Petula Clark is in Scotland at the moment, for a couple of concert appearances. The Herald in Glasgow has a very nice feature about her visit. [Link]
Can you believe it? She’s still called a “former child star” over there! That was some 60 years ago, but she still can’t shake the title in the UK.
The article fails to mention the online PETition requesting a Damehood for Petula. I remedied that omission by adding the comment shown below.
Treasure in, garbage out. Apple (the Beatles’ Apple) and EMI are suing a UK cleaning service for wrongly throwing out boxes of photos in 2001. [Link] The boxes were retrieved, but having been through a compactor the photos were ruined and could not be recovered. D’oh! Why so long for this to come to light, I wonder?
Let’s see how that online PETition is coming along. The one in England, asking Tony Blair to recommend Petula Clark be granted the title of Dame. [Link Here]
Hmm. At the moment, 134 136 138 140 166 UK residents have signed it. Not too bad for three four weeks, but let’s hope those Brits step it up. I have to admit I’m not quite sure to whom the recommendation must be made. The Queen herself?
[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Video/APR07/Oklahoma.flv 400 185]© Fox
Time to cheer up! I reckon that “The Surrey with the Fringe On Top” from OKLAHOMA! should do it.
Back in December I mentioned the WGBH radio program The Jazz Decades, hosted by Ray Smith. This Sunday’s show featured some noteworthy restored 1920’s recordings that are of particular interest to Smith — King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band, with Louis Armstrong.
Smith rhapsodizes at length during the twenty five minutes of the program that are on the audio player, recorded off of my computer’s FM tuner. I fiddled with the dipole antenna for a few moments at the beginning, as will be obvious if you listen.
[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/APR07/JazzDecadesApr1-07.mp3]Not being a musician myself, I appreciate these acoustic (non-electrical) recordings more for their historical and technical significance, but Smith’s infectious enthusiasm for the virtuosity of the performances is fun to hear. Note: At one point Smith refers to 1933 when he meant to say 1923.
My best buddy Dennis Rogers, the master of all things Pop Culture, has pointed out that this song was co-written by the father of our state’s governor.
[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/MAR07/YehYeh.mp3]Laurdine “Pat” Patrick was a saxophonist who played for many years with jazz impresario Sun Ra. He also happened to be the father of Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick.
Pat Patrick co-wrote “Yeh Yeh”, a 1965 #1 hit in England for British performer Clive Powell, who was given the stage name Georgie Fame by his manager Larry Parnes, who had managed the Beatles for a short time early in their career. In America, “Yeh Yeh” peaked at #21 in Billboard magazine.
The Boston Globe has the whole story about Patrick, and the troubled relationship he had with his father, at this link. Patrick is a smart guy, but he was a bit full of himself when he took office and he got off to a rather shaky start as governor. Once he gets his act together he should do all right.
