gone the year before and saw the ping pong table Denver liked to play on ...to relax before a show. There was the smell of herb in the air and a whole lot of cheers every time Denver shouted "Far Out!"

Anyway, here's the letter

Dear John: Your concert in New Haven was stupendous! My God, when you came on stage that first moment and the Coliseum roared...it must be an extraordinary sensation, rather frightening, rather pleasing, rather contemptible even. I mean how is it possible not to react with something approaching scorn at the animal that gets unleashed. There is that crowd aura, that same frenzied grip that politicians strive for, that Hitler achieved ( he, too, had at Nuremberg that astonishingly staged and managed show which created a crowd frenzy). I don't mean to compare you to Hitler, my friend, all I mean is you have achieved that same quality of having crowds react to you but that, unlike Hitler, of course you deserve it.



John Denver visiting us in 1967.

You gave the impression of being perfectly at ease, in control and professional all of which you are, but it came across. And I think your music--that is, the songs you write, are getting more and more beautiful and lyrical. I think "Sunshine on My Shoulder" (sic) is one of the loveliest songs I've heard in years. Very simple, very true like all good writing must be. And "Goodbye Again" is lovely too. Of course "Rocky Mountain High"--the title suddenly for the first time struck me as perfect for a high school in Denver. Wonderful idea, the little girl saying "I'm at Rocky Mountain High" and the other responding "I'll say..."--anyway , Rocky Mountain High is such a pleasing song and a nice thought.




I remember once being on acid at Vale (sic) and suddenly thinking I'd been dropped into a Nazi pre World War II training camp, getting nervous about it, knowing I was on acid, thinking if only I could piss it out of me I'd be all right. But every time I'd head for the can, I'd have to pass the wooden beamed staircase and all the ski boots clomping up and down would make me think I'd fallen into Gestapo Headquarters and I'd flee in a panic for the outside, terrified that someone would speak to me and find out I couldn't speak German. Which, of course, 50% of the people around me were speaking. It was German week or something. It was funny in retrospect and scary at the time.

Still, back to the concert, the children loved it. Little Amanda bobbed up and down, boogaloo'd, my 9 year old daughter, Lansing, ( who somehow managed to pass the word to her school that you were spending the weekend with us) is starstruck, smarmy with love for you and my 10 year old son thinks you sing okay.

 Thank you for your kindness and especially for calling. As the man who led Sam back out to meet us said, "He's a star now." You earned it.
 Affectionately,
 Courty

I think Denver sings better than ok. And he could really play the guitar. I wish he'd recorded an album by himself. Just his voice and his guitar the way Johnny Cash did. We might be remembering him in a different way now.

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