He Was One Of A Kind

The Quintet

That's what his press agent said when it was disclosed that George Shearing had passed away yesterday at the overly-ripe age of ninety-one.  I concur.

George and John

And I bought just about everything he ever made. He was a class act, with deep warmth, humor and a sense of purpose that rang clearly in all his music.

With his quintet (guitar, vibraphone, bass and drums) he recorded clean gems of proper jazz. Dig his reading of "September in the Rain" that was released in the late 1940"s. The melody becomes a laughing stream of poured piano keys rippling in the mid-day autumn sun. Low on the horizon and  flecked with red and orange leaves. I love that song.

Today, Jonathan Schwartz, a superb recontour and music historian who I listen to on Siriusly Sinatra (Sirius Radio) featured the music of this gentleman; playing a song from every album he ever made with another performer.

Thank you, Jonathan.

He began with a wondereful rendition of a Shearing standard, "Lullaby In Birdland" caught on tape live with Mel Torme (my man). George actually sings the beginning and then Mel slips up to the microphone to bracket the words with scat and charm.

George accompanied so many fine performers, among them the aforementioned Mel and also other folks such as Nancy Wilson, Nat Cole, Joe Williams and recently, John Pizzarelli.

His ease at the keyboard was something to be marveled at and his arrangements of standards were beyond belief. Listen to Pizzarelli singing "Indian Summer" and then as Shearing layers the melody with "Song of India". written by the classical composer Rimsky-Korsakov. How perfect.

George and Nat

And his humor? Though born in England and blind, he never leaned upon his blindness for pity but found laughter in many things. There is a great live recording in which George muses out loud to the audience how different might love songs be if we inserted the word "lunch" rather then "love".  We would get, "Lunch is Just Around the Corner", or "Lunch for Sale", "I Lunch Being a Girl". Well, the list is funny and endless

We have his many Capitol recordings and others as permanent time capsules and  audio scrap books of a charming man.

You will be missed, George.

(C) 2011 George Locke

O'er The Ramparts We Watched

It is a difficult song to sing already. In the key of Q fonk (minor); most folks have a tough time keeping their larynx from jumping out of their throats. But then you add words....well, let's just say not everyone can finish it without straining their birds.

Francis Scott Key, as we know, penned the poem, "In Defence of Fort McHenry" in 1814 after witnesing the flag of our fledgling country still proudly waving in a stiff breeze off Chesapeake Bay one chilly September morning after the aforementioned fort was bombarded by British ships in the harbor.

A Capt. Armistead had instructed a woman named Mary Young Pickersgill , along with her daughter and two neices to sew an enormous American flag (30 x 42 ft) to be displayed over the fort for identification by other ships and fleets, both friendly and hostile.

The tune? Well, Key had written a song celebrating our young navies victory over Barbary pirates in Tripoli and used the melody to a song called "The Anacreontic Song", a mouthful in itself and a drinking ditty penned not by him, but, by some young fop for a club composed of wealthy amatuer musicians in London.  He fingured..."Hey. I've already got a tune and it fits." And so, a song to inspire and a tune to shriek was born.

Incidently, this tune ("The Anacreontic Song") was first published in America in Portsmouth NH way back in 1804. I knew we could find a connection somewhere.

Who could forget Roseanne Barr at the San Diego Padres game in 1990; scratching her crotch and spitting after she mutilated the song?

Far more meaning full was Jimmy and the "rockets" and "bombs" dropped from his Strat. Or Marvin Gaye with a soulful rendition at an NBA all star game.

And you should hear Brother Ray's version of "Oh Beautiful For Spacious Skies (America the Beautiful)". Now that is some singing.

I've always felt that song should be our national anthem.

But even yours truly, mike gripped tightly in hand, gave a try at the beginning of a "Fisher Cats" AA baseball game in Manchester NH a few years ago. Until you have several thousand people staring at you as you stand all alone on home plate, you have not felt fear.

So Christine goofed. Let it go. She missed a line or two, but she gracefully looped around it and finished. The only problem I have is the ululations and note warbles that so many diva's dwell upon; as if to remind us that they can sing. My advice. We all know you can sing. You wouldn't have been invited, otherwise.

