Elizabeth!

As I was acruise on the high seas, I caught a bit of Barack Obama on CNN speaking about the economic woes of this country, and John McCain's response thereof. (I apologize if this has already been covered in great detail back in the U.S.A.) Senator Obama said that most people eracted to McCain's plan like the old line from Sanford and Son: "This is the big one," he said, adding, "...Weezy."

Weezy! I have long been a supporter of Senator Obama's, but this mishmoshing of seventies sitcom characters must end at once. George Jefferson is not Fred Sanford any more than I am. Would that the Obama campaign had enlisted OPC as its official consultant for seventies trash culture. We'd all be in a better place right now.

Dark Days Ahead

"One Poor Correspondent" is going to be dark for roughly the next week, while I am away on vacation. Thank you to everyone who has read and contributed to this site, and please come back when I do.

On My List of the Best Things In Life

Like a lot of other Americans, I've been recently asking myself, "What are Hall and Oates up to?" Well, now the answer can be told: They've been playing a party for Uline, the leading distributor of shipping, industrial, and packing materials to businesses throughout North America. "Because we are family owned and operated," say Liz and Dick Uihlien, the founders of Uline who have apparently mastered the parlor trick of speaking with one voice, "we don't ever compromise on quality or service, and our customers know it from day one."

You know who else never compromised on quality or service? Daryl Hall! And John Oates! That's why it's so fitting that you can now get a copy of Hall and Oates' The Classics Live CD absolutely free with a $300 purchase from Uline. So if you're running low on Signode Comparable Poly Strapping or Tyvek Bag Clay Desiccants, I think you know where to turn.

H/T to Misirlou at Baseball Think Factory

My Pathway Led by Confusion Boats

The Web site Songfacts.com has a feature whereby you can search for songs with similar themes, so that if you're reading about "Jackie Blue," there's a link provided for other songs with girls' names in the title, or other songs with colors in the title. (Incidentally, Songfacts reports that Smashing Pumpkins covered "Jackie Blue," which I did not know, and do not think I would like to hear.)

My favorite among these categories is "songs about being young and confused," so after you read about, say, "Born to Run," you are giving the option of selecting "More songs about being young and confused."

Shouldn't that be the title of half the albums ever made?

It Does Matter

It was fifty years ago today, on October 21st, 1958, that Buddy Holly went into the studio for the last time, cutting "True Love Ways," "It Doesn't Matter Anymore," and "Raining in My Heart." (There may have been other tracks laid down at that session; my Buddy Holly discography is not exhaustive.) According to a guy I heard on the radio this morning, this was also the first time that a rock & roll song was recorded with an orchestra.

Holly was in New York at the time, rather than his regular digs in Clovis New, Mexico, and his producer wasn't Norman Petty but Dick Jacobs, who also directed the orchestra on the session.

I hear a lot about how Leiber and Stoller were the first to use strings on an R&B song with the Drifters' "There Goes My Baby," in 1959. I can't find when that song was recorded, but the single came out in May of 1959. Since "It Doesn't Matter Anymore" had made the Top Forty by March of 1959, eventually peaking at Number Thirteen, I think we can assume that it was the first string-laden rock single.

Neal Hefti, 1922-2008

Nebraskan jazzman Neal Hefti, a legendary trumpeter, arranger for Count Basie, and composer of songs ranging from the jazz standard "Cute" to the theme from Batman, dead at the age of 85. Mr. Hefti's most salient tune, to my mind, was his theme for The Odd Couple, which he wrote for the movie but was used to great effect on the TV show as well.

Hefti joined his first traveling big band two days before he graduated from high school. In 1950 he started arranging for Basie, whom he'd seen performing in Omaha over a decade earlier. When Frank Sinatra formed Reprise Records in 1961, one of the first people he invited into the fold was Hefti, who arranged Sinatra and Swingin' Brass, featuring the deathless "Don't Cha Go Away Mad," with Sinatra in full cad mode:

Her kind's a dime a dozen
And that's not the kind I want
Who'd ever dream your cousin
Would wander into that restaurant?

I understand that you feel upset
Whaddya you say that you forgive and forget?
Come on and kiss me just to show you're glad
Baby, baby don'cha go away mad

In fact, Hefti's death was first reported by Nancy Sinatra on the Sinatra family Web site.

Hefti's "Batman Theme" went to Number Thirty-Five in 1966. The Marketts' version then hit Number Seventeen in 1968. "Odd Couple Theme" never hit.

You may not think you know "Cute," but believe me, you do. Give it a listen:

Levi Stubbs, 1936-2008

Levi Stubbs, lead singer of the Four Tops, dead at the age of 72. I don't need to tell you anything about Stubbs' credits or singing ability.

The most amazing thing about the Four Tops was their longevity: They got together as a group in 1954, when Motown was still a gleam in Berry Gordy's eye (although they wouldn't call themselves the Four Tops for two more years). Then the same four guys - Stubbs, Duke Fakir, Obie Benson and Lawrence Payton - would remain the Four and Only Tops for forty-three years, until Payton died in 1997. (Levi Stubbs, a rock if there ever was one, was also married to the same woman for 48 years.) By contrast, there have been twenty-two different Temptations.

The only group that looks like it might challenge the Four Tops' record is U2, which has had the same four members since Dik Evans, the Edge's brother, left in 1978, which is also the moment that the band changed its name from the Hype to U2.

Here's a rather shaky vision of the Tops doing the great "Walk Away Renee," which they actually took to Number Fourteen back in 1968:

I'm Talkin' 'Bout Shift

The other day I came across a Web site called the Truck Driver's Gear Change Hall of Shame, devoted to pop songs that modulate, or offer a key change, in order to amp up the drama, or simply to keep the listener's interest, as the song turns the 3:30 corner. The site lists some good examples of this thing - "The Candy Man," "I Just Called to Say I Love You," Macy Gray's unstoppable "I Try," "I Got You Babe." In that last one, you know, Cher had asked Sonny specifically to write a song with a big honking key change for her.

Of course, half of all Barry Manilow's songs are listed as well. They somehow missed out on "Ready to Take a Chance Again," after which Barry's truck needed an entirely new transmission.

Family Ties

A gentleman named Art Quatrocchio passed away last week. I'd never heard of him, but he was the father of Suzi "Stumblin' In" Quatro, which means he achieved more than I probably ever will. Another of Art's daughters, Arlene Quatro (I don't know at what stage the family name got shortened, but it appears to have been after Art's generation), gave birth to erstwhile Twin Peaks star Sherilyn Fenn - which means that Sherilyn is the niece of Leather Tuscadero.

True story: In 1999, Roz Kelly was awakened by her neighbor's car alarm, whereupon she grabbed a shotgun and blasted away at the neighbor's apartment and car. Who would have guessed Pinky would be the one to go bad?

Name That Wall

From Don McLean's "Vincent (Starry, Starry Night)":

Starry, starry night
Portraits hung in empty halls
Frameless heads on nameless walls
With eyes that watch the world and can't forget.

How many walls have names? There's the Wailing Wall, Wall Drug, the Wall of Sound....