They are a well-known songwriting team based in New York City, and they have crafted a bunch of stand-alone songs — along with entire musicals — which are beloved by performers.
A few of their NYC-area hits include “I Like Them (Bald),” “Alto’s Lament,” and “Taylor, The Latte Boy.”
Jinny Sagorin and I recorded their song “There’s Nothing I Wouldn’t Do” with pianist Doug Hammer a few years ago.
Originally from South Africa, Jinny has lived in the Boston area for the past two decades.
In recent years Jinny has expanded beyond musical theater and cabaret to becoming a cantor.
We both share a sense that music can be very sacred (as well as silly, sexy, heartfelt, and open-minded).
Will (with broken elbow), Jinny and Doug — Photo by Jeremy Schmahmann
And performing in a synagogue, library, church or retirement community can be just as satisfying as performing in a bar or club — although we have both done plenty of that, too!
I first met Jinny when I was co-hosting an open mic at The Cambridge Center For Adult Education in Harvard Square (where I also was employed as an events manager and PR person).
Eventually we put together an entire program of songs called LIFE MATTERS.
Jinny also invited me to perform as a special guest when she debuted her solo CD, IT’S FOR YOU, to a sold-out crowd at Scullers Jazz Club in Boston.
And she has performed many of my original songs when I have done showcases of my own work.
In addition to being a performing artist, Jinny is also a visual artist.
Here’s an example of a work of art she created for an annual show called ART/Word in which she is a regular participant.
Thank you to Marcy and Zina for writing this song.
Thank you to Jinny and Doug for recording it with me.
PS: If you feel like streaming this song on your favorite digital music platform, please click here for links.
PPS: I haven’t mentioned the current challenges here on planet earth (wars, heat waves, forest fires, floods, spreading diseases, rising costs, lack of food/fertilizer/fuel, political upheaval, etc.) in recent blog posts.
But I remain vividly aware of them.
And I continue to find inspiration and hope from the courageous candidates and hard-working GOTV (get out the vote) organizations at work around the USA.
As you are probably well aware, there are a bunch of very inspiring human beings stepping up at the local, state and national levels these days.
Let’s support them — with tiny donations of time and/or money— as much as we are able.
Today I have been inspired by the aphorism “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
You may have seen it on posters, coffee mugs, etc. — attributed to Albert Einstein.
But according to an online search, there is little evidence that Einstein ever said it.
Instead I learned that a writer — Rita Mae Brown — created this quotation and attributed it to a fictional character in her 1983 book Sudden Death.
Thank you, Ms. Brown!
I think about this aphorism when I am reminded that one is supposed to budget an equal amount of money to market/promote/advertise one’s product as one has spent creating it in the first place.
Yikes!
I have never done this.
Other than maintaining my website, pitching a few songs to music bloggers, and writing this blog, I have spent very little money to promote my music.
However, this particular piece of marketing advice comes up fairly often when I am reading books/articles and watching videos about how to navigate the business of making music in the 21st century.
Now I must pause for a moment for a digression…
Over the past thirty years, I have observed that the music business — like life itself — is always changing and evolving.
So it is virtually impossible to do the same thing over and over again for more than a year or two.
And as a result of personal computers entering our daily lives, we have to keep endlessly learning the latest versions of many different programs/applications — as well as updating our hardware and software.
So as much as I would love to be able to do the same thing over and over again — while drafting new songs using Apple’s GarageBand or making videos using Apple’s iMovie, for example — I am forced to learn the latest updates (and alleged improvements) in order to continue making music.
Deep breath in.
Deep breath out.
This has always seemed to me to be a huge waste of time AND money in order to make a few tech company owners, tech company employees and tech company stockholders rich.
Graphic Design by Stephen C. Fischer
I keep hoping to find a research study which would document the billions of hours which we human beings have wasted in the process of learning — and re-learning…and learning yet again — how to use various computer programs.
I would also like to find studies which explore the cumulative toll on our mental health due to the Sisyphean frustration of having to update and re-learn so many basic tasks/skills on an ongoing basis.
Another deep breath in.
And deep breath out.
So I am happy to report that my friends Molly Ruggles, Ellen Epstein, Michael Cicone and I went in a pre-industrial — and some might even say late-Paleolithic — direction with our most recent song release which we recorded a cappella.
A couple of years ago singer/songwriter/pianist Molly Ruggles took my original version, added an entirely new section of music + lyrics, and then arranged it for four voices to perform a cappella.
Our new version is in the player at the beginning of this blog post.
You may recognize Molly as a vital part of my trio recordings with Carole Bundy.
Molly, Ellen, Will & Michael (Photo by Doug Hammer)
I have known the other two singers on this recording — Ellen and Michael — for decades.
If you are a fan of contemporary folk music, you may be familiar with them as part of a musical trio with singer/songwriter/guitarist Cindy Kallet for forty-five years.
Ellen and Michael have released three beloved CDs of music with Cindy as well as appearing on many of her solo recording projects.
So I feel very honored and excited that they agreed to be part of this recording!
Now I will circle back to the aphorism that “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
Molly and I are doing something new with this recording.
We have hired a fellow singer-songwriter, Erik Balkey, to help us promote it to folk radio programs/stations around the USA.
Erik puts together compilation CDs of new recordings every two months and sends them to a couple hundred folk DJs and program directors.
We were surprised — and pleased — to learn that he chose “My Sweet Honeydew (A Cappella)” to lead off the second CD in his July/August promotional compilation.
If you happen to listen to a folk program in your neighborhood — or maybe far away from your neighborhood via an internet radio station — please let me know.
Then I will check and see if Erik sent his July/August promotional CDs — including “My Sweet Honeydew (A Cappella)” — to your favorite station/program.
It will be interesting to see what does — or doesn’t — unfold regarding airplay for our song this summer…
Another deep breath in.
And deep breath out.
Thank you to Erik Balkey for his radio outreach.
Thank you to Doug Hammer for his collaborative production skills (and spontaneous photographic impulses).
I recorded this sweet song as part on an hour-long program of music written for — or strongly identified with — Judy Garland.
It was written by Burton Lane and Ralph Freed for her and Mickey Rooney to perform in the 1941 MGM movie BABES ON BROADWAY.
I learned from Wikipedia that the lyricist, Ralph Freed, was the baby brother of producer/lyricist Arthur Freed, who co-wrote the song “This Heart Of Mine” which I featured in a recent blog post,
Having spent a fair amount of time — especially during the summer — in Manhattan as a child and teenager, I savor all of the geographical references in the lyrics.
I only wish they had mentioned Chock Full o’ Nuts, my favorite place to get a burger (with ketchup, mustard and relish) plus a big orange drink — which was a mixture of orange juice, sugar and water, I think, churning endlessly in a big, glass dispenser until it was sold to thirsty customers.
Chock Full o’ Nuts started during the roaring ’20s as a chain of — no surprise — nut shops.
But when the Depression hit, the owner William Black pivoted and turned his stores into lunch counters where — according to Wikipedia — one could buy a cup of coffee and a cream-cheese-with-chopped-nuts sandwich for five cents.
Jackie Robinson with a fellow Chock Full o’ Nuts employee
And his coffee proved to be so popular that he started selling it for people to make at home or in their office.
William Black — whose last name was originally Schwartz (which means black in Yiddish) — seems to have been a somewhat progressive employer.
Most of his company’s cooks and waitstaff were African-American, and when baseball superstar Jackie Robinson retired from playing, he became a vice president and director of personnel at Chock Full o’ Nuts.
Mr. Black was married to two female singers (not at the same time…) who performed his company’s radio and TV jingles. His second wife also became very involved with their family’s philanthropic efforts.
They gave millions of dollars to medical research and helped to start the Parkinson’s Disease Foundation.
And there is even a William Black medical research building at Columbia University’s medical center (Mr. Black was a Columbia alum…)
But back to “How About You?”.
Burton Lane
Burton Lane was a very successful composer — originally from Manhattan — who worked at various movie studios in California.
