The movies

The Main and SFA Theaters, in Nacogdoches, on 8-30 and 8-22.

"Danke Schoen"

How do you explain Wayne Newton's POWER over millions? It's th' MOUSTACHE ... Have you ever noticed th' way it radiates SINCERITY, HONESTY & WARMTH? It's a MOUSTACHE you want to take HOME and introduce to NANCY SINATRA!

- Zippy the Pinhead

From the Wikipedia entry:

"Danke Schoen" is a 1962 song first recorded by Bert Kaempfert, however it gained its fame in 1963 when American singer Wayne Newton recorded his version of it. The music was composed by Bert Kaempfert, with the lyrics written by Kurt Schwaback and Milt Gabler.

The song was released when Wayne Newton was 21 years old, and his youthful timbre at the time is sometimes mistaken for that of a female singer by those unfamiliar with the song.

This is a polished, swingin' performance from 1963, I'd say:
And this next video is pretty frickin' sad. For one thing, it's too bad Newton stopped using the swingin' 1963 arrangement. Without the swing, "Danke Schoen" really comes off as being hokey. And I'd say the "youthful timbre" is a thing of the distant past! It's a shame. Newton has taken the whole bloated Elvis-cartoonish-self-parody thing and made it his own, at least here:

Wayne Newton is 65. Frank Sinatra didn't sound like that (as far as I know) really until the late, late 1980s (1987, 88), when he would have been 72. And I don't think Wayne Newton smoked as long (if he ever did at all) as Sinatra did. He certainly has breathed his fair share of secondhand smoke in all those lounges and concert halls. And he's probably performed "Danke Schoen" live, what, thousands of times?

"Dream"

I'm just now rereading Philip Roth's Pulitzer Prize (two of 'em) winning novel, American Pastoral, for the second time. It's so, very good. The first third of the novel, entitled "Paradise Remembered," features Roth's alter ego, Nathan Zuckerman, attending his forty-fifth high school reunion. As the reunion party winds down, Zuckerman dances the final slow dance with an at first unrecognizable women, who "remembers" herself to Zuckerman by telling him: "I had a pink angora sweater...You took me on a class hayride."

From page 84:

"Well, all this," I told her, as we stood there just swaying together to the one-man band closing the day down singing, "Dream...when you're feelin' blue,...dream...that's the thing to do"--"all this I did not know," I told her, "on the harvest moon hayride in October 1948."

Further down on p. 84:

...and first we were laughing and then, unexpectedly, Joy began to cry and, perhaps because of that damn song, "Dream," which we used to dance to with the lights turned down in somebody or other's basement back when the Pied Pipers still had Jo Stafford and used to sing it the way it's supposed to be sung--in locked harmony, to that catatonic forties beat (I love that - both the writing and the catatonic beat), with the ethereal tinkle of the xylophone hollowly sounding behind them--

....and thus was this post born.



From the Wikipedia entry

"Dream" – sometimes referred to as "Dream (When You're Feeling Blue)" – is a jazz and pop standard with words and music by Johnny Mercer in 1944 and performed by many artists. The most popular versions of the songs include those by The Pied Pipers, Frank Sinatra, and Roy Orbison.

For Capitol Records, The Pied Pipers, with lead singer June Hutton, made a version of "Dream" which became a major hit in 1945. The Pied Pipers would revive this ballad in the 1955 Fred Astaire-Leslie Caron musical film, Daddy Long Legs (the makers of the movie couldn't have possibly believed the "Slue-Foot" would become "nation's sensation"...).

"Don't Take Your Love From Me"

The tune "Don't Take Your Love From Me" was written by Henry Nemo in 1944. Nemo was a musician, songwriter, and actor who was known as being a hipster and was sometimes credited as the creator of jive talk. Gotta love that. He had a very small part in Song of the Thin Man (1947) as "The Neem" in which he displayed his affinity for jive. As there is not a single picture to be found of Nemo on the vast Interwebs (I challenge you to find one), I am assuming in this clip from Song of the Thin Man he is one of the guys in the scene wherein they discuss classy, refined dames' "cultured tomatoes." Incidentally, this video features the lovely (even by today's standards) Gloria Grahame (she played the blonde "bad girl" in It's a Wonderful Life) singing "You're Not So Easy to Forget":


...What was this post about?....Oh yeah, "Don't Take Your Love From Me." Here is a slower, ballad version Sinatra recorded in 1961, which I've never heard. It's a bit too somnambulant for my liking, as I far prefer the recording of it he did (also in '61) for the great Come Swing with Me! album, but this at least gives you a sense of the fantastic melody:


And this is the nine minute version John Coltrane recorded in 1958 for his The Stardust Sessions album, so be sure to watch every second:

"Popsicles and Icicles"

In 1963, The Murmaids (an unfortunate typo!) scored a #3 hit with "Popsicles And Icicles." Group members, the Fisher sisters, were 15 and 17 at the time. The song was written by future Bread member, David Gates, and produced by the house producer at Chattahoochee Records, Kim Fowley. The girls were paid nothing for the record. Welcome to the music biz girls!


Sally Gordon and the Fisher Sisters, seated in front, Kim Fowley, standing in center

"Who'd wanna wear bronze, anyway?"

Harry Shearer and Martin Short, with the training of Corky St. Clair Christopher Guest, prepare for the 1988 Olympics men's synchronized swimming competition during the 1984-85 Saturday Night Live season:

"King for a Day"

From the album (Oranges & Lemons, 1989) which would turn out to be one of XTC's last, great attempts at reaching an audience beyond its cult status, "King for a Day" is a Colin Moudling song.

This is what Andy Partridge said about it:

This is one of the three songs Colin wrote (for Oranges & Lemons). All of them are rather down and dark but put to jolly music, which makes them even more poignant. The song's about ass-licking and making a fool of yourself just to get fame and riches and success (sounds a lot like blogging). The song's a commando knife, dark and cutting. (source)

Here is XTC on David Letterman in 1989. As Letterman points out, this live performance marks the first one the group had done anywhere in seven years. Like Brian Wilson, Andy Partridge basically had somewhat of a complete breakdown due to the pressures of live performance. And much like with the Beach Boys, this caused XTC to funnel all their creative energies into studio experimentation: