I call Sunday afternoon “Radio Sunday” as WPFW 89.3 PM has 6 hours of great programming, starting with Miyuki Williams’ Sunday Kind of Love from Noon to 2:00 PM, continuing with Donnie McKethan’s American Songbook from 2:00 to 4:00 PM, and winding up with Larry Applebaum’s The Sound of Surprise from 4:00 to 6:00 PM.

Donny McKethan often plays different renditions of the same song back to back. Today he had renditions of George & Ira Gershwin’s A Foggy Day (in London Town) by Billie Holiday and Frank Sinatra.  The beauty of standards such as A Foggy Day is that different singers, with different styles, can perform them and be equally  persuasive.

I had not heard A Foggy Day before, but I smiled when I heard the lyric:

A foggy day in London Town
Had me low and had me down
I viewed the morning with alarm
The British Museum had lost its charm

It reminded me of the weekend that I spent in London, in a hotel room no larger than a closet. Restaurants were so expensive, that I bought a grab’n’go sandwich at Boots to eat for dinner. The serendipitous discovery was that the British Museum was just around the corner from the hotel. I have more to say about the British Museum, but enough for now.

Here is another rendition of A Foggy Day, this time featuring Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald: