Okay folks, August is in the books. It was hotter than Hades as my mother used to say but for short spurts I love the heat. It sort of offsets those January and February days when it is so cold my head hurts. Anyway, a fair amount of folks have departed us. Music, in particular, took it on the chin both business and creative-wise so let’s get to it.
Alright Gorby, Mikhail Gorbachev, died at 91. Last leader of the Soviet Union, glasnost, perestroika, end of the Cold War (temporarily as it seems) and all that. A world leader who everyone is writing about. Mr. Gorbachev, take down that wall. You can read all about that stuff anywhere and it’s not what you’re drawn to this rag about so we applaud all he did but will move on to other lesser beings who deserve more ink here. While I’m at it, Raymond Damadian, who was instrumental in creating the MRI machine, although was unable to stop that damned knocking sound, died at 86. A great machine, brought to fruition by a great mind, who by all accounts was robbed of a Nobel prize when it went to two other guys whose roles were not as pivitol to the device’s creation. Oh well. He’s getting his due here. I am sure that is sufficient solace.
I have two major voices from my youth and one of them (the other is Ian Gillian who just turned 77), Vin Scully, died at 94. He was, as people have put it, the poet laureate of baseball. I used to have Sirius Radio largely because in the summer you could listen to all the baseball games. I would sit in my driveway listening to the first three innings of the Dodgers games (I was too cheap to install it in the house) when they were home. Not because I particularly loved the Dodgers but Vin Scully would call the first three innings. Alone. Not with any “color” guy. Just himself and the game. When I listened, I was eight again, riveted to World Series games where Vin was calling the play-by-play. He called all the big games. The Don Larsen perfect game in the 1955 World Series. Koufax’ perfect game in 1965 (Koufax was my favorite player as a kid). Kirk Gibson’s walk-off homer in the 1988 World Series, Fernando Valenzuela’s no-hitter in 1990, Bill Buckner’s bungled play at first base which permitted the Met’s to ultimately be the World Champions in 1986, and perhaps most importantly, Henry Aaron’s 715th home run on April 8, 1974 to break Babe Ruth’s record. Scully believed in silence after the big events to let the crowd show the emotion of the moment. Scully was born in the Bronx of Irish immigrant parents. He attended Fordham Prep and Fordham University as every child of Irish immigrant parents in New York aspired to do. He was the voice of the Dodgers for 67 years starting with them in Brooklyn and moving with them to Los Angeles. I am a big fan of the author J.R. Moehringer who wrote “The Tender Bar” and the biographies of both Phil Knight (“Shoe Dog”) and Andre Agassi (“Open”). Every chance I got I would importune him to write Scully’s biography so that Vin could do the audio. What a great project it would have been but alas, Mr. Moehringer did not harken my words. Back to Mr. Scully, he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Obama. When the Dodgers opened their season in 2016 (Scully’s last) they held a ceremony before the game to honor him. When he spoke, he ended with this to the fans: “You have allowed me to be young at heart. I owe you everything.” He got that wrong. A lot of us owe him for permitting us to be young again each time we hear his voice.
From a guy who could spin a good yarn to a guy who could write a good yarn (yes, I know one does not write a yarn but I needed a segue), this month we lost David McCullough at 89. I didn’t think he was that old but then again, when you look at his body of work, he could have been 136. He was a great writer who wrote about interesting historical things and people. From the Brooklyn Bridge, the Panama Canal, and the Johnstown Flood to the Wright Brothers to historical, political figures such as Truman (A Pulitzer winner), Adams (also a Pulitzer Winner), Roosevelt and Churchill, McCullough covered a lot of ground. And his books were not superficial in any way. He drilled down on his subjects. I read in bed and I must have slept with Harry Truman for six months for god’s sake. The thing was, the writing was so good I continued to soldier on. And to you folks who look down your noses at sportswriters, he got his professional start at Sports Illustrated. He was one of two Congressional Medal of Freedom winners we lost this month, Scully being the other. Unlike Scully who didn’t write, McCullough did enter the oral world narrating the Ken Burns Series on the Civil War and the movie Seabiscuit, based on a fantastic book by Laura Hillenbrand. In his New York Times obit, he was quoted from a speech he gave at the National Endowment for the Humanities about the Founding Fathers’ notion of the pursuit of happiness which, he said, did not mean “long vacations or material possessions or ease.” Rather, “as much as anything it meant the life of the mind and spirit.” “It meant education,” and “the love of learning, the freedom to think for oneself.” Given what we have today, the Founding Fathers are probably spinning in their graves like rotisserie chickens.
