The Girls Medley

My Friend The Piano; Dave McKenna, piano

I loved the Blugrass Student Union barbershop quartet. They won the international barbershop quartet competition in 1978. My Uncle D. introduced me to their recordings sometime in 1982. He also gave me a Harmonizer magazine, the official periodical for the Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barbershop Quartet Singing in America. Yup. SPEBSQSA. Dad used to call it the Society for the Prevention and Elimination of yeah, yeah, yeah… In the magazine, I saw the BSU’s advertisements for more of their recordings. I sent them a letter and a request for autographed copies of their LP’s “After Class” and “The Music Man”. I was thrilled. On “After Class”, they included a live performance of their prize-winning rendition of “The Auctioneer”. And on “The Music Man”, as you can imagine, they put all of the music from Meredith Wilson’s “The Music Man” through the barbershop arranging machine. They absolutely cut the rug with "Ya' Got Trouble". It all sounded so fine.

I grew close to all of the arrangements on their “After Class” album and transcribed many of them for my barbershop quartet. They had one arrangement called “The Girls Medley”. It included “Margie”, “No No Nora” and “My Blushin’ Rose”. They put a cute original introduction to it:

I never thought that I would fall in love with you

I never thought that you would fall for me

Of all the boys you could have chosen, you chose me

Of all the girls I could have chosen, why did I choose … three?

In the summer of 1988, I served as the music director for Prairie Repertory Theatre’s production of “The Drunkard”, an old-fashioned temperance play from 1844. The director of the play had me include music wherever I could, during the play and between acts. Cast members volunteered to sing and I suited ‘em up with period pieces like “Cuddle Up A Little Closer, Baby Mine” and “I’m Looking At The World Through Rose Colored Glasses”. But I needed something else. So I put together a barbershop quartet to sing two numbers between the acts: “Darkness On The Delta” and “The Girls Medley”.

The real fun came when Russ and Marge B., neighbors from our farm, came to one of the performances. I knew where they were sitting in the house and I got the whole quartet to look right at her when we sang:

Margie. I’m always thinking of you, Margie.

I’ll tell the world I love you.

Don’t forget your promise to me.

I have bought a home, a ring, and every little thing for

Margie. You’ve been my inspiration.

Days are never blue.

After all is said and done

There is really only one.

Oh, Margie, Margie, it’s you.

Over the course of the song, the whole audience turned their heads to look at Marge and smile. Marge smiled, too. And blushed.

Through the years, I have come to play the song “Margie” as a standard with all sorts of musical artists. I particularly like the way that Dave McKenna plays “Margie”. He has her as the opening act of his album called “My Friend The Piano” and she sets the standard by which all of the treasures behind her are compared. All measure up just fine, but she didn’t make it easy for them. Mr. McKenna makes it sound so easy. I appreciate, most of all, his full-bodied sound. Though his music nowhere suffers from busy-ness, his hands seem to reside in all registers of the keyboard; he doesn’t leave anybody out. He treats us to a full orchestral palette.

The Bluegrass Student Union retired three years ago after thirty-two years of performing together as a barbershop quartet. They came from Louisville, Kentucky. When I worked on the Delta Queen steamboat, we annually steamboat raced with the Belle of Louisville as part of the city’s Kentucky Derby festivities. I always took the opportunity, when we floated through Louisville, to play “The Girls Medley” on the calliope, as close to the way that they sang it as possible, and wondered whether the BSU could hear me playing their songs. Never heard.

Credits: To the Prairie Repertory Theatre at South Dakota State University, on the occasion of their fortieth season. Thank you for your contribution to the level of culture on the plains of South Dakota.

Master of short

Blue Tango: Symphonic Pops; Cologne Radio Orchestra; Pinchas Steinberg, conducting; Leroy Anderson, composer

I have a friend, E.S., who makes the claim that Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky isn’t all that great a composer. In fact, he frequently proselytizes on the premise that Leroy Anderson can put more music into his two and a half minute vignettes than Mr. Tchaikovsky can put into an entire symphony. While I don’t necessarily share that supposition with my friend E.S., we do have in common an admiration for the creative compositions of Mr. Leroy Anderson.

