Day: February 1, 2019

THIS MAGIC MOMENT- Rich Paschall

The Golden Age of Rock Turns 50, 1969 by Rich Paschall

It’s the golden anniversary of some of the best rock and roll of all time and you are invited to join the party. We’ve got the turntable ready, the records are already stacked up, and we have set the machine to 45 revolutions per minute. If you have a “Way back” machine, you can join Sherman and Mr.Peabody at your school’s 1969 sock hop. If not, we will spin some hits for you. You have waited eagerly for my top 20 and I know you will enjoy them.

The top song of 1969 was the “bubblegum” hit, “Sugar, Sugar” by The Archies. They did not come any sweeter. Also in the top 10 was “Dizzy” by Tommy Roe.  These songs were in heavy rotation on the pop music stations. In other words, they were playing all the time. People became dizzy from hearing “Sugar, Sugar” a dozen times a day.

The Beatles were nearing the end of their Long and Winding Road but they still were topping the charts: “Get Back,” “Something,” “Come Together.” The Rolling Stones, Elvis, Marvin Gaye, The Fifth Dimension, The Temptations, Sly and the Family Stone were all having Hot Fun in the Summertime.

Chicago the band released its first album, Chicago Transit Authority, a double album that went “platinum.” The group was nominated for a Grammy as best new artists.

Chicago in Chicago

It was a good year to cover songs from the musical, “Hair.” “Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In,” “Hair,” “Easy to be Hard,” “Good Morning, Starshine,” all became hits for different bands.

If you are quite ready to Shimmy, Shake and Twist, we can put the needle down on my top twenty. You can add in the comments any of your favorites from 1969 that I missed.

20. Aquarius/Let The Sunshine In. The Fifth Dimension scored the number 2 hit of the year on the Billboard Hot 100 Singles of 1969.

19. I Heard It Through The Grapevine.  Forget those dancing raisins.  Enjoy the original from Marvin Gaye.

18. Easy To Be Hard. One of the many songs from the Broadway musical, Hair, to present a social message. This cover is by Three Dog Night.

17. Hurt So Bad. The Lettermen covered the 1965 hit by Little Anthony and the Imperials to great success of their own.

16. Traces. The Classics IV hit was released in January and reached number 2.  It could not knock “Dizzy” out of the top spot.

15. Hooked On A Feeling. The song was released in late 1968. The B.J. Thomas hit reached number 5 in early 1969.

14. Everybody’s Talkin‘.  The Harry Nilsson single was released in July 1968 to minor success. In 1969 it was used as the theme to Midnight Cowboy and re-released. It made our ’68 and ’69 lists.

13. This Magic Moment. Jay and the Americans had a hit with a cover of The Drifters’ song.

12. Touch Me.  The Doors’ hit was released in December 1968 and climbed the charts in early 1969.

11. Spinning Wheel. The era of rock with horns was underway and Blood, Sweat and Tears scored with this one.

10. Crimson and Clover. I never really knew what it meant, but then neither did Tommy James and the Shondells.  It was just something that sounded cool together to James.  The song was released late in 1968 and reached number 1 by February 1969. It represented a shift to a more psychedelic sound.

9. Build Me Up, Buttercup.  The British pop and soul band, The Foundations, had a big hit with this late 1968 release.  By early 1969 it had climbed the charts to number 3 in the US, 2 in the UK and number 1 in Australia. It was pop fluff, but I liked it.

8. What Does It Take (To Win You Love). Motown initially rejected this Junior Walker and the All-Stars song for single release. Its popularity on radio brought a 1969 release, and it became one of their most popular songs.

7. One.  This song was written and recorded by Harry Nilsson and released in 1968, but it was the 1969 recording by Three Dog Night that became a hit. It was their first gold record.

6. Hot Fun in the Summertime. This summertime favorite by Sly and the Family Stone made it to number two on the charts.  The Temptations “I Can’t Get Next To You” was holding down number 1.

5. Get Together. The Youngbloods recorded the song in 1966 and it was released in 1967 without much success. After use in a radio public service announcement, the song was re-released in June 1969 and became a hit.