And, unless you're Marvin Gaye or Jimmy Hendrix, leave the thing alone.

This Man Will Attend My Funeral

Jackie O'Shea

Do you have a list of things you would like to have at your funeral?  It's not as ghoulish as it may seem. And it doesn't hurt to prepare..





John Barry

One of the characters in "Waking Ned Devine", Jackie O'shea , played with warmth and believability by Ian Bannon, speaks at a 'mock funeral' for Michael O'Sullivan (David Kelly), who, by the way, is part of one of the funniest scenes in any movie. Just imagine an almost naked old man ( he is wearing a helmet, after all) on a motor bike.

At the church, where all are gathered, he mentions how wonderful it might be if you could attend your own funeral and listen to what folks said about you and perhaps get up and say a word or two yourself.



To be able to listen to the music sung or played, to play the guitar or banjo and sing a verse or two from "The Parting Glass". Ah. It would be grand, would it not?

My funeral request list would include a large slice of music.

 Live musicians and some recorded stuff.

The recorded items would include Vaughn William's "Variantions on a Theme by Thomas Tallas", and the sound track from "Dances With Wolves" (1990) by John Barry.

Barry passed away yesterday. He was 77 and one of the most prolific composers for movies who ever stepped gracefully from the British isles.
His themes are so glorious that at times they bring tears to my eyes. That is one of the prerequisetes for any music. I must be moved. Ralph Vaughn Williams does this. Beethoven, Tchycovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Bernstein, Richard Rogers and Copeland all fill me with joy and passion.

And John Barry, perhaps most of all. One only has to listen to a few bars of  John Dunbars Theme and a whole panalopy of images are opened. The sweep of prarie-land flows like a river of greens and yellows.  It is vast, and sprawls before you as a lone wagon crawls to the horizon, leaving behind crushed grass wakes.


Caine

In Zulu (1964) we see Michael Caine for the first time in a starring role as he saunters on horseback into camp, his heavy lidded eyes displaying class conflict. Barrys music, deep with horns and cymbals, leads him into Rourkes Drift, where, on January 22nd, 1879, he, along with 150 regular soldiers and colonials from the 24th Regiment of Foot succesfully defend an attack by approximently 4000 Zulu warriors.

"Rather then 'talkie-talkie' things, I've always like movies with excitement and adventure" he was qouted in an article for the "London Guardian". And adventure aplenty.



 Barry was born in John Barry Pendergast in Northern England where his father owned a chain of movie theaters and became immersed in the Hollywood genre from a very early age. He studied to be a classical pianist, but also picked up the trumpet and founded a jazz group, The John Barry Seven in 1957.



Shaken Not Stirred

 Seven seemed the number to follow him through out his life, as he also scored many of the James Bond films, starting with "Dr. No". Did he compose the famous guitar riff we hear at the begining of this decades old franchise? Well, there was a law-suit brought by another musician, Monty Norman,(by the way the song the famous signature riff came from is called "Good Sign, Bad Sign". Try that piece of trivia on a Bond buff sometime) and Barry paid him several thousand dollars to settle it. But in my book......well, I can't think of Bond without putting Barry in the mix.

 Besides the Bond Batch, he composed music for "Born Free" (1966) for which he received 2 of his many Academy Awards, "The Lion in Winter" (1968), and "Out of Africa"(1985) were nominated along with the soundtrack to "Midnight Cowboy" (I didn't know that!)  "Body Heat", "Somewhere In Time", "Peggy Sue Got Married" "The Cotton Club" and, yes, other then Jar Jar Binks, George Lucas' greatest bomb of all time, "Howard the Duck".

He had a knack for pulling emotion out of a movie that enhances the image beyond the natural visual experience. John Barry used an orchestra and his uncanny skill to bring you through the film and into the story.

In my mind he stands on solid ground beside Korngold, Newman, Ifukube, Bernard Herrmann, Mancini, John Williams and Max Stiener; to name just a very few of the men I consider giants in a field that holds few who could claim such a title.

Here is a link to a wonderful Youtube film quilt of great composers. Enjoy. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIo9b48UUy0

He leaves a wife, four children, and five grandchildren and an insulating blanket of music behind.

I wonder what his "funeral list" might have included? Several hours of wonderful music would not suffice. Lets make it an all week affair. Heck, Bond will take several days.

