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Good morning, WA2K listeners and contributors.

edgar, Do you suppose that Elvis, like Homer, has more fans now than he did when he was alive? I think, perhaps, it is because in martyrdom, music lovers look again at his contributions and find them better than once was thought. Thanks, Texas for reminding us.

This morning song is by a group called MacBeth (Vinatas) I have never heard of them before, but the lyrics are fascinating:



Green Orchestra (Sonata For Leaves & Trees)

[Lyrics by:Fabrizio / Music by: Alex/ Andrea]

Crystalline pearls are falling
On fresh leafy branches
Like soft emerald carillon
Tune up a faint damp refrain

Earth drinks the angels weeping
Poisonous essence dripping
Flora shelters the sprouting jewels
Crescendo of swarming tears

Rain streams from a grey flock
Freezing arrows through the air
As sparkling shell embraces the soil
Greenish parfumes ravish birds' voice

Musk viola solo gently whispers
A sea green "cello plaintive theme
Twinkling arpeggios herbaceous tunes
Sonata for leaves and trees

Oh Green Orchestra lull my weary heart refresh my arid soul
Oh Green Orchestra your charming fragrance tastes of love like her ebony eyes

Pelting diamonds make forest precious
Instruments in bloom
Flash of blaze almighty growl
Cascade of glittering splinters

Musk viola solo gently whispers
A sea green "cello plaintive theme
Twinkling arpeggio herbaceous tunes
Sonata for leaves and trees

Oh Green Orchestra lull my weary heart refresh my arid soul
Oh Green Orchestra your charming fragrance taste of love like her ebony eyes

Stillano in perle di cristallo
I vani sogni d'illusi cuori incantati
E s'infrangon sbocciando in languide voci
Dai profumi fatati
L'orchestra di smeraldo lontano sussurra
Brilla
E poi
Muore.

Opinions about Elvis are like the tree leaves. Millions out there. My own, I have always loved his work up until the mid 1960s, becoming more and more selective what to like after that.

Helen Hayes
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Date of birth: October 10, 1900
Birth location: Washington, D.C.
Date of death: March, 1993
Death location: Nyack, New York

Helen Hayes (October 10, 1900 - March 17, 1993) was a two-time Academy Award-winning American actress whose successful and award-winning career spanned almost 70 years. She was eventually to garner the nickname "First Lady of the American Theater", and was one of the nine people who has won an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony Award.

Biography

Early life

Hayes was born Helen Hayes Brown in Washington, D.C. to Francis W. Brown and Estella Catherine Hayes. Her maternal grandparents were immigrants from Ireland and England, respectively.[1] Hayes began a stage career at an early age. By 10, she had made a short film called Jean and the Calico Doll, but she only moved to Hollywood when her husband, playwright Charles MacArthur, signed a Hollywood deal. Her sound film debut was The Sin of Madelon Claudet, for which she won the Academy Award for Best Actress. She followed that with starring roles in Arrowsmith (with Myrna Loy), A Farewell to Arms (with actor Gary Cooper whom Hayes admitted to finding extremely attractive), The White Sister, What Every Woman Knows (a reprise from her Broadway hit), and Vanessa: Her Love Story. However, she never became a fan favorite and Hayes did not prefer the medium to the stage.

Return to Broadway

Hayes and MacArthur eventually returned to Broadway, and she starred for three years in Victoria Regina. In the 1950s, the Fulton Theatre was renamed for her. However, business interests in the 1980s wished to raze that theatre and four others to construct a large hotel that included the Marquis Theatre. To accomplish razing this theatre and three others, as well as the Astor Hotel, the business interests received Hayes consent to raze the theatre named for her, even though she had no ownership interest in the buildings. As a result in 1983, the Little Theater on West 45th Street was re-named The Helen Hayes Theatre in her honor.

In 1953 she was the first-ever recipient of the Sarah Siddons Award for her work in Chicago theatre, repeating as the winner in 1969. She returned to Hollywood in the 1950s, and her film star began to rise. She starred in My Son John and Anastasia, and won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 1970 for Airport. She followed that up with several roles in Disney films such as Herbie Rides Again, One of Our Dinosaurs is Missing and Candleshoe. "Anastasia" was considered a comeback having not acted for several years due to her daughter, Mary's death and her husband's failing health.

Hayes wrote three memoirs: A Gift of Joy, On Reflection and My Life in Three Acts. Some of the themes in these books include her return to Roman Catholicism after having been denied communion from the Church for the length of her marriage to MacArthur, who was a Protestant and a divorcé, and the death of her only daughter, Mary, who was an aspiring actress, from polio. Hayes's son, James MacArthur, went on to a career in acting also, starring in Hawaii Five-O on television.

