Today is the birthday of songwriter Murray ("Guess Who I Saw Today?") Grand. Born 1924, the last we heard, he was alive and well and living in Del Boca Vista. To hear the melody of this wonderfully droll ditty, pick up the Hi-Lo's album, All Over the Place
April in Fairbanks
music and lyrics Murray Grand
from New Faces of 1956
Autumn in New York
And April in Paris
Are no longer chic.
Winters in Mallorca
And summers in Capri
Are gone, so to speak.
The people who have the wherewithal
Have found a new place to have a ball.
They've deserted the Champs-Elysees,
The Piazza d'SpagnaIs no longer gay.
They say their thanks for Fairbanks,Alaska.
April in Fairbanks,
There's nothing more appealing.
You 'll find your blood congealing
In April in Fairbanks.
Bright Arctic moonlight illuminates the ice-floes
When ev'rybody's breath shows
In April.
You've never known the charm of Spring
Until you hear a walrus sighing.
The air is perfumed with the smell of blubber frying.
April in Fairbanks;
You'll suddenly discover
A Polar Bear's your lover
In Fairbanks.
Subzero weather
Will turn your skin to leather
Your jaws will lock together
In April in Fairbanks.
North Polar breezes will sing you a cadenza
And bring you influenza
In April
I'll leave the Rivera to the fools who want a fancy palace.
Give me an igloo , the Aurora Borealis.
April in Fairbanks;
I really can't believe it.
I know I'll never leave it alive this April.
Thursday, August 24, 2006
Sunday, August 20, 2006
Gone fishin'
To be sung to the tune of the "Hit Parade" theme song
So long for a while
That's all the blogs for a while
So long to Doctor Chilledair
And the posts that you picked to be read
Sooo longgg
So long for a while
That's all the blogs for a while
So long to Doctor Chilledair
And the posts that you picked to be read
Sooo longgg
Thursday, August 17, 2006
Houston, we have lift-off!
This month is a bonanza one for me, for not only did I help get into print in Japan for the first time one of my desert isle discs, "Dick and Kiz Harp at the 90th Floor" but also a heretofore never-on-CD release from the same originating label, 90th Floor, "Mal Fitch's Mal/Content," and a previously unreleased session by the great Beverly Kenney. AND a CD on which I am the associate producer and with which I had the most hands-on involvement in this current batch of SSJ releases, Lincoln Briney's "Foreign Affair."
More information about it is now available at Lincoln's site: http://www.lincolnbriney.com which just went LIVE this morning after, it seemed to me like, tweaking than it took to crack the Dresden Mayan Codex. Worth the wait, though.
As for the other SSJ releases this month, aside from Lincoln's, you can read all about it---in Japanese---here: http://www.sinatrajapan.com/ssjp/
More information about it is now available at Lincoln's site: http://www.lincolnbriney.com which just went LIVE this morning after, it seemed to me like, tweaking than it took to crack the Dresden Mayan Codex. Worth the wait, though.
As for the other SSJ releases this month, aside from Lincoln's, you can read all about it---in Japanese---here: http://www.sinatrajapan.com/ssjp/
Monday, August 14, 2006
The One and ONLY Lorez
Today is the birthday of LOREZ ALEXANDRIA (b 1929 Chicago, died L.A. 2001)
In 1994 Alexandria performed at an afternoon concert at Pedrini's Music Store in Southern California’s San Gabriel Valley and hundreds of fans were on hand. Many had to content themselves with hearing and seeing her on the in-store video setup. One of those rare singers who I could not detect had lost anything vocally over the years.
She had an interesting background which includes, according to the liner notes for her 1964 Lorez the Great, “an eleven-year association with an a cappella singing group directed by Lu-Shay Allen [a former minstrel comedian turned Baptist minister]. The singers appeared in and around Chicago, made occasional short trips through the Midwest, and on one occasion sang for President Harry S. Truman at Blair House in Washington, DC.”
In 1992 Leonard Feather posited the notion that the ONLY thing that stood in the way of Alexandria’s moving to the forefront of Great American Songbirds was her failure to attach herself to a signature tune (or at least repertoire), i.e. “an outstanding piece of material that could become exclusively identified with her and perhaps catch the ear of a recording executive.” Still that didn't stop Alexandria from amassing a large body of work, consisting of more that twenty albums on the Impulse, King, Argo, Discovery, Pazz and Hindsight labels.
In 1994 Alexandria performed at an afternoon concert at Pedrini's Music Store in Southern California’s San Gabriel Valley and hundreds of fans were on hand. Many had to content themselves with hearing and seeing her on the in-store video setup. One of those rare singers who I could not detect had lost anything vocally over the years.
She had an interesting background which includes, according to the liner notes for her 1964 Lorez the Great, “an eleven-year association with an a cappella singing group directed by Lu-Shay Allen [a former minstrel comedian turned Baptist minister]. The singers appeared in and around Chicago, made occasional short trips through the Midwest, and on one occasion sang for President Harry S. Truman at Blair House in Washington, DC.”
In 1992 Leonard Feather posited the notion that the ONLY thing that stood in the way of Alexandria’s moving to the forefront of Great American Songbirds was her failure to attach herself to a signature tune (or at least repertoire), i.e. “an outstanding piece of material that could become exclusively identified with her and perhaps catch the ear of a recording executive.” Still that didn't stop Alexandria from amassing a large body of work, consisting of more that twenty albums on the Impulse, King, Argo, Discovery, Pazz and Hindsight labels.
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