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From the archives. This week's contestant is Chuck Romportl from Hopkins, Minnesota. I was able to get the hidden song pretty quickly. The composer style, though, is in that area of which I generally have to toss a coin, and didn't get it. And in fairness, it's pretty tough. To my shock, the contestant actually guessed the composer style right off -- but didn't get the hidden song. Only on a second go-round, where pianist Bruce Adolphe brought the song out more, did he guess correctly.
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If you ever get into a debate with someone who didn’t live through the era, and they don’t know why Linda Ronstadt was such a massive star or why she’s so admired or even who she is, there are a lot of ways to try to describe it. Or you can just show this clip. I chose it in part for the song and performance, but also in part because it’s a rare appearance of her on a 1970 talk show – in this case, Merv Griffin’s, where she sings “Long, Long Time.” (By the way, the phrase, “sings ‘Long, Long, Time’” doesn’t do it justice.) Griffin and his guests (which include Glenn Campbell) are annoyingly glib during her introduction, but then she comes on and sings, and none of their distraction matters. And then when the person you're talking to says, "Ohhhhhh. Okay, I get it," you can point them to all her other many hits. And then that she later branched out and tackled Broadway with Gilbert & Sullivan, and Mexican mariachi, and opera in the New York Shakespeare Festival production of Puccini's La Bohème, and country music... I should note that the only "problem" I ever had with Linda Ronstadt singing one of her break-up heartbreak songs -- of which she was a master -- is that while I'm marveling at her performance, it's always competing with the intrusive thought -- "Who in their right mind would break up with Linda Ronstadt?????" On this week’s ‘Not My Job’ segment of the NPR quiz show Wait, Wait…Don’t Tell Me!, the guest contestant is bagpipe superstar (and yes, that’s a thing) Ally the Piper, who was an award-winning bagpiper before she started posting TikTok videos playing covers of songs by Metallica and Iron Maiden. Her conversation with host Peter Sagal is absolutely wonderfully entertaining. Her stories about getting into bagpiping are very funny, as is her tale that relates to posting Metallica video on Facebook – which brought out both hate from a Metallica fan and love from Metallica -- but best is her dry sense of humor and total acceptance of how improbable the success of her career has been. This is the full Wait, Wait… broadcast, but you can jump directly to the “Not My Job” segment, it starts a bit after the 20:45 mark. And of course I have to post a video of her performing. Two, actually. One because it’s a great example of her heavy metal work, and the other because it’s just too joyful, of a popular piece of music. First, this is her official music video of Ozzie Osbourne’s “Crazy Train.” And second, this is her arrangement of the “He’s a Pirate” theme from the movie, Pirates of the Caribbean, which here, needless-to-say, she calls “She’s a Pirate”. We have a new one this week. The contestant is Rachel Hahn from Owasso, Oklahoma. I didn’t have a clue, but I’m guessing others will get the hidden song – because it’s very well-known, and the contestant got it immediately. (Even when composer Bruce Adolph played the song again, I had a hard time picking it out, even when knowing what it was, but there were a couple of passages where I did hear it.) I didn’t have an idea on the composer style either, though, but to my surprise I at least got the right country, and the relationship between my guess and the correct answer. At least I’m comforted by host Fred Childe having a hard time with the composer style, as well – though he did finally get it.
When trying to think of New Year’s song (as opposed to a New Year’s Eve song) a few years ago, I don’t know why this didn’t spring to mind. After all, it’s from one of my favorite, but little-seen today holiday movies – Holiday Inn, with Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire, and a great score by Irving Berlin. In fact, that score includes “White Christmas,” which won the Oscar as Best Song – as well as “Easter Parade,” though that wasn’t written for the movie. But “Happy Holidays” was – as was this song, “Let’s Start the New Year Right.” For those who haven’t seen it, the 1942 Holiday Inn was the original film on which the now far-better known movie White Christmas is a remake of. The stories are different, though they overlap in a lot of places – mostly in two song-and-dance men putting on shows at a hotel during the holidays. Fun Fact: I can’t swear to the validity of this story, but I can swear to reading it in the newspaper. (I believe it was the Chicago Daily News.) The story the article told was that many decades ago, a man was away on business, about to sign a contract the next day for a company he was about to start, although he didn’t yet have a name for it. That night in his hotel, he watched the movie on his room’s TV and thought the title would be a wonderful name, Holiday Inn, for that hotel chain he was about to incorporate the next day. A few years back, I was trying to think of a New Year song for the year ahead -- as opposed to one for New Year's Eve, like "Auld Lang Syne" and many others -- and while I was sure there was one out there or several, none quickly came to mind. The best I could come up with on the spur of the moment for a new year (others popped in later) was this song from British songwriter/entertainers Michael Flanders and Donald Swann, who I've often noted here I dearly love, in their stage revue (or as they called it, an after-dinner farrago...) At the Drop of a Hat. This is "A Song of the Weather." That's the bearded Michael Flanders who's the lyricist and lead singer, with composer Donald Swann at the piano and singing backup. |
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AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. 
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