If you haven’t heard of the plainly named Leroy Anderson, you have heard his music. “Sleigh Ride” put the composer on the map in 1948. He hadn’t intended for this piece of music to land in the Holiday Music repertoire. But that’s where it landed. Mitchell Parish, the man who wrote the lyrics to Hoagy Carmichael’s “Stardust”, penned words to “Sleigh Ride” in 1950. Nowhere do the lyrics specifically mention Christmas. In fact, the mention of pumpkin pie could imply Thanksgiving.

The SDSU Symphonic Band always performed for spring semester graduation ceremonies. Dr. W. frequently chose “Bugler’s Holiday” as a feature number at this event. A set of triplets in South Dakota, all three of them young women, studied trumpet with Mr. C. at SDSU in the 1990’s. Sooner or later, probably sooner, the math dictated that these young women would play this piece. They did; frequently and expertly.

I heard a snippet of “The Waltzing Cat” for the first time on a Sylvester and Tweety cartoon. “The Syncopated Clock” served as the opening and closing music for a South Dakota Public Broadcasting program that we watched in elementary school. Mom bought the sheet music to “Trumpeter’s Lullaby” and it sat on the piano for a number of years. “Forgotten Dreams” provided musical backdrop for a series of photographic scenes that Sesame Street would use for filler on their broadcasts. On the Delta Queen, drummer P.B. often told me that “The Belle Of The Ball” was his favorite Leroy Anderson selection. I associate “The Typewriter” with Jerry Lewis.

It surprises people when they discover that Mr. Anderson composed as a hobby. A well-paying hobby, I am sure. He studied at Harvard University, working towards a PhD in Germanic and Scandinavian languages. He grew up speaking English and Swedish, but through his studies developed fluency in Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic, German, French, Italian and Portuguese. When he joined the Army in 1942, they assigned him to Iceland as a translator and interpreter. In 1945, he took on responsibilities at the Pentagon as Chief of the Scandinavian Desk of Military Intelligence. During this entire time, he composed tirelessly, initiating a relationship with Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops as early as 1938 with “Jazz Pizzicato”. When he passed away from cancer in 1975, he had composed and orchestrated nothing less than one hundred compositions.

The structural integrity and musical virtue of these fantastic little gems are solid and sound. There will always be a need for something light on a classical concert. A Leroy Anderson piece will always make an excellent and timeless choice. Although, in a few years, we may have to explain what a typewriter is.

Credits: To the Boston Pops. Thank you for your friendship with this magnificent American treasure.

Trivia

You're A Mean One, Mr. Grinch; Thurl Ravenscroft

It’s amazing the amount of trivia that any of us have be-boppin’ around inside our heads. I love to play Trivial Pursuit with my cousin W. and anyone else who happens to get pulled in by our TP tractor beam. I frequently lose. But I have had my moments.

The one that outshines them all occurred when I had landed on the blue chippie spot five different times without answering the question correctly. Geography questions should not have posed any problems for me. Yet here I was on my sixth question. W. looked at me, with both sympathy and bleeding-heart compassion, by the way, and said, “You’re not going to get this one either. ‘What does Fort Payne, Alabama, make more of than anybody else?’” SOCKS!! Gimme my chippie!! I stunned the cuz.

When I worked on the Crown Odyssey and the Star Odyssey, one of the vocalists, S.K., came from Fort Payne, Alabama. After he performed the second number of his show, he would always tell the audience a little about himself. “I come from Fort Payne, Alabama. There are only three things that ever came out of Fort Payne. Socks, the country band Alabama, and me.”

I lost the TP game, though. In well over one hundred games with W., I think that I have won only twice. I’m not bitter. It’s her house, it’s her game. If she wants to memorize the cards in the middle of the night, it’s her prerogative. I honor her game-winning strategy, it just makes me work all that harder, that’s all.

I have a fascination with cartoon voices. For years, as a young cartoon watcher, I would relish the animation and the madcap antics that suffused themselves into the plot. After a while, though, I began to develop an intrigue with the voices of the characters and the people who brought them to life. Mel Blanc, of course, had a career for the ages with Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Yosemite Same, Sylvester, Pepe le Pew and Foghorn Leghorn. And June Foray associated herself with a number of studios voicing witches, grandmas, Rocky the Flying Squirrel, Natasha Fatale, and sweet, sweet Nell, daughter of Inspector Fenwick on Dudley Do-Right. I enjoyed the work of Daws Butler who brought many of the Hanna-Barbera studio characters to life like Huckleberry Hound, Yogi Bear, Snagglepuss and Cap’n Crunch. Jim Backus did Mr. Magoo. Bill Scott did Bullwinkle and Mr. Peabody. Don Adams did Tennessee Tuxedo. Casey Kasem did Shaggy. Alan Reed did Fred Flintstone. And now I’m just showing off.

