Celebrating the apple

One of the things my sister Ellen and I did while she was here was go to the annual Apple Festival at Lakeside Orchards in nearby Manchester. We both enjoyed it enormously. As Ellen put it, it was a bit of Americana, New England style.

Besides being able to go out into the orchards to pick your own apples -- which Ellen and I didn't do, as we'd already purchased a few of their apples a couple of days before, from the bins they have in their little shop (which was when we found out the festival was coming up) -- there were craftspeople with their wares on display...though not as many as in previous years...little kids being led around a circle on a pony (this actually made me tear up, it was so sweet, smacking of another time), a very energetic young magician keeping a whole slew of kids, and accompanying parents, highly entertained, lots of those big plastic things for kids to jump up and down on, and the usual hotdogs and hamburgers being sold by church groups.

There was also a really excellent bluegrass band, which I gather was actually parts of two different bands: the Sandy River Ramblers and the Maranacook String Band. For this outing they were being billed as Stanley Keach and Friends. The fiddler, Jay Smith, who disconcerted me by bearing an uncanny resemblance to my nephew, was absolutely fantastic. He was very serious while he played, and indeed, didn't seem to be having much fun. However, when I went up to the edge of the stage during one of their numbers, to try to get a written sheet with information about them (no luck, but I put my name & email address down on their list to receive announcements about their upcoming concerts), I glanced up at him and said, "You're great," and he flashed me a big smile and said "thank you." Boy, do I love talented people.

I was quite disappointed that there were so few craftspeople. Later I found myself talking to one of the people who organizes the event -- to my amazement, she was one of the parents attending our Children's Hour at the library the following Wednesday, and mentioned that she had seen me at the festival -- and according to her, the event has been the victim of bad weather so many times in recent years that many of the craftsmen decided not to take the chance. And then of course, the weather was lovely, if a little windy.

But despite the reduced options for shopping, Ellen and I each managed to find something for the other. She bought me two beautiful pair of earrings, at the super bargain price of $5 each, and I bought her a little mouse in a dress. Not a real mouse, of course; one of those things you put out as a decoration. Ellen is very into decorating her house for the different holidays, the different seasons, and she declared that Little Mousie in her red dress would be perfect for Christmas.

All in all, a splendid afternoon. Followed, on both our parts, by a nice long nap.  One of the fortunate things about this visit: we were on a par in terms of stamina.

Let it roll!

Well, I just got up because I couldn't sleep -- a not-infrequent occurrence these days, since I tend to consume coffee and Diet Dr. Pepper to keep me going all day, then find it keeps me awake at night -- and I turned on the T.V., just to see what there might be, not expecting much at 11:30 on a Saturday night.  And there, on Maine PBS's Front Row Center, were the vestiges of the old Canadian rock group from the '70s,  Bachman-Turner Overdrive, i.e., [Randy] Bachman and [Fred] Turner, singing and playing their aging hearts out.  It was terrific!  I stood there, bobbing up and down, while these two old guys and the rest of their re-invented band sang, full-throttle, LET IT ROLL...DOWN THE HIGHWAY...LET IT ROLL...DOWN THE HIGHWAY!  Then they sang another of their old hits, Takin' Care of Business, and the audience, all on their feet, were bouncing up and down and singing along.  Great fun.

I've gotten sort of jaded about aging rock stars continuing to tour, or trying to tour again, after a silence of many years.  We get a lot of such acts up here in Maine, unable, apparently, to attract more current acts.  For example, the Beach Boys 50th Reunion Concert (which has received scathing reviews) is coming to Bangor on June 22nd (tickets are being offered at 50 % off, I notice).  As Brian Wilson himself has said, "We're fucking 70 years old, man!" Exactly.  Time for rock stars to be (or stay) retired.

But Bachman & Turner showed me tonight that you can be at least pushing 70, and still have what it takes, in the world of rock music.  They had energy, high spirits, voice, and great guitar playing.  I've talked before about the allure of the guitar for my generation (see Note of Nov. 29, 2008), and here it was again: the guitar, in all its pulsating glory; I loved watching Randy Bachman's fingers fly up and down those frets.  As Lionel's father is always saying in As Time Goes By, "Rock on!"

By the way, I recently discovered that I had done a draft of my review of HBO'S version of Game of Thrones, but had failed to post it.  It is now posted, but at the date when it was originally done, April 26, 2012.  So take a look, if you're interested.

Rip-offs, and misnomers

One of my favorite very short pieces of music has, in my opinion, a completely inappropriate title. The piece is from Handel's oratorio Solomon, and is entitled The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba. Now, wouldn't you expect that music announcing the arrival of a queen would be rather grand and stately? But this music is light and lively; it conjurs up, for me, a bevy of fairies, with gossamer wings, flitting from lily pad to lily pad down the length of a pond. It's light-hearted running, or in-and-out flight; it is not the arrival of the Queen of Sheba. I never have any luck embedding links, but I'm going to try again, with the Youtube link. Hope you are able to listen!

Ha! I did it! Can't believe it. Anyway, as to the rip-off part of this missive: I recently ordered season 2 of the British T.V. drama series Blue Murder, which ran 2003-2009 in England. I had been given Season 1 by a friend, and really enjoyed it, 'though comprehending the Manchester accents (one of the interesting things about this show is it is not set in London) can be a real challenge. Another interesting thing about it is that the Chief Inspector, in charge of finding all those murderers, is not only a woman, but a single mother-of-four (she caught her husband in bed with the nanny when she came home with the happy news of her promotion). And not only that, but she's overweight! Hardly obese, but she could definitely stand to lose a few pounds. So here is this frazzled woman dealing with a small son afraid of bullying at school, a teenaged son getting in with the wrong crowd and doing some bullying himself, a daughter who is mortified by what her mother is wearing whenever she makes a televised press statement, but also hates it when her mother puts on perfume and eye makeup when a man comes over, and a new baby (she was pregnant when she was promoted/caught her husband in flagrante)along with ever-changing nannys...while at the same time running hither and yon solving crime. She's a smart, funny, unusual heroine, played by Caroline Quentin, an actress known more for her comedic roles. And there's a very cute, sexy actor, Ian Kelsey, playing her second in command.

