You've Got to Give a Little . . .

OK. I planned on a different video to do next, but everything kept going wrong, so when Corona Man's face mask fell off in the middle of the song, I said "That's it!" and gave up on the idea for awhile, and decided just to do an old favorite.

This piece was one of our "greatest hits" when we played at nursing homes - we'd save it for our grand finale.  "We" was me, and my life-long friend Norm Lorenz of Madison.  We called our style of music (and our life-style at the time)  "Pay as You  Go". 

Floral design by Dottie Diggs of Milwaukee.  Although daffodils and iriseses are seasonal this time of year, no actual flowers were harmed in the creation of this video.

Enjoy!

For the Birds

Sometimes the best medicine is a breath of fresh cool April air.  Take a short walk (Yesterday's new  restrictions in Wisconsin still allow us that much).  If you prefer staying at home, at least go and stand in the doorway, or stick your head out of the window.  Get away from your TV with its constant sick-room narrative, personal injury attorneys, and true crime shows.  Breathe. Take in the beautiful spring.  Listen to the robins, red-wing blackbirds, and even those little brown windshield-crappers.

And speaking of birds, today's musical assault comes as an attempt to fill a special request.  Last week, a fan of mine, a cockatoo who lives near Madison, WI requested a song by John Denver. "Sunshine on My Shoulders".   This is the best I can do, it's a far reach for my repertoire, and I pray it's good enough.  The beaks on some of those cockatoos are like Pruning Shears, and I don't want my pinkies pruned . . .

So, if you're a cockatoo, this song is for you, from me, from Fernanda, and all the other ferns!

I'll be All in Clover

Quite a busy day, ending with a broken water pipe in one of our rental properties.  There's always music.  There's always music. . . .

This morning/afternoon, I was working with the old King of Glory gang.  We haven't had church lately, but today we got together, in a sanitary sort of way, to produce an Easter church service for online distribution.  I'm posting it at the end of this page, always hoping to get the good news out there.  Everybody at church was fine, and it was good to see them again, and work together.

Quite another view of Easter is the one portrayed in the 1948 movie Easter Parade.  You may not have seen the movie, but without fail, have you noticed, people always sing "On the Avenue . . . ." at the oddest times. 

So, here is a rabbit's eye view of Irving Berlin's Easter Parade.

And, here's that church service (that organist really got it goin on, aina?)

Happy Easter!

When the Lights Go On Again

England in World War 2 was a scary place.  Relentless Nazi air raids, the bombing of London was the grim reality that led to the blackout restrictions.  By order of the government, windows had to be darkened so that the city could not be visually targeted from the air. 

Cheering them on to bravery and self-sacrifice was Vera Lynn.  British soldiers were all in love with Vera.  They won the war for her.  In her songs, she was their mother, she was their daughter, she was the girl they left behind, and sometimes she was even the fantasy lover they would meet and marry when they came back home.  She felt their pain, and every British soldier fought and sometimes died to win the war for Vera.   She entertained the troops abroad, she staged radio broadcasts from home, she recorded phonograph records for their jukeboxes.

"When the Lights Go On Again" was one of Vera's songs. Others you may have heard of, recorded with a chorus of soldiers and sailors singing with her:  "We'll Meet Again",  "Auf Wiedersehen, Sweetheart"

This week, at the age of 103, Vera Lynn is still giving us a message of hope.  In an interview with a London magazine this week, she said "In these uncertain times, I am taken back to my time during World War II, when we pulled together and looked after each other.  It is this spirit that we all need to find again to weather the storm of the corona virus."

God bless you, Vera Lynn! 

She's a Woman (1965) instrumental

Today's video is an instrumental arrangement I've been working on, and with no piano students to try it out on, I offer it to our online community.  The Beatles, even after all these years, provide fresh new insights into harmony, rhythm, and music as we know it. 

Here's a 55-year old Beatles song (yes, Boomers, we are that old) with an arrangement inspired by Elvis Presley and Ramsey Lewis.  Hope this brightens up your quarantine!

Life Can Be So Sweet on the Sunny Side

Today, we grab our coats and get our hats....     (sorry it got so late in the day, my video editor was fighting me today.)

It was such a glorious sunny day. Here's something they don't tell you on TV:  when you go outside, you're isolated - because, besides the dog-walkers, there's nobody out there.  You can maintain your social distance, wear your face mask if you wanna, but chances are you can walk for blocks without even seeing another person.  And it's quiet out there.  Without the constant freeway drone, and the planes ("de planes!" - we live close to the airport), you can actually hear the birds singing.  Yes, they're back, the robins, red-wing blackbirds, Canada geese, ducks, and the ever-popular sparrows.  Since Snap Fitness and my wife's Sweat'n'Sleaze Gym have closed, we go out for a walk every morning as soon as we get up. 

It's another one of those Depression era songs that people leaned on for comfort and hope.  It is rumored that Fats Waller wrote this song and sold it to Jimmy McHugh and Dorothy Fields, so I credit him in the video as well.  

Technical note - Sorry, Norm.  I didn't see the reflection of the tripod until I was just about finished with the editing.  

Hope you're all keeping safe, keeping busy.  Go for a nice walk and then come home and bake some cookies.

Everywhere You Go

Songs are sometimes not about the world we live in, but more about the world we would like to live in.   In the 1930s, the songwriters reached out to the world, helping everybody to look on the bright side.  And sometimes, a little creative denial is all we need to get back on track.  Imagine.  As Al Jolson sang, "it isn't raining rain, you know, it's raining violets!"   And sometimes, just noticing a flower, a bird song, or the smile of a passer-by that we may otherwise have missed, can be a life-changing event.

This song, "Everywhere You Go", by Joe Goodwin, Larry Shay, and Mark Fisher, was written in 1927, and recorded countless times, by Bing Crosby, by Doris Day, and, my favorite, a live noon-time show on WTMJ radio in Milwaukee, played by a band calling themselves the Hot Shots, who used the song as their theme song.  

In the 1970s, 80s, and some 90s, my friend Norm and I used to perform at old folks homes, and this was our theme song.  We called our band "Pay As You Go", and usually we were joined by Geoff the Washboard Dude, my little brudder from Watertown.

Without getting all "Andy Griffith" about it, this is one of those songs about leaving the world a better place, and shouldn't we all be doing a little of that?

The flowers in the video are from the Summer 2019 crop.