Music & More

Maverick - a western with a sense of humor

My favorite western television series of all time is Maverick. I remember watching it as a kid on Sunday nights. To my knowledge, Maverick reruns haven't been shown in quite a while. My wife discovered that they are on Direct TV channel 529 which is Encore Westerns here in Nashville. The shows air Monday through Friday at 5 and 6 pm central time so I've been tuning in whenever possible or recording them. Watching this show again, from the opening theme song to the credits, was kind of like meeting an old friend again and feeling immediately comfortable. I have always thought of Maverick as a comedy western. Even the more dramatic episodes often have comic elements. After being extremely disappointed with several new western movies in the last few years, watching Maverick again has been a really pleasant experience. The episodes are shown without commercials, just a brief pause where each commercial break had originally been, so the running time is about 45 minutes.  The series was in black & white. That reminds me - when my kids were young, the first time they saw one of the old black & white shows they thought the TV set was broken.

My favorite Maverick episodes are the ones with James Garner as Bret Maverick however the shows with Jack Kelly as brother Bart Maverick are also very good. The Maverick boys were reluctant heroes. They were gambling men who generally did all they could to avoid work or trouble - but the latter invariably found them. As the theme song said they were "livin' on jacks and queens" .. "luck is the lady that they love the best". The "villains" were sometimes con men such as Dandy Jim Buckley, a recurring role brilliantly played by Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., who is more famous for starring in The FBI TV series. The Maverick episodes he appeared in were downright hilarious. (According to www.deadoraliveinfo.com, Mr. Z recently turned 90 and Mr. Garner is 80 however Mr.Kelly died in 1992.)

I like it that the credits on these Encore Westerns are shown at normal speed. So many TV reruns whip through the credits so fast that you can barely read anything. I like to see the names of all the actors in these shows to see if anyone appeared who later became famous as well as to identify character actors who I've seen in many shows over the years but can almost never recall their names. Looking at the credits for one of the Maverick episodes the other day, I happened to see that one of the writers was Elmer Kelton, a famous author of western novels such as "The Day the Cowboys Quit" and "The Time It Never Rained". I've read and highly enjoyed nine of Mr. Kelton's books. I usually don't look to see who the writers are on TV shows but maybe now I will.

I watched many other westerns as a kid. The Statler Brothers' song "Whatever Happened to Randolph Scott" mentions a lot of the really old westerns, Roy and Gene and Tex Ritter and even some that few probably remember today such as Lash Larue (the guy with the whip), Johnny Mack Brown and Smiley Burnette. My family's regular viewing included Roy, Gene and Hoppy, the Cisco Kid, Cheyenne (my mother's favorite), Sugarfoot and Bronco Lane, the Lone Ranger, Zorro, Gunsmoke, Wagon Train, Rawhide, Wyatt Earp, Wild Bill Hickock, Lawman, The Rifleman, Broken Arrow, Annie Oakley, Elfego Baca, the High Chaparral, The Rebel, Bonanza and probably more I can't remember right now. The most notable exception to our western watching was Have Gun, Will Travel. Don't remember why we didn't watch it. Knowing the shows appearing in the same time slot would probably answer my question. What are your favorite westerns?

Oops! Almost forgot. Since the subject here is television, is it my wife and I's imagination that TV commercials are not only louder than the program we're watching, but that each succeeding commercial gets louder? Thank God for the mute button on the remote.

Rooting for a losing team

It's been a tough basketball season so far with little hope that things will improve in the remaining months for the teams I root for. The St. John's University Red Storm are not going to be a part of March Madness, the NCCA tournament. They haven't been there since a first round elimination in the 2001/02 season. The New Jersey Nets of the NBA would not make the playoffs if the season ended today. I'm happy to say that neither team has fired the coach, although 7 NBA coaches have already gotten the ax. (Make that 8 - the Suns just fired Terry Porter.) Don't know how many college coaches have been fired. Basically, I think that the effort has been there for both of my teams. If SJU had Coach K to start the season I doubt that the record would be much better considering the talent level and injury situation. If Phil Jackson coached the Nets, they would still be struggling. 

The New Jersey Nets, after a surprising start, had a stretch where they lost 8 of 9 games and find themselves 5 games under .500 at the all-star break. Before the season started, I predicted that they would finish with between 26 and 28 wins. With 24 wins so far, they should easily surpass my expectations. Sports Illustrated picked the Nets near the bottom of the Eastern conference. The good start was due in large part to the emergence of Devin Harris, the guard they obtained in the Jason Kidd trade. It helped overcome the loss of Richard Jefferson, traded to Milwaukee. The return to earth could be because other teams have adjusted and don't take them lightly. There also have been injuries, though no worse than other teams have suffered. Rookie Brook Lopez is averaging 12 points, 8 rebounds and almost 2 blocked shots through 53 games but the numbers have been higher lately, a good sign. Rookie Ryan Anderson has teased us with an occasional outstanding game but consistency has been lacking.