So there you have Blue Murder, which I ordered the second set of, my little once a month splurge on something that is not rent/food/gas/electic bills/sewer bills/water bills/oil bills/medical bills...and there are only four episodes on the two discs! There were three discs, six episodes in Set 1. Why two fewer? I've already watched the four! What a rip-off!

On hearing an angel sing

I suppose everyone out there -- with the exception of my friend Clifford, who doesn't watch anything but sports with the sound turned off -- has by now heard the amazing 10-year-old Jackie Evancho, either in her recent operatic performances on "America's Got Talent," or on any of the performances saved to YouTube (which include the ones from AGT). She is certainly one re-markable little singer; indeed, her voice seems to be coming out of a full-grown woman, rather than that little slip of a girl (which is, in fact, why some people were thinking there must be a mechanical trick involved). It's one thing to reach those exquisite high notes, but how can her body produce those rich, full lower notes? How has she got the diaphragm for it?

I didn't see Jackie on AGT, but my local FOX News station always shows cuts from shows like American Idol and AGT, and that's where I heard Jackie's rendition of Pie Jesu from Andrew Lloyd Webber's Requiem. I have this album, and while I don't think much of it as a whole -- it's lugubrious, as all requiems are, and more than once I can detect The Phantom of the Opera lurking in the background -- Sarah Brightman's performance of Pie Jesu on it is exquisite. But...little Jackie's is, I do believe, more so. How a 10-year-old girl could compete with a 25-year-old one, is beyond me.

But, enough rhapsodizing. Here's what I'm wondering. What kind of childhood is little Jackie having? Although it's obvious she has a god-given voice, you don't get that kind of breath control and phrasing and fullness and roundness without practicing, practicing, practicing. So is Jackie, like very talented children from Mozart to Frances Gumm (aka Judy Garland), doing without a childhood, in order to perfect her talent, and then showcase it? And how much of this has to do with the parents (as in the case of Mozart and Judy Garland), rather than Jackie? In other words, how much is she being pushed, as opposed to encouraged? And is she going to end up having this miserable life, while all of us out here are enjoying her beautiful voice?

I always worry about children being exploited. Childhood is a modern phenomenon; for millennia, as soon as children could reproduce they were likely to be married off, and among the working classes children worked from a very early age (e.g., on the farm), even if they were lucky enough to also be able to go to school. And they were always expected to adhere to adult standards, no matter how unrealistic that might be.

But we have such a thing as childhood now, and I think it's a good development, in the evolution of human culture. I'm inclined to think kids today are not given enough responsibility; not enough is expected of them; but still, I think they should mainly be involved with being kids, while they are kids. Grownup life, cares and woes come soon enough, and then last the rest of ones life. I just hope Jackie is getting to have sleepovers and go to Harry Potter movies with friends.

(Do listen to her, if you haven't. She will amaze you.)

If you stick around long enough...

The other night I watched part of the program on PBS honoring Paul McCartney (officially Sir Paul McCartney, but please), as he received the third annual Gershwin Prize for Popular Song from the Library of Congress. The program took place at the White House, with President Obama and family in the front row. McCartney and other performers did a selection of his songs. I missed most of the other performers, except for an all-right version of Baby, You Can Drive My Car, by the Jonas Brothers -- a very young group, with whom I am totally unfamiliar -- during which I was completely distracted by the lead singer's hair, which literally covered practically his entire face. I know that some of the time he was singing with hair in his mouth, which could not be pleasant.

But anyway. Listening to McCartney sing, I was reminded that he was never the strongest of singers, and his voice hasn't gotten any stronger with age. This guy is no spring chicken -- he was born in 1942 -- but there he is with brown hair. I've complained before (Note of June 13, 2008) about the double standard that forces women to color their hair, while men are allowed to grey naturally. But in the world of rock music this is obviously not so. Two of the Rolling Stones -- who are all well into their 60s, and looking genuinely old -- also "still" have brown hair. Their peers -- we baby boomers who may be aging but still love rock and roll -- might accept them with grey hair, but presumably not the young whippersnappers who buy the records and go to the concerts.

While watching the PBS program, I was also reminded of the book I recently plowed through (it's a BIG book): The Beatles, by Bob Spitz. In it, McCartney comes across as the most traditionally ambitious of all the Beatles, the most realistic, the best at ingratiating himself with people. This tribute at the White House is surely an illustration of all of these qualities serving the man, and providing him with those things he wanted out of life.

The book provides a fascinating portrait of the "four lads from Liverpool," who really did change popular music dramatically (I can hear my friend Clifford saying, "Not for the better!"). This relatively restrained Beatlemaniac (see Note of Nov. 30, 2009 for my version of Beatlemania) was surprised to learn about all the unpleasant realities that she was totally unaware of, during that time when she was busy thinking of the Beatles as so cute, funny, talented, and different. They were all of that, but as four very young, unsophisticated men who suddenly found themselves a totally unexpected wildly successful (originally their ambition had been to be the best rock band in Liverpool) they didn't lose any time immersing themselves in sex, drugs and rock and roll. Indeed, I had no idea that drugs played such a huge part in the lives of all four men, but especially John Lennon, who resorted to LSD frequently, once he'd been turned on to it, and was even addicted to heroine for a while. Apparently during many of the later recording sessions drugs both played a big part in the interesting sounds and effects they created, and in the rapidly disintegrating relations among the four men (in particular Paul and John, who were always in a kind of competition for leader of the pack).