(C) 2011 George Locke



Sugar

Archie and the gang.

It was a normal Monday morning for me. About 40 years ago.

I entered the station whistling a “Four Freshman” song. “Route 66” probably. I liked that song. Still do.

And I was late. As usual.

 I checked my mail.

Back in the day, we had real mail boxes. They held real honest to goodness paper mail. Or, notes from the PD (program director), in this case, who was threatening to fire me again if I didn’t stick to the “play clock” and to stop airing that “Four Freshman” crap. His words.



The Monkees



The "play clock" was a cardboard cutout clock face divided into segments and color coded. Each hour, between endless commercials, we would play one song from the "red" sgment. That was current Billboard Top 10. One from the "green" segment. That was an oldie. One from an LP, which was yellow. And one of "your choice". I always picked something in a R&B or jazz album.

The program director was always threatening to fire me. One day he surprised me and did.

Then a week later he hired me back. At a lower salary.

I had a family. What was I to do?

I think it was gray metal or some such thing. The mail box. My air name, “Rusty”, was scrawled over a stick-on tab that was backed up with a half-dozen or so other tabs containing the pseudo names of other announcers who had come and gone.

Guys like; Don Best. Pete Hammer. “Gentleman Jim” Donovan. (I gave him that nickname. He wasn’t, by the way.

A gentleman.

Remember the words to “WKRP in Cincinnati”? “ Town to town up and down the dial?” Well, that was my life story up to that point.

Anyway, I sauntered into the md (music directors) office. Which he shared with the copywriters, (something I also did on the side for ten bucks a commercial. Fifteen if I produced them.

“Rusty, for Ch***t sakes will you stop playing that ‘jazz’ s**t and play the clock.”! He was nothing if not to the point. “Gary’s getting on my a** again.” Paul looked perturbed.

“Sure.” I said. Not meaning it.

“Good” he replied. Also not meaning it.

But this story isn’t about dj’s and their unbelievable self-absorption. It was about a guy who passed away a few days ago. January 17, 2011.

His name was Don Kirshner  And the first time I really looked at what he had done was that Monday morning so long ago.

I made it a point to check the new “record promotion” box to see if there was anything no body else wanted that I could take home, and to discover what new song we would be playing that week. An orange RCA label caught my eye.

I almost choked.

“Paul. What the hell is this?” I gingerly picked up the record like it had been dunked in dog poo.

Don Kirshner with Carol King and Jerry Goffin

“’The Archies’”? I was incredulous. “’The Archies’ are a cartoon, for cripes sake. A freakin’ cartoon.” Thus was introduction to “Bubblegum Rock” a phenomena which lasted from the late 60’s to the mid 70’s or so. And on the label, under "produced by" was Kirshners name.

Later in my radio career I realized this was a defining moment that led to my decision to find some other occupation..

“Sugar Sugar” by The Archies was one in a long stream of hits by one of the most prolific record producer and music publisher the world has ever seen. When he passed away earlier this week, he left a legacy of incredible music and musical performers in his wake.

Think Bobby Darin and “Splish Splash”. Little Eva and “Do the Locomotion” or “Cherry Cherry” with Neil Diamond (I just noticed a plethora of single words doubled in some of these titles!) He pulled together some of the best pop music composers ever assembled.

Most came from “The Brill Building” crowd that poured out #1 hits like candy from a Pez ® dispenser. Carol King, Cynthia Weil, Neil Sedaka and many others  whowere solid writers and performers in their own right.

He gave us “The Monkeys” who took the last train to Clarksville for over half a dozen years on records and tv.

He produced one hit wonders like”Tracy” by the Cuff Links, a group with the same lead singer who’s voice was in “The Archie’s”, Ron Dante. By the way, even when Betty or Veronica took the lead, it was Dante. Singing in falsetto. And doing all the layered harmonic overdubs.

And who could forget Kirshners deadpanned introductions of rock performers in “Don Kirshners Rock Concerts” back in the late seventies and early eighties until MTV ® came along? Even when his kids took over the master of ceremonys position, it was done in that same flat-voiced mono-tone.

So here's to you Don. You gave us a lot of good stuff. Even the "Archies", in retrospect , gave us something to tap our feet about.