Like I said, music took it on the chin in August. Like Scully was one of the voices of my youth, Motown was a musical genre of my youth that, like Scully, makes me feel young again when I hear it. This month we lost Lamont Dozier who was one of the writers behind many of those songs at 81. Along with Brian and Eddie Holland, he wrote such greats as Heat Wave (Martha and the Vandellas); “Bernadette,” “Reach Out I’ll Be There (The Four Topps); “Baby Love,” “You Can’t Hurry Love,” “Stop! In the Name of Love” (The Supremes); “How Sweet it is To Be Loved by You (Marvin Gaye) to name a few. In a nine year span, between 1963 and 1972 the Holland-Dozier pairing penned 80 songs that hit the top forty on either the Pop or R&B charts with 15 of them hitting number one. Mr. Dozier was in a band named the Romeos in high school and after a hit with “Fine, Fine Baby,” dropped out to be a star. When he demanded a full LP deal for the group, he ran into the business side of the music industry (we’ll get to that in a bit) and found himself out of work. Ultimately, Berry Gordy offered him a job writing songs for $35 per week against royalties and he took it. At Motown he began collaborating with Brian and Eddie Holland. According to Mr. Dozier, Brian wrote the music, Eddie wrote the lyrics and he was the idea man. However it worked, it resulted in a long string of fabulous tunes. Also, according to Dozier, songs came to him all the time in the weirdest places. Once he was in a motel room with a woman when another woman he had been seeing burst in. All he could think to say was stop, in the name of love. That made him a bundle when the Supremes made a hit of the song he turned the phrase into. Unfortunately, not any part of that story could ever happen to me. Dozier and the Holland brothers left Motown in 1967 in a dispute over (what else) money. Mary Wilson of the Supremes was quoted as saying that when they left, “the sound was gone.” They went on to have some success but nowhere near what they garnered in the Motor City. There leaving was a loss to both sides of the equation and the rest of us who long for the type of music they made. You still can’t go to a wedding without hearing those tunes.
Okay, Olivia Newton-John died this month at 73. To me, she was sort of the female Barry Manilow. Not someone I really fawned over but every now and then I had to acknowledge a great song or performance. Her big moment was starring opposite John Travolta in “Grease” and then perhaps the whispery “I honestly Love You,” which I am sure is still on the playlist of many wedding bands. Her grandfather was a Nobel prize-winning physicist. For nearly a ten year stretch she dated a cameraman, Patrick Mc Dermott who disappeared while fishing and was ultimately deemed lost-at-sea. Mystery still surrounds the death and there was speculation that he staged the whole affair. Newton-John married John Easterling. Her death generated more ink than anyone this month so she was certainly ingrained into our culture. The New York Times has referred to her music as “consistently benign” but I would give her much more credit than that even though she never covered “Copacabana.”