And I was probably showing off in December of 2007 when a bunch of us in the Annapolis Chorale had the post-rehearsal munchies. We were able to get a table at Chili’s. At some point during the merriment, “You’re A Mean One, Mr. Grinch” took its turn on the background music lineup. “Who sings this?” someone asked. “Boris Karloff,” someone claimed. Actually, I said in my best Mr.Peabody voice, it was Thurl Ravenscroft. “No, Boris Karloff’s name is credited at the beginning of the show.” He does the narration, but the song was sung by Thurl Ravenscroft. “Who’s he?”

I’m glad you asked. He was the voice of Tony the Tiger. He sang the part of the pig in the animated farm scene in “Mary Poppins”. He sang “No dogs allowed” in “Snoopy, Come Home”. I heard him singing a solo at the end of “There Is Nothing Like A Dame” in the film soundtrack of “South Pacific”. He had a huge voice-over career over the course of sixty-five years. He passed away in 2005.

“Well, I remember Boris Karloff’s name in the credits. I’ve never heard of this Thurble Cravensloft.” I couldn’t leave well enough alone. I had to look it up. So, when I got home, I found the information that I needed on the ol’ world wide interweb and e-mailed it to everyone who had been at the table. In retaliation for my overkill tactics, I unwittingly acquired a new nickname: Thurl. For crying out loud. The price you pay for knowing a little something. Next time, I'm just gonna' stick a sock in it.

Credits: To Bill Scott. I love Bullwinkle. And to Daws Butler. I love Quickdraw McGraw and his alter ego El Kabong.

Morning Has Broken

That Day; Dianne Reeves

This particular Dianne Reeves CD doesn’t prompt a story. “Erik Apland’s Tome of Life, Love, Music and Stories” would stand incomplete, though, if I didn’t include “That Day”. Ms. Reeves brings as much to the table on this CD as she does on any other of her albums.

I note, as an item of interest, her selection of “Morning Has Broken”. This song has found its way into a fairly exclusive club whose constituents include “Amazing Grace” and “Just A Closer Walk With Thee”. For some reason, one that eludes me, artists who sing and/or play these songs in a secular "environment" seem to believe that they stand in some “religious safety zone” when they perform them. They feel, and probably the audience with them, that they don’t have to be held accountable for the words they sing and the sentiments they express. They would claim that these songs stake a claim inside our American musical culture, one which would somehow negate any necessary conviction when singing or hearing the songs.

My rant here, of course, presents the darker side of religious song performance in a secular world. Naturally, as a Christian, I honor any performance of any hymn anywhere within the earshot of a non-believer as a furtherance of the good Lord’s kingdom. Once the words and sentiments come out of your mouth, God takes over. He’ll take the message to wherever he needs it to go.

I’m glad Ms. Reeves sings this song. She brings such grace to Eleanor Farjeon’s words:

Morning has broken, like the first morning

Blackbird has spoken, like the first bird

Praise for the singing, praise for the morning

Praise for the Springing fresh from the word

____________

Sweet the rain’s new fall, sunlit from heaven

Like the first dewfall, on the first grass

Praise for the sweetness of the wet garden

Sprung in completeness where His feet pass

______________

Mine is the sunlight, mine is the morning

Born of the one light, Eden saw play

Praise with elation, praise every morning

God’s recreation of the new day.

I remember when this song got included in the Lutheran Book of Worship in 1978. I wanted to sing this song every Sunday.

Credits: To John Newton, for Amazing Grace. “When we’ve been there ten thousand years…” I can’t get past those seven words without tearing up.

Bluegrass!

Soundtrack to "O Brother, Where Art Thou?"

During my high school years, my peers opted to re-brand the two prominent styles of music of our generation. We needed labels that penetrated the very heart of each music’s modus operandi that reached out to each individual’s subjective musical needs. No more did we listen to country and pop/rock. We, instead, tuned our ears to Twang and Pot-head music.

My musical tastes diverged enormously from those of my fellow students. Though Classical music, by this time, filled a void, I seemed always to search for something that most everyone else either carelessly or purposefully overlooked; something interesting rhythmically, something interesting acoustically, melodically, harmonically. Something that didn’t allow the “Billboard 100” to dictate the terms of what’s “hot” for how long. Something that didn’t simply grovel at your feet, looking for love, but something that floated above, extending a hand in an effort to pull you up. For the most part, I found what I sought.