I was surprised to learn what a nasty piece of work John Lennon was in general. He always hated the jolly, clean-cut, well-dressed image that Brian Epstein, the Beatles' manager, insisted they adhere to. That image worked magnificently, but John chafed under it. He was the original "angry young man," and his preferred persona, which he adopted when he first started playing the guitar at 15, and formed his first band, was that of what the British called a teddy boy, what we Americans would call a punk. Tight jeans, leather jacket, hair slicked back in a duck tail, cigarette hanging out of his mouth (all the Beatles were heavy smokers). When the Beatles went into their psychedelic phase, in the late 60s, and dropped the neat (if long) haircuts and buttoned-up suits, John became truly shaggy and scruffy looking. He was always wanting to shock people, shake 'em up, while Paul wanted to make them happy, give them what they wanted.

And you see who got the prestigious Gershwin award, even though there is no question that all of McCartney's best work was done with John Lennon. Of course, Lennon was shot to death at the tragically young age of 42, but I can't see him ever doing anything so main-stream as appearing at the White House to accept an award from the Library of Congress. But...we'll never know.

May the best voice win

The other night I watched the most wonderful show on PBS. Called "The Audition," it was a documentary that followed a group of aspiring young opera singers as they prepared to compete in the 2007 Metropolitan Opera's National Council competition. Five winners are ultimately selected, out of about 1500 hopefuls across the country. What we the audience were treated to were the excitment, the musings, the practice sessions, of the approximately-20 semi-finalists who had made it to the New York audition. Filming took place during the week preceding their final performances, which would determine the winners.

Absolutely fascinating. I love behind-the-scenes theatrical films anyway, and this one had the added benefit of all this splendid singing. Every one of those young people had a beautiful, beautifully trained voice. It was also interesting meeting the different personalities. There were three young women who were the traditional operatically-hefty -- one of them commented to the camera that she knew there was more of an emphasis these days on physically attractive singers, but she hoped the judges would be concentrating on singing ability, and not on "the weight issue" -- whereas one of the young woman who was very slender indeed, admitted that she had a problem getting the fullness of sound that some parts demanded. The oldest in the group (at 30), was a black man from Houston who had had to take time out from his training for several years because his financial situation became so desperate the sheriff was knocking on his door. Initially I was least impressed with his performance, but as the week went on, thanks to various work-shops they had for the contestants, his self-confidence seemed to increase, and his performance improved.

The contestant we saw the most of was easily the most neurotically bent on winning; his ambition was palpable and his paranoia that "politics" would interfere with honest judging rather sad. When the five winners were announced at the end, his name was the last to be called, and there was a lengthy pause before it was -- indeed, some-one in the group still waiting in the wings muttered "Is that all?" -- and when his name was called you had to breath a sigh of relief, as he gave a great cry of exultation, and strode onto the stage. For my goodness, if he hadn't won, what would he have done?

In an earlier Note (Oct. 24, 2009) I had wondered aloud what made some men want to sing for a living. You really have to wonder that about men who want to be opera singers. If nothing else, how many boys are even exposed to opera? One of the Metropolitan Opera people who gave a pep talk to the contestants mentioned the fact that a recent survey had shown that the average age of opera goers was 65. "Twenty years ago it was 45," he said. "Our audience is aging on us." In your typical American family opera is just not part of the musical scene, to the extent that there is a musical scene. So the pool of opera lovers -- people who would expose their children to opera -- is very small. And from that small pool come this group of boys who like it enough, and like singing that way, to try to make a career of it. To me, amazing.

I was so pleased at the end, when we were told where the winners and the other finalists were one year on. One of the hefty women, Amber Wagner, had signed with the Lyric Opera of Chicago. Angela Meade, the hefty, but actually quite beautiful, woman who had been con-cerned that her weight would be held against her, had stepped in as understudy at the Metropolitan itself. Our rabidly driven Michael Fabiano, had appeared at Teatro alla Scala, more commonly referred to as La Scala. You can actually catch Fabiano singing on YouTube (I tried to insert a link here but had no luck -- but an Internet search under his name will bring up several videos of him singing.) He really has a fabulous voice, and when he won in 2007 was only 22 years old, which both his fellow contestants and the judges commented on with disbelieving admiration.

The news that made me happiest was that Ryan Smith, he of all the financial woes, had had his debut at the Metropolitan Opera.

And then, I was devastated by the dedication at the close of the program -- to Ryan Smith, who died of lymphatic cancer in Nov. 2008. No question that Fate has a twisted sense of the ironic. The only thing you can feel good about is that at least Smith had his 15 minutes of glory. He was on top of the world, the world he had chosen, for only a moment. But for a moment.

Remembering PP&M

[I wrote the following back in December, and just discovered I never posted it. So here it is. What I say about children around the world who don't have it so good as many American children has special meaning now, with the recent disaster in Haiti having left so many children, who were already living in poverty, homeless and orphaned.]

A little over a year ago I was revisiting some of the music Peter, Paul and Mary had produced over the years, after having listened to one of their CDs earlier in the day (Note of Sept. 28, 2008). Last night the "begging" show Maine PBS was giving us was the special PP&M did several years ago. There were clips of many of their past perform-ances -- at a Greenwich Village club when they were first starting out, singing Bob Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind" at the 1963 March on Washington, John Denver's "Leavin' on a Jet Plane," at their 1986 "Reunion" concert, and many more. In all of them there was that wonderful harmonizing, the marvelous arrangements, Mary Travers' beauty and passion as she sang, and the great songs themselves. These people and their music played a big part in my coming of age years -- along with Joan Baez, Judy Collins, Bob Dylan and the Kingston Trio -- and it was nice to be reminded of how important they were not just to me, but to millions of other people as well.