4. Proud Mary. John Fogerty wrote the song for his band Creedence Clearwater Revival. It made it to number 2 in March of 1969.  Two years later Ike and Tina Turner had a huge hit with a different arrangement of the song.

3. Get Back. The Beatles song featured Billy Preston on piano. The single was released in stereo, unusual for a single then.  The song hit number 1 in many countries.  “Don’t Let Me Down” was on the B side.

2. Honky Tonk Women. Recorded by The Rolling Stones in June 1969 and released as a single the following month, this became one of the band’s biggest hits and a concert favorite. The song starts out with cowbell!

1. Crystal Blue Persuasion. While “Crimson and Clover” was a bigger hit for the group that same year, I like this one better. Tommy James stated in a 1985 interview, “it’s my favorite of all my songs.” At the time, many thought it was a song about drugs. Actually, James had brought together ideas he had read in several Bible verses, leading to the idea that some day (Book of Revelations) “They’ll be peace and good brotherhood.”

Click on any song title for the music video, or listen to the entire playlist by clicking here.

Many of the informational tidbits came from Wikipedia or from interviews with the artist as shown on You Tube.

See also: “Billboard Year-End Hot 100 singles of 1969,” From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

WE DON’T CARE – Marilyn Armstrong

FOWC with Fandango: A concise view of what’s wrong with us

Someone wrote a little piece of humorous fiction. It had no special significance to anyone.  Except it did. To me.

Buddha, Tibet, probably 19th century and probably stolen from a temple

It included a tepee which is an important symbol for me. Note my blog’s address is https://teepee12.com/. The title of the one book I wrote — “The 12-Foot Teepee” probably infers a kind of meaning — for me and probably for a few other people. From this evidence, you could take a crazy guess that “tepee (tipi or teepee) means something to me and probably a few others.

But no one cared. A tepee didn’t mean anything to them. If it doesn’t mean anything to them, then they don’t care.

I’m not going to get into all the other symbols and how much potential discomfort using these symbols would cause others. How about a Cathedral or a medieval convent as a source of humor? Maybe a Mosque or a Mormon Temple or …

I’m sure you get the drift. I hope by now you are twitching a little bit.

My mother didn’t believe in anything — religiously speaking — the idea of anyone burning a book made her soul unravel. It didn’t matter what the book was about. The “book-ness” was holy for her without any other value attached to it. Humor can be shockingly unfunny when it uses symbols that other people — not your people — take seriously.

Why do they take them seriously?

Does it matter?

The general attitude which I’ve come to accept as the way “modern” people think, is “Who cares? It’s not MY church. It’s not what I believe. I don’t care how you feel about it because you don’t matter. Only me and mine have value.”

I don’t think it was intended to insult anyone. I’m sure the author didn’t see there was a difference between a camping tent bought at a sporting goods store or a hand-made teepee which has been blessed in a ceremony. After all, it’s just canvas, paint, wooden sticks, and rope. And some hooks to keep it fixed to the earth. No big deal.

Meanwhile, I cringe when they knock down temples to make room for malls. I cringe when they knock down abandoned churches and I don’t care whose church it was originally. It’s a horror when they do it in India, Israel, Morocco, or Malaysia. I believe that other peoples’ beliefs and feelings are important, even if I don’t share them. I don’t dismiss them because they aren’t central to my world.

But that’s our “new” world. It’s just stuff. Just words.

If beliefs don’t matter, what matters? Is it only your beliefs that count? Does your core of beliefs make a difference while mine don’t?

“I don’t care” has become the core of what nations believe. You and how you feel is a matter of complete indifference to them.

They don’t care, just like YOU don’t care.

We are not awed by the majesty of a Cathedral if it isn’t our cathedral or the ancient ruins of a temple that was the center of another culture’s universe. We don’t care nor do we want to be reminded of it. Their feelings matter. Ours don’t.

In a nutshell, that’s what is wrong with our world.

If only we all cared.

I am awed, touched, chilled, excited by “otherness.” I believe in a universal entity which is part of every living creature, the sacred part of our DNA.

There is a god in every one of us. It has nothing to do with dogma or a formalized set of beliefs. It is what give us our magic and the power to be great. I weep at the loss of this tiny bit of the divine. Without it, we’re just an upright animal who kills for sport and cares for nothing.

If you don’t care and only “your own” matters, the odds are good that no one cares about you, either. And that’s why we have “government” that doesn’t care if you get a paycheck, healthcare, or have a home in which to live. That’s how they can look in the mirror after a day of lying to us about all the things we care about.

They don’t care. We don’t matter.

HERESY OR HILARITY? by Marilyn Armstrong

FOWC with Fandango — Heretic

We are lucky to be living in a time when heresy is a personal, private issue rather than a constitutional one.

When Garry and I got married, we married in his Lutheran church because my husband still believes that stuff. I never believed it. When you are raised sort-of Jewish, you generally don’t believe that stuff. I was a lot clearer about what I didn’t believe than what I did believe … but Garry wanted a church wedding.

I wanted to get the mayor (who was a friend) to marry us on the steps of city hall. Invite our whole world. Get a lot of pizza for dinner then grab the next flight to Ireland.

While we were discussing the service — who was supposed to do what and when — they said I had to kneel.

I said, “My people don’t do kneeling.” Everyone cracked up.

But that’s the thing. MY people don’t kneel. I didn’t mind the ceremony because Garry wanted it, but kneeling? Not only do Jews not kneel but if I had to get to the floor they’d have needed a grappling hook to get me back up. It was a narrow skirt and I was wearing heels. Down I could get because there would be gravity working for me, but up? Wearing heels and a snug white dress?

In another time and place, my attitude would have landed me in a dark, damp dungeon. Followed by having my head lopped off. I sure hope they kept the axe sharp.

This being “modern times,” I didn’t die for my religious preferences or for wearing a snug dress and heels.

Times change. This is a change of which I definitely approve.

RAINBOW COLORS IN BIRDS AND ONE SUNRISE OVER OGUNQUIT – Marilyn Armstrong

Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Rainbow Colors (at least 4)

Oh boy. Birds! I’m pretty sure some of these pictures have a lot more than four. A few of the birds have more than four.

And a sunrise because … well … everyone needs a sunrise, right?

Redhead, beige and yellow body, black and white wings — with yellow corn, black seeds plus a slightly golden background …
Chickadees with a yellow breast, white head with the black stripe and throat, dark grey and white wings … and their back is sort of dark green …
Want to count colors? this is a very colorful little finch!
Sunrise over the ocean in Ogunquit, Maine – So many colors!

 

DO YOU COLOR? Marilyn Armstrong

Weekly Word Prompt: Adult Coloring

I know it’s all the rage. I bought some for my DIL for Christmas because I know she enjoys coloring.

I don’t.

I didn’t like coloring when I was a child. I preferred drawing and painting and these days, photography with doodling along page edges. I am a chronic doodler, but I don’t like anything with lines.

I hate lines. I hate definitions of where each color should go. I never liked coloring in OR out of the lines, so I don’t like it now, either. Sometimes, when I wonder what Garry and I share as a couple, I realize we hate being told what to do. We resent instructions, rules, and definitions.

Which doesn’t mean I don’t follow directions using tools or technology. I know where (so to speak) to draw that particular line. Garry doesn’t always. He will fight with me over everything.

He wants to do it his way.

I don’t mind him doing it his way unless it will (a) burn down the house or set the chimney on fire; (b) destroy dinner; (c) cause injury to something or someone (including himself).

Otherwise, I let him battle it out until eventually, he asks for help. At which point, I try to explain there are things where you can do as you please, but not everything.  Some stuff, usually involving electricity or technology and associated parts, you have no choice but to do the right way or it won’t work. Not even if you burn incense or pray to the gods of technology.

It’s why he’s no kind of mechanic and for the most part, neither am I.

But, just in case it’s your thing, I’ve included three photographs you can print and color. Birds, for people who find coloring relaxing.

As for me, there is reading, taking pictures, watching movies — and ultimately, sleeping!