But now, some twenty-five to thirty years later, I find joy in the music of my generation; the music that has withstood the test of twenty-five to thirty years. Isn’t that marvelous, reader? We can change! We are the works in progress that I talked about on blog entry number one. We fly in the face of our very natures if we remain static, if we devote ourselves to a single way of doing things only because we haven’t tried any other, if we refuse to check now and then to see if we still don’t like the taste of peas.

For years, Mom, Dad, my sisters and I deprived ourselves of the fine-tasting fare of Pizza Hut because, on our first visit, Dad thought the temperature inside was too cold and we had to wait thirty-five minutes for our food. Dad made a vow that evening. “Never again.” One warm day, on the spur of the moment, Mom, Dad and I went to Pizza Hut when they had no crowd. Dad got turned around on the issue. He changed.

In the spring of 2002, my friend James F. invited me over to watch a movie with some friends. He had rented “O Brother, Where Are Thou?”, produced, directed and written by the brothers Joel and Ethan Coen. It had been a long day of rehearsals with the Marine Band that day. I truly feared that I would fall asleep during the movie. And I did doze off a couple of times. But I was totally unprepared for the music they used for the soundtrack. Bluegrass! What? No. No, no, no, no. No. Bluegrass was my enemy by virtue of its association with Twang.

But, guess what. Somewhere along the line, I had changed. I heard spiritual music in this movie. Spiritual from the standpoint that the music bore the brunt of the work in describing the timbre of the scene, the clouds in the sky, the color of the gravel in the road, the shimmer of the dew on the leaves and the grass, the haze rising from the pond that served as a baptismal font for the masses. The KKK was scarier. The sirens were prettier. The chain gang was stripier because of this awesome music. Virtually the entire bluegrass community came together to create this soundtrack, awakening a whole new generation, or generations, to the full impact of the uniqueness, emotional depth, genuineness and simplicity of this rare American musical art form.

I love this movie. It’s one of the fifty or so movies that I keep on my list of top ten movies. Neither of my sisters like this movie. They say that it’s too weird. I hope they change some day.

Credits: To Pizza Hut. You make great pizza. Putt, putt, putt, to the Pizza Hut.

Christmas music in March

A Celtic Christmas: Peace On Earth; A Windham Hill Collection

I lied. Last December 9, I implied that Celtic Christmas IV concluded the Windham Hill Celtic Christmas series. God bless ‘em, they made another one … and I have it. And … y’know what? … They even made another one after that … And I have that one, too.

I don’t have much to say about this one. It’s more of the same. But with the high quality that Windham Hill has delivered, more is definitely better

Irish musician Michael O Domhnaill produced this album and released it in 1999. Mr. Domhnaill played with four Irish bands over the course of fifty-four years: Skara Brae, The Bothy Band, Relativity and Nightnoise. “Flight Into Egypt” and “No Room At The Inn”, on this fifth Celtic Christmas album, feature the band Nightnoise. “Green Fields Of Amerikay” pairs the keyboard work of Mr. Domhnaill with the fiddle playing of Paddy Glackin.

Michael O Damhnaill died from a fall at his home in Dublin in July of 2006. He came from a family of musicians. His sister, singer Triona Ni Damhnaill, joined him in the formation of his band Nighnoise. From all that I’ve read about this wonderful recording artist, his musicianship was world class. The world-wide fan base of traditional Irish music considered him quite a hero.

Guitar duo William Coulter and Benjamin Verdery perform a lovely version of “Flow Gently Sweet Afton” on this album. Americans know the tune better as “Away In A Manger”. Scottish author and poet Robert Burns wrote the evocative words that fit this tune.

Flow gently, sweet Afton, among thy green braes,

Flow gently, I’ll sing thee a song in thy praise.

My Mary’s asleep by thy murmuring stream,

Flow gently, sweet Afton, disturb not her dream.

Though stock-dove whose echo resounds from the hill,

Ye wild whistling blackbirds in yon thorny dell,

Thou green created lapwing, thy screaming fore-bear,

I charge you, disturb not my slumbering fair.

_________________

How lofty, sweet Afton, thy neighbouring hills,

Far marked with the courses of clear winding rills.

