Posting the New Yorker piece about Stu Sutcliffe reminded me of something I meant to put here last October. It didn’t happen because that was when I went on hiatus, due to WordPress technical difficulties.
This piece by Paul McCartney should be readable without a subscription, assuming you haven’t already run out of free articles this month.
The copy of “Eleanor Rigby” above is from the one-of-a-kind Yellow Submarine Songtrack project. It’s explained here. Note the color-coordinated nod to Ukraine.
“Frank is a singer who comes along once in a lifetime, but why did he have to come in mine?” — Bing Crosby
Rudy Vallee could have just as well said the same thing about Bing. Both of their careers were made possible by the innovation of electrical recording technology, singing into microphones rather than yelling into acoustic horns.
The rivalry between Bing and Frank, which was really more of a mutual admiration society, was parodied a couple of times in Warner Brothers cartoons. First in Frank Tashlin’s memorably zany Swooner Crooner. The complete cartoon isn’t available on YouTube, but here’s a bit of it.
Catch As Cats Can was directed by a lesser known Warner name, Art Davis, who was Bob Clampett’s successor at the studio. I like the ending of this one.
Switzerland, with its infamously secretive banks, has agreed to impose sanctions against Russia, while maintaining it isn’t compromising political neutrality. Hillbilly Moon Explosion is from Switzerland, and Arielle Dombasle joined them for this catchy little number.
I hope the Russian sanctions don’t include the fabulous Messer Chups! Here’s their latest music video.
I watched the new Brian Wilson documentary, Long Promised Road.
Brian certainly deserves all of the credit and good will he receives, but it’s doubtful that he has ever truly been back — and that’s assuming he was ever completely okay.
“Exciting and happy. Groovy feeling. Haven’t seen it since 1966.” — Brian Wilson in Long Promised Road
The two bad guys in Brian’s life story — his father Murry and his longtime therapist Eugene Landy — are given the right amount of attention. There isn’t a lot of new information in the movie, but I didn’t know that Brian’s 34th birthday, in 1976, was celebrated with Paul McCartney, who was born two days before Brian. Which means they will both turn 80 in June.
Later on that year, John Belushi and Dan Ackroyd set up this SNL skit, featuring the first appearance of the car that I assume inspired the duo to come up with the Bluesmobile. The generic use of “Highway Patrol” was probably a nod to the 1950’s TV series with Broderick Crawford.
When they were at the beach, Annie Leibovitz took this photo of Brian for a Rolling Stone cover.
The record Linda McCartney showed to the camera was 15 Big Ones. In the documentary Brian asks a couple of times to hear this song from the album.
