I’ve updated this post Top Ten #Christmas Songs Written by Jews from December 24, 2018 to include a Spotify playlist that you can embed in your website or blog or share it via social media.
Also, I’ve updated the link to the article (which had moved):
Tracy, M., 2012. Christmas songs written by Jews. Tablet Magazine. Available at: https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/arts-letters/articles/have-yourself-a-jewish-little-christmas [Accessed December 16, 2021].
What a couple of days! Yesterday, my husband had to be taken to the emergency room. While he was discharged later in the evening, he’s felt weak all day today and has been lying down in the recliner. He also said that he had a fever, which he attributed to the booster shot that he received yesterday.
Anyhow, here’s the #MusicMonday feature:
Mike Nesmith of The Monkees AKA The Pre-fab Four died on Friday, December 10, 2021. While he was with The Monkees, he challenged Don Kirshner to let them play their own instruments on their recordings (he succeeded).
What’s lesser known is that Mike Nesmith was a songwriter in his own right. My friend Ann is fond of his song Joanna. He also penned Different Drum, which he tried to pitch for The Monkees, but the control freak producers of the TV show rejected it.
The Stone Poneys featuring the youthful Linda Ronstadt recorded Different Drum, which peaked at No. 13 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1967.
You can find more about the process of recording Different Drum by The Stone Poneys in Mark Myers’ Anatomy of a Song: The Oral History of 45 Iconic Hits That Changed Rock, R&B and Pop.
Lyrics:
You and I travel to the beat of a different drum
Oh, can’t you tell by the way I run
Every time you make eyes at me? Whoa
You cry and moan and say it will work out
But honey child I’ve got my doubts
You can’t see the forest for the trees
Morning Dew is one of the most iconic songs of 1960s folk and protest music. Canadian folk singer Bonnie Dobson wrote Morning Dew: amazingly, it was the first song she ever wrote.
“…I saw a film called On the Beach, and it made a tremendous impression on me,” she said. “[Really] it was a kind of re-enactment of that film in a way where, at the end, there is nobody left, and it was a conversation between these two people trying to explain what’s happening. It was really the apocalypse, that was what it was about.”
Fred Neil rearranged “Morning Dew” for his 1964 Elektra album Tear Down the Walls. Two years later, Tim Rose recorded the song for his debut album based on Neil’s arrangement. Rose took advantage of a loophole in US copyright law and tricked Bonnie Dobson out of full credits and some publishing royalties to her song (he did the same sh** with Hey Joe, which both Jimi Hendrix and The Byrds covered).
In 1998, Bonnie Dobson heckled Tim Rose as he performed at London’s Half Moon music venue about stealing her song. She took legal action against Rose and was at last credited as the sole author of “Morning Dew”.
Bonnie Dobson felt that she reclaimed her song when Robert Plant invited her to sing it at his concert. She said that “[Robert] gave me back my song that night.”
In 2018, Morning Dew was inducted as a song into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Frame.
References
Bell, M. (2014). The Story Behind The Songs: Bonnie Dobson – Morning Dew. loudersound. Retrieved 12 September 2021, from https://www.loudersound.com/features/the-stories-behind-the-songs-bonnie-dobson-morning-dew.
Morning Dew | Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame. Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame. (2018). Retrieved 25 October 2021, from https://cshf.ca/song/morning-dew/.
Morris, C. (2021). Morning Dew — how Bonnie Dobson reclaimed her anti-war song. Ig.ft.com. Retrieved 12 September 2021, from https://ig.ft.com/life-of-a-song/morning-dew.html.
Schneider, J. (2018). Bonnie Dobson finally gets her due for “Morning Dew” | Roots Music Canada. Roots Music Canada | Listening to Canadian roots music and loving it. Retrieved 12 September 2021, from https://www.rootsmusic.ca/2018/06/28/bonnie-dobson-finally-gets-her-due-for-morning-dew/.
More of my obsession or “hyper focus” on Syd Barrett.
A Very Irregular Head: The Life of Syd Barrett by Rob Chapman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Roger Keith “Syd” Barrett is one of the most renowned casualties of Rock ‘n’ Roll. At the cusp of stardom with Pink Floyd in 1967, he had a major breakdown. He was 21 years old. His behavior became erratic (to say the least) and he left Pink Floyd or was dismissed.
Syd’s mental collapse continues to be a source of speculation and fascination 54 years later and 15 years after his death at age 60 in 2006. Was it the onset of schizophrenia? Was it autism, as suggested in The Interesting Case of Syd Barrett? Was it LSD, or the more dangerous DOM, as suggested by Men on the Border? Was it temporal lobe damage, as suggested in Julian Palacios’ biography Syd Barrett & Pink Floyd: Dark Globe? Or was it just the sixties, man? Our interest in Syd’s mental collapse isn’t merely voyeuristic, it’s also about making sense about what happened.
Rob Chapman de-emphasizes Syd’s drug use, which makes it harder to make sense of what happened to Syd. Syd’s gifts at songwriting left him. His singing left him. His guitar playing left him. His mental health left him. I wept as I read about Syd’s deterioration.
But Chapman makes an interesting point: A rock star’s peak creativity lasts for a very short while: after that, he or she becomes redundant. And being redundant was Syd’s major fear.