Judith Durham died at 79. Who you ask? If I say “Georgy Girl,” you immediately wish I hadn’t because that song will now be in your head for hours. But as a member of the folk group The Seekers, when they had a big hit with that tune she rocketed to stardom. They were the first Australian group (take that AC/DC) to attain global fame. Somehow, I don’t see the Seekers belting out “Whole Lotta Rosie.” The Seekers also had hits with “A World of Our Own” and “I’ll Never Find Another You,” both written by Dusty Springfield’s brother, Tom, who also wrote “Georgy Girl” (with Jim Dale – yes the actor Jim Dale). Not at all liking the spotlight, she left the Seekers in 1968. In a 2018 interview on Australian television, she said “The boys were amazing, they all looked gorgeous, and so musically talented and everything. And so for me, I thought, ‘Well, they don’t really need me.’” Checking out some of the videos of the group, while she wasn’t, say, Taylor Swift, she seems to have been a bit tough on herself. She occasionally rejoined the group in her later years. Of her, Elton John once said she had “the purest voice in popular music.” Not a bad accolade.
I’m not a huge jazz fan as I find it a bit pretentious but I have to admit the level of musicianship in that genre is impressive. Joey DeFrancesco, a defining jazz organist (yeah, I didn’t think those guys even existed), died at 51. I mean, I get the jazz pianist, there were plenty of greats, but organist? Hammond stopped making the B3 in 1975 and for good reason. Did you ever try and move one? Between that and the damned Leslie the organists wanted, loading in the band was back-breaking. Mr. DeFrancesco released over 30 albums and played with the likes of Miles Davis, David Sanborn and Clark Terry. Those guys I know. One of the great things about Mr. DeFrancesco was his understanding that you had to have fun while playing and not be a brooding jazz musician up there on the stage as many of them are. In a 2004 interview with the Buffalo News, he captured my sentiments about too many jazz players when he said “I think these new players are too damn serious…. The joy of it, the fun of it, is something that jazz has lost. I mean, we are entertainers, after all. If you don’t look like you’re having fun onstage, how is anyone in the audience supposed to?” On this, he and I agree.
Jerry Allison, who played drums for Buddy Holly in the Crickets, and who co-wrote “That’ll Be the Day” and “Peggy Sue” with Mr. Holly, died at 81. Apparently, “Peggy Sue” was originally “Cindy Lou” but Mr. Allison had a girlfriend he was trying to cement a relationship with, Peggy Sue Gerron (died 2018), and for love, Cindy Lou, whoever she was, got kicked to the curb. Allison eventually married Peggy Sue until, like Cindy Lou, he too was kicked to the curb in a divorce. After Holly’s death in a plane crash in 1959 (the day the music died) Mr. Allison played with an ever-changing lineup of Crickets (though not as we will learn, Trini Lopez). The name of the band came about because Mr. Holly liked a band called the Spiders and so he and Mr. Allison researched insects in the encyclopedia looking for a name. Interestingly, they bypassed the beetles because beetles were things that people stepped on according to Mr. Allison. Take that Lennon and McCartney. They picked crickets, again according to Mr. Allison, because “they make a happy sound.” And that they did.
Bill Pittman, a studio guitarist and a member of the famed Wrecking Crew, a group of in-demand studio musicians (including Hal Blaine, Tommy Tedesco, Mac Rebennack, Glen Campbell, Jeff Porcaro amongst others) who played on everything from television commercials to movie scores to hit records, died at 102. That’s a good number when applied to the length of a life. For a smattering of his work, you will find him on Sinatra’s “Strangers In the Night,” Streisand’s “The Way We Were,” Bacharach’s “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head,” and the Ronnette’s “Be My Baby, as well as Elvis’ “Blue Hawaii,” Paul Simon’s “Bridge over Troubled Water,” The Mamas’s and the Pappa’s “California Dreamin’”and the Beachboys “Good Vibrations,” to name a few. He tried but failed to teach Phil Spector the guitar when Spector was a kid and came away thinking that music wasn’t for Spector. Spector used him liberally to help create his Wall of Sound when he, Spector, attained great fame as a producer. Pittman was born in, of all places, Belville, New Jersey. I love these studio guys who gave so much to music but basically go unheralded.