What really got me were the numbers done at a PBS children's concert, where PP&M had the kids (and their parents) singing along to "Puff the Magic Dragon," "If I had a Hammer," "We Shall Overcome," grinning with delight and nodding their heads at the silliness of "I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly." Watching all those young, eager, innocent faces, as they delightedly sang along, made my heart ache. Millions of children around the world who will never be able to sit in a comfortable studio with their parents arms wrapped around them singing exuberant and gentle songs. All the world's horrors -- war, poverty, not enough food, drought, floods, and other natural disasters, man's general inhumanity to man -- they all impact children the most. And it breaks my heart.

But what was really special about Peter, Paul and Mary (and it is now a matter of 'was,' since Mary Travers died in September of leukemia) was that they didn't just sing their music. Like the activist/folk singer Pete Seeger they lived it. They marched for civil rights and against the Viet Nam war; they visited El Salvador and wrote and performed songs protesting America's support of the military-backed government there. Over all their years together the ideas of peace and justice in the world were of paramount importance to them, and they endeavored to "keep the faith" in their work. You can only admire people like that, if you haven't the talent or faith or perseverance to emulate them.

And the really great thing is, they produced all these wonderful songs, that people love to sing along to.

Beauty for the eye, and the ear

I have just been enjoying one of my favorite traditions, that of welcoming in the New Year with the Vienna Philharmonic's New Year's Day concert. It is always such a gorgeous melange of music, dance (some of the pieces include performances by members of the Vienna State Ballet), and grand, elegant buildings. Besides the Musikvereinssaal, in which the concert is held, and which features an amazing ceiling of gold, the dancers swirl through rooms and gardens of various palaces and museums to be found in Vienna -- this year it was the Art History Museum. The Musikvereinssaal is filled with flowers, and with people from not only Vienna, but all over the world, who have paid top dollar to attend the most famous and heavily watched concert in the world. And it is so obvious that they are having a grand time, as are the musicians.

The two dances that were featured were enough to satisfy the romanticism buried deep inside every grown woman. In one a lovely, lithe dancer in a red dress was wafting gracefully through pale yellow and gold rooms full of stark Roman and Greek statuary, eventually accompanied by a beautiful young man in white tie and tails. The use of color was inspired: the red against the pale yellow, in striking contrast to the austerity of the white statuary; in shots from above, the two dancers against the black and white mosaic floors. I thought how remarkable it was that here they were whirling and lifting their legs in the way of all ballet dancers, surrounded by priceless art. You would have to practice plenty, to make sure you didn't knock over anything.

Another dance started out with one young dancer in a frothy pink dress, and her young man, again in white tie and tails (and black tights, I eventually realized), pas de deuxing on a landing of the grand stairway. The camera changed angles to reveal a second, then a third couple. Eventually the place was alive with couples, some of the young ladies in the pink, others in a pale grey layered with pink, all of them gliding through the wide, white-painted doorways of gallery after gallery, all in a line, and all lined with great works of art. It was elegant, beautiful, utterly satisfying.

And of course, through it all you are hearing all of this great music, written primarily by various members of the Strauss family. 'though this year there was also a haunting rendition of Jacques Offenbach's Overture to Die Rheinnixen. The concert always finishes up with three encores, one of which is always the On the Beautiful Blue Danube waltz (An der schonen blauen Danau). This year as the orchestra played, television viewers were treated to shots taken along the length of this mighty, historical river, wending its way from Germany, through the Austrian valley of Wachau, with castles on the hills above the river, past Vienna (Vien), past Budapest, Hungary, through Rumania, finally emptying into the Black Sea. For the first time I had a sense of this river as a river, about which Strauss wrote such a melodic and memorable orchestral piece. The opening is so haunting and affecting, I can imagine a native Austrian feeling the tug of home when he's far from home, and he hears it.

I have decided to do something I have been tempted before to do: register for the drawing for next year's concert. The orchestra's web site opens registration between Jan. 2 and Jan. 23, with winners announced in March. Tickets are so in demand, this is how they have to handle it. There are actually three concerts one can attend: the Preview on Dec. 30th, the New Year's Eve concert, and the one on New Year's Day that is televised. I'm going to register for all three, as the program is the same at each. The main thing is to be there, soaking up the music, the ambiance, the sense of tradition...the magic.

Who knows, this time next year I might be in Vienna.

Last night I said these words to my girl...

This week they are again begging on public T.V. (see Note of Mar. 29 to see how I feel about that). Last night one of the programs they frequently interrupted was on rock acts that appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show. Which included the Beatles, in 1964. I remember watching that show with my family, and being utterly enchanted. They were so cute. Yes, I was a Beatlemaniac. I even went to see them during their only appearance in Texas. My stepfather drove me and my stepsister all the way from San Antonio to Houston to see them. It was thrilling to watch them come bounding onto the stage, and start singing all those "great" songs ("Please please me, oh, yeah, like I please you"); but I was so disgusted by all the screaming females, who made it utterly impossible to hear more than the occasional word. I remember muttering, 'Oh, this is so stupid; why don't they shut up?!' I had actually gone there to hear them sing, not just gawk at them and scream myself hoarse. But I was part of a tiny, tiny minority.

That sort of mass hysteria really has nothing (or very little) to do with what is supposedly causing it, in this case, four cute guys with lots of energy who sang about love, but were totally non-threatening. (In another age it was a sweet-faced, skinny kid who also sang about love and was totally non-threatening, by the name of Frank Sinatra. On the other hand, in between the two phenomena was a very good-looking, overtly sexual guy with a pompadour who could possible be construed as being the tiniest bit threatening.) Whatever the supposed source, it's really a matter of mob mentality taking over, and turning other-wise sane human beings into unthinking lemmings (lead me to the nearest cliff and I'll gladly jump over, screaming all the way). I assume all kinds of books, never mind dissertations, have been written on the subject. I suppose part of it is a grabbing at the chance to let off steam, let it all hang out, toss away all the ol' inhibitions for a brief time. I'm sure I was as sexually repressed as every other girl in that giant auditorium -- after all, I was 17, but had never been on a date, never been kissed (this was actually possible for girls back in the good ol' days, even ones that weren't "dogs") -- and I certainly indulged in lots of rather vague fantasies about the Fab Four (alternating among Paul, "the cute one," George, "the quiet one," and John, "the smart one", with Ringo, "the funny one," never ringing any particular bells, for some reason). But for all my untapped sexuality, I was never the least bit tempted to scream it out. Call me unnatural.

