A friend of mine and I were talking recently, and I told him that, if somebody asked me to name the greatest movie of all time, I would pick "Citizen Kane."
That's the truth.
I know, it's nearly 70 years old (which is irrelevant, really) and it was filmed in black and white (also irrelevant) and it didn't have splashy special effects by modern standards (once again — irrelevant), but it was well written and the acting was extraordinary.
That does not mean, however, that I think it was the most inspirational film I ever saw. In fact, I don't think it even made the American Film Institute's list of the Top 100 inspirational films of all time.
It was a great movie, groundbreaking in many ways, but it wasn't an inspiring story. Charles Foster Kane wasn't an inspirational character — and he seemed to know it. Following the famed 1929 Stock Market Crash, Kane observed to his guardian, Mr. Thatcher, "If I hadn't been very rich, I might have been a really great man."
"Don't you think you are?" Thatcher asked.
Kane looked at him and smiled that Orson Welles smile, the one that suggested he was thinking of an inside joke or an ironic twist, and said, "I think I did pretty well under the circumstances."
Influential, yes. But inspirational? I don't think the story of Charles Foster Kane qualified as inspirational.
But two of the films from the Top 5 on that list can be seen on Turner Classic Movies tonight. And, even if you have seen one or both before, they are worth seeing again.
At 7 p.m. (Central), you can see Frank Captra's "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" from 1939 starring James Stewart, Claude Rains and Jean Arthur.
Capra, of course, was no stranger to a list of inspirational movies, not with flicks like "It's a Wonderful Life," "You Can't Take It With You," "Mr. Deeds Goes to Town," "Meet John Doe" and "Pocketful of Miracles" to his credit.
In fact, he shares the distinction of directing the most films on AFI's list with Steven Spielberg.
Certainly, there are times when Capra's stories are hopelessly naive and impossibly optimistic. But he was making his films during the Great Depression and World War Ii. Wasn't it practically a requirement that you had to be at least a little hopelessly naive and impossibly optimistic in those days?
Then, at 9:15, you can see "To Kill a Mockingbird" from 1962 starring Gregory Peck.
There was a saying when I worked in newsrooms that I presume still has some value even though many years have passed since I worked in a newsroom.
Essentially, the idea was that the deaths of prominent people come in threes. The logical extension of that, I suppose, would be that the deaths of prominent people in the same business come in threes.
If that is true — and, in my newsroom experience, it usually was — the motion picture industry exceeded its quota this week.
It started last Sunday when Gloria Stuart, the actress who played the elderly version of Kate Winslet's character in "Titanic," died at the age of 100.
Stuart had quite a career long before she made "Titanic," but she earned her only Academy Award nomination for playing the 101–year–old "Rose." The film won 11 Oscars, but Stuart lost to Kim Basinger.
I suppose it is inevitable that, when you are Stuart's age and you are nominated for an Oscar for a film you made when you were in your 80s, that is what you would be remembered for. There wouldn't be many people left who would remember the early years of your career.
And that is a shame because she really was an attractive young woman, svelte and sultry. Even decades later, when Stuart was in her 80s and her skin was wrinkled with age, you could still see some of that young beauty in her eyes and her face.
"Wasn't I a dish?" she asked her granddaughter in the film. It wasn't just a line in a movie. She was a dish in her youth.
Then, two days later, Arthur Penn, the man who directed "Bonnie & Clyde," passed away at the age of 88.
It is, primarily, for "Bonnie & Clyde," I suppose, that Penn will be remembered, and I guess that is fitting. It was a movie that really changed the motion picture landscape in its presentation of both sexuality and violence.
But as much as I admire what Penn accomplished with "Bonnie & Clyde," my favorite of his films had to be "Little Big Man."
It would be a mistake to think that everything Penn touched in his life turned to gold. He enjoyed great success with some groundbreaking films, but he had his share of misses as well.
"Penn’s later movies seemed to confuse people," wrote Bruce Eder for the AllMovie Blog, "[a]nd his last movies ... were more noted by critics than the public."
Well, as Chief Dan George's character said in "Little Big Man,""Sometimes the magic works, sometimes it doesn't."
If you want to see some of the magic of which Penn was capable, Turner Classic Movies will be showing "Bonnie & Clyde" at 7 (Central) tonight.
Then, the following day, actor Tony Curtis died at the age of 85.
He is being remembered, as he should, for his performances in Billy Wilder's classic comedy "Some Like It Hot" and Stanley Kramer's drama "The Defiant Ones."
But I really think more of Jack Lemmon when I think of "Some Like It Hot," and I tend to think of Sidney Poitier when I think of "The Defiant Ones." That doesn't mean I don't recognize the contributions Curtis made to both films. He just isn't the person I associate with either one.
The film I do associate with him is "The Boston Strangler," which was based on the true story of the murders of several women in the Boston area.
It wasn't the best film he ever made. It probably wasn't his best performance. But it was a departure from the norm for him. And I liked that.