(C) 2011 by George Locke

Do You Like Rock and Roll?

I can't imagine very few of my friends who don't. We used it as hand and footholds to crawl up the cliff face of life. It became solace when we were feeling the loss of our first love and the halo of hope which we hung around someone new. Now, it's "oldies"; a term I cannot abide. I love this music and I was around at its birth.

Remember your song?

Homework



So those of our generations, and I use the plural form because I have never thought of my self as old, and with the number of kids I have produced, I have been able to cut through the built up layers of music covering several generations and listen when my kids speak of the spark of something new they have claimed as their music..

 Not rap. Not hip-hop. Not reggea. Not country. But rock and roll. (Although these genres have hundreds of threads that pierce this music.)


Boot stompin', butt kickin'. mind  losing rock and roll.

 So it was with a great deal of joy when I opened a present from my brother and sister in law this Christmas and found myself holding the 3 DVD set of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 25th Anniversary Concert. I cocked my head and looked at the box it came in.; the silouette of a Les Paul on fire against a red backdrop signed with dozens of the names of rock icons.

This looked interesting.

Today it is snowing volumns in New Hampshire and I have a few moments to write my thoughts on this collection.
It is put together by Time-Live and HBO and was recorded in Madison Square Gardens in New York on October 29 and 30 in 2009. The sound was clean and crisp. The videography steady and adequate and the editing, although at times somewhat confusing, was good.

 I say confusing, because the discs do not follow a linear progression of performances as they were filmed.
Somethings that were performed the first night with CS&N would show up on disc 3. Ok. No big deal.

The first act on the disc was "The Killer." Jerry Lee Lewis.

I ran home from high-school back in 1958 just to be able to see him perform on Dick Clarks American Bandstand on ABC. He came on, this tall, slim, wavy-haired handsome man and proceeded to reset my fuses. I mean, I was blown away. He snarled. He kicked the piano stool halfway accross the stage and prowled around the keyboard like a young lion in heat. He stomped, he screamed, he sang till Clark brought in the Philadelphia riot squad. Well, not really. But Dicks eyes were sure a wee bit larger that afternoon after Jerry Lee finished.

And the kids from south Philly high were limp.

Kick Ass American Bandstand

I was transformed by this performance as much as I was by listening to "Hound Dog" by Elvis a few years before. This was foundation shaking and I loved it.

But when he shuffled on stage during the beginning, I felt his age like he was wearing it and watched a shell of a man that once could cause women to become aroused with only look. It was gone. The smoke rose in gentle puffs where once there had been unquenchable flame. It was sad. He still rattled the 88's on "Great Balls of Fire". But it just wasn't the same.
When he finished, waxen faced and limping, he knocked over the bench. Barely. Then he leaned over to the popping of cartilidge and younger dreams and threw it down again. Not even a 2.5. Just barely a 1.5.

I was drained of hope and sat back in my seat. What had happened to my dream? Is the rest of this DVD going to be the same? It wasn't what I wanted to see. Not a whimper.

What did I expect? They would suddenly emerge from some magical sound-proof/age proof booth and careen into our lives again? I guess I did, and that was a silly thought to have.
The first disc proved to be anti-climatic.Crosby, Still and Nash, old and bloated, still could play. They still could sing.  But it was an echo of grandure and when Stevie Wonder came on and forgot words....stumbled in silence with faulty equipment well..... I was ready to call this thing a wash out.

Paul Simon lifted the crowd a little with  "Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard"  but then the stomach ache started again with Dion Dimucci and Little Anthony and the Imperials. Enthusiasm was lacking. Age was showing.

The ending set featured Aretha Franklin who, it seemed wanted to be anyother place but there and simply would not sing her hits. What she chose, somehow didn't seem right and I heard later that she went her own way during rehersals . The "Queen of the Blues" wore an unsteady crown.

I was prepared to box the whole thing up and tuck it away with a lot of my momentos. Scraps of hope from the past that were dangled as bait and snared me in disapointment.

My brother has called me an old woman for my dismal reaction to what I had seen so far.

But then I stuck on the second disc. And I was riveted to the screen.


