Category: Music

A 70’s collection of songs about avoiding crowds, either by choice… or not. I played all of these, except for ‘Isolation’, during my AM radio DJ days on an Adult Contemporary station.

Eric Carmen’s ‘All By Myself’ is based upon Rachmaninoff’s Concerto for Piano #2, featured 30 years earlier in the superb David Lean film, Brief Encounter. Written by Noel Coward, this deftly nuanced, devastating study of two married, middle-aged people who fall crashingly in love is the finest example of a truly adult film in the best sense of the term. Celia Johnson is beyond wonderful in this role.

Self-reflection by someone with years of experience in social isolation.

https://youtu.be/B8A1dqsiNSI

Something that I thought I’d posted last year I now realize I didn’t, so here it is now. The Wrecking Crew movie.

Somebody (you know who you are!) really liked my recent post with Simon & Garfunkel’s ‘Fakin’ It’. This one is another favorite of mine that I have featured previously. Here there be musical magic.

Hard to believe that’s been five-and-a-half years already since I happened to cross paths with Donovan, as recounted here.

Ian Whitcomb has died. I am heartbroken over the passing of such a treasure of a man. A great delight for me in recent years has been connecting with Ian and his pal Jim Dawson on their Wednesday night LuxuraMusic program. This is such a terrible loss.

Ian never fully recovered from surgery he had last year. He developed complications and returned to the hospital in early March. It’s rumored that he caught Covid-19 there, but that has yet to be confirmed. What has been confirmed is that he died this afternoon.

Follow-up: Definitely NOT Covid-19.

Correction: Although word of his passing did not appear until yesterday, Ian died on Sunday. Here is a remembrance from Jim Dawson: https://luxuriamusic.com/ian-whitcomb-1941-2020/