WA2K Radio is now on the air

Good morning everyone.

I hope Letty doesn't drink that old stuff and brews a fresh pot of coffee.

I was a day early for Sammy Kaye's birthday remembrance - (I knew it was Sunday - I just got the wrong date (I do that often). But I am sure that today is Michael Martin Murphey's birthday.

Michael Martin Murphey (born March 13, 1945 in Dallas, Texas) is a successful American country singer/songwriter whose biggest hit was "Wildfire" in 1975, produced by Bob Johnston. Murphey reached number 3 in the US pop singles charts in 1975, achieving a gold disc with "Wildfire". Michael was associated with the outlaw country movement.

written by Larry Cansler and Michael Martin Murphey

She comes down from Yellow Mountain
On a dark, flat land she rides
On a pony she named Wildfire
With a whirlwind by her side
On a cold Nebraska night

Oh, they say she died one winter
When there came a killing frost
And the pony she named Wildfire
Busted down its stall
In a blizzard he was lost

She ran calling Wildfire

By the dark of the moon I planted
But there came an early snow
There's been a hoot-owl howling by my window now
For six nights in a row
She's coming for me, I know
And on Wildfire we're both gonna go

We'll be riding Wildfire

On Wildfire we're gonna ride
Gonna leave sodbustin' behind
Get these hard times right on out of our minds
Riding Wildfire

And the same to you, Try. It's going to be a lovely day here today and the only dark spot that I can see on the horizon is the deadline for tax returns in April. Think I have that resolved, however.

To match your sun in the morning, here's an oldie and it's dedicated to my Mom:


Blow, whistle blow away,
Blow away the past.
Go engine anywhere.
I don't care how fast.
On, on from darkness into dawn,
From rain into the rainbow,
Fly with me.
Gone, gone all my grief and woe.
What matter where I go if I am free?

(refrain)
Beyone the blue horizon
Waits a beautiful day.
Goodbye to things that bore me.
Joy is waiting for me.
I see a new horizon.
My life has only begun.
Beyond the blue horizon lies a rising sun.

I good morning over the big pond from sunny and bitter cold Germany!




She would never say where she came from
Yesterday don't matter if it's gone
While the sun is bright
Or in the darkest night
No one knows, she comes and goes

Goodbye Ruby Tuesday
Who could hang a name on you?
When you change with every new day
Still I'm gonna miss you

Don't question why she needs to be so free
She'll tell you it's the only way to be
She just can't be chained
To a life where nothing's gained
And nothing's lost, at such a cost

Goodbye Ruby Tuesday
Who could hang a name on you?
When you change with every new day
Still I'm gonna miss you

"There's no time to lose", I heard her say
Catch your dreams before they slip away
Dying all the time
Lose your dreams and you will lose your mind
Ain't life unkind?

Goodbye Ruby Tuesday
Who could hang a name on you?
When you change with every new day
Still I'm gonna miss you

Well, there's our Raggedy, folks, riding Wildfire. Love that song, and I swear, that guy with the red beard looks somewhat Irish. <smile> Thanks PA, for your early morning update.(fresh coffee, honey)

My word, and there's our man in Germany. Hey, Walter. What's going on in Europe with the weather? Must not be too draining if you can sing.

and an answer to Walter's Ruby Tuesday:

LEAVE ME ALONE (RUBY RED DRESS)
Helen Reddy
Words and music by Linda Laurie

Big ole ruby red dress wanders round the town
Talkin to herself now, sometimes sitten down
Don't you get too close now, ruby runs away
Poor ole ruby red dress born on a sorry day
I can hear her say

CHORUS:

Leave me alone, won't you leave me alone
Please leave me alone now, leave me alone
Leave me alone, please leave me alone, yes leave me
Leave me alone won't you leave me alone
Please leave me alone, no leave me alone
Leave me along, just leave me alone, oh leave me

Big ole ruby red dress, everybody laughs
Say she's got no future and never made no past
Something hurt that ruby, shomething she can't bear
Ya look at her real close now, you see a little tear
When she says now

CHORUS

Some folks say some farm boy up from Tennessee
Taught it all to Ruby, then just let her be
Her daddy tried to hide it, tried to keep things cool
But something happened to Ruby, she broke down to a fool.

Ah, listeners, "...what fools we mortals be...."

