Remembering Marie Frederiksson

Some people in America may not recognize the name Marie Frederiksson right away – but if you bring up her involvement in the dup Roxette, you’re likely to remember a number of their top-40 smashes from the late ’80s and early ’90s. Her career had several key moments both before and after that run of hits, especially in her home country of Sweden, and while an ongoing brain tumor led to her passing on December 9th, she’s left behind a series of great musical memories.

Marie’s love for music at a young age led to her attending music school in her native Sweden. By 1978 she had started her own punk group, Strul, which found somewhat limited success. While working with another group, MaMas Barn, she got to know members of the band Gyllene Tider, that shared its recording space. Its lead vocalist, Per Gessle – with whom she’d form Roxtte later on – helped her to get a solo recording contract. However, she was content with working within a group at first – eventually singing vocals on Gyllene Tider’s only English-language LP in 1984. Later that year she did start recording on her own – including a Swedish-language cover of Cyndi Lauper’s “All Through The Night” as one of the singles’ B-sides!

Meanwhile, Per Gessle was not faring as well as a solo artist, after Gyllene Tyder came to an end. In 1986 Per and Marie joined forces, and Roxette was born. (The name had actually been used by their record label to market Gyllene Tyder’s English-language work a couple of years earlier; chosen by Per, it was the title of the 1974 debut single by the U.K. band Dr. Feelgood.)

Roxette’s first single in 1986, “Neverending Love” (with two different videos), became a #3 hit in Sweden, and led to the success of their debut album “Pearls Of Passion”.

At this point the duo’s record label didn’t see them as marketable in the United States. That changed quickly in early 1989, when a Minneapolis student traveling overseas picked up a copy of “The Look” – a single from its second album “Look Sharp!” – and requested back home that a DJ start playing it on his program. Suddenly American radio listeners took immediate interest in Roxette – and by the middle of the year, the group had a #1 hit stateside.

“Look Sharp!” would go on to produce two more top-5 hits: the #1 “Listen To Your Heart” (which very much resembled Heart’s chart-topping ballads) and the #2 “Dangerous”.

When the duo was asked to contribute a recording to the soundtrack to the 1990 film “Pretty Woman”, all they could afford to offer up was a one-off single they’d released around Christmastime of 1987 in their homeland. After some reluctance on the record executives, the song “It Must Have Been Love” was used – and upon its release as a single, also went to #1.

Roxette’s next album in 1991 picked up right where the last one left off, with the title cut “Joyride” hitting #1 and the follow-up “Fading Like A Flower (Everytime You Leave)” making it to #2.

Shortly after this, however, the music business started to shift. Some of their supporters at the label were fired when a big merger took place – and it certainly didn’t help that the so-called ‘grunge movement’ was starting to emerge. Still, the band found some success with two more singles: “Spending My Time” and “Church Of Your Heart”.

In 1992 the band returned with “Tourism”, which took a page from Jackson Browne’s “Running On Empty” and got recorded whenever and wherever it was convenient. The first single. “How Do You Do!”, received somewhat limited attention in the U.S..

A single for the film “Super Mario Brothers”, “Almost Unreal”, was released in 1993 – although its ‘hocus pocus’ references in the chorus let on that it was originally intended for the Bette Midler film by that name. 1994’s “Crash! Boom! Bang!” was hindered by an attempt to promote it through a McDonalds offer – something that didn’t sit well with retail chains. None of these efforts ended up selling well, and by the time Per and Marie prepared a greatest-hits album – with a self-effacing title “Don’t Bore Us, Get To The Chorus!”, taken from a Berry Gordy quote – it didn’t get released in America.

Roxette would still record sporadically, and their success outside of the U.S. still held up well. Their last appearance on the U.S. pop charts was their adult-contemporary hit “Wish I Could Fly”, recorded in 1999 and released in 2001.

Unfortunately, just a year later, Marie had a fainting spell at home, and was diagnosed soon afterwards with a brain tumor. While surgery successfully removed it, leading her to continue with a solo career that kept her in demand in Sweden and elsewhere, she still suffered from the tumor’s effects in the ensuing years. In the 2010s she and Per reunited for three albums, and even toured the U.S., stopping at NYC’s  Beacon Theatre in 2012. However, at one point in the show she fell down in the middle of a song and needed help getting back up, although she was still able to finish the show.

In 2016 Marie Frederiksson took the advice of her doctors and stopped touring. On December 9, 2019, the world learned of her passing, due in part to a recurrence of the 2002 brain tumor. As well-known as she was outside of Sweden as part of the duo Roxette, Marie had accomplished a great deal as a solo singer in her country, and was remembered fondly for all these achievements. Like the French-language work of Celine Dion, Per and Marie’s Swedish-language work may do a better job of displaying the power of their musical output, and yet there’s no denying the exuberance that Roxette’s pop hits brought to the airwaves. Marie, and the crucial role her vocals played in presenting that exuberant spirit, will be truly missed.