Curtis readily acknowledged that — in his early years, at least — he got by on his looks. "But behind the pretty–boy looks was a dramatically potent combination of naked ambition and deep vulnerability," wrote Dave Kehr of the New York Times.
In "The Boston Strangler," I think he used that vulnerability to tap into the character of Albert DeSalvo. The film acted on the assumption that DeSalvo was guilty, but his confession has been vigorously disputed, and there were times in the movie when I felt Curtis' portrayal reflected the ambiguity that surrounds DeSalvo long after his death just as it surrounded him in life.
Some would argue that was symptomatic of DeSalvo's alleged multiple personality disorder, but he was never diagnosed with that illness to my knowledge.
Well, anyway, that's three.
But there was a fourth this week. The same day that Curtis died, an actor named Joe Mantell died at the age of 94.
Mantell's was not a household name, even though he had a lengthy career as a supporting actor in the movies and on television.
But, as Bruce Weber wrote for the New York Times, he had the distinction of delivering two of the most memorable lines ever uttered by a movie sidekick.
In the mid–1950s classic "Marty," as Ernest Borgnine's best friend Angie, there was a running dialogue between the two, Weber observed.
"Angie began almost every conversation with the same question — 'What do you feel like doin' tonight?' — and always got the same answer: 'I don't know, Ange. What do you feel like doin'?' "
The second line was delivered at the end of "Chinatown," when Jack Nicholson's character is recoiling from the story's unsatisfying conclusion. Mantell, in a small role as a private investigator, encourages Nicholson to go home and try to put the matter behind him.
"Forget it, Jake," Mantell's character said. "It's Chinatown."
I guess that's a fitting eulogy for this week in the motion picture industry.
None of the four people who died in the last seven days was younger than 85 so their deaths can't be said to have been tragic in the way the loss of a young person is believed to be tragic. All four lived longer than most of us probably will.
All four probably earned more money than most of us will, and their names, even Mantell's, will be remembered after most of us are gone. They were not denied the fame and fortune that most of us are denied.
And, yet, something of value seems to have been lost to us — inexplicably, perhaps.
I know people who will tell anyone who will listen that the Andy Griffith Show was the greatest TV show in history.
Maybe it was. But, really, who can say?
I think it's a sucker's argument, frankly — like quarreling over who was the best home run hitter, Babe Ruth or Hank Aaron or Barry Bonds. They played in different eras in different ballparks and against different kinds of pitchers. If Ruth ever played night games, it was at the end of his career, but doubleheaders were more common in his day. Bonds, on the other hand, played most of his games at night, but the double dip was mostly a relic of the past when he arrived on the scene. Aaron was in between — didn't play in as many doubleheaders as Ruth, but they were still being scheduled, and he played in both day and night games.
It's like comparing apples and oranges ... and peaches.
Most baseball fans would probably agree that all three were talented. And that's probably as far as an argument over the merits of each (in relation to the others) should go.
That's kind of how I feel about TV shows. Some people came of age in the 1950s, when some very talented performers and writers and directors were pioneering this emerging technology. There were only three networks in those days, so things were more concentrated — and the viewership level that was achieved by some programs probably never will be duplicated in the fragmented modern environment of cable and satellite programming.
Were the shows better than the ones being produced today? Some were, some weren't. But the people who came of age in those days have a fierce loyalty to the programs of that time.
It was much the same way in the 1960s, when Andy Griffith made its debut. The writing was often excellent, the characters were very natural and believable (if flawed) people and many of the stories dealing with things like parenting and friendship still resonate today.
The show, in its color incarnation, was still on prime time when I was a child, but afternoon television in those days often featured reruns of the earlier black–and–white episodes. I remember watching those early episodes in the afternoons after school.
But there is no getting around the fact that much has changed in half a century. We live in an age of high–definition television and streaming video on lightweight computers and pocket–sized gadgets you can carry with you wherever you go, and the filming techniques of the 1960s, especially in the seasons before color became prevalent, may seem primitive to 21st century viewers, no matter the delivery system.
And such a series probably wouldn't have as much relevance today as it did in 1960, when a larger percentage of Americans lived in rural communities.
But that won't keep millions of Andy Griffith fans from marking the 50th anniversary of the show's debut a week from tomorrow. TVLand has been getting a jump on the festivities with its "50 Days of Andy" promotion, spotlighting the top 50 episodes in the series as chosen in online voting by the series' fans.
Perhaps the quality of the series, even if the technology was lacking by contemporary standards, was helped by the fact that it was filmed by Desilu, the production company that was formed in 1950 by Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball. Gulf+Western bought the company in 1967, and it was renamed Paramount Television, where it enjoyed limited success, but Desilu seemed to have its fingers in every pie in its heyday.
Well, whether Desilu had anything to do with it, the show was quite popular, and it's hard to imagine it without its now–iconic cast, but if you watched the very first episode (see clip above), Andy's Aunt Bee — without whom the series certainly wouldn't have been the same — almost didn't pass Opie's test to replace the housekeeper he had (presumably) known all his life when she married and moved away.
But she did, and generations of Andy Griffith fans will forever be grateful.
