Hush

No doubt about it, cats and kittens, the Hush of winter is now upon us. I am as crazy in Love with everything about this tune as I am about winter that it blows my mind!

Time for some shades of the deepest, Deep Purpley, purple on this wintery night.

Whoa… Dig it… Just. Dig. It. Hush, baby. Hush.

Clap for the Wolfman

The Wolfman in George Lucas‘ American Graffiti

❤❤❤❤❤ the Wolfman Jack. That’s the fact. ❤ the Jack. They don’t make ’em like that anymore, ghouls and ‘goyles. Allan Freed, Dick Clark, neither. Nor fictional jocks Doctor Johnny Fever and Venus, baby, Flytrap. I ❤ these cats and old school radio like nobody’s business. They have been a HUGE and obvious influence on my life and this blog.

Spent the bulk of my youth watching The Wolfman host The Midnight Special. All THE best acts performed. For nine years beginning in 1972 everyone who was anyone from Carol Burnett to T-Rex was there. No kidding. Just plain everyone. AC/DC. Aerosmith. Earl Scruggs. George Carlin. The Cars! Uh, yeah. Blondie. Steve Martin. Cheap Trick. Heart! Uh, crazy, baby! Just crazy. Jimmie Walker. Ike and Tina. Everyone. Just everyone.

When The Wolfman played your record or had you appear on The ‘Special you had made it. If you hadn’t already arrived, you were presently. He had that much sway. Uh, yeah. He was almost singlehandedly responsible for the soundtracks of our youth. Radio and record industries were entirely different creatures than they are today. Almost everyone on the continent was listening to the same tunes, part of a musical collective consciousness and from coast to coast groovy cats like the Jack, Freed and Dick were in drivers seat.

The world wouldn’t be what it is today without the likes our beloved Wolfman. It just wouldn’t.

Hats off, dude. Hats off… and thanks a bunch.

So…? *shrug*

Hey? Knock, knock.

Who’s there?

The Guess.

The Guess Who?

Natch, baby. Natch. Ha-ha ha. Clap for The Wolfman.

In the Mood

Cool. Cool. Cool.

🍂

Whoa! Local weather forecast is for a high 5°C/41°F tomorrow! Time to get the poor-boy caps and the boots on! Yay! Maybe even a wee bit of fleeting snow on Wednesday?!

Here’s an all-time of all Time and Space. This tune has always been a favourite. Can’t remember it ever not.

The first really crisp weather of the season always puts me In the Mood for Glenn Miller and his orchestra, cats and kittens. Always. Autumn is such a groovy, jazzy Time of year, hey? Won’t be long now, boy, until the snow flies and sticks around for awhile.

One of THE best tunes EVER written. Just ever! As fab-u-lous today as the day it was released on 78 in ’39, baby. Here’s the marvellously mysterious Mr. Miller with In the Mood. Bah bah…

Fools in Love

From Joe‘s seminal 1979 debut Look Sharp* we’ve got Fools in Love. Good grief.

Once again from the Rockpalast, don’t cha know?

Fools in Love they think they’re heroes, cats and kittens…

* WDIZ! will look at Look Sharp more Sirius-ly in the future.

The Dizzy Fool:

A Brief History of the Fool

What a Fool Believes

Here Come The Jesters

Rock and Roll Fantasy

The Fool

Tonite is a Wonderful Time

An all Time and Space favourite fall song of the season here at WDIZ!

April Wine. Stand Back. Tonite is a Wonderful Time…

Red and yellow, seasons changin’ gear, oh yeah… Dig it.

Rock and Roll Fantasy

Keeping’ some Bad Company here at WDIZ!

Put up the spotlights one and all…

I Wouldn’t Want to be Like You

Yo, Evil! How do you like the business end of MY Alan Arsons Project, baby? Dig. 😉

Hey, cats and kittens, welcome to the inaugural WDIZ! Dance Rally! Yay!

Here to give us a funky, kick-ass start is The Allan Parsons Project with 1977’s I Wouldn’t Want to be Like You off their album I, Robot.

I ❤❤❤❤❤ this song. The tolling, quiet, beating scarcity of the introduction builds into a percussion crescendo, which collides with the fullness of the rhythm section. And… Uh, yeah! It’s just SO groovy and funky! Killer, dirty bass line. Funky riff. It all just flows. It’s tied up all nice and tight at the end, too. A fave of all Time and Space. You can’t help but dance and groove. That’s actually the challenge, baby. Uh, yeah. I’m challenging you to funk your ass off to give Evil a run for his money!

Please?

Hey?

Dance?

Yes?

YESSS!

Oh! And Scott sends his regards…

Ready? Dance Rally! Let’s show Evil exactly what kinda Sirius-ly stern, groovy-good shit we’re made of. And how! Now… DANCE! 😜 lol

What a Fool Believes

Do-be do-be do it’s the Doobies, man. Dig it…

No wise man has the power to reason away… What a Fool Believes… Word.

Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head

Hal David was a Music legend and the author of many of my favourite songs. His collaboration with Burt Bacharach yielded some wonderfully whimsical lyrics: “What do you get when you kiss a guy?/You get enough germs to catch pneumonia…” Is that goofy or what? Or the completely and utterly groovy-sweet, beautiful dorkiness that is “This Guy’s in Love with You” and “Close to You” (I actually own a frog puppet that sings “Close to You.” We do an, ummmmm, duet. Ahem. 😊) They were the Kings of silly Love songs. The Kings! And that’s what we wanna fill the world with, hey? Heck, yeah.