Today’s #MusicMonday video is Martha and the Vandellas’ classic Dancing in the Streets, as performed on The Ed Sullivan Show on December 5, 1965. Crisp video, color (was this colorized from B & W?), and I love the yelllow gowns that Martha and the Vandellas wore.
Berry Gordy sidelined stronger singers like Martha Reeves and Gladys Knight to promote baby mama Diana Ross. 😠
It’s a Beautiful Day was a band formed in San Francisco, California in 1967, featuring vocalist Pattie Santos and violinist/vocalist David LaFlamme and his wife Linda.
Although It’s a Beautiful Day was one of the notable San Francisco bands to emerge from 1967’s Summer of Love, it never achieved the success of Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, and Santana.
It’s A Beautiful Day’s eponymous debut album was released by Columbia Records in 1969. The track “White Bird” attracted FM radio play attention, but nationally, it bubbled under Billboard’s Hot 100 chart, peaking at number 118. 😔
This live version of White Bird features a jam and is much more energetic than the studio recording. It was recorded July 7, 1970 at Tanglewood – Lenox, MA, the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
Source:
It’s a Beautiful Day – White Bird – 7/7/1970 – Tanglewood (Official). (2014). [Video]. Retrieved 7 August 2021, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q918fs4RAto.
IS ANYONE LISTENING???
With every post, I put up content that might be interesting to others, but I get few visits/views.
Yep, #MusicMonday has rolled around again. Today’s feature is Echo Beach by Martha and Muffins. Pardon the crapola video content.
Martha and the Muffins came out of Toronto in the late 1980s, riding the crest of New Wave. In the beginning, Martha and the Muffins was fronted not merely by one Martha, but two Marthas: Martha Johnson (the redhead) and Martha Ladly (the blonde).
The group chose its name “Martha and the Muffins” to distance themselves from the aggressive names adopted by many punk bands of the era. As founder Mark Gane (and Martha Johnson’s partner) said, “Martha and the Muffins couldn’t be more wimpy.” Mark Gane is the composer of Echo Beach.
Lyrics:
I know it’s out of fashion
And a trifle uncool
But I can’t help it
I’m a romantic fool
It’s a habit of mine
To watch the sun go down
On Echo Beach
I watch the sun go down
Chorus:
Read More »More Syd Barrett pictures:
I captured the above screenshot of Syd Barrett smiling from The Look of the Week broadcast on May 14, 1967, on the BBC (affectionately known as the Beeb). Here he is facing acerbic music critic Hans Keller. This moment was so fleeting that I had to play the video at 25% speed to capture the screenshot.
This is a screenshot from Pink Floyd’s video for their first video Arnold Layne.
Be sure to revisit my feature #MusicMonday Syd Barrett Playlist and check out my expanded Syd Barrett playlist on YouTube! Also visit my Roger Keith “Syd” Barrett board on Pinterest for more eye candy.
Syd Barrett is one of the most renowned casualties of Rock ‘n’ Roll. He was a co-founder of Pink Floyd, but contributed in a major way only to Pink Floyd’s debut album Piper at the Gates of Dawn.
Syd Barrett was really handsome. Smoldering, or could it be the kajal that he wore? Even after over 50 years, his looks could melt. 🥰
At the cusp of stardom, Syd Barrett had a major breakdown. He dropped copious amounts of acid (LSD), and reportedly, his hangers-on spiked his coffee with acid. He might have also had schizophrenia, although he was never diagnosed as schizophrenic. His sister Rosemary claimed that he wasn’t schizophrenic, but the behaviors that other Pink Floyd members observed were consonant with schizophrenia. Among other things, Syd often had catatonic episodes.
When Pink Floyd “made it,” Syd Barrett was about 21 years old. Schizophrenia often manifests itself in early adulthood. His erratic behavior led to his dismissal from Pink Floyd.
Syd Barrett left London for good, and walked 50 miles to his mother’s home in Cambridge. A counselor friend told me that his walk might indicate that he had bipolar disorder: he might have made the walk during a manic episode. I wonder if he was trying to salvage what remained of him. 🤔 He died at age 60 in 2006.
The playlist includes both music and commentary. Highlights include:
Man, I had it bad for Steve Winwood. Fortunately, my family indulged me. Dad actually took me to see Traffic in concert. Later, he mounted a poster of Steve Winwood next to bed. My brother tracked down the three Spencer Davis Group LPs that were released in the U.S. for me to add to my collection. He also took me to another Traffic concert.
Here’s a YouTube playlist of Steve Winwood’s music and interviews with him that I put together:
In the 1980s, Steve Winwood had major hits with “While You See a Chance”, “Higher Love”, and many more. Quite frankly, I lost interest in him once he became a chart-topping MOR performer. When people talked about Steve Winwood, I sniffed and I thought to myself “I knew him when … ”
Maybe I put together this playlist out of nostalgia.
Then, there was his marriage to his wife Eugenia. Oh, Steve, why didn’t you wait for me?? I consoled myself with the idea that I wasn’t his type. Eugenia is blonde, as was his previous wife Nicole … and I was a brunette.
Cold Cream 'n' Roses 
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