First, the boys were back in town, with Metallica, U2, Bono and Mick Jagger. Those who know me understand my disinterest in heavy metal and hard edged rock but these guys did what they did, with Ozzie taking off his sunglasses during IronMan/Paranoia and scaring me to death.

Then things got interesting when Bruce Springsteen ambled on stage and joined Patti Smith and Roy Bittan (The E Street Band fabulous keyboardest) with "Because the Night" from the pen of The Boss.

The place began to slowly melt down when Fergie joined bad old boy Mick Jagger and will.i.am for a searing "Gimme Shelter". It looked as though Mick was about to be ravaged. And he was backing off!



 Jeff Beck showed up next and I sat for the rest of this disc, shouting, singing, jumping up occasionally (which is a trick for me) and singing at the top of my lungs.



Beck and Tal and a Day in the Life

High lights include Billy Gibbons from Z.Z. Top dueling with Beck in "Foxey Lady", Buddy Guy and Sting in "Let Me Love You Baby" and "People Get Ready" in that order.

 Then, out of nowhere, Jeff Beck begins soft as a feather in church Lennon and McCarneys opus. "A Day in the Life". The six string becomes the London Philharmonic and bassist Tal Walkenfeld braces all the riffs with sure-handed precision. It left me stunned. If for no other reason then this, you should get this DVD.

But it doesn't end there, folks, because the Boss is not over yet.

In one of the most rip-roaring introductions to any act I have ever heard, he brings on Sam Moore (of Sam and Dave) and he and Stevie and the rest of the band launch into the most joyful rendition of "Hold On, I'm Coming " and "Soul Man" this old boy has ever heard. Moore just about had the crowd ready to follow him and Bruce into the bowels of hell.



Tom Morello from Rage at the Machine suddenly appears and does one of the most inspiring guitar solo's you will ever hear in  Springsteens "Ghost of Tom Joad". The both of them make that song live.

My boy John Fogerty was next and he did "Fortunate Son" with gusto and after, he and Bruce did Roy the Boy's "Pretty Woman".  I think Roy is up there somewhere smiling.

 I realize this is a long piece of criticism on a long dvd, and I still haven't talked about the third disc. I don't think I will, other then to say it doesn't live up to the 2nd disc. But it's pretty durn good, and features more of the personell I have already mentioned.



Cold Coffee, Old Man. New thoughts.

 I didn't see the Beach Boys or the king of rock-guitar Chuck Barry represented. I was a little disapointed by that, nor did I see my man "Little Richard". But, hey, you can't have everything.

 Email me if you want to know more about this great dvd. I say dvd, singular, because you can throw away the first and last disc. Just save number two. That's the one that will make you move your body like a conga snake and that's something I would like to see.



(c) 2011 George Locke





















The Boy Too Big For His Britches Hitches A Ride With Santa

The spot light hit me and a hush fell over the crowd as I got ready to sing.

I knew I was about to be great.

Bing and The Ladies

It was the night before the night before Christmas in 1951 and I was sure the whole town of Wilmington, Vermont had come to listen to me sing a song.

Why wouldn't they?

I was cute. A veritable little Ronnie Howard, with red hair and an angelic voice.

Of course, there were some other people in the show. It was after all, the annual town Christmas Concert and there were many with talent, some far better then me, who would perform. But everything at that time revolved around me to a ridiculous degree.

Let me explain.

When I was very young, I was told I was getting too big for my britches. By a lot of people. A lot of the time.

My teachers. Some of my friends' parents. My parents. Complete strangers!  People on the street would randomly approach me, whack me along-side my head and mutter dark threats.  It might have had something to do with my precociousness.

But I never took these comments seriously. 

At the age of nine I knew everything there was to know about the world, thank you very much, and I could handle my life quite well with out anyone telling me what to do.

So when I was told I needed to rehearse the song I had learned off a record called, "I'd Like to Hitch a Ride With Santa Clause" with Mrs. Turner, the pianist and school music teacher, I thought, "Get real. I don't rehearse." And then I think I broke into maniacal laughter..

The Andrew Sisters and Bing Crosby had made a small hit out of ILTHARWSC. a few years earlier, although it has gone the way of those Christmas standards that fall, mercifully, through the cracks of established holiday music.

