Michael Stanley at Lakeside

Last night the program at Hoover was Michael Stanley and friends. ?? No, we'd never heard of him, but he was big in the late 70s and 80s, disbanding his MSB in 1986. He's sure popular around here (Hoover was packed) and he's still working in the Cleveland area on TV and radio. The group had a fabulous pianist, 3 guitars, 2 drummers, and our own wonderful Eddie Caner on violin who grew up in Lakeside. I'm surprised that violin didn't catch on fire he was so hot.

For years the rules at Hoover were no food or drink, but icy bottled water was being sold--perhaps because of the heat. First time I'd seen that. Not sure that's progressive or regressive. It's a huge clean up problem when that starts, and bottled water can't be good for the environment.

Music is good for you, especially in your later years

“Music, the most-studied art reviewed, has been shown to have a number of benefits. One landmark study compared older adults who were invited to join a choir to those not invited. Twelve months after the study began, choir members showed decreases in doctor visits, falls, and over-the-counter medication use. Improvements were seen in overall health rating and number of activities performed. In a larger study that randomly assigned individuals to a choir program or a control group, the choir partisans had lower scores on a depression/anxiety scale, and higher scores on a quality of life scale. A survey of older amateur singers before and after joining a musical group showed increases in emotional well-being, social life, quality of life, and self-confidence. In studies of instrumental music, 98 percent of 1,626 survey respondents said that playing an instrument in a group affected their health in a “uniformly positive” way. A study of organ players not only showed decreases in anxiety and depression, but also revealed increases in human growth hormone, a molecule associated with a number of positive health outcomes. Another study that compared the length of time a musical instrument was played (from zero to over 10 years) showed a possible linear relationship between the amount of playing and cognitive performance. However, not all studies reviewed showed such significant results, and in some cases the positive impact of a musical program were not maintained as early as three months after the program was completed. It should be noted that the studies with significant results were considered to be more rigorous.”

http://www.investigage.com/2014/01/22/can-music-dance-and-other-arts-programs-enhance-healthy-aging/

If you used to be active in the arts, but no longer are, perhaps you need to rethink why you’re enjoying life less, why there is more anxiety and depression, why you don’t feel well.  Pick up the trumpet, or sit down at the piano, or join that choir.  It’s good for you.

Beautiful sacred music

To find inspiration for my morning bike (stationary) ride, I type in to Google, Choral sacred YouTube, so this morning I found

AGNUS DEI - Sacred Choral Music - The Choir of New College, Oxford. (recorded 1996) Album

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRwhkBAeheM

Likewise, about 3.5 million others have also been listening to it.

I wonder where the performers are now, 2 decades later?

Director Edward Higginbottom

College of New College  web page and schedule of performances

 

Céline Dion - The Power Of Love

Sometimes we old ladies think nothing beautiful came out of modern popular music, and although this is no longer new, especially not for the 18 to 21 year olds, I think it is powerful, lovely, and one of the best of the 1990s.  The power of love.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8HOfcYWZoo

http://www.celinedion.com/ca/home

I think she, Lady Gaga and Adele (especially Rolling in the Deep) are better than anything made by women in earlier eras of popular music.

So much better than Doggie in the Window, or It’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to.  Agreed?

Lyrics aren’t so great, but you can’t beat Gaga for performance and glamor. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4Gwc6XBgQ4

You can listen to the actual songs of Selma

Knowing how bulky old tape recorders were (I could hardly carry mine at all), I’m amazed this man could record these songs.

http://www.smithsonian.com/smithsonian-institution/listen-freedom-songs-recorded-50-years-ago-during-march-selma-montgomery-180953904/

“Carl Benkert was a successful architectural interior designer from Detroit who had come down South in 1965 with a group of local clergy to take part and bear witness to the historic march for voting rights from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, for voting rights.

In addition to his camera, he brought a bulky, battery-operated reel-to-reel tape recorder to capture the history all around him, in speech but also in song.”

What does the Fox say?

http://www.today.com/video/today/53254690#53254690

Over 350,000,000 YouTube hits  and it was all a joke.  That’s how difficult it is to write a hit song at least for Bård Ylvisåker and Vegard Ylvisåker.

Oops. Obama supporters losing insurance

“Many in New York’s professional and cultural elite have long supported President Obama’s health care plan. But now, to their surprise, thousands of writers, opera singers, music teachers, photographers, doctors, lawyers and others are learning that their health insurance plans are being canceled and they may have to pay more to get comparable coverage, if they can find it.” New York Times  In the past (before Obama) they were able to purchase health insurance with group rates through their associations—now they are thrown on to the pricey individual market.

