Around seven years ago, I waiting in a queue at Zabars (a famous NY Delicatessen retailer) and standing behind me with a quarter of a pound of Nova Scotia lox and some bagels, was Odetta. Well I couldn’t believe my eyes since she was dressed as she was in a recent coffee-table book of Fran Lebovitz pix or someone like her- a gorgeous silver and stone pendant dangling between her breasts. Odetta! I exclaimed. She seemed utterly surprised that anyone would recognize her. She then flattered me by saying I looked too young to know who she was. When I told her I was over 40, she said “OK maybe you are old enough.” I let her get ahead of me at the register and no one blinked an eye.
Last night at the YMCA Boulton Center for the Performing Arts, early pop icon Lesley Gore performed to a packed audience of swooning baby-boomers. Some of my earliest memories are listening to Gore’s anthems on my portable Victrola with my babysitter and her boyfriend – 45s and pizza-boxes strewn across the carpet- occasionally peeking out the window for my mom to come home so the boyfriend could sneak out.
Gore provided more than just nostalgia last night. At first I was concerned since all of her 12 major hit records total about 25 minutes. In the early 60s, song lengths averaged between one-and-a-half minutes to perhaps two minutes tops. Gore assembled an ecclectic playlist from some of her favorite songs of the era from Laura Nyro to John Lennon, Isaac Hayes to Anita O’Day, Motown to Sergio Mendes. Her vocal range remains intact and her performance packed a satisfying pop/jazz punch. Gore also sang some of her “classics” that have earned her the title of “proto-feminist” like “You Don’t Own Me” and her Academy Award Nominated song from the film Fame,“Out Here On My Own.”
Vintage film of Gore’s live TV performance of You Don’t Own Me.
Gore officially came out of the closet in 2005 but her sexual orientation was well known by many in the industry and the LGBT community.
From Wikipedia: Gore provided musical aid for the 1996 film Grace of My Heart,
which featured a character (played by Bridget Fonda) whose struggles over her sexual orientation were similar to Gore’s. Beginning in 2004, Gore could be seen hosting the PBS television series, In the Life, which focused on LGBT issues. Gore currently lives with her partner of more than 23 years.
All in all, it was a thrill to finally see Ms. Gore perform and to meet her after the concert where she warmly greeted her fans and autographed copies of her CDs that were for sale. Visit the link to her blog for more upcoming tour dates.
The Right To Love – Lyrics Gene Lees – Music Lalo Schifrin
My love and I ask little of the world
The right to sigh together in the rain
And walk with heads up in the sun
And share our joy and our pain
And yet they say that we are wrong
That we haven’t the right to our love
That this love is shameful to see
And yet we treasure our love
And so we go our solitary ways
Indifferent to the cold unfriendly stares
Indifferent to the whispered talk
We don’t care at all
We have all we need
As long as we can be together
We know we’ve earned the precious right to love
And so we go our solitary ways
Indifferent to the cold unfriendly stares
Indifferent to the whispered talk
We don’t care at all
We have all we need
As long as we can be together
We find our consolation in each others eyes
The sweet look of wonder
We know we’ve earned the precious right to love
I first heard this tune in the 80s when dating a lovely man named Sammy Velazquez. The lyrics by Gene Lees (and music by Lalo Schifrin) so tenderly express the sentiments of what was then attributed to interracial love, yet can be universally interpreted. Click here to hear a great rendition by Freddy Cole with Grover Washington Jr on soprano sax.
BURNING DOWN THE HOUSE! I bought this limited edition Rauschenberg cover in 1983 @ Tower Records and never opened it. Now to dig it out. Irony: Rauschenberg outlived Tower Records. I went to a church as a child where they supposedly spoke in tongues and I knew then and there that religion was mumbo jumbo.
After all these years I’ve finally come to realize all the make-up was to distract you from his horrible teeth! Still a brilliant song after all these years.
It’s a God awful small affair
To the girl with the mousey hair
But her mummy is yelling, “No!”
And her daddy has told her to go
But her friend is no where to be seen
Now she walks through her sunken dream
To the seats with the clearest view
And she’s hooked to the silver screen
But the film is a sadd’ning bore
For she’s lived it ten times or more
She could spit in the eyes of fools
As they ask her to focus on
Sailors
Fighting in the dance hall
Oh man!
Look at those cavemen go
It’s the freakiest show
Take a look at the lawman
Beating up the wrong guy
Oh man!
Wonder if he’ll ever know
He’s in the best selling show
Is there life on Mars?
It’s on America’s tortured brow
That Mickey Mouse has grown up a cow
Now the workers have struck for fame
‘Cause Lennon’s on sale again
See the mice in their million hordes
From Ibiza to the Norfolk Broads
Rule Britannia is out of bounds
To my mother, my dog, and clowns
But the film is a sadd’ning bore
‘Cause I wrote it ten times or more
It’s about to be writ again
As I ask you to focus on
Sailors
Fighting in the dance hall
Oh man!
Look at those cavemen go
It’s the freakiest show
Take a look at the lawman
Beating up the wrong guy
Oh man!
Wonder if he’ll ever know
He’s in the best selling show
Is there life on Mars?
On New Year’s Day, after flying in from Ft. Lauderdale from a vacation visiting my family, my niece called me up and said, “Hey Uncle Frank, let’s go out tonight!” So we did. We saw a large assemblage of brass and woodwind players with an occasional accordion, electric guitar and homemade zen percussion called Himalayas. Four words described their music and performance: Joyous, polyrhythmic, pandiatonic, cacophony. The quote on the bass drum: An injury to one is an injury to all.
Peace
PS: I guess the secret’s out now, so that is Rosa’s new boyfriend – DJ Mathieu Schreyer in the background. Not quiet comfortable seeing paparazzi shots of her on websites, but it goes with the territory. Rosa is a really smart young woman and I’m sure she can handle the limelight by now. I’m still the proud and sometimes overly concerned Uncle.
Comments Off on Himalayas On New Year’s Day with Rosario, Vincenzo & Friends – Tuesday, January 1, 2008
Silly foraging alpine white-tailed deer
Is it really me you see, smell & hear?
Or trillion charcoal black carbon copies
Floating on a roiling foamyspace-time
Perhaps in unison in subspace rhyme
Or cacophoniccontrapuntal screams
Falling in & out of the quantum seams
“Shine on Reverend Pearson
Who threw away
The vain old God…” Joni Mitchell, Shine
On November 19th, I’m scheduled to speak at a dinner and exhibition of my work at the Marble Collegiate Church on Fifth Avenue and 29th Street in Manhattan @ 6PM as part of their “GIFTS” program, an LGBT outreach:
GIFTS is a gay, lesbian, bi-sexual and transgendered community at Marble Collegiate Church that seeks to reconcile spirituality and sexuality through God’s love. By celebrating the common threads between our lives and faith journeys, we embrace our spiritual inheritance. We welcome all who wish to grow and be energized through Christian fellowship and service.
In my search for a way to address issues of “faith” (in both Science & Religion) which I’ve always approached with skepticism and downright cynicism, I’ve become aware of the work of Reverend Carlton Pearson by way of Joni Mitchell. Mitchell addresses her own cynicism with the Church in her title track Shine on her recent CD with Hear Music/Starbucks. So I’ve done some Internet soul-searching and found these two YouTube pieces about a remarkable Pentecostal preacher who has had the audacity to give up Hell and embrace all “God’s children.”
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