On this same show last night we were treated to appearances by the Rolling Stones, with an astonishingly fresh-faced Mick Jagger -- my God, he's a little boy, I thought as I watched him trying to contain his bottled energy -- and ditto Eric Burton, with The Animals, who also amazed me by having a surprisingly good voice, and blues style. The kid had obviously been working hard. And neither he, nor Jagger, nor Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys, nor any of the others, had that haggard, a little too much sex-drugs-and-rock-and-roll look that they were all to have within ten years.

It was fun, watching them, remembering that yes, more innocent time. Had We But Known.

Sing

People love to sing. Isn't that interesting? I was just watching the very charismatic country singer Kenny Chesney on Austin City Limits (which Micheal and I used to love to watch when we lived in Boston -- a touch of country in the middle of the big, sophisticated city -- but now the show has lousy rock groups on more often than good country musicians), and every now and then the camera would scan all the people in the audience singing along as Kenny sang. They all knew the words. They were happy, having a great time. And people are almost always happy when they sing. What do you suppose there is about not saying words, but singing them, that makes us feel happy?

Think about all the people who sing in choruses. They don't get famous, they don't make a lot of money, they may have to go to rehearsals after working all day at their mundane jobs. But they are doing something they love, that makes them feel happy. I reckon there aren't all that many things in life that do that; when you find one, you're smart to go for it.

Or think about the people on chain gangs, slaves in the fields, singing to ease the tedious, grueling monotony of what they were doing. Singing did that, but how, or why, that's what I wonder.

We also cherish people who sing at us; we love professional singers. That's interesting, too, if you think about it. People who act, paint, sculpt, dance, write, are comedians -- we may be full of admiration for them at least partly because we can't do what they're doing. But almost everybody can sing. Yet, we're full of admiration for profes-sional singers, too. Is it simply that they put joy into our lives, and you gotta love somebody who brings you joy?

Andy Williams was on the Tavis Smiley talk show last night. In his eighties now, but still handsome, a low-keyed charming, as he was in the '60s, when my family used to watch his T.V. show religiously. They showed clips of him singing on his show with Tony Bennett, and the two seemed to be having such a good time. But the thought occurred to me: why would men like this, why would any man, decide to become a singer, that is, try to make his living at it? Not aim for being a doctor, lawyer, banker, accountant, engineer, airplane pilot, truck driver, soldier, teacher, newspaper man, not even an artist, but a singer? Actually, in the case of Andy Williams he told us: he had, not a stage mom, but a stage dad, who was hoping the singing talents of Andy and his three brothers would take them all out of Iowa (apparently Mr. Williams was not crazy about Iowa). And it did; they did. By the time Howard Andrew could perhaps have decided on some other kind of career, I suppose he was pretty well entrenched in the one his father had foisted on him. But one wonders about others. Why did Tony Bennett become a singer? Why did Bing Crosby? Why did Johnny Mathis? Etc., etc...

Still, whatever their reasons, I suppose we can only applaud them -- as we do -- even as we sing ourselves, in the shower.

I'll leave you with a nifty lyric from one of Chesney's songs:

A bottle of wine/two dixie cups/3 a.m./I feel in love/
for the first time in my life.
That's somethin'/that just don't happen twice.

Ceremony

The weekend of May 16th I drove to Pennsylvania to attend the graduation from Bucknell University of my goddaughter, Alexandra. The actual graduation ceremony was on Sunday morning, but they had events all weekend. Arriving on Saturday afternoon, I was able to attend the casual Grill (i.e., dinner), with Alexandra and her parents, followed by the interreligious Baccalaureate Service, followed by the traditional candle-lighting ceremony. At the dinner I was most impressed by all the young ladies (including my goddaughter) wearing strapless dresses – not evening gowns, you understand, but casual-nice dresses , evidently the latest fashion trend, of which I had been oblivious – and by the fact that the buffet offered chunks of fillet mignon. The piece I had was overdone...always an unfortunate thing to do a good steak...but still, it was fillet mignon. For hundreds of parents and other guests (siblings, grandparents, people like me). Perhaps even more than the beautiful, almost stereotypical campus, and the hefty price tag I knew Alexandra's parents had paid for her education, this told me Bucknell was not a poor school.

Not being a religious person I wasn't particularly eager to attend the Baccalaureate Service (after I learned that that was what a Baccalaureate Service was, having never been exposed to that definition of "baccalaureate,") but it proved to be very moving, to a large extent because of the music. For one thing there were bell ringers! It gives me unmitigated joy to listen to bell-ringers, and the Rooke Chapel Ringers, under the direction of one William Payn, up there in his long silver-white pony tail, were spectacularly good. The first piece they did was called Radiance, and I was impressed to note that it was by Dr. Payn. Looking online I see that he's produced quite a few handbell compositions. He's also arranged a collection of Disney tunes, e.g., Whistle While You Work, Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah, for handbells, which I'd love to hear.

But part of the pleasure of a handbell performance is watching the performers. The concentration is intense, but these young people also seemed to be really enjoying themselves, particularly during their second piece, Bizet's Farandole (a farandole being a festive "community" dance traditionally performed in France). I am not someone who uses the word joy lightly, but this music, and the intense, occasionally grinning young people performing it with such gusto, gave me joy.