Interspersed with his time in Hollywood, he co-wrote songs for Broadway shows including FINIAN’S RAINBOW (with Yip Harberg) and ON A CLEAR DAY YOU CAN SEE FOREVER (with Alan Jay Lerner).
He is also one of several people who claim credit for bringing Judy Garland to the attention of the powers-that-be at MGM after he saw her perform with her two older sisters at the Paramount Theatre in Los Angeles.
So not only do we have Mr. Lane to thank for the great songs he co-wrote, we also can (at least partially) thank him for helping to bring Judy Garland and her extraordinary gifts as a performer to a much wider audience.
I would also like to thank Doug Hammer for his playful piano impulses and painstaking production skills as well as Stephen C. Fischer for his patient and collaborative graphic design work.
If you’d like to stream our version of “How About You?” you can click here.
Every stream, every “like,” and every “save” encourages the mysterious algorithms of the digital music platforms to share a recording with other potential listeners.
Here’s the graphic for “How About You?” which features what was probably my last professional headshot as a teen performer in NYC.
One final note…
As I was drafting this blog post, the New York Knicks were engaged in an extraordinary series of basketball games which culminated in them becoming NBA champions.
I especially like New York in June when the Knicks win the NBA playoffs after a 53 year drought!
How about you?
Although I am not a big basketball fan, I became swept up in the drama and virtuosity of the NBA playoffs.
Twice I went to bed early — thinking the Knicks had lost — and awoke to discover that they had triumphed.
Wow!
Oh, me of little faith…
Since their victory, I have been savoring the enthusiasm of the Knicks’ fans — in NYC and around the country.
Jalen Brunson
And I love what one of their star players Jalen Brunson said following their record-breaking comeback from 29 points down to win game four.
“You’re allowed to think about the worst possible scenario, but you gotta go out there and do something about it.”
Deep breath in.
Deep breath out.
Those are great words to live by…
Thank you, Knicks, for bringing millions of us — from many different political and cultural and ethnic backgrounds — together during this challenging time here on planet earth.
You gave — and continue to give — us hope and joy and inspiration.
And THANK YOU to everyone who is willing to read and listen to yet another one of my blog posts.
Mr. Warren and Mr. Freed wrote “This Heart Of Mine” for a 1944 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) musical called the ZIEGFELD FOLLIES which starred Fred Astaire.
I think I first heard it sung by Judy Garland, who recorded it the following year for Decca Records.
Arthur Freed also wrote the lyrics for a bunch of other hit songs — such as “Singing In The Rain,” “You Are My Lucky Star,” and “Make ‘Em Laugh.”
I haven’t read any biographies about him (yet) but according to Wikipedia, he lived a fascinating life.
Composite Images of Arthur Freed by Diane Yoder
He was born in South Carolina in 1894, and ended up attending a very prestigious prep school in New Hampshire — Phillips Exeter Academy. I am guessing he was probably one of very few Jewish students on campus — and according to Wikipedia, he became interested in writing poetry there.
After prep school Mr. Freed ended up in Chicago and performed with early versions of the Marx Brothers act (!!!) in vaudeville.
He also wrote special material for them, which led to co-writing enough successful songs that Hollywood beckoned…and he was hired to write songs for early MGM musicals.
After many years at MGM, Freed transitioned from songwriter to producer, working (as an uncredited associate producer ) on THE WIZARD OF OZ and then officially producing his first movie, BABES IN ARMS.
Both of these films, as you probably know, starred Judy Garland.
Mr. Freed went on to produce many more of Garland’s movies including LITTLE NELLIE KELLY, FOR ME AND MY GAL, THE CLOCK, and MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS — which is where she met her second husband, the director Vincente Minnelli, whom Freed had brought from New York City to work at MGM.
According to Wikipedia, Freed hired great talent and then gave them free rein to do their thing — whether it was choreography, costumes, set design, songwriting, direction, etc.
He also gave himself free rein to do some very odd and abusive things, such as exposing his penis to a young Shirley Temple when she came for a visit to discuss doing a movie at MGM — and making sexual advances towards her mother as well.
Temple wrote about this incident in her autobiography — and apparently Mr. Freed experienced no censure as a result of his horrible behavior…
Spring has finally arrived — in fits and starts — here in the northeast United States.
And we have two days of (much-needed) rain forecast to start later this morning!
I’ve been sitting on this blog post for weeks because I want my posts to be uplifting.
Yet so much of what is happening here on planet earth continues to be the opposite.
I find myself returning to recent elections in Hungary for hope.
If I understand correctly, Hungarians had a president/dictator for 16 years who did his best to hamstring/contaminate/eliminate their democratic institutions such as freedom of the press and judicial independence.
And yet, after MUCH courageous struggle, their president/dictator was defeated in April with a record 80% voter turnout.
Hurrah!
Deep breath in.
Deep breath out.
I wrote the song included at the beginning of this blog post several years ago.
One of my favorite signs of spring is the hopeful sound of horny. peeper frogs who are looking for a mate and establishing their personal breeding territories.
In fact, I like this sound so much that I included it at the beginning and ending of “Boil A Frog Slowly.”
As readers of my blog are well aware, one of my main musical allies is pianist/composer/producer Doug Hammer, who lives with his beautiful French artist/graphic designer wife in a ranch-style dwelling on a suburban street in a city north of Boston.
Hidden in his basement is a recording studio with an impeccably maintained Schimmel grand piano and all sorts of recording equipment which Doug is constantly upgrading and updating, bless him.
And hidden behind his house is a little wetland which still manages to exist even though is has been surrounded by houses over the past few decades.
In the spring, melting snow and falling rain fill up the wetlands so that geese, ducks — including two wood ducks this year! —and other water-loving animals can do their thing.
And at a certain point, the peepers emerge from the earth/mud and start peeping!
It is such a lively sound — kind of like the aural equivalent of fireflies blinking on a summer night…
I spent a week in upstate NY last month, and most evenings I went for a long walk on country roads wearing a safety vest with ever-changing, multi-colored lights on it.
Whenever I passed a damp area — a pond or a stream or a drainage ditch — the sound of peepers filled the night air!
Somehow they manage to survive a changing mix of sun, rain, snow and hail with temperatures fluctuating from the 20s (overnight) to the 60s (during the day).
Peepers “prefer permanent ponds due to (their) advantage in avoiding predation; however, (they are) very adaptable with respect to the habitat (they) can live in.”
I was happy to read that they are not currently considered to be an endangered species — perhaps due in part to their adaptable natures (mentioned above).
I also learned that “in northern regions, the frog is able to endure below freezing temperatures due to the capacity of its liver to exude and flush the bloodstream with a glucose cryoprotectant which acts both as an anti-freeze in its blood, and allows organs like the heart to enter into a state of protected dormancy.”
Wow!
That certainly helps to explain their resiliency during our weather/temperature swings.
Wikipedia continues: “The peeper earns its name from its chirping call, which marks the beginning of spring.”
And its formal name, Pseudacris crucifer, “is derived from the Latin root meaning “cross-bearing”— a reference to the cross-like pattern on the spring peeper’s (back).”
Their “chirping calls are significant for communication…as females choose their mates based on the frequency and volume associated with them.”
Yes, indeed… the passionate songs of spring.
Chirp, peepers, chirp!
I released “Boil A Frog Slowly” two springs ago, and I have been collecting information since then about how out of balance, out of touch, and out of control our billionaire class —what some are now calling “The Epstein Class”— has become.
For example, the Americans For Tax Fairness Action Fund recently reminded me that:
“The United States was founded on a rejection of monarchy ie: no tiny elite ruling over everyone else. However, our current president “has embraced a governing philosophy that rewards extreme wealth and concentrates power in the hands of the richest people in the country: America’s roughly 1,000 billionaires” — which includes himself as well as many of his friends and family members.
Deep breath in.
Deep breath out.
This statistic is particularly shocking to me: “During (our current president’s) first year back in office, U.S. billionaires increased their wealth by an astonishing $1.5 trillion, pushing their combined fortunes to more than $8.2 trillion.“
As I am sure most of us are well aware, billionaires and giant corporations hold enormous influence over our economy AND over our political system…
It was this emerging realization which inspired me to write this song.
But now as I listen to it, I am also reminded about our ongoing climate challenges which our current president plus all of the greedy and cowardly media/entertainment conglomerates (which continue to provide an awful ot of people with theira daily dose of “news”) are now downplaying and/or ignoring even more than in recent years.
Recently I watched a weather report on the CBS morning news/entertainment show.
As part of their reporting of record-breaking levels of heat in the west and southwest of the USA, there was NO mention of steps each and every one of us could take to decrease our carbon footprints.
Instead there were many segments on things to buy, places to fly (the most carbon-intensive way to travel) and ways to continue to consume more than our fair share of the natural resources on this amazing little planet which we all call home.
The message seemed to be “Keep living your consumerist lives exactly as you have been doing for the past few generations” — which, of course, is how we have ended up in our current terrifying environmental disaster situation.
Yet another deep breath in.
And deep breath out.
But back to the billionaires…
As I wrote above, I do not want my blog posts to increase anyone’s daily burden of hopelessness.
So I will end with two bits of positive news.
In 2022 Massachusetts voters — of which I was one — approved a “millionaire’s tax,” and since then it has added more than a billion dollars per year to our state budget.
Revenue from this surtax is mandated to go toward education and transportation initiatives — including more free lunch programs, implementing “clean energy” in schools, making community college free for students 25 and older, and increasing the number of child care slots for low-income families.
And rather than decreasing the number of millionaires and billionaires wanting to live in MA — as nay-sayers and their lobbyists had warned — that number continues to rise..
Adding an extra 4% tax on annual income exceeding one million dollars CAN be accomplished!
And in New York City, newly elected mayor Zohran Mamdani — along with governor Kathy Hochul — has recently proposed a pied-à-terre tax which would target luxury secondary homes worth over $5 million which are NOT primary residences.
This annual surcharge would raise $500 million annually to fund public services and bridge budget gaps.
And it would also begin to chip away at our much-lobbied tax code which currently allows super rich individuals and corporations to pay few — or no! — taxes while using all sorts of public services such as public education, drivable roads, tunnels and bridges.
Although “Boil A Frog Slowly” was written from a place of concern and despair, I do find ways to experience little patches of hope and optimism these days (such as the recent election in Hungary mentioned above).
The most recent “No Kings” day lifted my spirits and reminded me that there are millions of other human beings in the USA — and abroad — who are stepping up to help tip the balance of power/life back in a more healthy direction.
And the smaller political races around the country — in which Democratic candidates continue to over perform when compared with our most recent presidential election results — also give me hope.
People ARE daring to step up!
May each of us continue to find (and re-find) a healthy balance of active engagement — demonstrating in person, writing postcards/letters, giving money, volunteering on phone banks, etc. etc. etc. — with restful, rejuvenating, joyful activities.
And may the resiliency of the spring peepers give us hope and inspiration!
Thank you for reading this blog post.
We’ll see if I can increase the frequency — and upbeat tone — of them in the weeks/months to come.
Although I have not been very active as a writer, I DO continue to read many of my fellow bloggers’ posts.
And people continue to visit my site in increasing numbers — although my rising traffic statistics may be the result of bots having invaded WordPress?
If you have time/energy/willingness to play “Boil A Frog Slowly” on your favorite music platform — and then “like” it — that will help increase the likelihood of it being shared with new listeners by the mysterious algorithms which influence/control more and more of our online lives.
Greetings from East Arlington, MA — just outside of Boston in the USA!
Today I am featuring a beautiful song with lyrics by Lorenz Hart and music by Richard Rodgers.
As this TIME Magazine cover attests, they were a very potent musical and cultural force in the early-middle 20th century.
And I am very happy that a recent movie — BLUE MOON (made by the wonderful director Richard Linklater and starring Ethan Hawke as Larry Hart) — has renewed interest in Hart’s life and musical legacy.
It turns out that BLUE MOON was a decade-long labor of love which was filmed on a beautifully re-created version of Sardi’s — a famous bar/restaurant in Manhattan’s theatre district.
And I once wrote a blog post about two of his and Rodgers’ hit songs — “You Took Advantage Of Me” and “I Could Write A Book” — which you can read by clicking here.
Not mentioned in the BLUE MOON movie is how devoted Hart was to his mother — with whom he lived his entire life.
Hart’s mother died around the same time that OKLAHOMA (the first musical his decades-long collaborator Rodgers created with another lyricist — their mutual friend Oscar Hammerstein II) opened on Broadway.
So he was grieving this huge familial loss simultaneously with the at-least-partial loss of his friendship AND professional relationship with Rodgers.
Deep breath in.
Deep breath out.
And I had forgotten (until I re-read my blog post from ten years ago) that Mr. Hart had also begun a collaboration about underground freedom fighters in France with a composer who had recently escaped from Nazi-occupied Europe.
So, as an American-born Jew whose parents had emigrated to NYC in the late 19th century from Germany, he also may have also been feeling a significant amount of grief, rage, despair, terror, and “there but for the grace of G-d” empathy for the millions of Jews still remaining in Europe.
And let’s not forget that American Nazis were holding huge rallies at places like Madison Square Garden during this time as well!
Yet another deep breath in.
And deep breath out.
I don’t know how much it was public knowledge that LGBTQ folks were being sent to Nazi death camps, but I am guessing that theater people — such as composer Kurt Weill, who had managed to escape from Berlin to Paris to Manhattan — had plenty of heart-breaking anecdotes to share about the fates of their previous artistic partners who happened to be LGBTQ and/or Jewish and/or Roma.
All of this was also not mentioned in BLUE MOON. although Mr. Hawke and Mr. Linklater and some of the other actors such as Andrew Scott apparently did a lot of research before they began filming the movie — so I am guessing that they had most/all of this information influencing the subtexts of their acting performances.
And another deep breath in.
And deep breath out.
There are certainly some powerful parallels with what was happening leading up to Larry’s death in 1943 and what is currently unfolding here in the USA.
One thing I wrote about in my blog post from ten years ago — and which BLUE MOON does explore — is the paradox of Larry Hart (a somewhat closeted gay man) falling in love with and proposing to women.
And the song “Falling In Love With Love” may illuminate some of Hart’s thoughts and feeling on this topic/phenomenon/tendency.
What do YOU think?
Thank you to Doug Hammer for his exquisite piano playing and comprehensive production skills.
Thank you to John Childress (and his collaborator at the time named Laurel, I think…) for taking this photo many years ago when I still had plenty of hair.
Hoagy Carmichael — NBC Television, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
This month’s song is a minor hit from what is sometimes called the Great American Songbook.
Composer Hoagy Carmichael and lyricist Johnny Mercer created it for a Broadway show — I WALK WITH MUSIC — which did not prove to be a success.
But it did give us this sweet song.
I discovered it when I was putting together an hour-long program of songs by Hoagy Carmichael — who also wrote the music for standards including “Georgia on My Mind,” “Stardust,” “The Nearness of You,” and “Skylark” (another song co-written with Johnny Mercer).
Pianist/producer Doug Hammer and I had a lot of fun recording it.
I learned that — later in his life — Hoagy appeared as a songwriter character on THE FLINTSTONES animated TV show and also participated in a TV special with Fred (Mr.) Rogers.
And I was reminded that Johnny Mercer was a bit of a Jekyll/Hyde personality — beloved during the daytime and then drunk at parties saying mean things during the night — after which he would send flowers and an apology the next morning.
Johnny Mercer (from the Johnny Mercer Foundation website)
In addition to being successful songwriters, Hoagy and Johnny were also successful performers.
Later in his life, Hoagy worked as an actor in movies and TV shows, while Johnny recorded many hit singles over the years — of his own songs and as well as songs written by other people.
Johnny also was one of three men who founded and ran Capitol Records very successfully for many years.
He was mentored early in his career by Yip Harburg (the lyricist who co-wrote “Brother, Can You Spare A Dime?” “Over The Rainbow,” “How Are Things In Glocca Morra?” and “It’s Only A Paper Moon” among many other hits).