Aunt Bee reminded me of my own childhood in central Arkansas. Did you ever notice that just about everyone in Mayberry called her Aunt Bee, even though no one — other than Andy and Opie — was actually related to her? There was a woman in my hometown who had no relatives living nearby but everyone called her "aunt."
I guess it was part of the logic of the culture of Mayberry.
Some of the original cast members were gone by the time a TV reunion was held in the form of a special movie, "Return to Mayberry," nearly 25 years ago. Frances Bavier, the actress who played Aunt Bee, was still living, but her health was not good so she did not participate in the film, and her character was said to be deceased.
And she did die more than three years later — about a week before her 87th birthday.
There were other familiar faces who were gone by the time the reunion movie aired, but more than a dozen of the show's original cast did participate. Some of them are gone now, too, like ...
Don Knotts, who played Barney Fife for five seasons and won Emmy Awards in three of them plus two more for guest appearances after he left the show in the mid–1960s.
Only Candice Bergen — as "Murphy Brown" — was honored for playing the same character in the same series as many times as Knotts.
And that was fitting, I guess. Can anyone really imagine the Andy Griffith Show without him?
Actually, the public got a chance to see what the show was like without him. The Barney–less shows haven't been too popular with fans since the show went into reruns, but when it was part of the prime–time lineup, its ratings actually improved in those later years.
Knotts, by the way, was 81 when he died in 2006.
... or Hal Smith, who played Otis the lovable drunk.
I always felt one of the great mistakes in the production of the reunion movie was the decision to make Otis a reformed alcoholic. Maybe it was a concession to the "Just say no" hysteria of the 1980s, but a non–alcoholic Otis lacked the comedic value of the alcoholic version.
If you're an Andy Griffith fan, don't you owe Otis a debt of gratitude? He was responsible, after all, for one of Barney's most memorable lines — "Pipe down, Otis!" — which I have seen on bumper stickers and T–shirts decades after it was spoken.
Smith was 77 when he died of a heart attack in 1994.
... or Howard McNear, who played Floyd, the affable barber.
I'm not sure, but McNear may have been the first Andy Griffith cast member to die. He had a stroke during the show's third season that permanently impaired his ability to walk, but he could still speak so, when he returned to the show, the writers managed to write his character seated — and he delivered his lines while seated on a bench outside his barbershop or in the chair in his shop.
McNear had been dead for more than 15 years when the reunion film was aired, and I don't recall if he was mentioned in the movie — unlike Aunt Bee, whose absence was addressed in the story (Andy even visited her "grave").
The thing about Floyd that caught my attention when I was a child was his tendency to give Calvin Coolidge credit for every wise saying that had ever been uttered. I was something of a student of the presidency, even at a young age, and I knew that Coolidge had a nickname, "Silent Cal," that summed up his reluctance to speak in public.
(In fact, there is a story about Coolidge that he was seated next to a lovely and flirtatious young woman at some sort of dinner. The woman told the president that she had made a bet with someone that she could make him say more than two words. Coolidge replied, "You lose.")
Andy seemed to be aware of that, too, because, at one point, when Floyd tried to give Coolidge credit for something that someone else had said, Andy gently scolded him and admonished him, "Calvin Coolidge didn't say everything."
And then Floyd replied with the one thing that the history books all agree that Coolidge said: "I do not choose to run."
Andy had to admit that Coolidge did say that.
"I knew he must have said something," Floyd said, "or else he wouldn't have become president."
I guess that, too, was the logic of Mayberry.
Sometimes that logic made little or no sense — except in the context of the universe of the fictitious Mayberry. But Mayberry was and remains a place where life was/is more relaxed.
Sometime in late September of 1980, John Lennon and Yoko Ono completed work on Lennon's comeback album — their collaborative effort, "Double Fantasy."
Lennon had been out of the public eye for five years, raising his infant son while his wife handled the family's business dealings. But, in 1980, he was ready to return.
I was in college at the time, and I remember sitting in a friend's yard one autumn afternoon and listening to the radio. Lennon's single, "(Just Like) Starting Over," came on. I had never heard the song before, and, for whatever reason, it just didn't sound like Lennon to me.
My friend smiled and nodded and made some offhand remark about Lennon's comeback, but I didn't make the connection until the song ended and the DJ said that had been Lennon's newest single.
The single was released a few weeks after Lennon's 40th birthday. The album on which it appeared was released only three weeks before Lennon was shot and killed.
After that happened, you couldn't find a copy of "Double Fantasy" anywhere. I remember searching all over town the day after Lennon was killed, trying to find a copy of the album to give as a Christmas present to the girl I had been seeing. But all I could find was an 8–track tape.
(She did have an 8–track player at the time, so that was OK.)
Actually, I was lucky to find the tape. Although CNN did exist at that time, it was still trying to find its identity and, in those essentially pre–24/7 news channel and pre–internet days, you had limited sources even for breaking news. Most Americans probably heard of Lennon's death the way I did — from Howard Cosell on Monday Night Football.