And most of those young people were also in the Rooke Chapel Chorus, which also performed! They just set down their bells and moved to the other side of the stage when it was time to sing, which they did beautifully. I felt compelled to compliment Dr. Payn on both groups' performances when I saw him at the later candle-lighting ceremony, and hoped he would convey my praise to the young performers, since I know praise, with applause, is the gods' own nectar to performers.

Early in the Baccalaureate program there was a Call to Prayer, by representatives of the Christian, Jewish, Muslim and ? faiths. The question mark has to do with the drum performance; I wasn't clear what faith that represented. But the Kyrie performed by a young woman named Kerry Flanigan was absolutely gorgeous. It was like listening to a Gregorian chant of one voice; I was transfixed. And likewise the call to prayer by the young, black Muslim Zafrullah Kamar, was very powerful. Most such calls that I've heard have sounded thin and nasally, but young Kamar had a deep, resonant voice, which gave great emotional and, yes, spiritual, heft to the haunting chant, which is longer than the snippets we're accustomed to hearing on news programs reporting the latest terrorist attack somewhere in the Middle East.

The candle-lighting ceremony is usually held in the main Quad, but due to the high possibility of rain, it was held in the Field House, admittedly a less atmospheric environment. If nothing else, the impact of the bagpipes was completely lost – they just became a vague, faintly irritating screeching behind all the crowd noise – which, since I love bagpipes, I thought a real shame. We sat through a bunch of speeches (including a spirited one by the president of the class, aka my goddaughter), then they turned out the lights, and the graduating seniors, who had lined up around the vast room, passed the flame from one candle to another. It was truly impressive to see, and I would think, to be a part of.

When I graduated from college I took part in no ceremonies at all. For one thing, I graduated in the middle of the year, and while I could certainly have attended the official ceremony in June, at that time in my life I simply had no interest in doing so. I was six years older than most of my classmates – most of my friends were professors, or my roommates – having started to college full-time at the age of 25, after having been on my own for several years, even having been through a marriage. I don't really regret missing any of that stuff but for the young, fresh-faced kids I was looking at at Bucknell, these ceremonies, these rites of passage, will surely provide deeply satisfying memories. And they certainly will for their proud parents.

Harmony

Yesterday while I was preparing one of my meals, I was listening to my Statler Brothers album. I'm one of those people who still has a large collection of vinyl records, and still listens to them. This particular album is "The Best of the Statler Bros.," and came out in about 1975. It features on the cover a formal portrait of the wives of the four "brothers" (two of them, Don and Harold Reid, actually were brothers, although nobody's name was Statler), in old-fashioned dresses and hairdos. A note on the cover says that the contents of the album was Mercury's (recording company's) idea of the "best of" the Statler Bros., but the pictures on the outside were what they themselves considered the best aspects of themselves. Hokey, but cute.

Anyway, this is a great album, truly representing "the best of." And what these brothers were so good at were clever lyrics – they at least co-wrote every song on this album – and harmony. I can remember the first time I heard "Flowers on the Wall," on a car radio – I was a know-nothing teenager, but I recognized clever, original lyrics when I heard them. ("Countin' flowers on the wall/that don't bother me at all./Playin' solitaire 'til dawn/with a deck of 51./Smokin' cigarettes and watchin' Captain Kangaroo/Now don't tell me/I've nothin' to do...") And these lyrics were sung to a chipper tune that belied the singer's lovesick misery. Irony in a country-music song – hah! Actually, I was hearing this on a rock station; the song was an early example of the kind of cross-over song – part country, part rock – that you hear all the time now.

But the big thing with these guys was their harmonizing. Their arrangements melded their voices together so beautifully, so perfectly. Like the chorus on "Susan When She Tried" ("No there's never/been another/who could make me weak inside/and give me/what I needed/like Susan when she tried") – all those voices, every one of them a good, and distinctive voice, rolling over, under, around one another.

In this masterful use of the different voices the Statler Brothers' arrangements were like those of another group for whom I have a big liking: the Everly Brothers (yes, yes, I know I'm talking Golden Oldies here). Their "Greatest Hits of" album, that features on the cover a picture of them not in their 1950s pompadours, but their early-70s longish hair and peasant shirts, has example after example of their wonderful, if more adolescently adenoidal harmonizing. I have this album, too, and was listening to it just the other night. You can't beat "Gone, Gone, Gone" for the harmonics throughout, not to mention a high energy level and great guitar-playing. Or the harmony on the falling notes of the chorus of "Kathy's Clown" ("Don't want your lu-uh-uh-ove anymore/Don't want your ki-ii-ii-isses/That's for sure./I die each time/I hear this sound/Here he cuh-uh-uh-omes/that's Kathy's clown/that's Kathy's clown...) Supposedly the Everly Brothers' harmonies influenced the Beatles!

It's occurred to me that a really good relationship should feature this same kind of harmony. Each of you "singing" at the level you sing best, and the differences complimenting each other. I used to say about my husband and me, that we were a perfect example of opposites attracting. This was certainly problematic at times; how could it help but be? But when we got it right – when he helped me to relax by being playful, when I helped him to be a good citizen by assuming we would recycle, would go vote, would pay our bills – when he drove and I read the map – when he cooked and I washed the dishes...it was beautiful harmony.

Sometimes a melody isn't enough; you need that harmony.

The universal language

I just finished watching a segment of Bill Moyer’s Journal on public television, on independent film maker Mark Johnson and the film he produced over ten years called Playing for Change: Peace through Music. The segment was run a few weeks ago and the show was overwhelmed with response from viewers who loved it. One woman said she and her family had been very adversely affected by the recent downturn in the economy, and watching the few minutes of this segment, for the first time in a long time she had a feeling of absolute joy.