I mean, there were lines in the song about cracking whips and dodging weather-vanes and being humiliated by the entire school you were attending, for heavens sake.

Oh wait, that was my life.

Anyway, I learned the whole thing and I felt, as a seasoned performer who had appeared as the lead in "Tom Sawyer" and had played a pivotal character in "Life With Father" for the local little theater, that I was beyond rehearsing.

Rehearsing? I don't need no stinkin' rehearsin'!

My parents had always guided me with a light reign. I was never forced, except in rare occasions, to do anything my little heart didn't want to do. Frankly, I think this type of parenting might have contributed to some serious lapses of judgment later on in my life.

So the day of the concert instead of singing with Mrs. Turner, I was upstairs in my bedroom rehearsing my bows and expressions of humility to the crowd that appeared on one of my walls.

Really.

I actually drew stick figure pictures of  people in an auditorium applauding my greatness and strung them together with Scotch  tape on the wall next to my bed.  My mother often wondered how come we ran out so quickly. Not beds. Tape.

And so it was that I stood upon the stage that night, right after the Clyde sisters rendition of "Silver Bells", and just before Mrs. Ringlemeyer, a German war bride with a very thick accent, and who was, without a doubt, the ugliest woman I had ever seen up to that time in my life, and warbled a rather provocative rendition of Ertha Kitts' classic, "Santa Baby", I was ready to lay-em-in-the-aisles..

I began my song with a little musical prequel about being new at school and not being invited to play and other such child-hoodish nightmare stuff. Mrs. Turner was seated at the piano wearing a brightly colored dress with a huge sprig of holly and red flowers pinned to her left shoulder and a pinched look on her face  She normally always smiled at me so. I wasn't quite sure what that look was all about.. I mean, I had spoken with her before the show. I said, "Hi, Mrs. Turner" What more could she want from me?

I went through the whole song once. It had several verses and a refrain that changed from one line the next. But - no problem. I was a trooper.

The Original Flop Sweat

Then Mrs. Turner and I came to the end together; the slightly out of tune piano ringing out what I thought would be the finish. But, as the song ended, it seemed that I recognized the beginning; so, in mid-turn and as I was about to receive my well deserved applause, I started to sing, "I'd Like to Hitch a Ride With Santa Clause" again. Mrs Turner pinched look became even pinch-ier. There was an element of panic in her playing tinged with a slight touch of annoyance.

Beads of sweat sprung like carbuncles from my face as I realized we had never practiced the ending. The ending? Hell, we hadn't practiced anything. I began to experience tunnel vision and I noticed a somewhat uneasy feeling rippling through the crowd.

We came to the end. She did that little be-boppity thing with the piano and I started singing the song.

Again.

This time Mrs. Turner banged rather hard upon the keys, although she did keep playing the song. She glared up at me from a face bathed in sweat. The sprig of holly and the red flowers she wore was wilting before my eyes. The crowd had by now reached it's limit of cute little boy singing a rather banal song and I noticed a few gathering in groups at the back of the hall. Some were clutching pitchforks and lighted torches. I also thought I saw a noose hanging from someones hand. My voice had lost it's precociousness and had dropped to a jagged and faintly shrill groan.. I forgot a plethora of words. I think I even said something about flying saucers from Mars somewhere in the middle.

The song, thankfully, ground to an end and Mrs. Turner slammed the keyboard door upon her hands, hoping, I think, that if she broke a finger or two, she would be excused from playing "I'd Like to Hitch a Ride With Santa Clause" ever in her life again.

I slumped off the stage with muffled grumblings in my ear, and just a smattering of applause from my sister and my parents. God bless 'em. They stuck with me no matter how stupid I became.

Even then I tried to blame someone else. "Mrs. Turner did it. I didn't know she was ending."  Yeah, George. Speak to the sock puppet. You didn't rehearse. You just merrily sailed in like Stephen Sondheim on opening night; sure of  your lines. No one was there.

It was a bitter lesson. I never again went on stage without at least a modicum of rehearsal time.

So. Merry Christmas to all, and fasten your seat belts. The ride with Santa Clause is going to be bumpy.