Word was slow getting out that night — certainly by contemporary standards. But it got out, and people hit the record stores as early as they could the next day and snapped up copies of "Double Fantasy" as long as they were available. And that wasn't long at all.
In hindsight, I must say that the response to Lennon's death was even more dramatic than the response I had seen a few years earlier when Elvis Presley died — or that I did see nearly 20 years later when a musical icon from another generation, Frank Sinatra, died.
In all three cases, music stores quickly ran out of albums by the dead singers. It seemed more pronounced after Lennon's death — perhaps because he was murdered — but most of the initial demand seemed to focus on his latest album.
Oddly enough, I found some copies of Lennon's older albums, a few of which I bought for my personal collection. And I was happy to get them. I preferred then — as I do now — Lennon's albums without Yoko.
Maybe it was Lennon's particular brand of marital loyalty, but, for some reason, he seemed to think that Yoko was a great singer. And he alternated tracks on the album with Yoko. When photographer Annie Leibovitz came to Lennon's home to shoot photos for Rolling Stone on the day Lennon was killed, she wanted to shoot photos of Lennon only. But Lennon insisted that Yoko be in every picture, and he made Leibovitz promise that they would both appear on the cover.
(As I got older, I found that a copy of "Double Fantasy" in one's collection was a pretty accurate litmus test for separating the true Lennon fans from the poseurs. Their copies of that album were always scratchy on the Lennon tracks — and pristine on Yoko's. I concluded that they had lifted the needle off the record when Yoko's tracks were playing and put it on Lennon's next track on that side.)
When "Double Fantasy" came out, the timing may have been right for someone like Yoko. Her style was definitely of a punk nature, and punk acts were hot in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
I must confess that I have often wondered how that album might have done if Lennon had not been killed. I'm sure it would have done reasonably well with Lennon's fans, who had been waiting for several years for new material from him.
But would it have been popular with the punk fans? Surely, it wouldn't have generated the same kind of sales it did in the days after his murder. But would punk's have embraced Yoko? I honestly can't say.
Perhaps Yoko was inspired by her husband's burst of creativity in that last year of his life. Or perhaps she was infused with fresh confidence as punk acts were getting positive publicity.
Whatever it was, she seemed energized in a way she hadn't been before. She had seven songs on the album, the same number as her husband. Would she have been a punk star in the '80s if her husband hadn't died on that December night 30 years ago?
Again, I can't say.
What I can say is that it took Yoko three years after Lennon's death to finish work on the projected followup to "Double Fantasy," an album of recordings the two made for an album called "Milk and Honey." That album was released posthumously. While it followed the format of "Double Fantasy," it didn't enjoy the same commercial success.
And since its release in 1984, I don't think Yoko has made another recording.
Forty–five years ago this month, "The Sounds of Silence" was released as a single — and the commercially successful careers of Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel were launched.
They had been playing clubs in New York for a few years, but "The Sounds of Silence" brought them the exposure that made them major figures in the increasingly popular folk rock movement of that time.
It was one of my mother's favorite songs. As a child, I recall that Mom had a fairly extensive collection of Simon and Garfunkel's 45–rpm singles. "The Sounds of Silence" may have been the first song of theirs that I ever heard, although I'm not completely certain of that. Mom may well have waited to buy it until she had heard more of Simon and Garfunkel's work.
So, while I remember hearing "The Sounds of Silence" around my home when I was small, it may not have been the first Simon and Garfunkel single that Mom brought into the house. That could have been "I Am A Rock" or "Scarborough Fair" or "Homeward Bound."
And, even if it wasn't, that doesn't mean I didn't hear it first somewhere else. My father was a college professor, and, when my brother and I were little, my parents often left us with his students when they went out. On one of those occasions, I might have heard "The Sounds of Silence" playing on a radio or a turntable. Although my parents were receptive to many of the artistic developments of their time, I got much of my exposure to the music of that time from those students.
Now, I'm not a student of musical genres, just a garden–variety fan who appreciates many kinds of music, and I don't think it would be accurate to call Simon and Garfunkel the innovators of what has come to be called folk rock. It probably would be more appropriate to bestow that particular title on the Byrds or Bob Dylan.
But I'm equally sure that anyone who remembers those days would agree that Simon and Garfunkel were certainly among the pioneers of that genre that blended folk music and rock music so well in the 1960s and 1970s.
And "The Sounds of Silence" was certainly a part of that popular movement. "Bridge Over Troubled Water" ultimately became their signature song, but "The Sounds of Silence" was the kind of popular breakthrough that Simon and Garfunkel craved early in their careers.
As I always heard it, the music was just about done when Simon began working on the lyrics after President Kennedy was assassinated on Nov. 22, 1963. He struggled with the lyrics for awhile, but everything came together by February of 1964, and Simon and Garfunkel started playing the song at clubs.
The song was well received, and, about 18 months later, it was recorded by Columbia Records. It climbed to the top of the charts by New Year's Day 1966.
For me, it has always been a song that I associated with the '60s. I enjoyed listening to it as a teenager. I still enjoy listening to it today. But I can't really say it has a "timeless" quality the way other songs do.
