It Makes "The Ballad of the Green Berets" Look Like Great Art

"CBS Sunday Morning" devoted today's program to a memorial for recently-deceased former host Charles Osgood.  In a segment on his love of music, they mentioned that he served as Eisenhower's personal disc jockey as Ike recovered from a heart attack and that he helped compose the music for Senator Everett M. Dirksen's Top 40 hit and Grammy Award winner "Gallant Men."  He was credited as Charles Wood (Osgood was his middle name), but I don't know if he was trying to hide his identity.

And He Co-Wrote Three Posthumous "Hits" for Michael Jackson

Speaking of late '50s teen idols, the one who doesn't seem to get his due is that Canadian heartthrob Paul Anka.  Here are some of his accomplishments according to impeccable source Wikipedia:

• His parents immigrated to Canada from Syria and Lebanon, thus making him one of our biggest Arab-Canadian-American superstars.
• Toured Australia with Buddy Holly and wrote one of Holly's last recorded songs, "It Doesn't Matter Anymore."
• Wrote the theme song for "The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson" in 1962.
• Wrote English-language lyrics for "My Way."
• Had #1 hits with "Diana" in 1957 and "Lonely Boy" in 1959.  "Put Your Head on My Shoulder" and "Puppy Love" went to #2.
• Had a a comeback in the mid-70s with a string of duets with Odia Coates including the cringeworthy #1 "(You're) Having My Baby."
• Co-founded a holographic tech startup company and sits on its board with fellow Canucks Brian Mulroney and Kevin O'Leary.

To be honest, that sounds a lot more impressive than Dion's resume.

The Very, Very Rare UK Version

 Another thing about the Vevo 80s music video channel is that they seem to deliberately play some of the era's best ("Beat It," "Hungry Like the Wolf") and worst (Journey's "Separate Ways") videos.  They also play alternative versions of popular videos that MTV probably never played.  For example, I just saw "Version 2" of U2's "With or Without You," which looks a lot like Version 1 but not as good.  They've also played the original version of Def Leppard's "Pour Some Sugar On Me," which isn't good at all.  It's supposedly directed by Russell Mulcahey, who did the classic Duran Duran videos among many others, but I guess metal videos weren't his thing.  Or maybe he just hadn't seen one since '83 or so because it has that feel of an early Quiet Riot or Twisted Sister video where the whole concept is that the room is shaking while the band plays there.  Anyway, the band at least recognized it wasn't good, so they got Wayne Isham of Motley Crue and Bon Jovi video fame to edit some footage for a concert film of the band's tour that he was shooting to make a new video.  According to Isham, that video's concept was "just get the 12 hottest chicks in Denver and stick them in the crowd and film the hell out of the performance."  Thus, perhaps sparing Leppard the indignity of becoming the next Billy Squier.   

 

Happy Birthday, Swing Your Arms!

I've been watching the VEVO 80s video channel, and it's true what they say - watch early '80s videos for any length of time and you'll discover a quirky British group that you had never heard of.  I've now seen two videos from Altered Images, a Scottish New Wave/pure pop group.  Their lead singer was cute, and there's kind of a Montgomery Clift "Raintree County" thing going on where you try to spot her facial scar.

Jive Talkin'

The Kennedy Center Honors were last month, and there's one thing about them that always bugs me.  It's that the awards are pretty clearly for US artists (however that's understood - I'm sure plenty of honorees have been immigrants at least as young people), but there's also pretty clearly an exemption for global rock stars.  One of this year's recipients was Barry Gibb of the Bee Gees.  I don't think he's the strongest candidate regardless - I mean, his peak was 45 years ago in a musical genre that flamed out pretty quickly.  But regardless of the merit of his selection, I don't think anyone thinks of him as an American.  I think most think people think of him and his brothers as Australian, albeit via the Isle of Man or somewhere in the British Isles.  And he's obviously not the only person this applies to.  Previous honorees include Sting (English), members of Led Zeppelin and the Who (also English), and U2 (super-Irish).  I guess you could make an argument that Paul McCartney is kind of American because he's Paul McCartney and married a couple of Americans, and I suppose Elton John lives most of the time in Atlanta or somewhere.  But the whole thing doesn't seem really necessary unless the Kennedy Center Honors wants the attention or ratings that these Boomer rock stars bring, especially when you consider that the Kennedy Center never deigned to honor actual Americans and more important rock and roll legends like Little Richard.  Or Jerry Lee Lewis.  Or Bo Diddley.  All of which just confirm Richard's shtick that he never really received his due or the awards that he should won.

 

Most Questionable Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Inductees

 I think all of these people were inducted in the main "Performers" category as opposed to, say, through the "Award for Award Excellence" (ne the Sideman category, aka the back door to get people into the Hall if they can't actually get elected).

1. Donovan - I can only name one of his songs - "Mellow Yellow," which now sounds like a novelty song, although "Sunshine Superman" apparently went to #1 in the US.  Best known for hanging out with more accomplished people like John Lennon.  Also, every profile of Ione Skye in the late '80s was legally required to mention that he was her father.  2012 inductee because apparently there still weren't enough Baby Boomer nostalgia acts in the Hall.

2.  Dion - I'm no expert on late '50s/early '60s pop idols, but Dion (and the Belmonts) only had two Top 10 hits and one other Top 20 song.  The only one I've familiar with is "A Teenager in Love."  Even Fabian, who isn't in the Hall, had three Top 10 songs.  Perhaps Hall organizers kind of regretted the choice because later when they inducted a lot of backing groups one year like Bill Haley's Comets and Buddy Holly's Crickets, they didn't bother to induct Dion's Belmonts.  Inducted in 1989 when presumably people still remembererd him.

3.  Ritchie Valens - I get why he was inducted, but I can really only name two of his songs - "Donna" along with "La Bamba."  Couldn't the Hall have put up a memorial plaque for the Day the Music Died to honor him and the Big Bopper?  If anything, Los Lobos is actually probably more deserving of induction.  Inducted in 2001 by Ricky Martin.

4.  Bobby Darin - huge popular music star, but "Splish Splash" is the only one of his songs that I identify as rock and roll and that really was a novelty song.  Doesn't help that he's now identified with Kevin Spacey.  Inducted in 1990, the Hall website calls him "Teen Idol.  Adult Crooner.  Vegas Lounge Singer.  Rock and Roll Star.", so maybe they don't know what to make of him either.

5.  The Zombies - had essentially two big hits in the US - "She's Not There" and "Time of the Season" - and none in the UK, but those two songs were on every Time-Life music anthology of the '60s ever made, so they're in the Rock Hall along with the Animals, Moody Blues, and Dave Clark Five.  Inducted in 2019 and weren't even nominated in their first 25 years or so of being eligible.    

The Security Apparatus Loves Anti-Intellectualism

 The security apparatus, being proudly and defiantly anti-intellectual, always hated the fact that I liked learning, even though I could barely read.  They especially despised the fact that I took AP classes, did well on standardized tests, and learned on my own despite the mediocre schools in our area.  Here's the social studies curriculum I took in high school -

9th grade:  World Studies - the teacher was nice and probably knowledgeable (UVa history grad) but the topics were so diffuse that literally the only thing I remember is all of the students doing presentations for the entire month of February for Black History Month.  I did W.E.B. Du Bois, and she seemed impressed that I would pick him.

10th grade:  Nothing - literally nothing.  And it's not like there were options that I could have taken because there weren't.  I did however spend an entire year in Typing as well as a year of Algebra II in which we reviewed Algebra I and a year of Spanish III in which we reviewed what I had learned in Spanish I.

11th grade:  AP US History - fine but I had taught myself all of the material in 3rd or 4th grade.

12th grade:  AP US Government - learned literally nothing.  The teacher was a nice guy who had essentially been retired in place for decades.  It actually turned out to be his last year because the school system offered buyouts.  The class was always oversubscribed because it had been known as an easy A for decades.

That's it - no AP European History, no AP World History, no ancient Greek and Roman history, or contemporary world history.  And people were also annoyed when I properly viewed the every other week two period "Gifted and Talented" program as a joke because the school system hadn't bother to teach any substantive content in the first place.  The "teachers" in that program were the absolute worst - so-called Doctors of Education who liked to bloviate about things like the concepts of "form follows function" for an entire year.  At least the better classroom teachers actually tried to teach something or at least acknowledged the mediocrity of the experience.