Download Jukebox Heart 008
Grief and Knowing
73 MB | 80 Minutes
It’s been awhile since I’ve had a podcast to post. This podcast, Grief and Knowing, is dedicated to my father, who passed away on January 19, 2008. The photo below is of my parents, taken before they were married, in 1943, while my father was still in the service.
It’s an admittedly eclectic playlist, which in itself is not unusual here at Jukebox Heart. But the songs are a lot more mainstream, and I will describe just why I picked each track in the essay below. The old songs were mastered for this podcast from original 78 RPM records, and in some cases, 45s, that my parents owned when they were younger. While these songs are common enough to obtain pristine copies in mp3 format, I felt it was important to use these original sources. The surface noise and other imperfections provide a history that is so much more important than the songs themselves. Those imperfections are a patina on the surfaces, formed after years of living with these records and using them and enjoying them. The distortions they bring remind us that all we have left are memories. As wonderful as they are, they are distorted by our own individual noise, and they degrade throughout the remainder of our lives.
The playlist, images and a whole bunch of links are found after the cut.
Playlist:
Artie Shaw – Begin the Beguine
(Bluebird, original 78 RPM, 1938)
Talking with Dad about his friend Nick
Low – When I Go Deaf
(The Great Destroyer, Sub Pop CD, 2005)
The Mills Brothers – Till Then
(Decca, Original 78 RPM, 1948)
Jimmy Dorsey – Deep Purple
(Decca, Original 78 RPM, 1939)
Talking with Dad about Guido
The Durutti Column – The Beggar
(Another Setting LP, Factory Records, 1983)
Ulrich Schnauss – Knuddelmaus
(Far Away Trains Passing By LP, City Center Offices, 2001)
Domenico Modugno – Nel Blu Dipinto Di Blu
(Original Decca 45, 1958)
Martin Bottcher
(original Beat Up 45. No info available)
Doc Severinson – I Got It Bad (and That Ain’t Good)
(Torch Songs for Trumpet, Command, 1963)
Cousteau – The Last Good Day of the Year
(Cousteau CD, Palm Pictures, 2000)
The Harptones – The Masquerade is Over
(Rama Records, Original 45, 1956)
King Cole Trio – I Miss You So
(Capitol, Original 78, 1947)
Patti Page – Old Cape Cod
(Mercury, Original 45, 1957)
Jo Stafford – You Belong To Me
(Jo Stafford’s Greatest Hits, Columbia, 1951)
Andrews Sisters – Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy
(MCA reissue 45, rec. 1941)
Kay Starr – All Of Me
(Lamplighter, 1945)
The Manhattan Transfer – Java Jive
(The Manhattan Transfer LP, Atlantic, 1975)
Flare – Homily
(Bottom CD, Tamper Evident 1998)
OMD – Souvenir
(Architecture and Morality, Dindisc, 1982)
Arco – Into Blue
(Coming To Terms, Dreamy CD, 2000)
Low – Silver Rider
(The Great Destroyer, Sub Pop 2005)
Harry James – Trumpet Rhapsody Part 2
(Columbia, original 78, 1941)
So let the dance begin. My Dad was legendary for his dancing skills, and Begin The Beguine was a favorite song of his. He was a World Was II veteran, and his generation came of age with the music of the big bands. He called the bands he loved “The Big Three”: Artie Shaw, Harry James and the Dorsey Brothers, Jimmy and Tommy. But he loved so much more music. Music was one of the ways in which we communicated. We agreed, we disagreed, we fought and argued and we listened some more. When he discovered that the cable company provided endless hours of music on the cable channels, his house was never without a song. In my teens, as I made the abrupt transition from the required Disco Madness of the Brooklyn streets to the jarring sound of punk rock, he would come into my room, obviously confused by the complete anarchy and cacophony of the music, and tell me I was going to go deaf listening to this stuff so loud and what kind of crazy crap is this anyhow? And I would joke with him that he seemed to be doing just fine being half-deaf himself. He’d say “What?” and get angry when I’d laugh. I’d tell him to listen, just listen, that it was fun and brilliant at the same time. I think he worried about me for a long time over that music. So, when one of my favorite bands, Low, released their fabulous album “The Great Destroyer” in 2005, it was in constant rotation in my truck and often played while I was taking Dad back and forth to various appointments. We both got a good laugh out of this song, When I Go Deaf, especially when I reminded him about how he used to yell at me about my music.
The Mills Brothers were another favorite of both of ours. He remembered the song when it was fresh, but for me it was a prototypical study in group harmony, which I had become a student of when I was a kid. The song was influential in the doo wop music on which I cut my teeth and developed an very guarded love. I brought this record home from my first job at the record store, back in 1974, and played it for my parents. They began to waltz around the kitchen. I am very fortunate to have been able to preserve some of these very old records. Jimmy Dorsey’s Deep Purple could make my father tear up in the right circumstances, and this 70 year old disc is in pristine shape.
He appreciated the lighter side of the alternative rock music I had become so fanatical about. The music of The Durutti Column was one of the artists he enjoyed. One evening in Brooklyn, I was playing a tape of this on the boombox I kept in my room there, and when he came into the room asking, “What’s this?”, my defenses immediately sparng up and I said, “Why?” “It’s good. I like it. Music should flow. This is good.” And the piece by Ulrich Schnauss, a young German musician who was the darling of the radio station where I worked for many years, WZBC, had a similar effect on him. And no tribute to my Dad would be complete without Domenico Modugno. Even at Draper Place, when this song would come over the ubiquitous PA,he would pretend to dance with his walker – while he was still able, at least. This song embodies true Italian romance, and he knew that very well.
In the sixties, my Dad definitely had the Swingin Bachelor Pad thing going on, at least in his head. He collected the swingin’est, coolest, grooviest records – records that have become known as the “lounge” genre and which are extremely popular once again. Martin Bottcher, famous mostly for his German soundtrack music, Doc Severinson, presented here in his glorious 1963 album, and other artists such as Enoch Light, Martin Denny and Les Baxter were part of the soundtrack to my youth. My Dad and I actually argued over the Cousteau song, because it sounds so authentically 1966-Burt Bacharach that he swore up and down that it was an old song. It wasn’t.
The Harptones are by far my favorite 50’s black vocal group. My Dad used to drive around Brooklyn with a tape of their songs in his car’s cassette deck, and he’d fire it up and tell his girlfriend that it was what all the young people did. OK, so maybe not with the Harptones, but he was on the right track…
More of the old songs he loved: The King Cole Trio record is cracked, and so fragile I had to nurse the thing to keep it together for this recording; this is one of his most beautiful songs ever. Dad definitely enjoyed the voices of the ladies, and I think that of Pattie Page, Kay Starr, the Andrews Sisters, and Jo Stafford, Jo Stafford was his favorite. I liked Kay Starr better myself. And the Manhattan Transfer deliver a great version of the Ink Spots’ classic. God knows he *loved* his coffee.
I had many experiences that never would have happened had I not spent so much time in NY taking care of my Dad. Meeting the members of the band Flare was one of them. After I got to know those guys, and hearing them play instruments and what have you in various groups, I challenged them to collaborate, form the band, give me two good songs and I would produce a 45 for them. They came back to me six weeks later with a package of ten songs, and I ended up doing a CD release. From this, an entire social circle and a handful of professional contacts arose. The OMD tune is a classic and the Arco is just a sad farewell, also songs he’d question me about when driving in my truck with me.
Finally, we close with Harry James‘ stunning interpretation of Trumpet Rhapsody, one of my mother’s favorite records.
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