I can listen to some songs today that were recorded 30, 40, even 50 years ago, and they still sound fresh and new to me. But there are other songs, like "The Sounds of Silence," that always remind me of the times when they were popular.
Perhaps that is because "The Sounds of Silence" was one of the songs featured in "The Graduate," a film that actually used themes that are relevant to every generation but cast them with the general angst of the '60s as the backdrop.
So I guess it's only natural that the song is inextricably linked to that turbulent decade. It is appropriate, then, that it would have a special relevance for people who were young in the '60s — and even for such as me, who were only old enough to remember part of the '60s.
Well, maybe that is a little esoteric. But I still think the song was great — even if Blender magazine thought it was one of the 50 worst songs of all time.
"We love a rose because we know it'll soon be gone. Whoever loved a stone?"
Kevin McCarthy As Walter Jameson on The Twilight Zone
Actor Kevin McCarthy died yesterday at the age of 96.
He had quite a career in films and on TV. Dennis McLellan correctly points out in the Los Angeles Times that McCarthy is probably best known for appearing in the 1956 version of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" — and I'm sure that is true.
But, with a few exceptions, I generally have not been much of a sci–fi movie fan.
I am, however, a fan of The Twilight Zone TV series, and when I think of McCarthy, I think of an episode from the very first season of the original Rod Serling series — "Long Live Walter Jameson" — in which McCarthy played a history teacher whose lectures were so vivid you could swear he had lived through the events of which he spoke.
Now, many of us have encountered teachers like that, teachers whose passion for their subjects far exceeded that to which we were accustomed. Sometimes those teachers ignite the flames of passion for a subject within some of their students as well.
But in The Twilight Zone universe, Walter Jameson (who was played by McCarthy) actually did live in the times he lectured about. And one night, one of his colleagues confronted him about it. Jameson walked over to a bust of Plato and said, when asked how old he was, "Old enough to have known this gentleman personally."
Turned out Jameson was given the gift of eternal youth by an alchemist. Jameson submitted to his "experiments" and fell into a coma for several weeks. When he revived, the alchemist was nowhere to be found. It was only with the passage of time that Jameson realized what had happened.
By that time, he had seen his friends age and die while he remained young, and he decided he didn't want to live indefinitely. But he lacked the courage to end his life.
I always enjoy watching that episode. It's very cerebral, and it combines two things I can't resist — history and speculation about the supernatural.
As the years have gone by, though, I have reached the conclusion that I enjoy the episode for other reasons as well. For one, it addressed a fear that all men have about what happens when we die — even those who believe in an afterlife.
What lies beyond? No one knows. You may strongly believe in the existence of an afterlife, but you don't really know.
I contend that, no matter how certain one may be of the existence of God and an afterlife, there is always a portion of our brains that resists, that maintains a sliver of doubt about the unknown.
And the episode spoke some important truths about changing perceptions of death as we get older. Jameson was candid about his eagerness to obtain immortality when he was young. And he was equally candid about his wish to die, after at least 2,000 years of life, but he confessed that he was a coward.
In the end, a lover from his past (played by Estelle Winwood) did the dirty work for him.
And, at last, he was released.
In its way, I suppose, the episode is a metaphor for McCarthy's life. Winwood and the actor who played his colleague have been dead for years. The only member of the cast who is still living is the woman who played his colleague's daughter. In the episode, she was his fiancee.
She was in her 30s then; she's in her 80s. Who knew they would both live half a century after filming that episode?
I distinctly remember him playing Otho in "Beetlejuice." I saw other films in which he appeared — like "Heathers" and the remake of "Planet of the Apes" — but I don't remember him in them. I guess I should go back and watch them again, as well as the episodes of popular TV shows in which he appeared — "Roseanne," "ER," "Cheers," "Night Court" and "Seinfeld."
I'm sincerely sorry things ended the way they did for Shadix. He was only 58. But I'm glad that his performances — the ones I've seen as well as the ones I hope to see someday — will be with us.
My mother was an only child, and my father had a sister who was six years older. Based on what I know of my aunt, she was something of a prodigy. I heard, for example, that she graduated from high school when she was about 16 and that she finished college before she was 20. Some time after that, she married a man who worked for General Electric, and she apparently devoted herself to her home and her three children.
My cousins were all older than I was, and, until I was about 10 or 11, they lived in the Netherlands. So I never saw them when I was a child.
They returned to the United States when I was about 12, but GE didn't send my uncle to Texas, where my grandmother still lived, or somewhere else in the South. Instead, GE sent them to Schenectady, N.Y. — more than 1,400 miles from Dallas and more than 1,100 miles from my hometown of Conway, Ark.
Even though we were finally on the same continent, it seemed to me that I might grow up without knowing that side of my family. But my parents were planning a trip to Vermont one summer to visit some old friends, and it was decided that we would stop in Schenectady and visit my aunt and uncle and the cousins while we were in that part of the country.
And so we did.
The youngest of my cousins was about five or six years older than I was so all three were around college age then. There were two boys and one girl. I think the girl was the youngest, and she may have still been in high school. I don't recall seeing the oldest — he may have been out of college by that time, might even have been married and living somewhere else.
But the middle son was there. As I recall, he had been away from home most of that summer and had just returned home. I even remember seeing his bags in the hallway. Maybe he had been taking summer classes at the college where he was enrolled. Anyway, our visit came during a period between the end of summer school and the beginning of the fall semester, and I remember my uncle teasing my cousin about missing the smell of cigarette smoke around the house while he was gone.
I have a memory of all of us sitting in my aunt's living room and talking, and I recall my aunt and uncle telling us that my cousin Cathy had just had her wisdom teeth extracted. That gave my father the opportunity to recall when my aunt had her wisdom teeth extracted. "She made sure we all knew about it," my father said.
Somewhere around that time, Cathy got up, excused herself and went to the back of the house, where her room was, and put a record on her turntable. And I could hear the familiar songs of Jefferson Airplane — "Somebody to Love," "Volunteers" and "White Rabbit," among others.
Those are the songs that I always associate with Jefferson Airplane. The group disbanded around the time of our visit to Schenectady and was soon replaced by Jefferson Starship, which later dropped the "Jefferson" part and just went by the name of Starship.
I always felt that was a corporate sellout, considering that Jefferson Airplane always seemed like the embodiment of the left–wing counterculture. Starship just seemed too commercial.
But when Jefferson Airplane crashed, Jefferson Starship rose from the ashes in its place. At first, there seemed to be little difference between the two. Grace Slick was still singing for the band, and it was churning out hits like "Miracles" and "Jane."
Initially, I suppose, I didn't realize just how commercial Starship really was. The parting of the ways, for me, came 25 years ago tomorrow, when Starship released "We Built This City."
I felt at the time that it was a perfectly horrid song — and that opinion was confirmed nearly 20 years later, when Blender magazine named it the worst song ever.
Now, that probably requires a disclaimer. Six years ago, Blender put together a list of what it called the 50 worst songs of all time, which was inspired by a VH1 special called "The 50 Most Awesomely Bad Songs ... Ever."
I'm sure you can think of at least one song — probably many more — that could fairly be said to be worse than "We Built This City." And that brings us to the catch.
In order to qualify for the list, the song had to be a hit at some point. It didn't have to reach #1 on the Billboard chart, but it had to be popular enough that it sold fairly well and got decent airplay.
Astonishingly, though, "We Built This City" actually did reach #1 on Billboard's chart about 2½ months after it was released as a single. So it qualified for inclusion in the list. People liked it. They really liked it. But I didn't.
The issues I have with "We Built This City" are too numerous to discuss here. But I've always been irritated by the lyrics. I guess I owe that to my training as a journalist and my experience as a copy editor. I can — and have — put up with a lot. But "We Built This City" was the straw that broke this camel's back.
Early in the song, for example, it refers to Italian radio pioneer Guglielmo Marconi playing the mamba. Mamba is the name of the species and subspecies of a deadly snake. My guess is that the writer of the song, Bernie Taupin, meant mambo, which is a dance. Poetic license?
I guess I expected better from Taupin. He wrote so many of the really fine songs that made Elton John a star. But words have meaning, and, when a lyricist uses a word simply because it rhymes with something else and not because it has a relevant meaning, that's just wrong.
Well, I suppose even the best song writers can come up with a clinker now and then.
Paul McCartney, for example, was half of the greatest song writing team in popular music history when he and John Lennon were composing songs for the Beatles. Then, after the Beatles broke up, McCartney went on to a very successful career as first the leader of the group Wings and then as a solo artist, writing several very good songs.
But he took his lumps from Blender — and justifiably so — for his collaboration with Stevie Wonder on the dreadful "Ebony and Ivory" and his participation in the Beatles' "Ob–La–Di, Ob–La–Da."
I don't have an argument with either of those selections, but I would include a third song, for which McCartney was responsible — "Let 'Em In," which was released 34 years ago.
It would be hard to beat the jejune quality of the chorus — "Someone's knocking on the door/Somebody's ringing the bell/Someone's knocking on the door/Somebody's ringing the bell/Do me a favor/Open the door/And let 'em in."
But I suppose it redeems itself, to a degree, by having lyrics that have some meaning — even if the meaning is an inside joke.
The song recites a list of names, which, as I learned later in my life, actually refer to real people. Well, most of them do:
"Sister Suzy" was McCartney's first wife, Linda.
"Brother John" is Linda's brother, John.
"Martin Luther" has never been made clear, but it probably isn't a reference to Martin Luther King, as might seem obvious. More likely, I have been told, it is a reference to Lennon, who was called "Martin Luther Lennon" by McCartney and the Beatles.
"Phil and Don" are the Everly Brothers.
"Brother Michael" is McCartney's brother.
"Auntie Jin" was McCartney's aunt.
And there is more. Later in the song, "Brother Michael" is replaced by "Uncle Ernie," which is a reference to the Who's Keith Moon, who played the character of Uncle Ernie in the film version of the Who's "Tommy."