I felt exactly the same way, both times I watched the segment.

Johnson’s initial inspiration for producing this film were two monks he saw playing and singing in a New York subway. He was struck by the fact that a good 200 busy, hard-nosed New Yorkers simply stopped, transfixed, and listened. Music, he realized, had this won-derful ability to draw people together, however different they and their lives might be.

What he ended up doing was recording a hundred musicians and singers all around the world singing and playing the same songs, in their own distinctive way. The two songs that we heard were Stand by Me and Bob Marley’s One World. Johnson said it all started with a Ray Charles-like singer named Roger Ridley, whom he heard singing on the streets of Santa Monica, where he lived. He asked Ridley if he, Johnson, could bring a camera and some sound equipment and record Ridley singing Stand by Me. Ridley said sure, why not, and we were the beneficiaries. And after that there was a tubby, elderly black blues singer in New Orleans (who was wonderful), a group of singers in South Africa, a drummer in Spain, a sax player in Italy, a cellist in ?, a group of American Indian pow wow drummers (the Twin Eagle drum group from Zuni, New Mexico), a back yard jazz combo in South Africa...all contributing their take on Stand by Me. And Johnson had done a marvelous editing job, so that the different groups became a tuneful collage of what is a very hopeful, upbeat song.

During the interview that Bill Moyers had with him, Johnson mentioned a caption on a picture that his brother had given him, of a group of musicians in South Africa. The caption was something to the effect that “One of the most dangerous townships in South Africa finds solace in backyard jazz.” And of course, music provides solace to people everywhere. Johnson both demonstrated that fact through his film, and carried it on, by making and sharing the film. The proof of that is in the many, many comments on PBS’s blog for the Moyers show, and requests of “where can I get a copy of this to give to my friends?’ (Alas, the film is actually out of print, but I gather this public demand is supposed to produce a new DVD soon.)

The icing on the cake as far as Playing for Change goes, is that Johnson has also been working on establishing music schools for children in such places as that dangerous and depressed township in South Africa. What a great cause! Where do I send money? How much better to be learning to sing or play an instrument, than learning to hate and blow yourself and others up.

I saw yet another demonstration of music bringing diverse people together later in the evening when PBS ran the Yanni Live! Concert, from Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. Yanni was a guest in the Maine PBS studio, and during one of the pledge breaks, he mentioned that 15 different countries were represented among his musicians. Talk about universal.

Play that thing

I think it’s interesting the way the guitar became the musical instrument of my generation. For previous generations, if there was an instrument it was the piano, but for the most part singers just sang. Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Perry Como, Eddie Fisher, et al. – they had orchestras or large bands backing them up, but they themselves just sang.

And indeed, many early rock and rollers “just sang.” Paul Anka, Frankie Avalon, Bobby Darin (and all the other Bobbys – Vee, Vinton, Rydell, Sherman), Barry Manilow (who actually played the piano), the various singing groups – the Drifters, the Temptations, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, the Four Seasons – all of these people were more or less carrying on the tradition of the singers from the 30s, 40s and early 50s. They were just singing a different kind of song.

But beginning with Bill Haley and the Comets, and continuing through people like Elvis, Buddy Holly, Ricky Nelson, the folk singers of the 60s, British Invasion groups of the mid-60s, the psychedelic groups of the late 60s and early 70s, holding a guitar while you sang was de rigueur, and I’m wondering why. Perhaps, in the case of early rockers, because so many of them were influenced by black blues singers, who generally played a guitar while they sang. So did country and western singers, who were also, no doubt, an influence.

Whatever the reason, the music of my generation became defined by the guitar. Females could swoon over Eric Clapton as he sang; males could admire the way he played the guitar. Indeed, in some way I think playing the guitar made being a singer more manly! I suppose we could get all Freudian and point out how much like an extension of the infamous male “member,” as they say in discreet novels, a guitar can seem. Especially the way some men hold it, wrestle with it, lead with it. In her rather tepid autobiography, Wonderful Tonight, Patty Boyd mentions the time that her then-husband George Harrison in effect challenged her soon-to-be husband Eric Clapton to a guitar duel. The two men tried to play one another into the ground – “I’m better at this than you!” That, of course, is the age-old competitiveness that comes out in men no matter what they do...like skate boarding! Can you remember when skate boarding was just a silly thing young boys did for fun? Now there are extreme skate board competitions. And dueling guitars.

The other night I watched the 30th anniversary concert of Tom Petty on the late night program Sound Stage. Petty has a sort of whiny, nasally voice and perpetually stoned manner that do not particularly appeal to me, but he’s a pretty good guitarist, when he’s not strutting around, and he had a really great lead guitarist playing with him, whom he introduced as Mike Campbell. Often these “other guys in the band” are fantastic musicians, who are a real pleasure to listen to when they get their minute and a half of solo time. Both when both men were playing solos, and when they were engaged in intense “duets”, I got the sense that this was when they felt most successful, most like Big Men.

To my mind, a better arena for proving oneself than the football field. And the music they produced really rocked.

Not long ago I caught a rerun of the Eric Clapton Crossroads concert that was held in Chicago in July, 2007. While the big emphasis was on blues, of which I am not a huge fan (another thing I’ve occasionally wondered is why both blues and jazz are so much more popular with men than with women), there were all these guitars, and terrific guitarists, and the audience was absolutely loving it. As the concert went on, it became more rock oriented. Wimpy rocker John Mayer, whose singing has never done anything for me, proved himself a really excellent guitarist. I was also really impressed by the playing of Derek Trucks (and how’s that for an unlikely name). This guy looks and acts like one of the “other guys in the band,” even though he has his own group. But I was just knocked out by his playing, as was the audience.

That’s what it all comes down to in the end, the music, the rhythmic, wailing sounds that lots of love and lots of practice produce. No different from a great violinist or classical pianist, but this was “our music.” Our instrument.

It's raining it's pouring the old man is...

I have mentioned before how important music is to me. This morning I was listening to my Peter, Paul & Mary Around the Campfire CD while having breakfast. When they sang “Light One Candle” I found myself tearing up. It was a combination of the words –

"Light one candle for the Maccabee children
With thanks that their light didn’t die
Light one candle for the pain they endured
When their right to exist was denied
Light one candle for the terrible sacrifice
Justice and freedom demand
But light one candle for the wisdom to know
When the peacemakers’ time is at hand

Don’t let the light go out
It’s lasted for so many years
Don’t let light go out
Let it shine through our love and our tears."*

- and the stirring music, with all the voices singing (PP&M were joined by the New York Choral Society) that made it so ... for want of a better word ... uplifting. Music has that amazing power to rouse us.

And immediately afterwards came the hauntingly beautiful “Where Have All the Flowers Gone.” I like the Kingston’s Trio’s version as well, but the PP&M version has the benefit of the ineffable sadness of Mary Travers’ falling voice on “Oh, when will they ever learn?” And of course, we don’t learn. Or rather, too many of us don’t learn.

And then I was treated to the delightful cheerfulness, and silliness, of three of PP&M’s children’s songs in a row. The one entitled “Inside” soon had the kids in the audience singing along on the chorus – “Inside, inside, that’s the most important part, inside, inside, that’s the place you have to start, inside, inside, that’s where you find the heart of the matter” – and after singing about pies (you don’t know which one you’ll like best if you eat just the crust), and birthday presents (you can’t know which will be your favorite ‘til you unwrap them), PP&M sing about every boy and girl being special – “just how we know I’ll bet you guess...we took the time to look—” a tiny pause and then all the kids called out “Inside!” I saw the concert that this was performed at a number of years ago, on the PBS station in Abilene, and it was delightful, seeing all the kids get into singing “Inside, inside, that’s the most important part...”

My CD moved on to the next song and I was listening to the charmer, “The Marvelous Toy,” with all the sound effects (“it went zip when it moved and bop when it stopped and whrrrr when it stood still. I never knew just what it was and I guess I never will.”)

And finally, in “Right Field,” there was the triumph of the little kid who’s always stuck out in the aforementioned hinterland in baseball games, because he’s slow and clumsy, until one day when he comes out of his usual daydreaming to find everybody yelling and looking at him – “they point to the sky and I look up above, and a baseball falls into my gloooove.” Big burst of applause from the audience, and this solitary listener laughed out loud. PP&M’s children’s songs make children, and grown-up children, feel good about themselves, and the world.

So thank you, Peter, Paul and Mary, for all the lovely music you’ve put out there in the world, and for brightening my breakfast on a grey, rainy day.

*Light One Candle, Peter Yarrow, c1983 Silver Dawn Music

The Sound of Music

A little while ago I was listening to “Maine’s Classical Station,” WBACH, while eating my fourteenth meal of the day (for those of you who don’t know, I am cursed with hypoglycemia, which means that practically every time I turn around I am having to eat, to keep my blood sugar up). They were playing a piece that was very familiar to me, though I didn’t catch what it was, and couldn’t remember. But I was sure it had been used as the theme music in some movie I’d seen long ago. I was thinking it was “The High and the Mighty,” but as a check, turned to that resource that those of us with unraveling memories would surely be lost without: the Internet.

It turns out that the movie was “Suicide Squadron,” not “The High and the Mighty” – the latter having its own famous, melancholy whistling theme, which I also remember – and the name of the musical piece I was trying to recall was “Warsaw Concerto.” Which isn’t actually a classical piece at all, having been written for the film, in 1941, by the British composer Richard Addinsell. According to Wikipedia Spike Milligan refers to the music repeatedly in his autobiography as “the bloody awful Warsaw Concerto,” but I find it dramatic, evocative, and obviously memorable, since I remember literally nothing about the film, but am able to recall its theme music with no problem, what must be forty years or more after hearing it.

I have a passion for music, pretty well live my life to it, though there are also times I prefer good old-fashioned silence. And I find music has the power to evoke strong feelings in me, which is surely true for most people (and why is that, one wonders). When I was staying with my sister Ellen in Colorado, after my return from Scotland, I would do my Hated Exercises to a CD of hers that I really liked, and later bought for myself: Shania Twain’s “Up” It is very up, making it the perfect piece for bouncing around to. But there was one track that I would always have to skip; otherwise I would find myself trying to do my final jogging around the house with tears streaming down my face. The track was called “Forever and For Always,” and made me think of my husband, every time I heard it. This was only a year after his death, and hearing lines like “I’m keeping you forever and for always/ We will be together all of our days/ Wanna wake up every morning to your sweet face/ Always”* was more than my emotions could bear.

I believe in an earlier incarnation of these Notes I mentioned posing to myself the question, which would be worse: being blind, or deaf? My opinion remains the same as it was then: life is surely more difficult for the blind, but oh, to never hear music. Or for that matter, to never hear church bells – real bells, not recordings – and know the (rather inexplicable) comfort that sound always brings to me. To never again hear the haunting, melancholy sounds of a whippoorwill at dusk, or lonely loon on the lake at night, or gentle, cooing sounds of a dove as the day is getting underway. Even just undifferentiated birdsong, at anytime. To be able to watch the waves of the sea come in and go out, but not hear that shhh...shhh...shhh sounds it makes, like the breathing of the world.

I am so often bothered by noise – our world is full of it, so much of it unnecessary – but there are also wonderful sounds to be heard, and I’m glad I get to hear them. Sometimes – not often, but sometimes – I am struck forcibly by my luck in this crapshoot called life.

*”Forever and For Always,” written by Shania Twain/R.J. Lange
Universal Music Publishing Group