A few random stories for the end of October, after-the-jump ….
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First: only three more days for radio DJ’s to declare this to be ... Rocktober.
Three years ago in October in this space: I profiled a museum which began as the private home of a wealthy woman who collected not only paintings but also sculptures, tapestries, decorative arts and has a glass-covered garden courtyard. Alas, the Isabella Stewart Gardner museum is best known for being the site of the largest art theft in history (an estimated $500 million) in 1990, including the only known seascape by Rembrandt. You can read that profile at this link.
Now …... an update.
A few weeks ago, the alleged mobster thought to have been the last person alive with knowledge of who committed the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum art heist, has died at the age of eighty-five due to a stroke. Robert Gentile, who is known in some circles by his nickname “The Cook,” was thought to have helped conceal information around the world’s biggest art heist — he always denied this and took whatever secrets he may/may not have had to his grave. It’s still an open FBI case.
In October of 1968, Capitol Records released the Glen Campbell single Wichita Lineman— which eventually reached #3 in the US charts, was ranked by Rolling Stone as #206 in its 500 Greatest Songs of All Time list and it was was one of 25 recordings inducted into the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress in 2020 as a "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" work.
"'Wichita Lineman' is the ultimate expression of the musical and spiritual bond between my husband Glen and his songwriting soulmate Jimmy Webb," said Glen's widow, Kim Campbell. "Despite 'Wichita Lineman' being such an important song for Glen, it was also one of his favorites and I know he'd be honored to have his original recording preserved in the Library of Congress."
The song came about when Glen Campbell asked Jimmy Webb for a follow-up to the previous hit for Campbell that Webb had written (while at Motown), By the Time I Get to Phoenix— and when Webb indicated he didn’t want to repeat a theme, Campbell asked, “Can you do something geographical?”
Recalling his childhood days driving through the Oklahoma panhandle: he developed a theme about his seeing a lineman on top of a telephone pole and sent over a partly-finished song, to see if Campbell and his producer liked it. Jimmy Webb didn’t hear back from them and then ...
"A couple of weeks later I ran into him [Glen Campbell] somewhere, and I said, 'I guess you guys didn't like the song.'"
"He said, 'Oh, we cut that'.
I said …. 'It wasn't done! I was just humming the last bit!'"
"He said, 'Well ……... it's done, now!'"
And yet the song’s most famous couplet… for years was a sore point for its composer (who was not quite age twenty-two at the time he wrote it).
And I need you more than want you And I want you for all time And the Wichita Lineman is still on the line
What to many is a work of beauty …. was to him a false rhyme (“time” with “line”) — forty-two years later, he told Terry Gross on her show Fresh Air this:
The most biggest, awfulest, dumbest, most obvious false rhyme in history, and night after night, at performance after performance, person after person comes up to me -- until now, I'm talking about 100,000 people have walked up to me -- and said, 'You know the greatest line you ever wrote?”
And so I don't know how to explain that. Had I known what I was doing, I wouldn't have written that line. I would have found a way to make it rhyme. It was only years later that I became aware of what a songwriter was even supposed to do. I was really just a kid who was kind of writing from the hip and the heart.
To close October: an entry from the "I didn't know he was still alive" file - the bluesman Willie Cobbs died the other day at age eighty-nine. He had been a singer/harmonica player from Arkansas who made the trek to Chicago’s Maxwell Street where he found a career that began in earnest in 1960 — and in 1994 made a comeback album including remakes of earlier hits as well as new songs.
His best-known song (from 1961) achieved fame ten years later by the (extended version) from the Allman Brothers Fillmore East live album — plus numerous cover versions from the Groundhogs, Ike & Tina, Dr. Feelgood and others.
Two renditions: first from John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers in 1967, sung by his guitarist Peter Green (who with bassist John McVie helped found Fleetwood Mac along with drummer Mick Fleetwood).
Lastly — the original 1961 recording by Willie Cobbs.
Now, on to Top Comments:
Highlighted by MarcKyle64:
In the front-page story about the possible contempt citation for Mark Meadows from the January 6th committee — this comment made by Magnifico.
And from Ed Tracey, your faithful correspondent this evening ........
In the front-page story about Rep. Madison Cawthorn asking on Twitter about the infrastructure bill as a big lie (and getting some saucy replies) — in addition to his more well-known character flaws, austin06 adds some lesser-known ones to the discussion.
Next - enjoy jotter's wonderful (and now eternal) *PictureQuilt™* below. Just click on the picture and it will magically take you to the comment featuring that photo.
TOP PHOTOSOctober 27th, 2021
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And lastly: yesterday's Top Mojo - mega-mojo to the intrepid mik ...... who rescued this feature from oblivion:
1) It’s the cow. by Elwood Dowd +1445) Udderly believable by jayden +957) SMH by Denise Oliver Velez +9414) Beloved by Denise Oliver Velez +6923) Very moooooosterious. by angry marmot +5824) [image] by LamontCranston +57