Finally, on the creative side of music, Trini Lopez, who died at 83, is one of those people whose name is instantly recognizable to me but if you asked me why, other than the broad category music, I wouldn’t be able to tell you. Turns out he has done a lot. Musically, he is apparently best known for two songs: “If I had a Hammer and “Lemon Tree,” neither of which is likely to get much airplay on radio today. Both were also minor hits for Peter, Paul and Mary before Lopez made them bigger hits. Be that as it may, he was able to leverage those tunes into a career where he was approached to replace Buddy Holly in the Crickets after Mr. Holly’s death but the discussions never progressed. Lopez had a successful live show, played Vegas a lot and even hosted an NBC television show. He acted in some movies and overall had a pretty good career based on two songs that no one really listens to but everyone of a certain age knows.
Moving from the creative to the business side, Mo Ostin died at 95. Who the heck is he you ask? He was for many years the head of Warner Bros. records, signing and/or overseeing such acts as Jimi Hendrix, Neil Young and Prince as well as Van Morrison, The Kinks, The Grateful Dead and Green Day, Madonna, R.E.M., The Who, Red Hot Chili Peppers, I could go on. Okay, Van Halen (there you go Tom, your EVH fix for the month), Talking Heads, Paul Simon, Randy Newman, Fleetwood Mac. Pretty impressive, eh? Bet he got good seats at concerts. He also kept Sinatra with the label as well as others who sang the Great American Songbook. Ostin was more low key than his contemporaries such as Walter Yetnikoff, Clive Davis, Ahmet Ertegun who viewed themselves on the same level as the stars they signed. Ostin was born in Brooklyn, attended UCLA undergrad and UCLA Law School before wisely dropping out. When Frank Sinatra tried to buy Verve records but was outbid by MGM, he started his own company, Reprise Records, and hired Mr. Ostin in a leadership position. Sinatra wanted to recreate the “artist-friendly” vibe of Verve at Reprise and that was what drove Ostin’s career. He stayed married to his wife of 55 years and with a donation of $10 Million, established the Evelyn and Mo Ostin Music Center on the UCLA campus. So much for the sex, drugs and Rock n’ Roll lifestyle many of his artists practiced.
Sticking with the business side of entertainment but venturing into the more ostentatious side, Bert Fields, lawyer to the stars, died at 93. Famously known for being chauffeured around in a Bentley, he was as high profile as many of his clients who included The Beatles, Tom Cruise, Michael Jackson, Warren Beatty, Madonna, Dustin Hoffman and unlike with Mr. Ostin, I will stop here but could continue. His legal tactics were best summed up in a quote he gave while speaking to the writer Ken Auletta: “If I were a general, I would attack and keep pressing the attack — to throw the opponent off balance, to change the odds and make a settlement your way much more favorable,” he said. “It forces the other side to think: Hey, I may lose this case. Let’s settle it.” Once, while cross examining Disney CEO Michael Eisner on behalf of his client Jeffrey Katzenberg, he got Eisner to admit stating about Katzenberg: “I hate the little midget.” Eisner apparently then got up on his feet in the witness stand berating Fields and letting the jury see the true Michael Eisner. According to the New York Times, it wasn’t a good look for the man who oversaw such lovable characters as Micky, Minnie and a bunch of real midgets, the seven dwarfs. Disney settled with Mr. Katzenberg for the $250 Million he sought. Fields was also a fan and expert on Shakespeare in spite of the fact that he, Shakespeare, that is, once had a character utter the phrase “the first thing we do, kill all the lawyers.”
