I post a weekly diary of historical notes, arts & science items, foreign news (often receiving little notice in the US) and whimsical pieces from the outside world that I often feature in "Cheers & Jeers".
OK, you've been warned - here is this week's tomfoolery material that I posted.
ART NOTES — an exhibition marking the centennial of the birth of J.D. Salinger— with photographs, letters and notebooks of the “Catcher in the Rye” author (and his family promising to release a trove of unpublished manuscripts over the next decade) — will be on free display at the New York Public Library to January 20th.
HAIL and FAREWELL to the former moderate Republican governor of Michigan, William Milliken— the state’s longest-serving governor, who had a record of ivil rights and protecting the environment — who has died at the age of ninety-seven ……. and also to Bill Macy— who appeared in theater (Oh Calcutta!), and in films (My Favorite Year, The Jerk, Analyze This, and was the jury foreman in The Producers) but was best remembered as Walter, the belageured husband of Bea Arthur in the TV series Maude — who has also died at the age of ninety-seven.
THURSDAY's CHILD is named Smokie the Cat— an English kitteh rescued by a firefighter from a warehouse fire, who is nonetheless recuperating well.
WITH ALL of the talk about the Trump tariffs, one that is raising eyebrows elsewhere are tariffs that the South American nation of Colombia is levying on imported pre-cooked/frozen french fries— which they claim is to correct a market distortion that affects the lives of family farms — leading to the European Union filing a complaint with the World Trade Organization as it affects Belgium the most.
FRIDAY's CHILD is named Jericho Blue the Cat— an Ohio kitteh who went missing five years ago, now to be reunited with his family (after being discovered in Florida) … due to his microchip.
HAIL and FAREWELL to a Rock & Roll Hall of Fame guitarist with The Ventures, Gerry McGee— the son of a Louisiana Cajun fiddler who became a session guitarist in LA at the dawn of the 1960’s, yet whom I also recall as John Mayall’s guitarist on his 1971 album Memories— who has died (following a collapse on-stage in Japan) at the age of eighty-one.
BRAIN TEASER - try this Quiz of the Week's News from the BBC.
MEDICAL NOTES — while modern prostheses are wonders, their wearers cannot feel any sensations while wearing them. Until now … as a Swiss university has had some initial success attaching electrodes which, if it proves out: offers other advantages beyond feelings.
Reader Suggested SEPARATED at BIRTH —
xRep. Denny Heck (D-WA) - the missing link between Jeb Bush and John Goodman? pic.twitter.com/gBAfGTQemS
— Ed Tracey (@Ed_Tracey) October 15, 2019
...... and finally, for a song of the week ...........................… someone else from the “What If?” musical file is the 1960’s songwriter/performer P.F. Sloan— who wrote three songs (performed by others) that reached the Top Ten, with several others that became part of the repertoire of famous bands. Yet some bad luck, stubbornness, substance abuse (and perhaps mental illness) sidelined him for much of the rest of his life — with a different gifted songwriter even composing a tune that asked (in so many words) about his whereabouts? It’s worth asking.
Born Philip G. Schlein in NYC in 1945, his family moved to West Hollywood when he was age twelve where his shopkeeper father changed the family name to “Sloan” after repeatedly being denied a liquor license. And how’s this for an omen: while at Wallichs Music City store (on Sunset & Vine) he met Elvis Presley, who gave him an impromptu guitar lesson. Under the name P.F. Sloan (the F standing for his childhood nickname, Flip) he recorded a song at age fourteen in 1959 named All I Want is Loving for Aladdin Records … which folded soon afterwards.
Yet it enabled him two years later to land a spot at Screen Gems as a songwriter — as the firm was looking for youth-oriented songs — where he was fortuitously paired with someone three years his senior, Steve Barri (also an NYC native, and still alive today at age seventy-seven). P.F. Sloan still had the urge to perform yet — at this time — was content to write and play as a session man on recordings of some of the Sloan/Barry songs. He was accepted as a part-time member of the legendary Wrecking Crew of studio musicians.
In 1963, Screen Gems executive Lou Adler (who is still alive today at age eighty-five) took note of the songwriters and had them write for Jan & Dean (whom Adler managed). While they did not write any major hits for Jan & Dean (reaching only #30) they did perform on several recordings, with P.F. Sloan singing the lead falsetto voice on Jan & Dean’s #3 hit Little Old Lady from Pasadena.