The St. John's University Red Storm are near the bottom of a very tough Big East conference. If the intent in playing a fairly weak pre-conference schedule was to build confidence that might carry over to the Big East games, it hasn't worked. The Storm now has a record of 12-13 overall after starting out 9 - 1 and only 3 - 10 in conference play. The loss to Marquette the other night was their 4th in a row. A sub .500 season is a virtual certainty since there are 6 games left on the regular season schedule with only 2 that look remotely winnable. Their big win against Notre Dame at the Garden last month doesn't look as big now since the Irish lost 7 straight before upsetting Louisville a few days ago. The bright spot has been the play of soph Paris Horne. Will next year's newcomers, Omari Lawrence and Dwight Hardy, be impact players? I'm not getting my hopes up (maybe I have the timidity of hope). But after following them for over 45 years, I can't see switching allegiance now.  

Rooting for a losing team can have some bennies for the fans. You're more likely to get good seats if you go to the games. Lower attendance should make it easier to park. A losing team may be less likely to raise ticket prices. I remember going to Yankee games in the early 70's and being able to park in the street a few blocks from the Stadium and get good seats on the day of the game. When you root for a losing team, you look more to individual achievements of the players and occasionally experience the joy of spoiling the playoff chances of a better team. On the pro level, there's also the hope that a bad season will result in a great draft pick that will turn the team around. Sometimes you find yourself rooting for your team to lose to get that pick. On the college level, it doesn't seem to work as well. I would think that having a bad team might induce some really good players to sign up with the chance of starting immediately. It seems though that the top programs continually get the best players. Everyone loves a winner. 

Lisa Brokop: Canada's best kept secret?

Prior to the end of last year, the only thing I ever heard Lisa Brokop sing was "Keep Mom and Dad in Love", a duet with Hal Ketchum on his "Lucky Man" cd. I have never heard a Lisa Brokop song on the radio, either in New York (when they still had country radio prior to 2002) or here in Nashville. My youngest brother Chris told me about her after buying some of her cd's online. He said she was great and he was absolutely right. I was totally blown away by her music. In my post of July 22nd last year, I listed my favorite top 40 female and male country artists of all time. Lisa Brokop was not even on the list, even though commercial success was not a requirement. I will probably redo the list this coming July with Lisa around the #10 slot. She's that good. Hearing her perform "live" confirmed my opinion.

My wife and I saw Lisa at the Bluebird Cafe for the 6 p.m. show on Tuesday evening January 13th along with her fellow Canadians Tania Hancheroff and Victoria Banks and "honorary Canadian" Mary Sue Englund from Minnesota. (Maybe I could be an "Honorary Canadian" since my grandmother on my mother's side was born in St. John's, Newfoundland.) The early show at the Bluebird is usually reserved for relatively unknown singer songwriters and there is no cover charge. (There is a minimum charge for food per person.) As many of you probably know, the usual format at the Bluebird is that the artists perform in the round. With 4 performers, each artist will usually sing 6 songs during the show which lasts around 2 hours. Lisa's six songs that night included "Wildflower", "Thoughtless Day", "Clouds, Clouds, Clouds", "Band in the Window" (a Pam Tillis single written by Lisa and Kim McLean that didn't chart), "Shackin' Up" and "Rapunzel", the last 4 from her 7th and latest studio cd "Beautiful Tragedy". I couldn't find "Thoughtless Day" on any of her cd's because, as I just discovered on her website, it's a new song.

When I think of Canadian country music, names that come to mind include Anne Murray, Terri Clark, Emerson Drive, etc. The ladies who performed the other night at the Bluebird are not exactly familiar names to most country music fans in the U.S. and, other than Lisa Brokop, I don't know for sure that they're well known in Canada. When I write about a favorite singer who has as many cd's as Lisa, I usually suggest that someone just discovering her music could start by buying a greatest hits cd and work from there. Ms. Brokop does not have a greatest hits cd. According to Wikipedia, Lisa has no top 40 hits in the U.S. and in Canada her highest charting hit made it to #8 and another made it to #10. That surprises me. According to her website, she has won some awards in Canada. That doesn't surprise me.

Aside from her debut cd as a teenager which suffered from less than stellar material, Lisa's cd's have all been very good to outstanding. There are no bad songs and even the few that are less than memorable are rescued by her great vocals. That's the beauty of buying cd's by artists who really can sing. You don't have to skip any tracks. Just hit "play" and sit back and enjoy. Since she has no greatest hits cd, I'll just note songs from each of her cd's that appealed most to me. Here they are:

From her debut cd, "My Love" (1993), I liked "I'm Leaving You for Me" and a duet "All Heaven Broke Loose". Her duet partner is not identified on the cd however in a profile on her from "Century of Country" found on www.countryworks.com it appears that it may be Danny Leggett, an artist I'm not familiar with.

"Every Little Girl's Dream" (1994) featured upbeat tunes like the title track, "Take That", "Give Me a Ring Sometime", and the sassy "Who Needs You" (love it) plus ballads like "Not Here in My Arms" and "One of Those Nights". The lines "you said you were over her, looks like you were wrong" from the former reminds me of Alabama's early hit "Old Flame". "One of Those Nights" was written by Conway Twitty and Troy Seals (brother of Jim of Seals & Croft, Dan of England Dan & John Ford Coley, and Brady of Little Texas - thank you Google and Wikipedia).

From her self-titled 1996 cd, I liked "Language of Love", "West of Crazy", "That Summer", "From the Heart", "She Can't Save Him" and "I Know a Heartache When I See One" (originally sung by Jennifer Warnes - who Lisa reminds me of.). Some songs grab you right away while others grow on you - or not. "West of Crazy", written by Vince Melemed and Gary Burr, was a grabber - and a keeper. I don't understand how it could be released as a single and fail to chart. "Now That We're Not a Family" is a powerful and poignant solo writing effort by Phil Dillon about a child's reaction to her father's leaving due to her parent's divorce .

"When You Get To Be You" (1999) featured ballads like "How Do I Let Go", "Cool Summer Night" and "Land of a 1,000 Dances" (not the Cannibal and the Headhunters song that some older readers like me would remember) plus "What's Not to Love", another song with sass, a fun, toe tapper "Rain on the River", "Better Off Broken" and "Ain't Enough Roses" (another great song with the same theme is Blaine Larsen's "They Don't Grow Enough Roses").

From her 2000 cd, "Undeniable" my favs are "Something Undeniable", "It's Me", "Cross My Heart", "Timeless", "Dark Side of the Moon", "Whiskey and Wine", in which the contrast is made between the wine for the lovers and the whiskey for the man alone in despair, and her duet with Hal Ketchum "Keep Mom and Dad in Love".

2005's "Hey Do You Know Me" featured "One Bad Day", a break-up song with attitude, "Pearl", a great story song about the daughter of a drunk abusive father, who escaped him to sing the blues, "Paper, Rock, Scissors", a brilliant song about a woman tired of the constant bickering in her relationship couched in the terms of that game I'm sure many of us remember playing as kids, and "Lime Green Pacer" (fun rocking car song comparable to Kathy Mattea's "455 Rocket"). Add "Try Me Again Around Midnight" "Ladylike", "Wildflowers", "Just a Girl" and "Let Me Love Again", a duet with Steve Holy and this may be her best cd.

From this same great cd I almost missed "What I'd Miss", written by Liz Rose, Mark Narmore and Carol Ann Brown. It seems to happen quite often that in listening to a new record, I overlook at least one great song. I probably played this cd a half dozen times before it registered in my old brain. This song grew on me the more I listened and read the lyrics. The lines "what if there's a moment sayin' dance, though there's no music playin" reminds of that take a chance at life theme of "The Dance", that Tony Arata song made famous  by some guy from Oklahoma. I also liked the line about the growing up of a child, "a wall that marks how time flies". I recall when my son turned the tables and measured me and I found out that I had shrunk.  

"Beautiful Tragedy", Lisa's latest effort released in August of 2008, is very different from her previous cd's. The music is more poetic and introspective, ballads of hurt, healing and hope (don't mean to be pretentious but I've always liked alliteration) with a few upbeat songs interwoven in the playlist to lighten the mood. (You can read all the lyrics for this cd on her website.) The title song, "30 Shades of Blue", "Rapunzel" and "Just To Be Here" are all slowly unfolding songs in which the lyrics clearly eclipse the melody. It was smart not to place any of these songs back to back. "Clouds, Clouds, Clouds" and "So Far" have more life to them musically while "November Trees" and "I Can't" (great bridge) are not lighthearted but uptempo. The overall tone is lightened just enough by "Band in the Window", "Break It", "Shackin' Up" and "On the Radio", whose title as shown on the website may sadly be prophetic (Just Another Song You Won't Hear) "On The Radio". My favorites on this well crafted playlist are the Clouds, November, I Can't, Band, Break It and Radio songs.