Hayes was a pro-business Republican, who attended the last Republican National Convention before her death, which was held in Colorado, but she was not as far-right as certain others (e.g. Adolphe Menjou, Ginger Rogers, John Wayne, etc) in the Hollywood community of that time.

She has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6220 Hollywood Blvd.

The Helen Hayes Award for theater in the Washington D.C. area is named in her honor.

Helen Hayes died on (St. Patrick's Day) March 17, 1993 from congestive heart failure, aged 92, not long after the death of her friend Lillian Gish, with whom she had been friends for many decades.

Gish made Hayes the beneficiary of her estate, but Hayes only survived her by a month.

Helen Hayes was interred in the Oak Hill Cemetery, Nyack, New York.

Quotes

"The hardest years in life are those between ten and seventy." (at age 73)

I think that might be true with all performing artists, edgar. Although I still prefer jazz, I have learned to listen to other performers with a less critical ear.

Well, let's hear one of Elvis' songs that really makes a statement, folks:

Elvis Presley
In The Ghetto

As the snow flies
On a cold and gray Chicago mornin'
A poor little baby child is born
In the ghetto
And his mama cries
'Cause if there's one thing that she don't need
It's another hungry mouth to feed
In the ghetto
People, don't you understand
The child needs a helping hand
Or he'll grow to be an angry young man some day
Take a look at you and me,
Are we too blind to see,
Do we simply turn our heads
And look the other way
Well the world turns
And a hungry little boy with a runny nose
Plays in the street as the cold wind blows
In the ghetto
And his hunger burns
So he starts to roam the streets at night
And he learns how to steal
And he learns how to fight
In the ghetto
Then one night in desperation
A young man breaks away
He buys a gun, steals a car,
Tries to run, but he don't get far
And his mama cries
As a crowd gathers 'round an angry young man
Face down in the street with a gun in his hand
In the ghetto
As her young man dies,
On a cold and grey Chicago mornin',
Another little baby child is born
In the ghetto
And his mama cries
In the ghetto
In the ghetto

Thelonious Monk
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Thelonious Sphere Monk (October 10, 1917 - February 17, 1982) was a jazz pianist and composer.

He is known for his unique improvisational style and many contributions to the standard jazz repertoire, including his classic works "'Round Midnight" and "Blue Monk". Monk is often regarded as a founder of bebop although his playing style evolved away from the form. His compositions and improvisations often highlight rhythmic and spatial relationships rather than melody.

Life and career

Early life

Little is known about Monk's early life. He was born on October 10, 1917 in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, the son of Thelonious and Barbara Monk, with a sister named Marian who was two years older. A younger brother, Thomas, was born a couple of years later. The 1920 US Federal Census lists Thelonious and his father (a laborer) as "Theloins". Monk started playing the piano at the age of six; although he had some formal training and eavesdropped on his sister's piano lessons, he was essentially self-taught.

In 1922 the family moved to Manhattan living at 243 West 63rd St., and Monk attended Stuyvesant High School, but did not graduate.

He briefly toured with an evangelist in his teens, playing the church organ, and in his late teens he began to find work playing jazz. He is believed to be the pianist on some recordings Jerry Newman made around 1941 at Minton's Playhouse, the legendary Manhattan club where Monk had been hired as the house pianist. His style at the time is described as "hard-swinging," with the addition of runs in the style of Art Tatum. Monk's stated influences include Duke Ellington, James P. Johnson, and other early stride pianists.

Monk's unique piano style was largely perfected during his stint as the house pianist at Minton's in the early-to-mid 1940s, when he participated in the famous after-hours "cutting competitions" that featured most of the leading jazz soloists of the day. The Minton's scene was crucial in the formulation of the bebop genre and it brought Monk into close contact and collaboration with other leading exponents of bebop including Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Sonny Rollins, Milt Jackson and John Coltrane.

1944-1954

In 1944 Monk made his first studio recordings with the Coleman Hawkins Quartet. Hawkins was among the first prominent jazz musicians to promote Monk, and Monk later returned the favor by inviting Hawkins to join him on the 1957 session with John Coltrane. Monk made his first recordings as leader for Blue Note in 1947 (later anthologised on Genius of Modern Music, Vol. 1) which showcased his talents as a composer of original melodies for improvisation. Monk married Nellie Smith the same year, and in 1949 the couple had a son, T.S. Monk, who later became a jazz drummer. A daughter, Barbara (affectionately known as Boo-Boo), was born in 1953.

In August 1951, New York City police searched a parked car occupied by Monk and friend Bud Powell. The police found narcotics in the car, presumed to have belonged to Powell. Monk refused to testify against his friend, so the police confiscated his New York City Cabaret Card. Without the all-important cabaret card he was unable to play in any New York venue where liquor was served, and this severely restricted his ability to perform for several crucial years. Monk spent most of the early and mid-1950s composing, recording, and performing at theaters and out-of-town gigs.