The way you wear your hat
The way you sip your tea
The mem'ry of all that
Oh no, they can't take that away from me...

Beautiful sunshine, bitter cold (27° F in the moment - has been 16°F at night) and still a bit of snow left over from the last snowfall on the weekend.

20 miles away it stll looks like this

Ah, there's our man in Manchester with a snippet from a song. Let's see, folks, if I can finish that song:

I do believe that our Brit left out something:

The way you wear your hat,
The way you sing off key,
The memory of all that,
No, they can't take that away from me.

Bridge:

We may never, never meet again on the rocky road to love,
Still I'll always, always have the memory of.

(something; something) the way we danced til three,

etc.

Well, Walter, the weather is strange everywhere.

Here, it is loverly. <smile>

Artist/Band: Rogers Kenny
Lyrics for Song: Ruby, Don't Take Your Love To Town

Album: Best of Kenny Rogers


You've painted up your lips
And rolled and curled your tinted hair
Ruby are you contemplating going out somewhere
The shadow on the wall tells me the sun is going down
Oh Ruby, don't take your love to town

It wasn't me that started that old crazy Asian war
But I was proud to go and do my patriotic chore
And yes, it's true that I'm not the man I used to be
Oh, Ruby... I still need some company

It's hard to love a man whose legs are bent and paralysed
And the wants and the needs of a woman your age, Ruby I realize,
But it won't be long I've heard them say until I not around
Oh Ruby, don't take your love to town

She's leaving now 'cause I just heard the slamming of the door
The way I know I've heard it slam some 1oo times before
And if I could move I'd get my gun and put her in the ground
Oh Ruby, don't take your love to town

Oh Ruby.. For god's sake turn around

Fortunately, I'm leaving for more clement skies...

I'm not going to dedicate this song by Oasis especially to Francis ...


I carry madness
Everywhere I go
Over a border
And back to the snow

So if you see me
And I look right through
You shouldn't take it
As a reflection of you

Come on, Turn up the sun
Turn it up for everyone
Love one another
Love one another

The boys in the bubble
They wanna be free
And they got so blind
That they cannot see

But I'm not your keeper
I don't have the key
I got a piano
I can't find the C

Come on, Turn up the sun
Turn it up for everyone
Love one another
Love one another

Dedicated to any German listeners.

Ihr Kinderlein kommet
Melodie: Johann Abraham Peter Schulz (ca. 1770)
Text: Christoph von Schmid (1768-1854)

DEUTSCH
Text: Christoph von Schmid

Ihr Kinderlein, kommet,
O kommet doch all!
Zur Krippe her kommet
In Bethlehems Stall.
Und seht was in dieser
Hochheiligen Nacht
Der Vater im Himmel
Für Freude uns macht.

O seht in der Krippe
Im nächtlichen Stall,
Seht hier bei des Lichtes
Hellglänzendem Strahl,
In reinliche Windeln
Das himmlische Kind,
Viel schöner und holder,
Als Engelein sind.

Da liegt es, ihr Kinder,
Auf Heu und auf Stroh,
Maria und Josef
Betrachten es froh;
Die redlichen Hirten
Knien betend davor,
Hoch oben schwebt jubelnd
Der Engelein Chor.

Well, since it so cold here with snow - even Christmas chorals might be welcome

Neil Sedaka
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Neil Sedaka (born March 13, 1939 in Brooklyn, New York) is an American Brill Building pop singer, songwriter and pianist. He teamed up with Howard Greenfield to write many major hit songs for himself and others.

His best-known Billboard Hot 100 hits are: "You Mean Everything To Me" (#17, 1960), "Oh, Carol" (in reference to Carole King) (#9), "Calendar Girl" (#4, 1960), "Happy Birthday Sweet Sixteen" (#6, 1961), "Breaking Up Is Hard to Do" (#1, 1962), "Laughter in the Rain" (#1, 1975), and "Bad Blood" (#1, 1975). His voice was in a tenor to alto range.

Sedaka and Greenfield also wrote "Love Will Keep Us Together", a No. 1 hit for The Captain and Tennille and the best selling record of 1975. Sedaka also recorded this song but his version was much less popular than Captain and Tennille's recording of the song, which includes the lyrics "Sedaka is back" in the coda.