In 1964, Lou Adler left Screen Gems to found his own record label Dunhill Records— and offered Sloan and Barri double their salaries to go with him. It paid off, as the two went on to write several songs for emerging bands: “You Baby” and “Let Me Be” (The Turtles), “Take Me for What I’m Worth” (The Searchers) and "Another Day, Another Heartache" (the Fifth Dimension). Sloan also created the opening guitar line for the Mamas & the Papas hit California Dreaming.
As noted, they had three Top Ten songs: A Must to Avoid (Herman’s Hermits), Secret Agent Man (Johnny Rivers) that reached #3, with Sloan playing the famous lead guitar line and most famously …..
1966’s Eve of Destruction— that Sloan recorded himself, but made it to #1 in 1965 as sung by Barry McGuire. I always marveled at a pop song that used the word “coagulating” and efforts to lower the voting age from 21 to 18 cited the song’s lyric “You’re old enough to kill — but not for voting” as it became a constitutional amendment in 1971. Bob Dylan at that time said, “There are no more escapes. If you want to find out anything that’s happening now, you have to listen to the music. I don’t mean the words. Though ‘Eve of Destruction’ will tell you something about it”.
Steve Barri has said that when Sloan returned from England (after accompanying Barry McGuire there for a major tour) that he had changed, becoming diffident. The two went on to write for a newly-recruited band The Grass Roots (“Only When You’re Lonely”, Where Were You When I Needed You and “Things I Should Have Said”), but the Grass Roots wanted to write/choose their own material and P.F. Sloan was itching to get back on-stage again.
He did release another social consciousness tune (Sins of the Family) about teenage prostitution) that went nowhere on the charts and the All-Music Guide’s Jason Ankeney said his follow-up album was dismissed by the folk-rock community as a studio musician out of his element. Dunhill spent nothing to promote these works (not wanting to lose a prime songwriter) all of which came to a head in 1967 when Sloan was released from his contract after agreeing to forego any future songwriting royalties.
He signed with Atco and released the 1968 album Measure of Pleasure— which I saw many a music publication ad for, as Atlantic was most eager to promote him — yet it also did not chart. His next album (1972’s Raised on Records) was critically panned and he went into seclusion for some time.
At this time, the songwriter who composed Wichita Lineman, MacArthur Park, Up, Up and Away, Galveston and By the Time I Get to Phoenix among others ... wrote a wistful tune entitled P.F Sloan— of which the Guardian’s Michael Hann wrote:
“Last summer I saw PF Sloan,” sang Jimmy Webb. “He was summer burned and winter blown / He turned the corner all alone.” Sloan was not Webb’s equal as a songwriter …. but you have to be pretty damn good for one of the greatest writers in pop to write a song about you.
For much of the 1970’s-1990’s, Sloan kept a low profile: with rumors of drug use, mental illness, hypoglycemia and other maladies, crediting his guru Sathya Sai Baba with finally helping him to set a smooth course. His 2006 recording Sailover met with some critical praise, and he followed-up in 2014 with a real departure: a musical theater piece called My Beethoven. That same year, he released his memoirs entitled What’s Exactly the Matter With Me— the title of a song Sloan and Steve Barri wrote that was recorded by Barry McGuire (who just turned age eighty-three this week).
P.F. Sloan died in November, 2015 at the age of seventy from pancreatic cancer. There is a compilation album of his most vital work from the mid-60’s, yet it is the breadth of the groups that covered his material that is perhaps his most lasting tribute. Besides the groups already mentioned: Johnny Thunders, the Pretty Things, Hot Tuna, Public Enemy, Duane Eddy, Kenny Rogers, Noel Harrison, Mel Tormé, Devo, Dwight Twilley, Del Shannon, the Vogues and the Bangles.
What to choose? First, for comparison: you can listen to Eve of Destruction at these links by Barry McGuire, and Sloan’s own more subdued version. Then his song Sins of the Family can be heard at this link.
A song he wrote w/Steve Barri in the mid-60’s (first recorded by Barry McGuire) that Sloan recorded himself — is Lollipop Train (You Never Had It So Good) — and below you can hear P.F. Sloan’s own version, which captures the mood of his songs from that era succinctly.
I know you think I won't amount to anything You keep reminding me I'll never have the means To buy you fancy clothes And treat you like I said some day I wouldx xYouTube VideoGo on and sleep away Those memories of nighttime fun I've never hassled with you Like most guys would have done And you know I have never questioned you About where you go and all the things you do
The bed of roses that you seek That you can never lie in? And pretending to be what you're not You'll see ... will only bring you crying?
Better roll it over in your mind carefully Before you say that you can do far better than me Look at the queen in her ragged gown Demanding to her jester a crown to hold
So don't you complain Don't let me hear you complain You're riding on a lollipop train And you never had it so good