After his cycle of intermittent recording sessions for Blue Note during 1947-1952, he was under contract to Prestige Records for the following two years. With Prestige he cut several under-recognized, but highly significant albums, including collaborations with saxophonist Sonny Rollins and drummer Art Blakey. In 1954, Monk participated on the famed Christmas Eve sessions which produced the albums, Bags' Groove and Miles Davis and the Modern Jazz Giants by Miles Davis. Davis found Monk's idiosyncratic accompaniment style difficult to improvise over and asked him to lay out (not accompany), which almost brought them to blows.

Riverside and Columbia, 1954-1970

At the time of his signing to Riverside Monk was highly rated by his peers and by some critics, but his records did not sell in significant numbers, and his music was still regarded as too "difficult" for mass-market acceptance. Indeed, Riverside had managed to buy out his previous Prestige contract for a mere $108.24. His breakthrough came thanks to a compromise between Monk and the label, who convinced him to record two albums of his interpretations of jazz standards.

His debut for Riverside was a 'themed' record featuring Monk's distinctive interpretations of the music of Duke Ellington. The resulting LP, Thelonious Monk Plays Duke Ellington, was designed to bring Monk to a wider audience, and pave the way for a broader acceptance of his unique style. According to recording producer Orrin Keepnews, Monk appeared unfamiliar with the Ellington tunes and spent a long time reading the sheet music and picking the melodies out on the piano keys. Given Monk's long history of playing, it seems unlikely that he didn't know Ellington's music, and it has been surmised that Monk's seeming ignorance of the material was a manifestation of his typically perverse humor, combined with an unstated reluctance to prove his own musical competency by playing other composers' works (even at this late date, there were still critics who carped that Monk "couldn't play"). The album is generally regarded as one of the less successful Monk studio outings.

Finally, on the 1956 LP Brilliant Corners, Monk was able to record his own music. The complex title track (which featured legendary tenor saxophonist, Sonny Rollins) was so difficult to play that the final version had to be put together as seamlessly as possible from three separate takes.

In 1954, he paid his first visit to Europe, performing and recording in Paris. It was here that he first met Baroness Pannonica de Koenigswarter, "Nica", member of the Rothschild banking family of England and patroness of several New York City jazz musicians. She would be a close friend for the rest of his life.


After having his cabaret card restored, Monk relaunched his New York career with a landmark six-month residency at the Five Spot Cafe in New York beginning in June 1957, leading a quartet that included John Coltrane on tenor saxophone. Unfortunately little of this group's music was documented, apparently because of contractual problems (Coltrane was signed to Prestige). One studio session was made by Riverside but only later released on Jazzland; an amateur tape from the Five Spot (not the original residency, it seems, but a later 1958 reunion) was uncovered in the 1990s and issued on Blue Note. On November 29 that year the quartet performed at Carnegie Hall and the concert was recorded in high fidelity by the Voice of America broadcasting service. The long-lost tape of that concert was rediscovered in the collection of the Library of Congress in January 2005. In 1958 Johnny Griffin took Coltrane's place as tenor player in Monk's band.

In 1958, Monk and de Koenigswarter were detained by police in Wilmington, Delaware. When Monk refused to answer the policemen's questions or cooperate with them, they beat him with a blackjack. Though the police were authorized to search the vehicle and found narcotics in suitcases held in the trunk of the Baroness's car, Judge Christie of the Delaware Superior Court ruled that the unlawful detention of the pair, and the beating of Monk, rendered the consent to the search void as given under duress. State v. De Koenigswarter, 177 A.2d 344 (Del. Super. 1962). Monk was represented by Theophilus Nix, the second African-American member of the Delaware Bar Association.

In 1964, he appeared on the cover of Time magazine. By now he was signed to a major label, Columbia Records, and was promoted more widely than earlier in his career. Monk also had a regular working group, featuring the tenor saxophonist Charlie Rouse, but by now his compositional output had largely dried up. Only his final Columbia disc, Underground, featured a substantial number of new tunes, including his only waltz-time piece, "Ugly Beauty."

He disappeared from the scene in the early 1970s and made only a small number of appearances during the final decade of his life. His last recording was completed in November 1971.

Later life

Monk's manner was idiosyncratic. Visually, he was renowned for his distinctively "hip" sartorial style in suits, hats and sunglasses, and he developed an unusual, highly syncopated and percussive manner of playing piano. He was also noted for the fact that at times he would stop playing, stand up from the keyboard and dance in a counterclockwise fashion, ring-shout style, while the other musicians in the combo played.