Sedaka was born to the son of the Turkish Jewish immigrant to Brooklyn and an Ashkenazi Jewish mother. Sedaka began performing with the piano as a youth, and played on a classical music radio station, as well as studying at Juilliard. He also began experimenting with doo wop and rock and roll, playing in an early version of The Tokens. His composition, "Stupid Cupid" was a 1958 success for Connie Francis, and Sedaka signed as a solo performer. A string of hits followed, ending in about 1963.

Sedaka returned to the forefront in 1973, helping ABBA write the song "Ring Ring" for the Eurovision contest. Later in the 1970s, after he experienced a comeback in both recording and songwriting, he began working in England with Elton John and continued touring for many years after that.

In 1976, Sedaka recorded a new version of "Breaking Up is Hard to Do," a ballad which sounded very different from the original version released in 1962, being a jazz/torch piano centered arrangement. It made #8 on the pop charts; the original made it to #1. This is an exceedingly uncommon event; the only other instance in the rock era of a performer charting twice with two different versions of the same song is Eric Clapton's Layla. The ballad version charted at #1 on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart.

He was also the writer of the popular song 'Amarillo' a song he wrote for Britain's Tony Christie, it reached the top 40 in the UK (twice 1971 and 2005 - hitting #1 the second time thanks to an amusing video starring Christie, Peter Kay and many other celebrities) and also reached #1 in Spain and Germany in 1971. Sedaka later recorded the song himself, taking it into the U.S. Hot 100 singles chart.

In 1962, Neil Sedaka married his wife, Leba, and they are still together. They have two children: daughter Dara, a recording artist and vocalist for television and radio commercials, and son Marc, a screenwriter who lives in Los Angeles, California. In 1980, Sedaka had a Top Ten hit with "Should've Never Let You Go," which he recorded with Dara. Marc and his wife, Samantha, are the parents of twin girls, Amanda and Charlotte, who were born in 2003 and are Neil Sedaka's first grandchildren. Marc and Samantha also gave birth to a son, Ethan, in 2005. Neil Sedaka hopes that all of his grandchildren will learn to play the piano.

In 1985, Sedaka composed songs for the anime series Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam. These included the two opening themes "Zeta - Toki wo Koete" and "Mizu no Hoshi e Ai wo Komete". As well as the ending theme "Hoshizora no Believe". Due to rights issues, the production company Sunrise, Inc. could not come to an agreement for the use of the songs in North America. Controversially, the songs were then replaced with other music for the North American DVD release.

In 2005, Sedaka continues to perform regularly. He now has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and a petition is under way for Sedaka to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Sedaka



Breaking up is Hard to Do :: Neil Sedaka

-peak Billboard position # 1 for 3 weeks in 1975
-backing vocal by Elton John
-Words and Music by Neil Sedaka and Phil Cody

It coulda been me but it was you
Who went and bit off a little bit more than he could chew
You said that you had it made, but you been had
The woman no good, no how, thinkin' maybe the blood is bad
Bad (ba-a-ad) blood (blo-o-od)
The woman was born to lie
Makes promises she can't keep
With the wink on an eye
Bad (ba-a-ad) blood (blo-o-od)
Brother, you've been deceived
It's bound to change you mind
About all you believe
From where I stand, it looks mighty strange
How you let a woman like that treat you like small change
I don't understand what you're lookin' to find
The only thing bad blood do is mess up a good man's mind
SPOKEN: Hear me talkin' now
Bad (ba-a-ad) blood (blo-o-od)
The bitch is in her smile
The lie is on her lips
Such an evil child
Bad (ba-a-ad) blood (blo-o-od)
Is takin' you for a ride
The only thing good about bad blood
Is lettin' it slide
Doo-ron, doo-ron, di di, dit, dit, ron-ron
Doo-ron, doo-ron, di di, dit, dit, ron-ron
Doo-ron, doo-ron, di di, dit, dit, ron-ron
Bad blood, talkin' 'bout bad blood
Doo-ron, doo-ron, di di, dit, dit, ron-ron
Doo-ron, doo-ron, di di, dit, dit, ron-ron
Doo-ron, doo-ron, di di, dit, dit, ron-ron
Bad blood
SPOKEN: Here we go
Bad (ba-a-ad) blood (blo-o-od)
The bitch is in her smile
The lie is on her lips
Such an evil child
Bad (ba-a-ad) blood (blo-o-od)
Is takin' you for a ride
The only thing good about bad blood
Is lettin' it slide
The only thing good about bad blood
Is lettin' it slide

