I edited the previous item to remove a line I wrote about how Shirley Jones and Herschel Bernardi were doing their respective new TV shows in Los Angeles and The Ed Sullivan Show was done in New York. I removed it because this morning, many an e-mail reminded me that this particular Ed Sullivan Show was done at the Hollywood Bowl out here.
I dunno how that didn't occur to me when I was typing that because I knew it. I'd even been thinking about how it was like in the movie of Bye Bye Birdie, the Russian ballet and the kissing of Ann-Margret on The Ed Sullivan Show were part of a live remote from Ohio. Sometimes, I shouldn't be blogging when I'm too tired.
Also this morning, I received this from Matthew Harris…
I suppose coincidences like these really aren't that surprising.
I've just begun Clive Davis' memoir (and am enjoying it). Last night I read the chapter about Janis Joplin and about the time that Clive asked Richard Rodgers into his office to listen to something. He played Joplin's version of Gershwin's "Summertime." Clive was quite smitten with Janis & thought her take on the classic might impress Richard. Rodgers listened and said nothing. Clive then decided to play "Piece of My Heart." After 90 seconds Rodgers told him to stop the tape & railed against it all. Couldn't understand how people could listen to this & said if he had to write music like this his career was over.
I must be honest and say that I don't think about Richard Rodgers every day.
Richard Rodgers apparently did…and not every day but every second. Various books do not make him out to be that nice a man…or particularly fond of anything that wasn't written by Richard Rodgers. But I don't think it's that uncommon for anyone — a composer or not — to favor one particular kind of music over all others. We all have styles we don't care for and some of us have more than most.
And I recall Mel Tormé in one of his books scorning Rodgers for not liking the way he [Tormé] sang certain tunes from the Rodgers-and-Hart or Rodgers-and-Hammerstein catalogues. I read that and I didn't think it was so awful that the composer of a song thought there was a "right" way to sing it. No one kicked when Neil Simon didn't like the way one of his lines was delivered. One should be open to different interpretations but that doesn't mean they're all acceptable. Or that I have to like Reggae music.