And near the end of his own life Mercer became a fan of singer-songwriter Barry Manilow.
In fact one of my favorite Johnny Mercer songs — “When October Goes” — was created after Mr. Mercer died with music by Barry Manilow and unpublished lyrics given to Mr. Manilow by Mercer’s widow, Ginger.
Both Mercer and Carmichael kept writing songs even after rock-n-roll had significantly altered the landscape of popular music — which meant that their work was less and less in demand…
Me (photo by Stephen C. Fischer)
I take inspiration from their creative perseverance as well as from the rich legacy of hit songs they left for all of us to savor.
On a personal note, I have begun attending several open mics on a regular basis, sharing my original songs while accompanying myself on ukulele.
Performing like this has been a good workout for my brain because I now have to remember both lyrics AND chords.
It has also been interesting to see how other regular open mic attendees do (and don’t) welcome one into each musical micro-community.
The key, I think, is simply continuing to show up.
Gradually we reveal ourselves to each other through our song choices and through the things we say between songs (the open mics I attend allow a person to perform 2-3 songs per night).
And trust begins to form…
Graphic Design by Stephen C. Fischer
And curiosity begins to arise…
Deep breath in.
Deep breath out.
All of the venues are also registered with ASCAP, the performing rights organization I joined several years ago.
So after each open mic, I log onto my ASCAP account and enter which of my original songs I performed.
In theory this is supposed to generate a tiny stream of income for me, but I haven’t seen anything yet…
One final thing I have been appreciating about attending open mics is that they give me a chance to fine-tune the lyrics of songs I haven’t yet recorded (but plan to record with Doug Hammer later this year).
If we scratch the surface of almost any cultural artifact — in this case a song written in the late 1920s by Irving Berlin — it is very likely that we will discover layers of herstory/history which have been buried, misplaced, overlooked or otherwise airbrushed out of the picture.
Wikipedia informs me that Irving Berlin wrote his original version of this song in May 1927, and it was first included in a 1930 movie — when “talkies” were an exciting new technology.
“The title derives from an (African-American) slang expression ‘to put on the Ritz’ — meaning to dress very fashionably — (which) was inspired by the opulent Ritz Hotel in London.”
And Mr. Berlin’s first set of lyrics do indeed describe very well-dressed African-Americans strolling on Lenox Avenue in Harlem…
Fred Astaire (Wikimedia Commons)
However, when Fred Astaire performed “Puttin’ On The Ritz” in the 1946 movie BLUE SKIES, Mr. Berlin re-wrote the lyrics to become the version which I recorded with Doug Hammer playing his Schimmel grand piano.
“Lenox Avenue” became “Fifth Avenue,” and “Spangled gowns upon the bevy/Of high browns from down the levy — all misfits” become “Different types who wear a day coat/Pants with stripes and cutaway coat — perfect fits.”
This appears to be yet another example of how African-American culture inspires — and then gets appropriated and re-purposed to earn money for non-African-Americans.
Deep breath in.
Deep breath out.
And here I go, continuing this sad cultural practice, by recording my own version with Doug!
We did this when I was creating an hour-long program of songs written for — or made famous by — Fred Astaire.
This version is the second or third take Doug and I recorded — and it’s a great example of how spontaneous and playful our creative process can be when we are both “in the zone” together.
Although there are a few more winter holiday favorites written by Jewish songwriters which I would like to record with Doug, we never got around to doing that in 2025… so I have released “Puttin’ On The Ritz” in December as a nod to upcoming New Year’s Eve festivities…
If you’d like to stream it via Pandora, Apple Music, YouTube, etc, you can click here.
This summer and fall I’ve been riding the train (actually the train + bus due to ongoing track repairs in Massachusetts to fix a sinkhole situation) a lot from Boston to Ithaca, NY — where a bunch of my family members (sisters, niece, grandniece, nephews, mother, and cousins galore) live.
This has given me plenty of time to gaze at passing scenery, and I have seen some extraordinary cloud formations.
At dusk they are often illuminated by the last rays of sun coming over the horizon, which makes them even more magical.