"Auntie Jin" was replaced by "Uncle Ian" — whoever he is/was.
If Blender wants to come up with a revised list, I don't object to keeping "We Built This City" in the top spot. And most of the songs on the original list certainly deserved to be there.
But I wouldn't mind if "Let 'Em In" was in the Top 50.
I was driving along in northeastern Oklahoma one spring night in the mid–1990s.
The sun had gone down, and I was listening to the radio. Fortunately, I had found a classic rock station nestled in among all the country stations in that neck of the woods, but it kept fading in and out on me, and I had to keep adjusting the station to keep the music playing in my car.
I remember listening for about an hour, and the music that was played was your standard issue classic rock. They were all songs I recognized from my youth, which is now more remote than I ever dreamed it would be, but I couldn't tell you exactly what they were.
Anyway, the songs played, one after another. As I say, it was the kind of stuff you usually hear on a classic rock station — I think they played some Dylan and some Who and probably a Beatles song or two, and a whole bunch of what I would consider the lesser lights of the classic rock era — recognizable but not necessarily legendary.
Then one song ended (I don't remember now what it was), and there was something like a couple of seconds of silence before the DJ came on the air and, in solemn tones, simply said, "The late, great Stevie Ray Vaughan."
And the next thing I heard was the opening riffs of "Crossfire."
The date wasn't an anniversary of anything special (that I know of) from Stevie Ray's career, but, when "Crossfire" was finished, the DJ played "Little Wing," Stevie Ray's spine–tingling cover of the Jimi Hendrix classic.
And he capped that with "Texas Flood." I don't think the song was written specifically for Vaughan, but it sure gave him a great opportunity to show off his Texas blues style.
Well, for whatever reason, the DJ played a three–song tribute to Stevie Ray that night. He never said why. He just went on to whatever his next song was after his triple shot was finished.
But it was clearly a deviation. I listened to that station for a couple of hours that night. Sometimes the reception was better than at other times, but I never heard so much as two consecutive songs by another performer — let alone three.
Now, I've never objected when someone wanted to play some Stevie Ray Vaughan — especially in the last 20 years. In case you didn't realize it, it was 20 years ago today that Stevie Ray died in a helicopter crash in Wisconsin.
I remember that day very well. I was working for a newspaper in north Texas (a comparatively short drive — by Texas standards — from Oak Cliff, the section of Dallas where Stevie Ray was born in 1954). I was working for an afternoon paper, so it was necessary to come to the office early in the morning in order to get the paper done in time.
In those days, I didn't usually work on Mondays, but that day, for whatever reason, I did.
On Sunday, Aug. 26, 1990, Stevie Ray played for a sold–out audience in Wisconsin, then boarded a helicopter that was supposed to transport him to Chicago. But it crashed shortly after takeoff.
I slept later than I planned to that Monday morning so I didn't switch on the TV while I was rushing around, getting ready for work. And I don't remember why, but I didn't switch on my radio in my car. So I didn't know what had happened.
But I knew, when I walked into the newsroom, that something had happened. My co–workers were gathered around a small TV in the corner of the newsroom, watching reports from Wisconsin. No one said a word.
As I walked through the door and crossed the newsroom, I could clearly hear the TV reporter recounting how Vaughan's helicopter had crashed some four or five hours earlier. By the time I arrived at the TV, I already knew what had happened.
They had a big funeral for him in Oak Cliff later that week.
Nearly 30 years earlier, Oak Cliff achieved a certain amount of national notoriety for being the home of accused JFK assassin Lee Harvey Oswald. And 30 years before that, criminal couple Bonnie and Clyde met in Oak Cliff.
But Oak Cliff probably never had as many famous people walking its streets as it did that day in 1990. Among those who attended Stevie Ray's funeral were Stevie Wonder, Eric Clapton (who had participated in an all–star jam in Vaughan's final show a few days earlier), Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Browne, the members of ZZ Top and many more.
In all, it was estimated that more than 1,500 people were crammed into the church where the service was held, and more than 3,000 stood outside in the heat of a late August day in Texas. All to pay tribute to a boy who, it could probably be said, came from the wrong side of the tracks.
He was 35 when he died.
It's hard to believe he's been gone as long as he has. It's even harder to imagine what he might look like at the age of 55 or what he might be doing today.
But the one thing I don't have trouble imagining is that Stevie Ray would be doing something musically. He might have gone in unexpected directions if he had been alive for the last two decades, but, unless he had to have his arms amputated for one reason or another, I have no doubt he would be playing his guitar.
Like John Lennon 10 years earlier, Stevie Ray Vaughan was taken much too soon, and the world was deprived of the unique contributions he would have made.
As a result, we have all been poorer since that helicopter crashed in Wisconsin 20 years ago today.
"A broom is drearily sweeping up The broken pieces of yesterday's life Somewhere a queen is weeping Somewhere a king has no wife And the wind, it cries Mary."
Jimi Hendrix The Wind Cries Mary
I guess you could say next month will be the 40th anniversary of the birth of the "27 Club."
