Year: 2007

Siskel & Ebert At The Movies Again

Movie critic Gene Siskel died in 1999, in the city where I was born — Evanston, Illinois. In recent years Siskel’s cohort, Roger Ebert, has had serious health problems of his own. Some of the movie reviews from the Siskel & Ebert days are now available on the Web site At The Movies TV.

Gene Siskel

A review Siskel & Ebert did of the re-worked version of Return of the Jedi is at this link, and it includes a reference to the good, old Laserdisc format.

Way back in 1983 I taped Siskel and Ebert’s original preview of Jedi. They devoted a show to the Star Wars series, and this video runs a little over 20 minutes. It looks like an old VHS recording, because it is! It was recorded off of a rabbit ear antenna a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away!
[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Video/AUG07/SiskelEbertJedi.flv 400 300]

Youngest Sweetheart Petula Clark

A gigantic thank you goes to my twin sister Jean for spotting this video on YouTube. And thanks to “MrNatashaRostov” for posting it! But having learned the hard way to not depend upon anything staying on YouTube, I’ve grabbed it and will put it on my server.

[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Video/AUG07/PetChildStar.flv 400 300]

Seeing this, I think I can now understand why the English were so reluctant to see their little Pet as a grown-up.

Signs and Songs of Those Times

A Pet Clark video that’s readily available online is “A Sign of the Times,” a perfect piece of Mod Sixties exuberance. I’m relatively sure it’s from “Where the Action Is,” an ABC-TV show produced by Petula Clark’s brother Dick. Kidding! The transfer on YouTube isn’t bad, but it’s not good enough to really appreciate the quality of the original source material, so I’ve made a better one.

[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Video/AUG07/SignOfTheTimes.flv 400 300]

Great stuff! The recording seems to be a different take from the studio release, and the sound quality is outstanding for a TV show. The British sports cars are a nice touch. Besides the fabled Jaguar XKE there’s an Aston Martin DB5, the James Bond car.

In the documentary This Is My Song, Pet says she enjoyed being on a set with dancers, and this video has a wild bunch of them doing some crazy moves! The choreography bears the unmistakably distinctive style of Toni Basil. Below is a video clip of Toni dancing with somebody that I assume you recognize. He was in a band with a guy named Mickey.

[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Video/AUG07/DaddysSong.flv 400 300]

I’ll toss in the studio recording of “Daddy’s Song,” taken from a Japanese import LP I bought many years ago. Once again I point out that vinyl, at its best, sounded not too bad at all.

[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/AUG07/DaddysSong_Monkees.mp3]

…and this is the song recorded by the guy who wrote it.

[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/AUG07/DaddysSong_Nilsson.mp3]

In 1982 Toni Basil had a hit single of her own, called “Mickey.” It went like this.

[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/AUG07/Mickey.mp3]

ADDENDUM: Mr. D.F. Rogers points out that the Petula Clark number is actually from, of all things, The Ed Sullivan Show. Although it seems a little too groovy for old Ed, it makes sense given the lavish production and the quality of the video tape and audio. This photo is from Sunday, April 17, 1966.

Petula Clark on The Ed Sullivan Shows 17APR66

The Ed Sullivan Show was produced in New York, of course (David Letterman now originates from the same studio). This puts doubt into the choreography being that of Toni Basil, who primarily worked in California. Never let it be said the DogRat blog isn’t interested in getting the facts right!

Calling Petula Clark Again

A while ago I posted a video of Petula Clark on a Dean Martin show from, I’m pretty sure, 1970. It was after Goodbye Mr. Chips, because there are a couple of references to the movie.

I was bugged by the poor quality of the video that I’d snagged from YouTube. I tend to get obsessive about such things, and I like to fix them when I can. So here is “Call Me” again, but this time the transfer was done right, by yours truly, complete and without cuts, edits, or distracting overlays. This is silly fun, and what a time capsule it is! The influence of Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In — a show I absolutely loved — is apparent.

[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Video/AUG07/PetCallMe.flv 400 300]

My mother’s old chum Ernie is in there. Ernest Borgnine.

35 Years of Ray Smith

Ray Smith - The Jazz Decades, WGBH 89.7 BostonI’ve received a nice note from a representative of WGBH Radio in Boston. Sunday evening is something that I’ve been looking forward to — the 35th anniversary of Ray Smith’s show on ‘GBH, The Jazz Decades. I have the FM tuner in my computer programmed to record it. If you don’t live near Boston, you can hear it streaming on the Web.

Greetings–
Hope all is well with you. I thought this might be of interest for you, either for your blog or personally. I hope you’ll have the chance to check out this interview on the website at http://wgbh.org/raysmith and tune in to the broadcast this Sunday. Ray Smith is truly one-of-a-kind.
All the best–
Edgar

Ray Smith Celebrates Three-and-a-Half Jazz Decades on WGBH 89.7

Record collector. World War II veteran. Jazz drummer. These are just a few of the many sides of Ray Smith, host of WGBH’s Jazz Decades. Each Sunday at 7pm, Ray shares his passion for jazz, big band, and swing with listeners all over the world, culling music for the program from the more than 90,000 titles in his personal collection.

This Sunday, Ray and WGBH celebrate 35 years producing Jazz Decades for public radio stations across the country. In honor of the occasion, we asked Ray to describe his lifelong love affair with music. You can hear the man behind the music, in his own words on this special webpage at http://wgbh.org/raysmith

And don’t miss Ray’s 35th anniversary broadcast this Sunday, August 5, at 7pm on WGBH 89.7 FM in New England and worldwide at http://wgbh.org/jazz

Some Fun Facts about Jazz Decades

  • The Jazz Decades’ first broadcast was August 5, 1972
  • Ray Smith and Jazz Decades celebrate 35 years on WGBH 89.7 on August 5, 2007
  • For the past few years, Ray has recorded the show at his home studio in South Carolina and it is produced, engineered, and mixed at WGBH 89.7 in Boston.
  • 35 years of Jazz Decades, once a week = 1,820 programs
  • At an average of 12 songs per show, Ray Smith has spun approximately 21,840 tracks
  • Ray has approximately 90,000 titles in his collection
  • This means that in 35 years, Ray has played less than 25% of his entire collection, assuming he has never played the same song twice.
  • At this rate, Ray will have to be on the air for over 105 more years to exhaust his entire collection, assuming he adds no new titles over this century-long period.