I love that “Both Sides Now” leaves the listener with no concrete answers.
Ms. Mitchell writes, “I really don’t know clouds (or love… or life…) at all.”
And I also love Ms. Mitchell’s description of falling in love — “Moons and Junes and Ferris wheels — the dizzy dancing way you feel — when every fairy tale comes real — I’ve looked at love that way.”
It immediately reminds me of my own history with that feeling — and how intoxicating and exhilarating it was…
I love combining the idea of a karmic wheel with the idea of us all (or many of us…) being asleep at the wheel — which is, of course, an extremely dangerous situation both for the person who is driving and also for all the other beings who are on or near the road on which this drowsy person is driving!
Because I have set up my daily life to be walkable, bikeable and/or busable (as dictated by the weather), I almost never drive a car.
Every time I am able to walk or bike from point A to point B (such as from home to Music Together classes or from home to Trader Joe’s), I am happy that I am not adding to the ever-more-precarious imbalance of greenhouse gasses in our planet’s atmosphere.
But I do ride to gigs at retirement communities in either a hybrid car or a regular gasoline-burning car — depending upon which accompanist I am working with on that day — which can leave me feeling like I am part of the problem rather than part of the solution.
Deep breath in.
Deep breath out.
I remain aware that advertising agencies, the companies who hire them to inspire/hypnotize us into buying lots of things, and our various media who feed those messages (hundreds per day!) to us have created a completely misleading narrative about how to find happiness and meaning in our lives.
And now we are living in a period of reckoning — both politically and environmentally — for all of the untruths and PSYOPs to which we have been exposed.
Here’s a fascinating example of how maddeningly f–ked up things have become here in the 21st century.
Apple, a company which prides — and markets — itself on protecting its users’ privacy recently settled a lawsuit which alleged that it, in fact, was recording its users’ conversations and sharing them with advertisers.
What???!!!
I do not have an iPhone or iWatch, but I do own several Apple laptops (going back twenty years), a couple of iPods (also going back many years), and I continue to love Apple’s GarageBand musical composition program.
What a disappointment…
Here’s an AP article/explanation from 1/2/25 by tech writer Michael Liedtke:
“Apple has agreed to pay $95 million to settle a lawsuit accusing the privacy-minded company of deploying its virtual assistant Siri to eavesdrop on people using its iPhone and other trendy devices.
The alleged recordings occurred even when people didn’t seek to activate the virtual assistant with the trigger words, ‘Hey, Siri.’ Some of the recorded conversations were then shared with advertisers in an attempt to sell their products to consumers more likely to be interested in the goods and services, the lawsuit asserted.
The allegations about a snoopy Siri contradicted Apple’s long-running commitment to protect the privacy of its customers — a crusade that CEO Tim Cook has often framed as a fight to preserve ‘a fundamental human right.’
The proposed settlement filed in an Oakland, California federal court would resolve a 5-year-old lawsuit revolving around allegations that Apple surreptitiously activated Siri to record conversations through iPhones and other devices equipped with the virtual assistant for more than a decade.
Apple isn’t acknowledging any wrongdoing in the settlement, which still must be approved by U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White. Lawyers in the case have proposed scheduling a Feb. 14 court hearing in Oakland to review the terms.”
I just checked online and learned from BloombergLaw.com that on 2/20/25, “A federal judge gave his preliminary approval to a $95 million settlement that would end a five-year class action over alleged privacy violations by Apple Inc.‘s Siri virtual assistant.”
It truly makes one wonder how one can trust any company whatsoever…
And it confirms what my brother-in-law Andrew had started noticing many summers ago when we were camping on Cape Cod — that conversations we were having within earshot of his iPhone were triggering uncannily specific ads (directly related to what we had been discussing) on his Facebook feed.
Another deep breath in.
And deep breath out.
Graphic design by Stephen C. Fischer
G-d only knows what our individual — and shared — karmic reckonings will be in the hours, days, weeks, months and years ahead…
Thank you to Doug Hammer for playing so elegantly and engineering/mixing so patiently on this song.
amusicalifeonplanetearth 