It is said that he would rarely speak to anyone other than his beloved wife Nellie, and certainly in later years it was reported that he would go through an entire tour without speaking to the other members of his group. Bassist Al McKibbon, who had known Monk for twenty years and played on his final tour in 1971, later said "On that tour Monk said about two words. I mean literally maybe two words. He didn't say 'Good morning', 'Goodnight', 'What time?' Nothing. Why, I don't know. He sent word back after the tour was over that the reason he couldn't communicate or play was that Art Blakey and I were so ugly." [1]

Although these anecdotes may typify Monk's behavior in his later life, in Lewis Porter's biography of John Coltrane, the saxophonist reveals a very different side of Monk; Coltrane states that Monk was, in his opinion:

"... exactly the opposite of Miles [Davis]. He talks about music all the time and wants so much for you to understand that if, by chance, you ask him something, he'll spend hours if necessary to explain it to you."

There has been speculation that some of Monk's quirky behaviour was due to mental illness. In the documentary film Straight, No Chaser (produced in 1989 by Clint Eastwood on the subject of Monk's life and music), Monk's son, T.S. Monk, reported that Monk was on several occasions hospitalized due to an unspecified mental illness that worsened in the late 1960s. No diagnosis was ever made public, but some have noted that Monk's symptoms suggest bipolar disorder, schizophrenia or Tourette's Syndrome. Whatever the precise diagnosis, anecdotal evidence strongly suggests that Monk was suffering from some form of pathological introversion (cf. Syd Barrett) and that from the late sixties onward he became increasingly uncommunicative and withdrawn. As his health declined, his last years were spent as a guest in the New Jersey home of his long-standing patron, Baroness Nica de Koenigswarter, who had also nursed Charlie Parker during his final illness.

He died of a stroke on February 17, 1982 and was buried in Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, New York. Following his death, his music has been rediscovered by a wider audience and he is now counted alongside the likes of Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and others as a major figure in the history of jazz. Monk's music is arguably the most recorded of any jazz composer. In 2006, Monk was posthumously awarded a special citation from the Pulitzer Prize board for "a body of distinguished and innovative musical composition that has had a significant and enduring impact on the evolution of jazz.

Richard Jaeckel
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Richard Hanley Jaeckel (October 10, 1926 - June 14, 1997) was an American actor.

Jaeckel was born in Long Beach, New York. A short, but tough guy, he played a variety of characters in his 50 years in movies and television and became one of Hollywood's best known character actors. Jaeckel got his start in the business at the age of 17 while working as a mailboy at 20th Century Fox studios in Hollywood. A casting director audtioned him for a key role in the 1943 film Guadalcanal Diary, Jaeckel won the role and settled into a lengthy career in supporting parts.

He served in the US Navy from 1944 to 1949, then starred in two of the most remembered war films of 1949, Battleground and Sands of Iwo Jima with John Wayne. Jaeckel's other films include The Gunfighter, Come Back, Little Sheba, 3:10 to Yuma, Town Without Pity, The Dirty Dozen, The Green Slime, The Devil's Brigade, Chisum, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, Grizzly, Mako: Jaws of Death, Twilight's Last Gleaming, The Dark Cold River, Starman, Black Moon Rising and The Delta Force 2.

The highlight of Jaeckel's career was in 1971, when he received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his role in Sometimes a Great Notion. In his later years, Jaeckel was known to TV audiences as Lt. Ben Edwards on the series Baywatch. He also appeared on TV Series Spenser: For Hire.

Jaeckel died in 1997, aged 70, after a three year battle with melanoma at the Motion Picture and Television Hospital in Woodland Hills, California.

Ben Vereen
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Ben Vereen (born October 10, 1946 in Laurinburg, North Carolina) is an American actor, dancer, and singer who has appeared in numerous Broadway theatre shows. He was nominated for a Tony Award for Jesus Christ Superstar in 1972 and won a Tony for his appearance in Pippin in 1973. Vereen starred in the Broadway musical Wicked as the Wizard of Oz, replacing former Wizard George Hearn on May 31, 2005. He was replaced by tour Wizard David Garrison on April 4, 2006.

His work in theatre has also secured him numerous appearances on various television programs and films. Notable film roles include song-and-dance men in Funny Lady and All That Jazz. He starred in the television series Tenspeed and Brown Shoe but is probably best known for his role as "Chicken" George Murray in Roots and Commander Edward M. LaForge on Star Trek: The Next Generation in 1993. Other TV appearances include:

Oz
The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air
The Jamie Foxx Show
The Love Boat
The Muppet Show
The Nanny
Touched by an Angel
Webster
Zoobilee Zoo
Vereen has also performed in one-man shows and actively lectures on black history and inspirational topics.

In 1992, he was accidentally struck while walking on the Pacific Coast Highway by a car driven by producer/composer David Foster.