The Value Of Eddie Money

When Eddie Money passed away on September 13th from esophageal cancer, the obituaries that followed seemed to emphasize how different he was from other rock stars of his time. While he wasn’t one to follow trends – either with his look or with his sound – he made sure to play to his strengths, and it eventually earned him a series of hits and a steady following for over 40 years.

Most people knew that prior to his music career, Edward Joseph Mahoney had served with the New York City Police Department – but only as a clerk and typist, and even then he quit once he’d realized that he couldn’t go along with its strict rules on fashion and hairstyles. If that wasn’t frustrating enough for him, his first band mates didn’t want to have a ‘cop’ in their midst and kicked him out!

After moving to the San Francisco area in the early ’70s, Eddie started to find steady work performing in clubs – under the name by which we’d later get to know him. Thanks to the support offered by legendary promoter Bill Graham, he was signed to Columbia Records, and two singles off his self-titled 1977 debut became mainstays on AOR radio: “Baby Hold On” and “Two Tickets To Paradise”. The third single, a cover of Smokey Robinson’s “You Really Got A Hold On Me” didn’t do as well, but his fresh approach to this frequently covered tune showed that it deserved a much better fate.

His three follow-up albums over the next five years did fairly well, with “Maybe I’m A Fool” and “Think I’m In Love” making the top-40 and others like “Get A Move On” and “Shakin'” coming close. By 1981 he also started to benefit from airplay on MTV, and he got some recognition backing up Kenny Loggins on his hit “I’m Alright”. Around the same time, however, drug and alcohol abuse started to hamper his career. His 1983 album “Where’s The Party?” contained an enjoyable first single that actually dealt with the issue, “The Big Crash”, but it didn’t catch on the way it should have.

Luckily he found his greatest success in 1986 with the album “Can’t Hold Back” – and while they weren’t top-10 hits, “I Wanna Go Back” (a cover of the 1984 Billy Satellite tune) and “Endless Nights” were good choices for singles, both at least making the top-30.

(The video for the latter is tough to find online; you can try this safe link.)

Thanks to his success with Ronnie Spector on that album (more on that later), it only seemed right that he contribute to her own comeback album from 1987, “Unfinished Business”, with vocals on “Who Can Sleep?” and a cameo in the subsequent video.

1988 brought Eddie even more success, and while “Walk On Water” went top-10, there were great sound to be heard in the follow-up singles “The Love In Your Eyes” (a top-40 hit) and “Let Me In” (later covered by Laura Branigan).

Among the new material added to his 1989 greatest-hits album “The Sound Of Money” was his cover of a Jennifer Holiday recording that had appeared on the previous year’s soundtrack to the Summer Olympics, “Peace In Our Time”. The single made it to #11, but no video was made – and his record label didn’t offer him the chance he’d deserved to sing it in Berlin as the wall there was coming down!

In 1991 he put out “Right Here”, his final LP on a major label, followed about a year later by the EP “Unplug It In”. These gave him hit ballads – “I’ll Get By” (where he pays respect to the recently departed Mr. Graham) and “Fall In Love Again” – as well as a popular album cut in “She Takes My Breath Away”.

In the years that followed, he didn’t have good luck finding an indie label to offer his music real support, but he remained a popular draw on the road – including Milford, Connecticut’s Oyster Festival in the summer of 2018 (as seen in the picture at the top).

When critics offer veiled criticism in the way he didn’t take chances as often as many of his peers did, they neglect to point out how his style of rock and roll was a natural progression from the artists of his youth – and displayed a passion that few other musicians in his genre exhibited. These two traits are most evidently on display in his biggest hit, “Take Me Home Tonight” with Ronnie Spector – including in this live performance from that time.

Eddie may have been classified by some as the Everyman who happened to make it big, but he deserves higher accolades than that. The strength and commitment he put into his performances, and his choice of material that suited his style, gave the late Eddie Money’s music real value.

The Impact Of Johnny Clegg

The news of Johnny Clegg’s passing on July 16th at age 66 was difficult to hear for anyone familiar with the impact the South African musician had – well beyond the music for which he’d become world-famous. He was willing to take chances as a musician that wouldn’t just subject him to criticism, but to actual threats to his safety – and in the long run, he played a role in changing attitudes on matters of race in South Africa and beyond.

Born on June 7, 1953 in England, Jonathan Paul Clegg spent his early years in Rhodesia and Israel before his mother, who had divorced his father not long after his birth, moved to Johannesburg, South Africa. From there Johnny took up an interest in the music and dance of the region, but because this often meant congregating with people outside of his own race, he ended up in trouble with authorities, thanks to the Apartheid-era rules.

Nevertheless, Johnny formed his first group, Juluka, with Zulu musician Sipho Mchunu. (The name means “sweat” – and it was actually the name of a bull that Sipho owned!) Since it was tough to get a mixed-race band booked into major venues, the group would instead play private gigs within the country – and play outside the country whenever possible, eventually garnering themselves considerable international attention. Among their first major successes was 1982’s “Scatterlings Of Africa”, along with its accompanying video.

In 1986 Sipho Mchunu chose to return to his work as a farmer, and Juluka was disbanded. Johnny quickly formed another multiracial act, Savuka (“awakening” or “rising”), with one member of Juluka, drummer Derek de Beer, staying on. The new group’s first full album from early 1987, “Third World Child”, included a new version of “Scatterlings Of Africa” (with a new video, which can be found on YouTube), along with “Great Heart” – which would soon afterwards be covered by Jimmy Buffett with the Neville Brothers!

Savuka was invited to perform on “The Tonight Show”, where they played “Don’t Walk Away” to an enthusiastic reception from Johnny Carson and his audience.

Perhaps the best-known cut from the album is “Asimbonanga” (translating approximately to “We have not seen him”), a tribute to the still-imprisoned Nelson Mandela. The song had its own video, and would be covered later in 1987 by Joan Baez, who received a Grammy nomination for her rendition.

Savuka’s 1988 album “Shadow Man” received attention for such popular tracks as “I Call Your Name” and “Take My Heart Away”.

The band received even greater exposure when its version of “Scatterlings Of Africa” appeared on the soundtrack to the Oscar-winning film “Rain Man”.

Johnny and his band mates didn’t let up upon the release of Nelson Mandela in 1990, as apartheid was still in place for the time being. 1990’s “Cruel, Crazy, Beautiful World” kept their message going through the title cut (which received airplay on alternative rock radio in the U.S.) and the follow-up “One (Hu’)Man, One Vote”, which they got to perform on “The Arsenio Hall Show” that summer.

Tragedy struck the group in 1992, when its percussionist Dudu Mntowaziwayo Ndlovu, better known as Dudu Zulu, was shot and killed while walking home. The band would go on to record one last album together – 1993’s “Heat, Dust, And Dreams” – before breaking up. The Grammy-nominated collection included “These Days”, whose video received some airplay in America.

Johnny returned the scene in 1997 for a Juluka reunion album with Sipho Mchunu, before embarking on a successful solo career – and in 1999 he even got to sing “Asimbonanga” on the same stage as Mr. Mandela.  Later on his son Jesse performed with him and would go on to make a name for himself in music as well.

In 2015, Johnny received word that he had pancreatic cancer, but kept touring for as long as he could while still receiving treatment. He had to shorten his 2017 tour and revealed his diagnosis to his fans in the process, but he kept fighting. This summer we heard the sad news of his passing, and the news stories that followed praised the work he had done throughout his lifetime on behalf of human rights in South Africa and elsewhere. We have lost the man often called “Le Zoulou Blanc” (“the white Zulu”), but his legacy has secured a brighter future – both for his homeland, and for places well past its borders.

The Unforgettable Songs Of Nat ‘King’ Cole

March 17th, 2019 marked the 100th anniversary of the legendary pianist and vocalist Nat ‘King’ Cole, who passed away from lung cancer back in 1965. Over the course of twenty years in the music business, he managed to have over a hundred charting hits – and yet many of those we most associate with him weren’t necessarily the biggest sellers at the time!

During his time with the King Cole Trio in the 1940s, Nathaniel Adams Coles (his birth name) racked up several R&B hits that crossed over to the pop charts. Some featured the trio prominently, such as “Straighten Up And Fly Right” and “Save The Bones For Henry Jones”, while “For Sentimental Reasons” and his first recording of “The Christmas Song” pointed towards his eventual solo career. The band also became the first to have a hit with the oft-covered “Route 66”, although it just missed out on a top-10 placing, getting as high as #11.

When Nat did go solo in the ’50s, he ended up with several #1 ballads like “Mona Lisa”, “Too Young”, and the avant-garde “Nature Boy”, while also making the top-10 with the more upbeat numbers  “Orange Colored Sky” and “Walkin’ My Baby Back Home”. Surprisingly, however, “Unforgettable”, one of those tunes most associated with him, only reached #12.

Later in the ’50s he became the first African-American to have his own TV variety program in 1956 – only to see it cancelled by unsupportive network executives a year later. Meanwhile, he had a #7 hit with “Darling Je Vous Aime Beaucoup” – in the process, making it three places higher on the chart than his better-known cover of Charlie Chaplin’s “Smile”.