There daily I wander, as morn rises high,

My flocks and my Mary’s sweet cot in my eye.

How pleasant thy banks and green valleys below,

Where wild in the woodlands the primroses blow.

There oft, as mild evening creeps over the lea,

The sweet scented birk shades my Mary and me.

__________________

Thy crystal stream, Afton, how lovely it glides

And winds by the cot where my Mary resides.

How wanton thy waters her snowy feet lave,

As gathering sweet flow’rets, she stems thy clear wave.

Flow gently, sweet Afton, among thy green braes,

Flow Gently, sweet river, the theme of my lays

My Mary’s asleep by thy murmuring stream,

Flow gently, sweet Afton, disturb not her dream.

Forgive me, Great Ireland, as I honor you with this Scottish poem. I am sure that your picturesque River Shannon possesses all of the charms, and more, of the sweet Afton of Scotland.

Credits: To the strong shoulders of Michael O Domhnaill, upon which the tradition of Irish music will stand for years to come.

Nelson is gone!

Mel Torme and Friends; Recorded Live At Marty's, New York City

One Wednesday morning in the spring of 2001, I went out the door of my apartment to get in my Durango to pick up my friend Shawn. He had drifted from the snow-clad hills of South Dakota to attend a convention in the Washington, DC, area and wanted to wind down for a few days afterward before heading back to the "other" Sunshine State. I locked the door to my apartment and headed toward the direction of my truck. Guess what. No Durango.

NO DURANGO!!!

I stood stock still for thirty seconds or so, trying desperately to make sure that I had thought through everything. When had I last driven it? Had I parked it somewhere else and just forgotten? Had I parked it where I shouldn’t have and did a towing service come and take it away? I answered all of these questions and others in such a way that led me to suspect the worst: Someone had abducted Nelson!

I called the police and they arrived in five minutes. I called my friend James F. and he arrived in two minutes. I gave the officer all of the information he needed and he assured me that he would do all that he could. He also told me that stolen cars don’t turn up very often. I called my friend A.D. and asked him if his car had been stolen. “No.” Well, I told him, that makes one of us.

An auto rental facility just across the road from my apartment complex set me up with a boss set of wheels within an hour after discovering the theft of my truck. So, I hit the road to pick up Shawn. The days flew by while my friend was here. But, all during his visit, I tried to remember what of my own stuff had been in the truck and wondered whether I would see it again.

On the last day of Shawn’s visit, I got the call. They found Nelson! They told me when and where I could pick him up. What a celebration dinner we had that night! I took Shawn to the airport the next day. And after some friends had dropped me off at the vehicle reclaim agency, I saw that Nelson looked pretty tough. And he had a nice big gouge in the radiator. He had to be towed back to Annapolis; poor little guy.

After ten days at a couple of car spas, he looked as handsome and operated as good as he ever did. The stuff, though, was gone; some sheet music, a couple of CD’s and a microphone.

Nelson’s abductors had no taste in music. They never bothered to listen to the CD in the CD player. They had set the radio to some acid rock station with the volume pumped all the way up. But I consider that a gift. Why? They didn’t bother to check if the CD player had a CD in it. It did.

Of all of my Mel Torme CD’s, I like “Mel Torme and Friends” the best. He recorded it live at Marty’s Nightclub in New York City in June of 1980. The musicianship, all the way around, from each of his combo players to his “friends”, and especially the “Velvet Fog” himself, is absolutely first rate. Mr. Torme can scat with the best of them. I’ve always felt that Mel sat second chair only to The First Lady of Song, herself, Ms. Ella Fitzgerald. On the last track, “Love For Sale”, Mr. Torme cracks me up with a chorus of scat in Yiddish. “Splee-bee-yiddle-dah-ohhtundeee voyl”. I was grateful that it didn't get stolen.

How did they find my car? The Einsteins that stole my truck had ripped the license plate off. That’s right, poor Nelson was driving around naked without his South Dakota “Great Faces/Great Places” license plate. They tore off the famous Marine Corps bumper sticker from the back window. They relieved themselves of the little sticker that reminded me when to get the oil checked. Why they never bothered to strip off the vehicle identifying

Department of Defense sticker

in the

middle of the windshield

will confound me until Jesus comes. When the police found Nelson, the Einsteins had installed The Club on the steering wheel. I just don’t know what to say to that.

Credits: To the men and women who serve on our nation’s police forces. Thank you for finding my truck.