No, I didn’t watch the Inauguration.  I had better things to do than great dragged into dystopia and listen to lies.  There’s four years ahead to witness it and hopefully see it implode on its own venality, encircled by a better world.
 
And I had better things to do.  Including this morning rectify a huge oversight.  And that’s note the passing the other day of Peter Yarrow, of Peter, Paul and Mary, at the age of 87. 
 
I never saw the trio perform in person, though did see Peter and Paul each perform separately during the few years they all had apart before reuniting for a long return.  I saw Peter in Chicago in a large auditorium.  And Paul, when I was working on the movie Pet Sematary in Ellsworth, Maine – he lived five miles down the road in Blue Hill, and gave a concert in town.  (It was sold out, but a father and daughter had an extra ticket at the door.)
 
I also had sort of personal contact with the group, kind of.  It’s a story I told at length here.  The very short version is that when I was a little kid, about 11, our family too a Sunday to “visit O’Hare airport” and wander around.  At one point, my older brother thought he saw a well-known basketball player (named Jerry Lucas), and he and I went off to track him down.  (Imagine today parents letting their young kids wander off in an airport.  It was a very different time…)  My brother was right, it was Lucas, we got his autograph and, very excited, returned back to our parents.  We all headed off to some chairs to rest and enjoy our treasure – and when we sat down, saw some musical instruments on them.  On which were tags saying, “Peter, Paul and Mary”!  (Imagine today professional musicians leaving their musical instruments in an airport.  I was a very different time…)  Needless-to-say, we all waited to see who would show up.  And a few minutes later, Noel Paul Stookey and the group’s longtime bassist Dick Kniss came by.  And my brother and I got some more autographs.
 
To honor Peter Yarrow, here are three videos.

​To start with, this is a short video of Peter Yarrow talking about the group and also about his far-and-away most famous song, "Puff the Mag..." oh, you know.

Next, we have one of the songs that Peter Yarrow wrote when the group went its separate ways for a while -- but it was so clearly a perfect Peter, Paul and Mary song that when they reunited, it became part of their repertoire, "Day is Done."

But I include it here for another reason.  He performed it at a memorial concert in 1976 for Phil Ochs (who I'd seen perform a year or two earlier).  But what most stands out are the fellow-performers who join Yarrow on stage halfway through -- legends Pete Seeger, Odetta, Bob Gibson and Oscar Brand, along a few who I'm not as familiar with: Len Chandler, Jean Ray and Jim Glover.
​

And finally -- oh, of course you know what I have to end with.  

There are so many wonderful versions of "Puff the Magic Dragon" on YouTube to pick from, but I've decided on this from one of the group's PBS specials, this their Holiday concert.  What I like about it is the wide range of ages of people singing along, and with beatific joy on their faces.

I've often thought, if I had to write just one song, which one it might be.  And the list is long.  But for one song that would last an extremely long life, untouched by the culture of any particular time, and cut through being so affectionately loved and sung along with by as many generations as possible, it's very probably this.

​From the archives, this is one of my biggest “bugaboo” episodes from the first time I heard it, for reasons I’ll get to.  The contestants on today's Piano Puzzler are Beau Smith and Sylvia Pacheco from Addleboro, Massachusetts.  For th​e longest time, I had hard time picking out the hidden song, though I thought I heard a couple possibilities.  But a long ways in, it finally became absolutely clear, and I knew I had it right.  As for the composer style, it danced between several possibilities...all of which were wrong.  But the composer is very popular -- and one of my favorites.  I just didn't think he wrote anything like this.  One quibble – and this is the bugaboo – though it’s not about the contest, but the discussion afterwards.  The contestants didn't know the hidden song at all, though it's famous with several reasons why its pedigree should have helped -- yet neither host Fred Child or pianist Bruce Adolphe explained any of them.  They only gave the name of the song.  Not its larger context or perhaps who else very famously recorded it, or maybe where it's very famously from.  (Sorry, I don't want to say more to give it away for those playing along.)  At which point, if they had, the contestants might have said, Ooohhhhh!  Okay!!  NOW I know what it is."

The other day I posted a video here of British performer Lucie Jones from the musical Waitress blowing away the audience with the song “This Used to Be Mine.”  As I noted, I sought out other material of her after seeing her wonderful duet from Les Miserables with Susan Boyle’s return to Britain’s Got Talent.
 
(Worth noting that in addition to starring in Waitress and Les Miserables on the West End in London, she also starred as ‘Elle Woods” in the touring company of the musical Legally Blonde.  And represented the U.K. at the massive 2017 Eurovision songfest.)
 
But it turns out that she got her start as a contestant on a simple show, also with Simon Cowell as a judge, called The X-Factor, where she appeared 15 years ago at just age 18 -- from a tiny village in Wales of only a few hundred people.  She finished eighth (I can’t even fathom that, I can only imagine how great the top seven must have been.)  This is the video of her first, extremely nervous appearance.  As you’ll see from a couple of comments in the clip by Simon Cowell, he’s very skeptical of her (or pretty much anyone) taking on Whitney Houston’s iconic rendition of Dolly Parton’s song, “I Will Always Love You” – and, in fact, even hints that Lucie Jones might want to re-think her choice.  What leaps out in the video is the moment when we see her win him over.  (Everyone else on the panel and in the auditorium was already won over.  And the judges' comments afterwards just reinforce that, overwhelmingly – even Simon Cowell’s.)  It's a powerful, charming and superb performance.  What also stands out is the supporting evidence of my original opinion from my first article about how kind, caring and attentive to others she seemed to be.
 
But above all, for a first, national appearance at just age 18 with this song – it’s really special.  Combined with adorable, which is a rare combination.  And shows where her later performances came from.

From the archives.  This week's contestant is Brandon Baxter from Hastings, Nebraska. To my surprise, I got the composer style first and pretty quickly -- surprising particularly because it's one of the genres I'm not especially adept at and also there are several composers who overlap for me.  I could hear the hidden song, but just couldn't get it...but then about a minute it, I did.  What surprised me most of all, though, is not so much that the contestant couldn't get the hidden song, but host Fred Child -- who's usually so good at helping out with that -- not only didn't guess it on the first go-round, but didn't either when Bruce Adolphe played it a second time.  Only until Adolphe played it straight through without any composer style getting in the way did Child finally hear it.  And the song is a pretty famous standard from The Great American Songbook.  There's also a whimsical clue in the hidden song which helped make me sure I was right in my guess.

From the archives.  This week's contestant is Bob Lagerquist from Eugene, Oregon.  This was one of those puzzlers where I was sure I knew the hidden song, but couldn't quite get it. And then, about halfway through I thought I was getting closer...and then I got it.  I think my problem was that at first it sounded like another song, and when that happens it's hard to get the song out of your head.  As for the composer style, well...no, I couldn't figure that out.  Knowing the answer now, I understand it, but it's not part of the composer's style I'm most familiar with.