Could it be 55 years since ‘the music died’? Yes, it could.

In the Oldie comments, Jim Wheeler reminded me that Bobby Vee’s career was launched in February 1959 (The Day The Music Died) when he went on for Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and the Big Bopper after their plane went down.

Then that reminded me of this – an astonishing and very entertaining lip-dub performed by the whole damn city of Grand Rapids. I think I posted it a few years ago, but it’s always worth another visit. Enjoy.

Fridays come mighty fast

Pure harmony seems to be enjoying a bit of a  revival. The artistry of  The Beach Boys and these guys – never gets old.

The real Friday Oldie

Christmas songs don’t count. And even though this may not quite qualify either (at least for my own generation), I’ve adored it for 40 years. So there! Plus, I think I owe it to you after Dennis Day.

This performance is from Live Aid in the 1980’s. (The song runs only the first 5:15 here.)

 

 

Since I was at Krugman’s blog

Ahem, look what the Professor has introduced:

Ella Fitzgerald would be 95 today; that was some century she lived through . . .

What a time to be a singer –  with new musical genres born every decade. Here is a childhood favorite of mine (she’d probably been performing for 25 years at this point):

From the days of  Rat Pack ‘cool’ on the teevee variety shows:

Later on with the one and only Louis Armstrong:

Could anyone else do this?

Three years ago today

Friday Night Oldies first appeared here late in ’09, but it wasn’t till exactly three years ago today that they became a weekly event. And thus is my excuse to re-post a few all time favorites, only one of which qualifies as a real oldie, but it’s my place. So there.

Because we always need a little Elvis and it’s been way too long

I sang this to my father

A few hours before his death, I was alone with my father in a small cubicle off the Emergency Room. He was on a gurney and I on the only chair. I sang this song to him.

Can I do an oldie on Monday? Yes. I can.

Moe has been distracted. But it’s been brought to her attention that there was no oldie last Friday, nor on the Friday previous!

So, because of this (I think he may have been a friend of a friend?), let crank up the way back machine and the land of no-frills-teevee. (And is that Robert Goulet?)

Oh this is a real treat

At 3:20 in, Bruce and John Fogarty do a proper Roy Orbison. Pure joy.

I can always use some exhuberance in the a.m.

I guess it’s Korea week . . . Go to 2:00 in for the real show.

I know. So last month, but still . . .

Well, there may be someone left who hasn’t seen this (266,000,000 hits on youtube right now) . . . I love the damn thing on every level, but ask – if you can bear it – that you take another look. Aside from the pure entertainment value, isn’t the color wonderful? The clothes, the backdrops, everything – wonderfully brilliant, almost neon colors. This is a palate I’m rather fond of.

Be happy

This makes me smile.

Not the oldie yet

So unbloggy this week. This one always re-animates me. (Plus I feel simply compelled to post it. Again.)

I can’t wait for the Billy Jean version

Rita Hayworth dances to Stayin’ Alive.

Yup. Friday.

And here, ladies and gentlemen, The Drifters! (applause)

When Bruce speaks, a lotta people listen

Haven’t been paying much attention in recent years to popular music. I do notice when something happens (RIP Clarence et al) but don’t generally pay a lot of attention when soemthing new is published.

Here’s what The Guardian has to say about Bruce Springstein’s new album, Wrecking Ball.

Indeed, [the album] is as angry a cry from the belly of a wounded America as has been heard since the dustbowl and Woody Guthrie, a thundering blow of New Jersey pig iron down on the heads of Wall Street and all who have sold his country down the swanny. Springsteen has gone to the great American canon for ammunition, borrowing from folk, civil war anthems, Irish rebel songs and gospel. The result is a howl of pain and disbelief as visceral as anything he has ever produced, that segues into a search for redemption: “Hold tight to your anger/ And don’t fall to your fears … Bring on your wrecking ball.”

Springsteen plunges into darker, richer musical landscapes in a sequence of breath-taking protest songs – Easy Money, Shackled and Drawn, Jack of All Trades, the scarily bellicose Death to My Hometown and This Depression with Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine – before the album turns on Wrecking Ball in search of some spiritual path out of the mess the US is in.

I may have to borrow a dime for this one. Here’s a cut.

The Friday night oldie that gets posted on Friday instead of Thursday

The one, the only, Patsy Cline. (Listening, I sorta picture Newt doing this about 11pm last night. The ‘you’ he’s searching for, of course, would be himself.)

Friday oldie

(UPDATE: I have just been informed it is Thursday. Wanna make something of it?)

American TV defined this as Rock & Roll (because of the backbeat?). I loved The Platters and fell in love regularly under the spell of their songs.

Wow. Jimmy Fallon is quite entertaining

He does a damn good Bowie. Here is “Tim Tebow to Jesus Christ”

 

Friday night oldie

From my own Whatever Works wayback machine. So 50’s. So ‘slow dancing’. So white.

Friday night oldie

So unbloggy. Spent almost the entire day taking down all the Christmas stuff and the tree. Much moving of furniture, hauling and cleaning is involved. An exhausting day, so let’s have a little music.  More Teddy Bears, from way way back in the way back machine.

 

It’s always bittersweet . . .

Happy New Year and Elvis bless us, everyone.

So tender: this always touches me

For the third straight Christmas –  Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas:

 

Friday Night Oldie

I still find it difficult to connect this innocent – ergo stereotypical – late 50’s trio, The Teddy Bears, with the oddity that today is Phil Spector. But that was then, and we danced to this stuff.

 

Friday oldie

The Everly Brothers recorded these too – but I like this one better.

Crow pie? Not likely.

Donald is having a big debate and nobody is coming.  Well, noboby who isn’t named Newt Gingrich anyway. (Even Bachmann backed out.)

Cause, I think, for celebration.

Actually, we CAN go back

A few friends of friends in this – 40th anniversary celebration with the original cast of Grease! (h/t friend Ed)

Friday night oldie

Slow dancing . . . with a few twirls.

I hope I can be this witty when I’m old (really old I mean)

You’ll be glad if you stay to the end; it’s short. And clever. And funny. And kind of endearing.