According to the Fayetteville Observer of April 29, 2006, Vereen learned while applying for a passport in the late 1960s that he was adopted. His birth certificate revealed that his birth name was Benjamin Augustus Middleton, that he was the son of Essie Middleton, and that he was born in Laurinburg, North Carolina. In April of 2006, Vereen visited Laurinburg with a genealogist, and learned that his mother's name was Essie May Pearson, who had died 24 years before. According to her acquaintances, Essie had gone on a trip when Ben was a child, and had left her baby in someone's care. When she returned, the child was gone. In May of 2006, he met his mother's daughter, which is his sister, Gloria Walker, of New Haven, Connecticut. He also has other siblings from his mother. (Source: WTNH news)

Tanya Tucker
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Birth name Tanya Denise Tucker
Born October 10, 1958
Origin Seminole, Texas, United States

Tanya Denise Tucker (born October 10, 1958) is an American country music singer. She may be best remembered for her debut single and trademark song "Delta Dawn". She has also acted on television and in a few movies and wrote her autobiography Nickel Dreams.

Biography

Tanya Tucker was born in Seminole, Texas, to Beau and Juanita Tucker. She grew up in Willcox, and Phoenix, Arizona, and started singing by the age of 6. She recorded her first hit, "Delta Dawn," at the age of 13. "Delta Dawn" went to number 6 on the country music charts. (Some time later, the song was a #1 U.S. pop hit for Helen Reddy.) By age 15, she had a Grammy nomination, a "Greatest Hits" package and had appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine. At 14, she became the second female country music artist to have a number 1 country single as a teenager with the song "What's Your Mama's Name". At 21, she met singer Glen Campbell and had a year-long affair with him, during which she began battling cocaine and alcohol addiction.

Her other No. 1 hits include: "Blood Red and Goin' Down" (1973); "Would You Lay with Me (In a Field of Stone)" (1974); "Lizzie and the Rainman" and "San Antonio Stroll" (1975); "Here's Some Love" (1976); "Just Another Love" (1986); "I Won't Take Less Than Your Love" (a trio with Paul Davis and Paul Overstreet), "If It Don't Come Easy" and "Strong Enough to Bend" (1988); and "Two Sparrows in a Hurricane" (1992).

Tucker received the Top New Female Vocalist award from the Academy of Country Music in 1972 and the Female Vocalist of the Year award from the Country Music Association in 1991.

She has three children, Presley Tanita, Beau Grayson and Layla, and is an avid competitor in cutting horse competitions. Tanya has a brother, Donald, and an older sister, LaCosta Tucker, who had several hits on the country charts in the 70's and early 80's, and toured with Tanya in 1989.

Tanya Tucker starred in her own reality show, "Tuckerville", on The Learning Channel in 2005.

Popular culture

Gretchen Wilson makes reference to Tucker in her hit song "Redneck Woman."

Chris Penn
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Birth name: Christopher Shannon Penn
Date of birth: October 10, 1965
Birth location: Los Angeles, California, USA
Date of death: January 24, 2006
Death location: Santa Monica, California, USA

Christopher Shannon Penn (October 10, 1965 - January 24, 2006) was an American film actor. He was the son of noted director Leo Penn and actress Eileen Ryan (born Eileen Annucci), and the brother of actor Sean Penn and musician Michael Penn. Born in Los Angeles, California, he was the youngest of the three sons. He dated and lived with Steffiana De La Cruz from 1993 to 1999.


Career

Penn started acting at the age of 12 at the Loft Studio and made his film debut in 1979's Charlie and the Talking Buzzard.

In 1983, he was featured in Francis Ford Coppola's youth drama Rumble Fish and appeared in the high school football drama All the Right Moves starring Tom Cruise as his best friend and about-to-be father. He also appeared in the hit dance musical Footloose in 1984, played a villain in the Clint Eastwood western Pale Rider (1985), and co-starred with his brother, Sean, and mother Eileen Ryan in At Close Range (1986).


Penn was typically cast as a tough character, featured as a villain or a working-class lug, or in a comic role. Two of his more memorable performances came in Reservoir Dogs as Nice Guy Eddie (the only one who doesn't wear a suit) and True Romance. In 1996, he won the best supporting actor at the Venice Film Festival for The Funeral.

In Robert Altman's ensemble film Short Cuts, Penn played a troubled pool cleaner who is disturbed by his wife's profession; she is a telephone sex worker who takes calls from clients at home, to which Penn's character is obliged to listen. The dramatic ending of the film features the climactic response of Penn's character to this pent-up sexual frustration and feeling of powerlessness.

Penn was featured in an episode of the television crime drama Law and Order: Criminal Intent during the 2004-2005 season. He was also featured on the 2004 video game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas as the voice of Officer Eddie Pulaski. Penn played himself on a 2005 episode of the HBO series Entourage.