In addition to her outstanding vocals, Lisa is an accomplished songwriter with 145 credits on BMI and 33 on ASCAP (some of the same songs appear on both). She has co-written almost all of the tracks on her last four cd's. At the show, she mentioned Kim McLean as a frequent co-writer. Together, they have collaborated on "Pearl", "Paper, Rock, Scissors" and, as noted above "Band in the Window" plus quite a few others. Six of the songs on "Beautiful Tragedy" were co-written by Fred Wilhelm. Checking the net, I see that Lisa has some videos, songs, etc. on You-Tube but apparently she doesn't have a My-Space. Maybe that would be helpful in getting her music out there. She also has some cd's and a few singles on I-Tunes. The singles are "Big Picture" and "God Save the World", a duet with Jeff Carson.

The three other ladies who shared the stage with Lisa at the Bluebird are all accomplished singer songwriters. Mary Sue Englund has been singing backup for Pam Tillis for the past 5 years and has co-written Lisa songs "Lime Green Pacer" and "So Far". Victoria Banks wrote "Saints and Angels" for Sara Evans and co-wrote "Come On Over" for Jessica Simpson. Tania Hancheroff co-wrote "I Can't" with Victoria Banks and Tia Sellers and "What If It All Works Out", a hit for Melissa Lawson. Check their MySpaces and websites.

Don McLean's Other Songs

As many probably saw in today's newpapers, on TV and on-line, today is the 50th anniversary of the deaths of Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and the "Big Bopper", J.P. Richardson, in a plane crash in Iowa . In his great 8 minute and 27 second song "American Pie", Don McLean referred to the event as "the day the music died".

Besides "American Pie", McLean is most famous for "Vincent", recently recorded by Josh Groban, and "And I Love You So" recorded by many, the best known, at least to older folks, would be Perry Como's version. All three are described as "Award Winning Songs" on the BMI website (see link on right). BMI also indicates that "Castles in the Air" and "Dreidel" were also award winners. McLean was the sole writer of these five songs and many other outstanding songs. These "other" songs may be of interest to some so I'll mention them here. It gives me an excuse to play my five Don McLean albums. I just set the needle at 33 1/3 and I'm ready to go.   

"American Pie" was also the title of Mr. McLean's second album which was released in 1971. The famous album cover shows the artist off to the left with a closeup in the center of his fist with thumb up. The thumb is painted blue at the top with a white star and extending below the blue are red and white stripes. The back cover has his picture with a guitar and a list of the tracks. Near the bottom it reads, "Dedicated to Buddy Holly". The brown paper LP sleeve has a picture of Hopalong Cassidy with a tribute to Hoppy below written by Don McLean. Besides "American Pie" and "Vincent", "Empty Chairs" is by far my favorite song but "Till Tomorrow", "Winterwood" and "Everybody Loves Me, Baby" were also very good. 

"Tapestry" preceded "American Pie" in 1970 and featured "And I Love You So" and "Castles in the Air" noted above plus the funny and highly irreverent "Magdalene Lane" (love it), "No Reason For Your Dreams", "Bad Girl", "Circus Song" and songs of social commentary such as "Tapestry", "General Store", "Orphans of Wealth", "Respectable" and "Three Flights Up".

His 1972 self-titled album included "Dreidel" plus "Bronco Bill's Lament", "Birthday Song", "If We Try" and a very funny song from the 1920's, "On the Amazon".

1973 brought us "Playin' Favorites" and included "Fool's Paradise", "Lovesick Blues", Buddy Holly's "Everyday", "Livin with the Blues", "Mountains of Morn" and the Roy Rogers theme "Happy Trails". These are all covers of songs written by others.

The last in my Don McLean LP collection is "Homeless Brother" released in 1974. In addition to the title track on which Pete Seeger sings backgound, this great album also includes "Winter Has Me in Its Grip", "La La Love You", "The Legend of Andrew McGrew", "Wonderful Baby", "You Have Lived", "Great Big Man" and a cover of "Crying in the Chapel" written by Artie Glenn. My wife and I used to softly sing "Wonderful Baby" to my daughter when she was a wonderful little baby. (I sang softly because of my lousy voice.)

With the exception of "Playin' Favorites", I would highly recommend the Don McLean albums described above. I never got to see Mr. McLean in concert so I can't comment on his ability as a live performer in his prime. I have heard from friends that his "live" cd's are not that good. As a songwriter, he has few equals. Check out the brilliant lyrics on line. These are not simple little ditties. Except where noted, they are, words and music, totally the output of Mr. McLean.