Here’s one of my favourite songs, from a favourite film, starring some of my favourite actors…

Excerpted from the Montréal Gazette:

Through theatre, film and TV, David’s songs transcended the time they were written to become classics. With Bacharach, he was one of the most successful songwriting teams in modern history.

The 91-year-old, who died September first of complications from a stroke four days earlier in Los Angeles, “always had a song in his head,” said his wife, Eunice David. Even at the end, “he was always writing notes, or asking me to take a note down, so he wouldn’t forget a lyric.”

Bacharach and David’s hits included “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head,” ”(They Long to Be) Close to You” and “That’s What Friends Are For.” Many of the top acts of their time, from Barbra Streisand to Frank Sinatra and Aretha Franklin, recorded their music.

But the collaboration for which they were best known came in 1962, when they began writing for a young singer named Dionne Warwick.

Warwick’s versatile voice could convey the emotion of David’s lyrics and handle the changing patterns of Bacharach’s melodies. Together the trio created a chain of hits: “Don’t Make Me Over,” ”Walk On By,” ”I Say a Little Prayer,” ”Do You Know the Way to San Jose,” “I’ll Never Fall in Love Again,” ”Always Something There to Remind Me” (which later was a hit for the 1980s synth pop band Naked Eyes), among others.

They were a “triangle marriage that worked,” Warwick wrote in her memoir, “My Life, As I See It.” Bacharach was “the handsome one,” and David was level-headed — a “thoughtful, gentle, sincere” man — Warwick wrote.

Ever the writer (he studied journalism at New York University), David said in a 1999 interview that he thought of songwriting as telling a narrative.

“The songs should be like a little film, told in three or four minutes. Try to say things as simply as possible, which is probably the most difficult thing to do,” he said.

The New York-based writer often flew to Los Angeles, where he and Bacharach holed up for weeks of intense songwriting. They also conferred by telephone, a method that birthed “I Say a Little Prayer.”

When a song went nowhere, they stuck it in a desk drawer and left it there for months.

In a brief essay on his website, David recalled having an idea for a song for “at least two years before showing it to Burt.”

“I was stuck,” he wrote. “I kept thinking of lines like, ‘Lord, we don’t need planes that fly higher or faster …’ and they all seemed wrong. Why, I didn’t know. But the idea stayed with me.

“Then, one day, I thought of, ‘Lord, we don’t need another mountain,’ and all at once I knew how the lyric should be written. Things like planes and trains and cars are manmade, and things like mountains and rivers and valleys are created by someone or something we call God. There was now a oneness of idea and language instead of a conflict. It had taken me two years to put my finger on it.”

And so they had another smash: “What the World Needs Now is Love.”

David and Bacharach met when both worked in the Brill Building, New York’s legendary Tin Pan Alley song factory where writers cranked out songs to sell to music publishers. They scored their first big hit with “Magic Moments,” a million-selling record for Perry Como.

Their success transferred to film and theatre, where they won an Oscar for “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head” (from the movie “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid“), and Grammys and Tonys for the songs from the hit Broadway musical “Promises, Promises.”

But the hit-making team broke up after the 1973 musical remake of “Lost Horizon.” The pair and Warwick had devoted two years to the movie, which was scorned by critics and audiences. Bacharach then sequestered himself in his vacation home and refused to work.

David went on to collaborate successfully with other composers: John Barry with the title song of the James Bond film “Moonraker” Albert Hammond with “To All the Girls I’ve Loved Before,” which Julio Iglesias and Willie Nelson sang as a duet; and Henry Mancini with “The Greatest Gift” in “The Return of the Pink Panther.”

David joined the board of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers in 1974 and served as president 1980 to 1986. He was head of the Songwriters Hall of Fame from 2001 to 2011, and was chairman emeritus at his death.

“As a lyric writer, Hal was simple, concise and poetic — conveying volumes of meaning in fewest possible words and always in service to the music,” ASCAP president, the songwriter Paul Williams, said in a statement. “It is no wonder that so many of his lyrics have become part of our everyday vocabulary and his songs… the backdrop of our lives.”

In May, Bacharach and David received the Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song during a White House tribute concert attended by President Barack Obama. David, recovering from a major stroke in March, did not attend, but his wife accepted on his behalf.

“It was thrilling,” she said. “Even though he wasn’t there, Hal said it was the highest honour he had ever received.”

Obama noted their music is still being recorded by such artists as Alicia Keys and John Legend.

“Above all, they stayed true to themselves,” Obama said. “And with an unmistakable authenticity, they captured the emotions of our daily lives — the good times, the bad times, and everything in between.”

Born in New York City, David attended public schools and NYU, then served in the Army during World War II, mostly as a member of an entertainment unit in the South Pacific. After the war, he was a copywriter at the New York Post and wrote lyrics for bandleaders before hooking up with Bacharach.

He married Anne Rauchman in 1947, and together they had two sons.

Singer Smokey Robinson called on others to honour David’s musical legacy.

“I hope that the music world will join together in celebrating the life of one of our greatest composers ever,” he said.

• • •

I hope so, too, Smokey. I hope so, too.

❤❤❤

Ad Astra, Mr. David

😢💜💋

The Fool

💜💜💜

I could just eat you up, baby

I’m sorry it’s true

Killing me softly as you do

Everything’s write

Nothing is wrong

Not after so long

Drifting in Space

Solitary Darkness

Staring into the Abyss

Wasn’t expecting anyone

Least of all you

Was sure I was alone

By myself, just a Fool

💜