He appeared in The Darwin Awards, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival one day after his death.

Death

Penn was found dead in his Santa Monica condominium on January 24, 2006 at the age of 40.

Although Penn had used multiple drugs in the past, an autopsy performed by a Los Angeles County Medical Examiner revealed the primary cause of death was "nonspecific cardiomyopathy" (heart disease), with the prescription drug promethazine with codeine playing a lesser role. Trace amounts of marijuana were found in his body. Sean Penn has said that his brother's death was brought on primarily by his weight. [2]

There is conflicting information about Chris Penn's age at the time of death, with some obituaries giving 1962 as his year of birth. His birthdate has been officially substantiated as October 1965, which would mean he was 40. His mother also gives his date of birth as October 10, 1965 in the book Sean Penn: His Life and Times by Richard T. Kelly (2004).

Chris Penn is interred in the Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California.

May you live as long as you want,
And never want as long as you live.

May the roof above us never fall in.
And may the friends below it never fall out.

May you have warm words on a cold evening,
A full moon on a dark night,
And the road downhill all the way to your door.

May there be a generation of children
On the children of your children.

May you live to be a hundred years,
With one extra year to repent!

May the Lord keep you in His hand
And never close His fist too tight.

May your neighbors respect you,
Trouble neglect you,
The angels protect you,
And heaven accept you.

May your pockets be heavy and your heart be light,
May good luck pursue you each morning and night.

May the saddest day of your future be no worse
Than the happiest day of your past.

May you always have work for your hands to do.
May your pockets hold always a coin or two.
May the sun shine bright on your windowpane.
May the rainbow be certain to follow each rain

Well, there's our hawkman, listeners. Hey BioBob, glad you were not persona non grata today, buddy.

Loved your finishing touch, Boston; quite different from your usual, but it's really nice. Thanks again. We'll wait for our Raggedy' s photo's before commenting, but in the mean time, let's listen to a a lovely jazz ballad, inspired by Thelonious Monk:

I should care, I should go around weeping
I should care, I should go without sleeping
Strangely enough, I sleep well
'cept for a dream or two
But then I count my sheep well
Funny how sheep can lull you to sleep

So I should care, I should let it upset me
I should care but it just doesn't get me
Maybe I won't find someone as lovely as you
But I should care and I do

I should care but it just doesn't get me
Maybe I won't find someone as lovely as you
But I should care and I do

And I do

Good morning WA2K and the picture gallery for today:

Aha! There's our Raggedy, folks. Thanks, PA for the great collage. Now I remember Ben Vereen. That must be Chris Penn, although I had no idea about his background.

The rest of your celeb's, I think most of us know.

Here's one from Tanya:

Out of the shoot he sits tall as the timber
One hand on the horse and one hand on the sky
Eight seconds later he lands in the money
And winning's a feeling that money can't buy
The kids love a hero and big silver buckles
The girls love the dream of a rodeo man
He loves the backroads and fields without fences
And I guess he loves me because I understand

He's a rain-rain-rainbow rider
He's hitched up his saddle he's ready to ride
He's a rain-rain-rainbow rider

A dream chasing cowboy with a rodeo girl by his side
Winter in Tuscon and spring in Savanna
Reno in June then off to Cheyenne
He remembers the fall that he took last September
He's hopin' he draws that ol' burr again
He's a rain-rain-rainbow rider
He's hitched up his saddle he's ready to ride
He's a rain-rain-rainbow rider
A dream chasing cowboy with a rode girl by his side

Lately he's talking about having a son
Someone who'll learn from the things that he's done
A young bronc bustin' a-buckaroo

A trailer behind an old white Eldorado
A red western sunset and a blue mountain range
Some things in this life he'd like to do over
But livin' with him is something I'd never change

He's a rain-rain-rainbow rider
He's hitched up his saddle he's ready to ride
He's a rain-rain-rainbow rider
A dream chasing cowboy with a rodeo girl by his side

He's a rain-rain-rainbow rider
A dream chasing cowboy with a rodeo girl by his side

Miss Letty, I noticed you Posted: Tue Oct 10, 2006 7:59 pm Post: 2306804 -


I tried to post this am. However, as the "The time now is Tue Oct 10, 2006 3:17 pm"
You must know the result of all the races.


