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The grooviest girl in the world


© Henry Diltz/CORBIS

I’m in the middle of reading a Vanity Fair article from a few years ago about Michelle Phillips, whose look and style set the pace in 60’s youth fashion in America, the way Pattie Boyd did in England, before Twiggy came along.

http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2007/12/phillips200712

I knew Michelle lived some wild times, but … whoo! She wasn’t much into drugs, which is why she’s alive today, but she sure pursued the free love part of the 60’s. Anyway, while reading the article I had one of those coincidences that everybody experiences once in a while. I was on this passage…

Michelle sat up and summoned a recent visit to St. Patrick’s Cathedral (her years in Mexico had given her an affection for Catholic churches) and came up with: “Stopped into a church I passed along the way / Well, I got down on my knees and I pretend to pray.” John, who’d loathed parochial school, “hated the line,” Michelle says, but kept it in for lack of anything better. Lucky he did; the line gave the song its arc of desperation to epiphany. Thus was born one of the first clarion calls of a changing culture, “California Dreamin’.”

…when this started playing as a random track on the Slacker music service.

I demand 50’s TV, on demand

On the Roku player I enjoy watching old TV shows, particularly from the late 1950’s. But Netflix is again yanking a favorite from Watch Instantly, forcing me to rush through as many episodes as I can in a few days. First, it was “Alfred Hitchcock Presents“, and now the latest victim is my beloved “Leave It To Beaver“.

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My favorite TV show way back in the first grade was “Have Gun, Will Travel”, which was one of the last network series that also ran on radio. I even had a “Have Gun, Will Travel” lunchbox. (We don’t talk about that unfortunate incident with the chicken noodle soup in the thermos.)

Fortunately, the adventures of the gunslinger-for-hire, Paladin, don’t have an expiration date on Netflix yet. Watching the series now, I can see why I liked it so much. Being a half-hour show, the stories aren’t slow and dragged out, the way they were on other westerns, especially “Gunsmoke”. It shouldn’t take too long to recognize the very young actress in this clip from 1958.

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Margo Guryan, pretty in pink

Margo Guryan’s highly prized and praised 1968 album, “Take a Picture”, is pretty in pink! Sundazed Music has issued a limited, 100-disc, pressing of the original LP on gorgeous, translucent pink vinyl.

http://www.sundazed.com/shop/product_info.php?products_id=1838

Here’s a video of me putting needle to groove on virgin vinyl, side 1, track 1, playing the first minute of Margo’s “Sunday Morning”. The disc was taken from the original analog 2-track master tape, and the sound quality is, like Margo herself, stunning.

[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Video/2010/NOV/MargoVinyl.flv 320 240]

Margo spent the summer of ’59 at the Lenox School of Jazz, here in good, ol’ Massachusetts, with an illustrious group of instructors, including Bill Evans, John Lewis, Milt Jackson, Jim Hall, Max Roach, and Gunther Schuller. Here are a few photos from that magical summer. Click to enlarge, as usual.

(Note to Morris: Recognize some of the people with Margo?)

I cut off the video above at exactly the point where the song really kicks in for me. I love the way Margo sings, “Come hold me in your arms…” Here’s the whole track.

Many cover versions of “Sunday Morning” have been recorded. Margo has no particular favorite, but one that I know she likes is by Glen Campbell and Bobbie Gentry.

It’s a man’s life in the Army

There were two magazines that started in the 1950’s that became nothing less than social forces in the 60’s — Mad and Playboy. They held equal fascination for boys, but Playboy had an age limit, and for some boys even Mad wasn’t allowed in the house. The lucky ones had friends who bought Mad, with older brothers who could get Playboy.

Playboy’s cultural impact was pervasive in the Sixties, particularly in the James Bond films. Even the comics weren’t immune from its influence. Mort Walker has been accused of treating women as sex objects in Beetle Bailey, and I would cite this strip, from June 6, 1965, as an example of how Walker pushed the limit of syndicated comic strip censorship. I’m surprised the characters do more than just walk on the beach, because as depicted the scenario borders on being akin to a Playboy cartoon.


© King Features Syndicate