Scatman John
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

John Paul Larkin (born March 13, 1942 in El Monte, California; died December 3, 1999 in Los Angeles), known as Scatman John, was a famous stutterer who invented a unique fusion of scat singing and disco. As he liked to say, this was a process of "turning my biggest problem into my biggest asset." Scatman John has received 14 golds and 18 platinums for his albums and singles. He was also the recipient of the Annie Glenn Award for his outstanding service to the stuttering community, and was also inducted to the National Stuttering Association's Hall of Fame. In 1999, he died of lung cancer at his home in Los Angeles aged 57.

Early days

John Larkin suffered from a severe stutter "since [he] started talking", which led to an emotionally traumatic childhood. Even at the peak of his success in 1995, journalists reported that during interviews he "hardly finishes a sentence without repeating the phrase at least six or seven times". At age 12 he began to learn piano, and was introduced to the art of scat singing at 14 through records by Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong, amongst others. The piano provided him with a means of artistic expression to compensate for his speech difficulties. He remarked in a 1996 interview that "playing piano gave me a way to speak... I hid behind the piano because I was scared of talking."

He became a professional jazz pianist in the 1970's and 80's, playing many gigs in jazz clubs around Los Angeles. In 1986 he released the self-titled album John Larkin on the Transition label, copies of which are now extremely scarce. He claimed to have "hundreds of them lying around in [his] closet at home". Around this time alcoholism and drug addiction were also beginning to take a hold of his life. When fellow musician and friend Joe Farrell, who also had a drug problem, died in 1987, Larkin decided to beat his habits. He eventually did so, largely with the help of his new wife Judy, also a recovering alcoholic. "You have talent", she told him. "I'm going to make something out of you".


Birth of "Scatman John"

In 1990, Larkin moved to Berlin, Germany in order to further his career. Appreciative of the jazz culture of the city, he continued playing gigs as a jazz pianist on cruise ships and in bars and clubs around Germany. It was here he made the decision to add singing to his act for the first time, inspired by the standing ovation he received for his rendition of the song "On the Sunny Side of the Street" at the end of an instrumental set. Around this time, his agent Manfred Zahringer suggested that Larkin combine his scat-singing with modern techno and hip hop sounds, an idea to which Larkin was reluctant but BMG Hamburg were receptive.

Larkin was mainly scared that listeners would realise he stuttered, so Judy suggested that he talk about it directly in his music. Working with dance producers Ingo Kays and Tony Catania, he recorded the first single, "Scatman (Ski Ba Dop Ba Dop Bop)", a song intended to inspire children who stuttered to overcome adversity. He adopted the new name and persona of Scatman John.


International success


In 1995, at age 52, Scatman John took off throughout the world. Sales of his debut single were slow at first, but the song gradually took off to massive proportions, reaching #1 in nearly every country it was released in and selling over 6 million copies worldwide. It remains his biggest-selling and most well-known song to date. He later followed up with the song "Scatman's World", which met lesser but still notable success, selling a million copies and charting highly throughout Europe.

Following the success of these two singles, he released his debut album, also entitled Scatman's World. It sold three million copies and smashed the world record for being sold in more countries than any other album. He began a promotional and concert tour of Europe and Asia. "At an appearance I did in Spain, the kids screamed for five minutes straight, I couldn't start the song," he once recounted. While conducting promotional interviews for the album, he became so fluent that one journalist remarked that he hadn't heard Larkin stutter once and asked if he was merely using the stuttering community "as a gimmick to further [his] career". Larkin was shocked to find himself ashamed of his fluency rather than his stutter for the first time ever.


Post-"Scatman's World"

The second Scatman John album, Everybody Jam!, was released in 1996. While nowhere as successful on an international level as his debut, the album and accompanying single took off in Japan, the country in which he would see success on a larger scale than anywhere else in the world. He was so popular there that Japanese toy stores sold dolls of his likeness and he appeared on phone cards and Coca Cola cans. The Japanese version of Everybody Jam! included a total of five bonus tracks, including the songs "Su Su Su Super キ・レ・イ" and "Pripri Scat", which were commissioned by Japanese companies for commercials for cosmetics and pudding respectively. The Ultraman franchise even jumped on the Scatman bandwagon, releasing a single entitled "Scatultraman", the cover art of which featured the Ultraman characters in a hat and mustache.