This is just a little…

Ode to Billie Joe
Bobbie Gentry Lyrics

It was the third of June, another sleepy, dusty Delta day
I was out choppin' cotton and my brother was balin' hay
And at dinner time we stopped and walked back to the house to eat
And Mama hollered out the back door "y'all remember to wipe your feet"
And then she said "I got some news this mornin' from Choctaw Ridge"
"Today Billy Joe MacAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge"

And Papa said to Mama as he passed around the blackeyed peas
"Well, Billy Joe never had a lick of sense, pass the biscuits, please"
"There's five more acres in the lower forty I've got to plow"
And Mama said it was shame about Billy Joe, anyhow
Seems like nothin' ever comes to no good up on Choctaw Ridge
And now Billy Joe MacAllister's jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge

And Brother said he recollected when he and Tom and Billie Joe
Put a frog down my back at the Carroll County picture show
And wasn't I talkin' to him after church last Sunday night?
"I'll have another piece of apple pie, you know it don't seem right"
"I saw him at the sawmill yesterday on Choctaw Ridge"
"And now you tell me Billie Joe's jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge"

And Mama said to me "Child, what's happened to your appetite?"
"I've been cookin' all morning and you haven't touched a single bite"
"That nice young preacher, Brother Taylor, dropped by today"
"Said he'd be pleased to have dinner on Sunday, oh, by the way"
"He said he saw a girl that looked a lot like you up on Choctaw Ridge"
"And she and Billy Joe was throwing somethin' off the Tallahatchie Bridge"

A year has come 'n' gone since we heard the news 'bout Billy Joe
And Brother married Becky Thompson, they bought a store in Tupelo
There was a virus going 'round, Papa caught it and he died last Spring
And now Mama doesn't seem to wanna do much of anything
And me, I spend a lot of time pickin' flowers up on Choctaw Ridge

And drop them into the muddy water off the Tallahatchie Bridge

Cheerful Little Earful
Tom Gerun & his Orchestra

[Words by Ira Gershwin and Billy Rose]
[Music by Harry Warren]

There's a cheerful little earful
Gosh I miss it something fearful
And this cheerful little earful
Is the well known "I love you"

Stocks can go down
Bus'ness slow down
But the milk and honey flow down
With a cheerful little earful
Of the well known "I love you"

In ev'ry play it's a set phrase
What the public get phrase
But as a pet phrase
It'll do, do, do
Poopa, rooit soft and cuit
Make me happy you can do it
With a cheerful little earful
Of the well known "I love you"

Well, I declare Mr. Try. I hope our little station is in working order. Yes, I put my $2.00 on Sea Biscuit to win. You can't beat a dead horse, you know.

Love your "Ode to Billy Jo". Bobby and I have a lot in common.

Artist/Band: Gentry Bobbie
Lyrics for Song: Fancy

Lyrics for Album: Chickasaw County Child
"Well, I remember it all very well lookin' back
It was the summer that I turned eighteen.
We lived in a one-room, run down shack
on the outskirts of New Orleans.

We didn't have money for food or rent
to say the least we was hard-pressed
when Momma spent every last penny we had
to buy me a dancin' dress.

Well, Momma washed and combed and curled my hair,
then she painted my eyes and lips.
Then I stepped into the satin dancin' dress.
It had a split in the side clean up to my hips.

It was red, velvet-trimmed, and it fit me good
and standin' back from the lookin' glass
was a woman
where a half grown kid had stood.

She said, "Here's your last chance, Fancy, don't let me down!
Here's your last chance, Fancy, don't let me down.
God forgive me for what I do,
but if you want out girl it's up to you.
Now get on out, you better start sleepin' uptown."

Momma dabbed a little bit of perfume
on my neck and she kissed my cheek
Then I saw the tears welling up
in her troubled eyes as she started to speak

She looked at our pitiful shack and then
she looked at me and took a ragged breath
She said, Your Pa's runned off, and I'm real sick
and the baby's gonna starve to death.

She handed me a heart-shaped locket that said
"To thine own self be true"
and I shivered as I watched a roach crawl across
the toe of my high-healed shoe

It sounded like somebody else was talkin'
askin', "Momma what do I do?"
She said, "Just be nice to the gentlemen, Fancy.
They'll be nice to you."

She said, "Here's your last chance, Fancy, don't let me down!
Here's your last chance, Fancy, don't let me down.
God forgive me for what I do,
But if you want out girl it's up to you
Now don't let me down,
now get on out, you better start sleepin' uptown."

That was the last time I saw my momma
when I left that rickety shack
The welfare people came and took the baby.
Momma died and I ain't been back.

But the wheels of fate had started to turn
and for me there was no other way out.
It wasn't very long after that I knew exactly
what my momma was talkin' 'bout.

I knew what I had to do.
Then I made myself this solemn vow:
I's gonna to be a lady someday
though I didn't know when or how.

But I couldn't see spendin' the rest of my life
with my head hung down in shame.
You know I mighta been born just plain white trash.
but Fancy was my name.

She said, "Here's your last chance, Fancy, don't let me down!
Here's your last chance, Fancy, don't let me down.
God forgive me for what I do,
but if you want out girl it's up to you.
Now get on out, you better start sleepin' uptown."