Continuing with lawyers in the entertainment field, John Eastman, the brother-in-law of Paul McCartney (he was Linda Eastman’s brother) and a noted lawyer for high profile musicians, died this month at 83. Along with is father, Lee, he was a founder of Eastman & Eastman who represented music luminaries such as Andrew Loydd Weber, Elton John, Billy Joel, and Mr. McCartney. It was his representation of The Beatles bassist that caused a major rift in the band. McCartney wanted the Eastman’s to represent the Beatles and the others wanted Allen Klein. In a letter dated April 18, 1969, Lennon, Harrison and Starkey (Ringo) wrote to the Eastman law firm stating that it was not authorized to represent them although they understood he represented McCartney. Eastman sued in England to dissolve the Beatles partnership agreement and a receiver was appointed by the court to oversee the affairs of the organization until the partnership could be unwound. The bitterness from that suit lasted beyond the breakup of the band. Klein and Harrison would later be embroiled in litigation surrounding the song “My Sweet Lord” (with no involvement from Eastman) and Harrison also came to despise Klein. As for Eastman, he was a staunch supporter of artists rights. He represented Billy Joel in his suit against his (Joel’s) ex-brother-in-law who managed his business affairs ripping him off for millions of dollars. He was a heck of a lawyer who for better or worse will always be remembered more for untangling the Beatles than anything else.
While I’m on lawyers -- and we seem to have lost a lot of them this month so maybe the world is better, Andrew Maloney, the Chief federal prosecutor in Brooklyn (EDNY as we know it) and who successfully won a conviction of John Gotti, a real-life mafia figure, died at 90. While John Gleeson, who later became a federal judge, had the laboring oar, it’s always good to have the boss with you when you go after the real Boss (sorry Bruce). Maloney, born in Brooklyn and a graduate of West Point and Fordham Law School (at night – a man after my own heart) was a boxer in his earlier years and practiced his pugilism in the courtroom, albeit without actually landing a physical blow. At one point during the Gotti trial, Maloney pointed at the theretofore Teflon Don as if his hand were a gun and pulled the imaginary trigger. To his credit, Gotti looked back and smiled. That’s a real mafia guy and Maloney was a real prosecutor.
Back to the fake mafia. It seems like every month we are losing another member of the Soprano’s cast. This month it’s Robert LuPone who dons the concrete goulashes. He died at 76. He played a doctor who was Tony Soprano’s next-door neighbor, not really mobbed up although given the last medical bill I paid I felt like I was paying an ungodly protection fee. He also had a recurring role in “Law and Order,” perhaps to balance out Soprano’s appearances. Over the years he was in a slew of television series. However, like his sister Patti, it was the theatre that he loved. In “A Chorus Line,” he originated the role of Zach, the director/choreographer of the show within the show. Perhaps his biggest theatrical accomplishment was co-founding the MCC Theater with Bernard Telsey which produced out-of-the-mainstream artistic plays at a very high quality. But at the end of the day, it is his advice to Tony Soprano to see a psychiatrist that he will probably be best known for by the masses. I’d take it.
I am not a movie guy and have been able to skirt even the Godfather movies as I noted last month (or was it the month before). Anyway, one film that I couldn’t miss and glad I didn’t was “It’s a Wonderful Life.” There was a period in the early 80’s when the copyright lapsed and since it was free to air, it was nearly on a continuous loop at Christmas time. Anyway, a real feel-good movie proving the point that suicide is a long-term solution to a short-term problem. We’ll all get to the end, but no matter how hard, we ought to let the story play out. It may have some good points. Anyway, Virginia Patton Moss, the last living actor or actress (I don’t understand the use of actor for both genders), died at 97. In the film, she was married to George Bailey’s (played by Jimmy Stewart to those who have lived under a rock) younger brother Harry. Soon after making that film, she married an automotive executive and left Hollywood for Ann Arbor which seems like a good thing to do. No traffic on I-5 in Ann Arbor. There she was a Girl Scout leader, served on Boards at the University of Michigan and was President of her family real estate investment firm. Thus, she wasn’t eating Spam for dinner and by her own account, had a wonderful life.