Final years

In 1999, Larkin released his third (as Scatman John) and what would become his last album, Take Your Time. It was later revealed that Larkin had been battling ill health since late 1998. He continued work on the album despite being told to take it easy from his substantial workload. He was later diagnosed with lung cancer and soon went into intensive treatment. He maintained a positive attitude throughout, declaring that "whatever God wants is fine by me... I've had the very best life. I have tasted beauty". He died in his Los Angeles home on December 3, 1999.

In a 1996 interview, he commented that "I hope that the kids, while they sing along to my songs or dance to it, feel that life is not that bad at all. Even for just a minute".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scatman_John

(Scatting by Scatman John)

I'm the Scatman

(Scatting by Scatman John)

I'm the Scatman

(Scatting by Scatman John)

Everybody stutters one way or the other
So check out my message to you.
As a matter of fact don't let nothin' hold you back.
If the Scatman can do it so can you.

Everybody's sayin' that the Scatman stutters
But doesn't ever stutter when he sings.
But what you don't know I'm gonna tell you right now
That the stutter and the scat is the same thing.
Yo I'm the Scatman.

Where's the Scatman? I'm the Scatman.

Why should we be pleasin' all the politician heathens
Who would try to change the seasons if the could?
The state of the condition insults my intuitions
And it only makes me crazy and my heart like wood.

Everybody stutters one way or the other
So check out my message to you.
As a matter of fact don't let nothin' hold you back.
If the Scatman can do it brother so can you.
I'm the Scatman.

(Scatting by Scatman John)

Everybody stutters one way or the other
So check out my message to you.
As a matter of fact don't let nothin' hold you back.
If the Scatman can do it brother so can you.

I'm the Scatman.

I hear you all ask 'bout the meaning of scat.
Well I'm the professor and all I can tell you is
While you're still sleepin' the saints are still weepin' cause
Things you call dead haven't yet had the chance to be born.

I'm the Scatman.

(Scatting by Scatman John)

I'm the Scatman....repeat after me
It's a scoobie oobie doobie scoobie doobie melody
I'm the Scatman....repeat after me
It's a scoobie oobie doobie scoobie doobie melody

(Scatting by Scatman John)

A man visits his doctor and tells him that his wife doesn't
hasn't wanted to have sex with him for the last 7 months.
The doctor tells the man to bring his wife in so that he can
talk to her. The wife comes in to the doctor's office, and
the doctor asks her what is wrong -- why doesn't she want to
have sex with her husband?

The wife tells him, "For the last 7 months, every morning I
take a cab to work. I don't have any money. The cab driver
asks me, 'So are you going to pay today or what?' So I take
an 'or what.' When I get to work, I'm late so the boss asks
me, 'So are we going to write this down in the book or
what?' So I take an 'or what.' Back home, I take the cab and
again I don't have any money, so the cab driver asks me
again, 'So are you going to pay this time or what?' So again
I take an 'or what.' So you see, doc, when I get home I'm
all tired out, I don't want it anymore."

The doctor says, "So are we going to tell your husband or what?"

Well, Try, That particular Ruby was one that the boys in rehab at Stanton, Virginia listened ardently to and identified with, buddy. One especially I remember was a quadriplegic as a result of Nam. Very sad.

Thanks, buddy, for that rather unpleasant memory, but one which reminds us of the fallout of war.

My goodness, Try, was that Silent Night? I'm certain it was some kind of carol as Walter has indicated.

Guess we could do an oasis song to follow Walter's, since Francis is going to the land of the sky blue water.

Something tells me, folks, that "Elron" Hubbard is not the end of the hawkman's bio's.

Ye children come
O come ye all!
Come to the cradle
in Bethlehem's stall
and see what in this
most holy night
the Father in heaven
such joy for us makes.

O see in the cradle
in the nighttime stall
see here by the light's
bright gleaming rays
in pure swaddling clothes
the heavenly child
more beautiful and beloved
than angels are.

There he lies, ye children
upon hay and on straw,
Maria and Joseph
gaze at him happily;
the honest shepherds
kneel praying before him,
high above hovers joyously
the choir of angels.