Chuck Mangione has rung down the curtain and joined the choir invisible. Heaven has a new flugelhorn today. 84 years young. https://www.instagram.com/p/DMf2tIBxeag
Apart from that, I think the warmest memory of the guy is when he partnered with his AA sponsor Pat Boone to promote the latter's album of metal-to-lounge covers. The only one I really know is Crazy Train, which works at least as a novelty item.
Chuck Mangione has rung down the curtain and joined the choir invisible. Heaven has a new flugelhorn today. 84 years young. https://www.instagram.com/p/DMf2tIBxeag
AFF
Feels So Good is the Platonic form of Easy Listening. And I say that in a good way.
Terry Gene Bollea has died. Who is he? Otherwise known as Hulk Hogan of professional wrestling fame. Cardiac Arrest. Age 71 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hulk_Hogan
It has just been announced that Dame Cleo Laine, Lady Dankworth, celebrated UK singer and widow of John Dankworth, jazz musician and impresario, died yesterday. She was 97.
The last surviving cast member of the 1970s TV show, Hogan's Heroes, Kenneth Washington, has died.
I saw re-runs of it in the 1980s, and was highly amused. RIP.
Weird thing is, I found the show boring, and never watched a full episode, but I think I know who all the characters were and which "archetypes" they were supposed to represent.
And, of course, the theme song, probably the catchiest TV theme ever.
And, of course, the theme song, probably the catchiest TV theme ever.
Yes!
I loved, and still love, Hogan’s Heroes. (I’m old enough to have watched it when it was first on in prime time.) Part of that was that found it very funny, but part of it was that watched it with my father—a WWII vet who never talked about his war experience, who at the end of the war was stationed in an Allied POW camp in Germany, and who loved Hogan’s Heroes. That show, together with a few other random bits of German-related things, represents a connection with the part of my dad’s life he never really shared.
That's really sad, though he was 97. A great satirist. Back when I was school, some time ago now, his 'Irish ballad', 'About a maid I'll sing a song' was my sort of party piece.
I remember in the 1980s listening to an old album of Lehrer's songs from The Week That Was, and then some time later remembering where I knew the voice from...
A serious and seriously funny man, Tom Lehrer. So far as RIP is concerned, he did not expect to pass go or collect 200 dollars on his way to his own (believed non-existent) Valhalla but I think he would be good fun to have in Eternity!
RIP Tom. He was definitely in the "Wait - you mean he was still with us up to now?" category for me. I treasure a memory of one of his songs from many years ago - listening to it with my undiagnosed-but-pretty-definitely-neurodivergent elder brother (also RIP) with whom I occasionally shared a sense of humour. We both fell about laughing at his "dear old mammy - her cookin's lousy and her hands are clammy but what the hell, it's home."
None of you will be surprised to learn that I was particularly taken with The Periodic Table, set to the Major-General's Song from Pirates of Penzance.
That wasn't precisely a take on the RCC, but specifically a take on the musical reforms of Vatican II. Lehrer contextualizes it that way in his live intro to the song on The Week That Was.
Conservatives would probably be offended either way, though they more than anyone else would agree with Lehrer's bleak prognosis for liturgical music post-V2(*).
(*) Interestingly, given that Lehrer also satirized the folk revival in his song Folk Song Army, he didn't foresee that it would be the folk-mass, not ragtime, that gets most commonly mocked for its kitschiness.
Comments
AFF
Interesting that non-Ozzy cover is getting a significant amount of traffic in its comments-section in tribute to Osbourne's passing.
One of the comments mentions that that version was used as the opening to The Osbournes, which I did not know, being a total non-viewer of the show.
Feels So Good is the Platonic form of Easy Listening. And I say that in a good way.
I saw re-runs of it in the 1980s, and was highly amused. RIP.
Weird thing is, I found the show boring, and never watched a full episode, but I think I know who all the characters were and which "archetypes" they were supposed to represent.
And, of course, the theme song, probably the catchiest TV theme ever.
I loved, and still love, Hogan’s Heroes. (I’m old enough to have watched it when it was first on in prime time.) Part of that was that found it very funny, but part of it was that watched it with my father—a WWII vet who never talked about his war experience, who at the end of the war was stationed in an Allied POW camp in Germany, and who loved Hogan’s Heroes. That show, together with a few other random bits of German-related things, represents a connection with the part of my dad’s life he never really shared.
Time to say your Te Deums when you see those ICBMs...
He was a genius - and prescient
["In German oder English I know how to count down,
Und I'm learning Chinese!" says Wernher von Braun.
Who can turn a tap
Into a tape?
Who can turn a cap
Into a cape?
SPOILER
And a very good pianist too!
RIP Tom. He was definitely in the "Wait - you mean he was still with us up to now?" category for me. I treasure a memory of one of his songs from many years ago - listening to it with my undiagnosed-but-pretty-definitely-neurodivergent elder brother (also RIP) with whom I occasionally shared a sense of humour. We both fell about laughing at his "dear old mammy - her cookin's lousy and her hands are clammy but what the hell, it's home."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvhYqeGp_Do
I hope he won't be poisoning pigeons in the park, in whatever after-life he's gone to...
RIP Mr Lehrer.
That wasn't precisely a take on the RCC, but specifically a take on the musical reforms of Vatican II. Lehrer contextualizes it that way in his live intro to the song on The Week That Was.
Conservatives would probably be offended either way, though they more than anyone else would agree with Lehrer's bleak prognosis for liturgical music post-V2(*).
(*) Interestingly, given that Lehrer also satirized the folk revival in his song Folk Song Army, he didn't foresee that it would be the folk-mass, not ragtime, that gets most commonly mocked for its kitschiness.
(He also had me prepare “I Am the Monarch of the Sea” for rep class, @Piglet.)