What's that? You don't know what the "27 Club" — or, as it is also known, the "Forever 27 Club" — is?
Well, it isn't really a club. To put it as succinctly as possible, it's a somewhat informal grouping of famous musicians who died at the tender age of 27.
It has been observed, when the subject of the "27 Club" has come up, that people can and do die at every possible age, but it is unusual, to say the least, for so many well–known people in any profession to die at such a young age.
I suppose the "club" began on July 3, 1969. On that day, I guess, much of the world was anticipating the historic flight of Apollo 11 that was only a few weeks away. But Brian Jones, one of the charter members of the Rolling Stones, drowned in his swimming pool on that occasion. He was 27 years old.
One isn't enough to form a club, though, which brings me to September 18, the 40th anniversary of the death of Jimi Hendrix in London.
Hendrix also was 27 years old when, on Sept. 18, 1970, he consumed alcohol and sleeping pills — and then choked on his own vomit. Over the years, I heard a lot of things. I heard it was suicide. I heard it was accidental, that Hendrix was unfamiliar with the medication's dosages in foreign countries.
Last year, a "roadie" for the 1960s pop group the Animals published a book in which he claimed that Hendrix's manager admitted killing Hendrix. But the plausibility of that claim came into question when it was revealed that his manager wasn't even in London on the day Hendrix died. Apparently, he was in Spain.
Well, whatever the truth was, Jimi Hendrix died on Sept. 18, 1970. And two famous popular musicians were dead at the age of 27 within 18 months.
I vaguely remember hearing news reports of Hendrix's death at the time. But I really have no memory of any mention of the "27 Club."
If there wasn't talk of a "27 Club" after Joplin died, it may have begun in earnest following the death on July 3, 1971, of the 27–year–old lead singer of the Doors, Jim Morrison. Morrison, too, may have been a victim of heroin, but he died in France, where medical examiners were not compelled at that time (French law may have changed in 39 years) to require autopsies if they found no evidence of foul play.
And, in fact, the medical examiner claimed that no such evidence was found at Morrison's death scene so no autopsy was performed. And the actual cause of his death has remained shrouded in mystery ever since.
(Ironically, following Jones' death, Morrison published a poem that was written for Jones, and Hendrix dedicated a song to him on American TV. Another of his contemporaries, Pete Townshend of the Who — who is still living — also wrote a poem for Jones.)
But, by that time — or, certainly, a short time later — people began speaking of the "27 Club." It has been reported that the sister of Nirvana's lead singer, Kurt Cobain, has said that her brother spoke, when he was a child, of wanting to join the "27 Club."
Cobain would have been a child in the 1970s. And, in April 1994, he did join the club, committing suicide a little more than a month after his 27th birthday.
Some people have resisted including Cobain since he deliberately took his own life, but the fact is that he died at the age of 27 and he was the lead singer of what may have been the most popular band in America at the time of his death. I have never heard any conditional circumstances mentioned for being included in the club other than the fact that a person must be a musician and must die while he/she is 27.
Actually, if we're going to be technical about this, the so–called "27 Club" appears to have begun more than three–quarters of a century before Jones and Hendrix died.
In 1892, a pioneering Brazilian composer named Alexandre Levy died at the age of 27. He merged classical music with Brazilian folk music. The cause of his death remains unknown.
And many other musicians — all, to a certain extent, famous although none as well known as the first five I mentioned — have died at the age of 27 since that time. Bluesman Robert Johnson, for example, died at 27 more than three decades before Brian Jones did.
Unofficially, I guess Johnson really was the first member of the club. He was a performer, after all, and there are recordings of his performances that still exist. Maybe he was overlooked because of the segregated world in which he lived.
"Pigpen" McKiernan, one of the founders of the Grateful Dead, was 27 when he died. So were Peter Ham, the leader of the group Badfinger; Gary Thain, Uriah Heep's ex–bassist; and many others.
It's a bigger club than you might have thought.
A much smaller club, however, is made up of those who, while they may have died young, left something significant behind (besides compositions and recordings) through which they could continue to influence future generations.
Less than a month before he died, Hendrix opened such a place that could mold and promote the performers of the future. As Ben Sisario reported today in the New York Times, Electric Lady Studios, which was founded by Hendrix on Aug. 26, 1970, still exists, even though most of New York's big–name studios have closed their doors for one reason or another.
And Sisario points out that, in addition to housing tapes from Hendrix's studio sessions there, Electric Lady has had many famous performers record there, including the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin and Stevie Wonder.
I'm inclined to believe that no one — and I suspect that includes Hendrix himself — thought Hendrix would be dead less than four weeks after Electric Lady opened.
But I think he would be pleased to know it has existed longer than he did.
I got my bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Arkansas, and I got my master's degree in journalism from the University of North Texas. Most of my adult life has been dedicated to writing and editing in one form or another. Most recently I have taught writing (news and developmental) as an adjunct journalism professor at Richland College, where I advise the student newspaper staff. Go, Thunderducks!