“. . . under the Affordable Care Act, they will be treated as individuals, responsible for their own insurance policies. For many of them, that is likely to mean they will no longer have access to a wide network of doctors and a range of plans tailored to their needs. And many of them are finding that if they want to keep their premiums from rising, they will have to accept higher deductible and co-pay costs or inferior coverage.“

But of course, it’s all the Obstructionist Republicans who are to blame, just like the untrained, unvetted navigators is just a plot to defeat this.

Washington Post has listed the president’s “If you like your health care plan.. .” as one of the big whoppers of 2013. 

The Uncool Kid featured in (614) Magazine

This should resonate with every kid, because in junior high no one thinks he's cool. Vada Mitchell aka L.E. wrote this. He's a Columbus (former) high school basketball star, who attended Columbus College of Art Design, and musician.

"Whatever you think is cool, is cool
And you ain't have to change for them bustas at ya school
'Cause after graduation there is no communication
So stay focused and keep ya concentration
And you're lame if you make people lame
And you should be ashamed about that garbage on your brain"

featured on p. 18 of 614 (magazine).


The Uncool Kid - (614) Magazine - Columbus, OH

A great music blog

Music isn't one of my hobbies or strengths, but I still enjoy reading David Meyers' blog about the local Columbus music scene. Columbus is a musical crossroads (also the title of one of his books), and David is a meticulous researcher and entertaining storyteller. His recent reminiscences about Earl Wild formerly of Columbus and Ohio State who died January 23 at age 94, and Pat Wilson and her autobiography Yesterday's Mashed Potatoes which you can look through on Google, are a great read.

A blog about prisons

I've been in a number of prisons, not as a prisoner, but as a visitor primarily following the same guy through the system until after seven years or so he was "shock parolled" after his 5th wife was murdered by her boyfriend leaving a baby to raise. I guess the parole board thought he was the guy to do it. The reason he had a baby was that he had escaped in the prison garbage truck and they left town together.

Yesterday the Conestoga group met at the Ohio Historical Society (now open only on Saturdays due to budget cuts by the state) to hear David Meyers talk about the local music scene. Wonderful presentation with great photos. David has over 4,000 pages of manuscript on this topic and a huge rare record collection--that's sort of what a fascination with local history can do. But he has also written about Ohio's prisons, and his latest book is out. While checking that web page I came across his blog, Central Ohio's Historic Prisons. Because of Dave's encyclopedic interests in music, records, film, prisons, local history (he also worked on Columbus Unforgettables series now out of print), screen writing, religion and family, he somehow manages to merge all of them in his blog--with photos. See the record labels about the great Ohio Penitentiary fire, April 21, 1930! And did you know the Professor of psychology at OSU who coined the term "moron" was once the coach of the USC Trojans? It's all on Dave's blog. Ah, a blogger after my own heart.

He's also on Facebook, and a member of UALC for you locals.

It's a long, long line

A catchy tune, great lyrics. The long, long line.

Do you need an MRI?
Get in the long, long line.
Do you feel like you're gonna die?
Get in the long, long line.
'Cuz health care from the state
Will cause an endless wait.
I hope it's not too late.
Get in the long, long line.

Brother and sister team, Steve Jones wrote the lyrics, and the music and singing is by Kathleen Stewart. Here's an article about them in the Midland Daily News (MI). Kathleen has a CD, "Take Back America." You can download "It ain't your money to spend."

"You started a spending orgy and then,
You made me long for Georgie again."

Ohio State School for the Blind to march in the Rosebowl Parade

Thirty two musicians and 36 volunteers will be marching in the Rosebowl parade when the Bucks meet the Ducks on New Year's Day. Blind musicians aren't particularly rare, but marching together? That takes a lot of effort, practice and heart.

"This is going to be hard. Six miles is a long way, longer than the parades they've marched in to prepare for Pasadena. In the past year, they've been playing and playing and playing. Performances in Lancaster, at churches, in Cincinnati, at the Ohio State University skull session and in the Circleville Pumpkin Festival parade.

Practice has not made perfect. That's the honest truth.

Eleven band members have perfect pitch (hearing them hum during marching-only practice is beautiful enough to make you hold your breath).

But when they pick up their tattered and battered and borrowed instruments, not every note is hit just-so.

Having perfect pitch "doesn't mean you have the finesse you need. It doesn't mean you have the articulation skills you need," says Carol Agler, the blind school's music director and co-director of the band. She turns no one away who signs up to play at the beginning of the year. No auditions are required, just desire.

It hasn't made a lick of difference to the audiences who have heard the blind band play."

Story by Jennifer Smith Richards. Go Marching Panthers!

As a brief Monday Memory, I mention watching my grandmother play the piano at our home in Forreston, IL. They didn't have a piano in their home, as I recall. They didn't visit often--we would go there--because she got car sick. I'm not sure how old she was--maybe mid-to-late 50s. She began losing her sight in grade school so wasn't able to go to high school, and was completely blind by her early 20s. So I was really surprised that her hands and her ears remembered from all those years when she was a child and took piano lessons. Thirty some years later she was residing in the nursing home in Oregon, IL and her roommate was a woman a few years older, named Olive. She had been Grandma's piano teacher. They had such a wonderful time together, and when Olive went back to her home/care giver, they talked on the phone just like young girls.

Friday Family Photo--The Hit Men

My son dropped off a copy of his new CD yesterday. They really aren't at all violent as the photo would suggest--I think that's a guy thing. They are just a bunch of guys who jam and love music. Would like some "hits" though. My guy is in the middle.

Columbus The Musical Crossroads

David Meyers knows more about the Columbus music scene than anyone I know, and he has a new book in the Arcadia series, Images of America, called Columbus The Musical Crossroads. It follows the usual format of about 130 pages and 2 photos per page with text. That's probably murder for a guy like Dave who has boxes of research and documentation, but it's fun for the reader.

“Columbus has long been known for its musicians. Unlike New York, San Francisco, Kansas City, Nashville, or even Cincinnati, however, it has never had a definable “scene.” Still, some truly remarkable music has been made in this musical crossroads by the many outstanding musicians who have called it home. Since 1900, Columbus has grown from the 28th- to the 15th-largest city in the United States. During this period, it has developed into a musically vibrant community that has nurtured the talents of such artists as Elsie Janis, Ted Lewis, Nancy Wilson, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Dwight Yoakam, Bow Wow, and Rascal Flatts. But, in many instances, those who chose to remain at home were as good and, perhaps, even better.”

I have only leafed through it (my husband brought it back to Lakeside with him), but I think Columbus boomers will get a kick out of Chapter 8, "Out of the Garage," which features the local high school rock and roll bands of the 1960s.

"Every high school had its personal favorite, and at Thomas Worthington it was the Dantes. Anchored by the precocious guitar work of Dave Workman and lead singer Barry Hayden's Mick Jagger-Ray Davies posturing, the quintet, which included Lynn Wehr, Joey Hinton, and Carter Holliday, had the best equipment and dressed in the latest mod clothing purchased on trips to New York.

Within a couple of years, at least one member of the band was earning more than his father playing weekends and holidays from school. The Dantes released three 45s before they found out the hard way that opportunities were limied for a cover band, no matter how good it might be." p. 110

Other Columbus teen bands of the 60s: The Triumphs; Vadicans; The 5th Order (Electras); The Grayps; The Rebounds; The Epics; The Shilohs; The Toads; The Thirteenth Dilemmas; The Dubonnets (Phantom Duck); The Trolls; The Edicates; Lapse of Time; In-Men; Four O'clock Balloon; The Fugitives.

Good job Dave--looking forward to dinner at the Bucket on the 11th.

3924

Guitar; an American life

About 25 years ago I thought I'd get a jump on my mid-life crisis by doing something different, deciding to take an aerobics dance class, pierce my ears (I have no discernable ear lobes and don't wear earrings), and learn to play the guitar. I did take the exercise dance class, liked it even though it meant sweating and over about 6 months I lost 20 pounds and went to work for one of my instructors. A story I wrote about it was published in the Columbus Dispatch. But poke holes in my dainty, tiny ears? No way. I did actually borrow a guitar for awhile from our friend John who told me he'd give me lessons, but memories of the trombone and piano failures came back to haunt me, and I don't think I ever even went plunkity plunk.

Yesterday at the library I was looking for an interesting, non-fiction audiobook to listen to while I walk and discovered "Guitar; an American Life," by Tim Brookes, a British ex-pat who lives in Vermont and is a commentator on NPR and writes for various magazines. I just had no idea that the history of the guitar would be so interesting. And when you start with almost no knowledge on a topic, you are soon 1000% smarter than you were a day ago! 24 hours ago I would have thought "luthier" was a misspelling of Luther, but it is someone who makes guitars. Here's a nice review by ricklibrarian with bibliographic details about the book and the audiobook.

Here's Brookes' list of 100 guitarists who weren't on Rolling Stones list.