Monday, February 27, 2012

The Last Kind

by John Blase
http://thebeautifuldue.wordpress.com/2012/02/24/the-last-kind/


Men, women, and girl singers - 
of the three kinds of humans
you were the last. You loved jazz 
and the smoky little rooms
where the tunes got played. They
took note of your crusade, your
scat without scatting, your 
vibrato-less gee-whizzy Fifties cool, 
plus this pluperfect female shape 
even George Shearing could see. 
But they kept listening because
of your uninhibited phrasing,
your mad human offerings
of punctuation: semicolons where
men could breathe, commas to
put women at ease, parentheses
that gave girl singers courage.
 
That you always sang haunted 
was widely-felt, but the ghosts were
only known by a few. Born to
be blue was always more than
a song. Then rock-n-roll invaded
our land and the loud was too
much, so you made yourself silent,
an esoteric casualty of war.
There will never be another you
is more than a song.

Friday, February 24, 2012

Dick and Kiz Harp

 Here are the Harps (listen) 
ultra rare photo courtesy of the Colliers

Thursday, February 16, 2012

You'll find a pic of her in the dictionary next to the phrase "Too hip for the house."



This is my new friend from the net, Arlene Corwin. Among her other claims to fame (does she need any more?) is that she intro'd "Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most" in the original St. Louis production of The Nervous Set (also the first to sing "The Ballad of the Sad Young Men").

X number of years later (you do the math) here she is current day in her adopted home of Sweden blowing the lid off the place with one of my favorite songs.

If you go to her web site you'll learn that she is also a yoga instructor, a poet and that on more than one occasion she professionally partnered with. . .Slim Gaillard!

Monday, February 06, 2012

Beverly Kenney on Hugh Hefner Playboy TV



click twice for full screen image

If I'm not mistaken, the air date was mid-January 1960; this was just a few months before her death on April 13.

2/12/12 update: In the process, just now, of sussing out the air date, I came across this molto curioso item in Walter Winchell's ('member him?) 2/13/59 column: "Jazz singer Beverly Kenney, who is a private eye between bookings. . .." Hunh?

Thanks to James, Jeroen, and Allen for bringing this clip to my attention. I'm so verklempt that I can hardly type. Something of a major cultural event in my world!

More about Beverly
http://tinyurl.com/7bne849

Friday, February 03, 2012

Rare Sue Raney



Composer (s) : Larry Pontius, Julian Lee .
Show Name: For The Love Of Man 
.
Label Information: UNICEF YPRX 1020 LP.  

Rec. for UNICEF
Country Of Pressing: Australia  .