Wasn't long after that a benevolent man
took me in off the streets
One week later I was pourin' his tea
in a five roomed penthouse suite.

Since then I've charmed a king, a congressman
and an occasional aristocrat
and I got me an elegant Georgia mansion
and a New York townhouse flat.

Now I ain't done bad

Now in this world there's a lot of self-righteous
hypocrites who call me bad.
They criticize Momma for turning me out
No matter how little we had.

But I haven't had to worry 'bout nothin'
now for nigh on fifteen years
But I can still hear the desperation
in my poor mommas voice ringin' in my ears.

"Here's your last chance, Fancy, don't let me down!
Oh, here's your last chance, Fancy, don't let me down.
God forgive me for what I do,
but if you want out girl it's up to you.
Now get on out, you better start sleepin' uptown."

and there's our Mr. edgar with a cheerful little earful. What a nice surprise to see you, possum.

For you:

Carly Simon
» Playing Possum

We lived up here in Cambridge
And browsed in the hippest newsstands
The we started our own newspaper
Gave the truth about Uncle Sam
We loved to be so radical
But like a ragged love affair
Some became disenchanted
And some of us just got scared

Now are you playing possum
Keeping a low profile
Are you playing possum for a while

then you moved to the country
Bought a farm and tilled the land
Then you took your books to India
And got hooked on a holy man
But the wells they do run dry
And the speeches turn to words
And the woods are full of tigers
And freedom's for the birds

Now you run a bookstore
And you've taken on a wife
You wear patches on your elbows
And you live an easy life
But are you finally satisfied
Is it what you were lookin' for
Or does it sneak up on you
that there might be something more

Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow

Tonight you're mine completely
You give your love so sweetly
Tonight the light of love is in your eyes
But will you love me tomorrow

Is this a lasting treasure
Or a just moment's pleasure
Can I believe the magic of your sighs
Will you still love me tomorrow

Tonight with words unspoken
You said that I'm the only one
But will my heart be broken
When the night (When the night)
Meets the morning (Meets the morning) sun

I'd like to know that your love
Is love I can be sure of
So tell me now and I won't ask again
Will you still love me tomorrow
Will you still love me tomorrow
Will you still love me tomorrow

Oh, my gosh, cowboy. I'm humming that right along with you. What a delight to see you and everyone back in our wee studio.

Well, listeners, we miss our European friends, but it's just nice to know that they are all right.

If anyone saw the movie, "Thank you for Smoking." You'll appreciate this song:



WILLIE NELSON

Smoke! Smoke! Smoke! That Cigarette

Now I'm a fellow with a heart of gold
With the ways of a gentleman I've been told
A kind of a fellow that wouldn't even harm a flea
But if me and a certain character met
That guy that invented the cigarette
I'd murder that son of a gun in the first degree

That ain't that I don't smoke myself
And I don't reckon they'll injure your health
I've smoked 'em all my life and I ain't dead yet
But nicotine slaves are all the same
At a pheasant party or a poker game
Everythin's gotta stop when they have that cigarette

Smoke smoke smoke that cigarette
Puff puff puff
And if you smoke yourself to death
Tell St Peter at the Golden Gate
That you hate to make him wait
But you just gotta have another cigarette

Now at a game of chance the other night
Ol' Dame Forson wasn't doin' me right
Them kings and queens just kept on comin' round
Well I got a full and I bet it high
But my plug didn't work on a certain guy
He just kept a risin' and a layin' that money down
He's raise me and I'd raise him
I sweated blood I had to sink or swim
He finally called and he didn't raise the bet
I said "aces is full pal how about you?"
He said "I'll tell you in a minute or two
But I just gotta have another cigarette"

Smoke smoke smoke that cigarette
Puff puff puff
And if you smoke yourself to death
Tell St Peter at the Golden Gate
That you hate to make him wait
But you just gotta have another cigarette

[ guitar - steel ]

The other night I had a date with
The cutest gal in the fifty states
A highbred uptown social little dame
She said she loved me and it seemed to me
That things were like they oughta be
So hand in hand we strolled down Lover's Lane
She was oh so far from a chunk of ice
And our smoochin' party was a goin' real nice
So help and I think I'd've been there yet
But I give her a hug and a little squeeze
And she said "Willie excuse me please
But I just gotta have another cigarette"
Smoke smoke smoke that cigarette
Puff puff puff
And if you smoke yourself to death
Tell St Peter at the Golden Gate
That you hate to make him wait
But you just gotta have another cigarette
Smoke smoke smoke that cigarette
Puff puff puff
And if you smoke yourself to death
Tell St Peter at the Golden Gate
That you hate to make him wait
But you just gotta have another cigarette
Just gotta have another cigarette