© 2010 George Locke

Best Christmas Album Evah'

I have been dubbing around with this blog post for so long that it's going to be Valentines Day before I post it. I had this image of drawing a picture of the record album under a snow covered Christmas tree with an image of Irving Berlin and Bing in the background.  OK. Just close your eyes and imagine it.

'Oiving Thinking White

In 1945, Bing Crosby invested $50,000 of his own money (probably after one of his horses actually paid off ) in a new company from a Germany rising out of the ashes of the recent collapse of the Third Reich.

It was called  Ampex and it was one of the first to produce magnetic tape and the recorders/playback machines that go with it.

Bing recognized this ground breaking technological advance in sound recording, and he was the first American artist to use tapes in the record making process.  He also purchased a tape machine and gave it to his friend, guitarist Les Paul. Les had accompanied Bing in a couple of sessions and "Der Bingle" appreciated his talent.  We all know what Les did with this new technology.

That's not what this blog is about.

Admit it. You have this CD.

It's about what Bing recorded on one of the magnetic tape machines shortly after his purchase of stock in said company; which is to say, the best Christmas album ever.

A probably apocryphal tales relates that when Irving Berlin wrote this timeless classic, he tossed it onto the desk of his secretary and, with breezy self assurance said. "This is the best song I have ever written." Best? Well, certainly close to the top.

 This album is considered the longest in-print disc of all times, with only The Original Cast Recording of Oklahoma beating it out, having been cut in 1943.

"Best" is purely subjective, of course. But I've heard enough songs over the past sixty-eight years, to fling a few titles around with some degree of authority. And right up there is "White Christmas".

My folks had a copy of it. Probably your folks did too. And your grandparents.

Bing Crosbys' White Christmas was recorded and released in 1945 as a five record, ten song set of 78 rpm plastic discs. It was eventually released as an 'album' in or around 1955 and as a CD in the mid 80's. Of course, the title song is the one we all remember. It was the song Bing sang at the beginning of  the movie of the same name right before Danny Kaye saved him from a collapsing brick wall. It was not the first time the song showed up in the movies, having been introduced in 1942 with Bing and Fred Astaire in Holiday Inn.

Berlin was one of the finest composer of his time. And, according to some sources, (Gerald Mast "Can't Help Singin'" pub. Overlook Press, 1987)  he wrote his best ones specifically for individual performers. Like "Cheek to Cheek" for the aforementioned Fred, "Better Luck Next Time" for Judy Garland, "They Say it's Wonderful" for Ethel Merman (think of that first note she hits in the first syllable of the word "wonderful"!) And of course, "White Christmas" for Harry Lillis Crosby.

The whole album is a box of bright jumbled jeweled ornaments. Crazy, but cozy ( Sorry. I promise no more alliteration!) picture postcards (whoops!) of memories. The title song is taken from the point of view of a person who is not near ANY white Christmas (probably Beverly Hills) and all he can do is wish for that which he remembers.  Each note and word is perfect for the emotion it evokes.

The first line shows how Berlin uses words to sculpt a feeling. "I'm and "white" are stressed, rather then "Christmas." The drawn out vowels weave this sense of longing that the singer is trying to express. And who to do it better then Crosby with his mellow, almost oboe-like tones?

There's so much going on in this song. The whistling at the end, which I try every now and then, but am woeful at best. And the harmony Bing sings in the final part of the refrain with a bubbling  "....whi-i-i-ite" is the only way I can sing this annual classic.  I also take out my imaginary pipe and play bells on imaginary Christmas ornaments, 'ala "Holiday Inn" for corn sakes!

The rest of the album is like frosting on the cake and takes us from "Silver Bells" busy sidewalks to Hawaii (to this day I cannot pronounce the Hawaiian way to say "Merry Christmas") and then shoots over to "Christmas in Killarney", with Bing doing his best Father O'Malley "...with ahhlah the folks at home!"

Mixed in are several season standards, like "It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas" and, as a good ex-alter boy, a rendition of "Oh Come, All Ye Faithful" with the Latin verse tossed in at the end. The music director of the church I attend has asked all of us to sing that last verse this year. Somehow, we have not been doing it..

I did have to repeat Latin II in high-school, but, heck, I'll give it a shot.

This album/disc/ MP3 is probably in every home in the country. And why not.

They don't make 'em like that any more.

© 2010 George Locke