I was a big fan of Magnum P.I. as a kid. I liked the attitude that Tom Selleck projected. Roger Mosely, who played the role of T.C. (Theodore Calvin), a Vietnam vet fearless helicopter pilot who ran a charter service for tourists, but always seemed to be saving Magnum from some sticky situation, died at 83. He grew up in a housing project in Watts (and was an actual helicopter pilot) and accepted the Magnum P.I. role because it did not portray a black man in a stereotypical manner. He refused to permit his character to smoke or drink (he did neither) in the show. He played Leadbelly in the film of the same name, which Roger Ebert wrote “was one of the best biographies of a musician I’ve ever seen.” He also played the role of Sonny Liston in the Muhammad Ali film “The Greatest.” An affable and humorous guy he was married to his wife for sixty years. Selleck best not get into any trouble because Mosely won’t be there to save his bacon.
Sports did not escape death this month. I am not a fan of the NBA but the college game catches my fancy. Who doesn’t love an underdog? Pete Carril, the coach of the Princeton basketball team that would bedevil mighty programs in the NCAA tournament, died at 92. Carril was coach of the Tigers from 1967 to 1996 where he went 514-261 with 13 Ivy League titles and 11 NCAA appearances where his team often acted as a spoiler with its slow passing game that befuddled opponents. Famed coach Jim Valvano, who died of cancer at 47, said of playing Princeton: “It’s like going to the dentist. You know that down the road it will make you better but while it is happening it can be very painful.” Carril was elected to the basketball Hall of Fame in 1997. After his Princeton gig he coached as an assistant with the Sacramento Kings.
Len Dawson who quarterbacked the Kansas City Chiefs to a Superbowl (IV) in 1970, died at 87. His is a life that proves, you must perform all the time because you never know who is looking. I always tell kids that regardless of their job they should do it to the best of their ability and someone will see them and remember. The adage is just because you have a shitty job doesn’t mean you should do a shitty job. Dawson played for the Purdue Boilermakers and one of the team’s assistant coaches was Hank Stram. After College Dawson sat for three years on the bench in Pittsburgh and two more in Cleveland. He was thinking of quitting the game when Lamar Hunt gave the head coaching job of the newly moved Kansas City franchise which was named the Chiefs (and seem to have weathered the storm against Native American names) named Stram head coach. He recalled the Boilermakers quarterback and maneuvered to get him. He did and Dawson played well and took the team to the promised land in an era before big halftime shows and quirky multi-million-dollar commercials. Dawson knew his circumstances and told the Kansas City Star: “You would never have heard of my name if it hadn’t been for Lamar Hunt hiring Hank Stram.” Just before the Superbowl he won, NBC floated a story that there was a federal grand jury investigation regarding gambling and Dawson was due to be summoned to testify (along with Joe Namath amongst others – none were actually called). Dawson was able to block out the uproar and post the victory. Perhaps the picture of him casually smoking a cigarette during halftime at the Superbowl explains his overall calm. Maybe those big halftime shows aren’t as interesting as what is really going on.
They say nothing is guaranteed in life other than death and taxes and Robert Brockman, who died at 81, certainly knew about both. At the time of his death, Brockman was facing a criminal trial for hiding over $2Billion in income from the I.R.S. He was a notoriously frugal man, staying in budget hotels and eating frozen meals in his room when he travelled for business. He kept his wealth under wraps (apparently for good reason) and didn’t make the Forbes wealthiest people lists until he was indicted in 2020. Even there, Forbes estimate of his worth at 4.7 billion was at odds with an affidavit submitted to the court by Brockman’s wife where she reported a bank account in a Bermuda bank with 7.7 million. He earned his fortune having concocted a software program for car dealerships in his living room. Given his parsimonious nature, he is probably glad he died before having to witness the IRS take his money.
This thing has simply been too long this month. Don’t blame me, though. I didn’t die. I could have made it longer by including the likes of golfer Tom Weiskopf (died at 79) or the stunt-man Gene LaBell, who regularly got the shit kicked out of him playing the stunt double for Kato to Bruce Lee’s Green Hornet (died at 89) but I spared you. Enjoy what’s left of the Summer and hopefully next month’s edition will be nanoscopic.