As rock and roll started to take over much of the pop charts, Nat still managed hits in the #5 “Looking Back” and the #6 “Send For Me”. Yet other titles he’s famously covered didn’t do nearly as well: both “Stardust” and “Non Dimenticar” missed the top-40, while “When I Fall In Love” didn’t even chart!

In his final years he still found success with both ballads (the #2 “Ramblin’ Rose”, the #12 “That Sunday, That Summer”) and the novelty tune “Lazy, Hazy, Crazy Days Of Summer” (his final top-10). Yet while people most likely also remember him releasing “L-O-V-E” around this time, it was not long afterwards that he succumbed to lung cancer, and while his album at that time made the top-10, the single only reached #81.

These chart positions are subject to controversy, of course, as sales and airplay were not as accurately counted as they would be in the decades to follow. Nevertheless, it still points out that what happens to gain traction in the approximately three-month lifespan of a single doesn’t necessarily predict its lasting appeal over time.

So why did some of these songs become better known by him later on? Sometimes it had to do with their placement in ads or films; other times, they enjoyed successful re-releases, especially in England. Naturally, his daughter Natalie had a great impact in this respect, too. Even before her ‘virtual duet’ with her dad in 1991, she’d covered “When I Fall In Love” in 1987 (with a more modern production) and “The Christmas Song” in 1988. Five years after “Unforgettable”, she’d also record “When I Fall In Love” as a duet, and 2008’s “Still Unforgettable” allowed her to showcase even more of her father’s output.

A variety of other performers have also chosen to record tribute albums to Mr. Cole and/or his trio, from John Pizzarelli (three times!) and Gregory Porter to George Benson and Diana Krall, and their choices have also influenced what we remember by him – and maybe what we don’t. While we sadly lost Natalie on New Year’s Eve of 2015, Nat’s brother Freddy is still around – and even at age 88, is still touring! In 1991 he tellingly named his latest album “I’m Not My Brother, I’m Me” – only to release a tribute album of his own to his brother a year later.

No matter what, it becomes clear that chart positions paint an incomplete picture of Nat ‘King’ Cole’s influence as an artist.  What can’t be argued, however,  is how his work still inspires singers, musicians, and songwriters, even more than five decades after his passing.

A Tribute To The Night Tripper

The legendary singer, songwriter, pianist, and cultural icon Dr. John – a/k/a “The Night Tripper” – left us on June 6th, after decades of using his music to promote everything his hometown of New Orleans, Louisiana had to offer. He managed to incorporate everything from jazz and blues to rock and R&B into a musical gumbo like nothing anyone else had attempted in his prime, or has seriously attempted since.

Born on November 20th, 1941, Malcolm John ‘Mac’ Rebennack Jr. led a turbulent life for most of his late teens and twenties, including various illegal activities that led to prison time – as well as an injury to his hand that led him to switch instruments from guitar to piano. His playing style was heavily influenced by Professor Longhair, whom he had first met at age 13, leading to his first gigs shortly afterwards. He worked as both a producer and session musician for several years. His introduction as solo artist “Dr. John” came in the form of the startling and influential debut album “Gris-Gris” from 1968. The title is a reference to a good-luck charm that originated in Africa, and the album’s music incorporates elements of New Orleans voodoo culture into the progressive rock sounds of the era. Its best-known track was the often-covered (and intentionally misspelled) “I Walk On Guilded Splinters”.

While Dr. John could only attain a cult following over the next few years, it was enough to keep his recording career going, and his music took on a more traditional sound. In 1972, he started to break into the mainstream with his remake of “Iko Iko”, first popularized by New Orleans’ own Dixie Cups back in 1965.

The next year brought Dr. John his biggest success, as his original number “Right Place, Wrong Time” made the top-10 and became the song with which he’s become most identified.

While it just missed the top-40, “Such A Night” still became a standard within his repertoire – and a few years later, he’d even perform it at the Band’s legendary farewell show at Madison Square Garden.

His 1974 follow-up “Desitively Bonnaroo” may be best-known for the second part of its title providing the name for the annual Tennessee music festival. Still, over the next several years, his albums didn’t receive as much attention, despite continued critical acclaim. (He was still an influence, though, as he was the inspiration behind the 1970s Muppet called Dr. Teeth, the leader of the Electric Mayhem!)

Dr. John’s only recording of note in the mid-’80s came from a truly unexpected source: a dance hit with hip-hop influence, and a video featuring breakdancers! “Jet Set” never appeared on one of his albums, but the video received substantial airplay that year.

For much of the 1980s, Dr. John was dealing with substance abuse, but by the end of the decade he had completed a rehab program and was ready for a comeback. The timing was perfect, as New Orleans / Louisiana culture was receiving renewed attention around the country. Cajun cooking had gained popularity throughout the decade thanks to such celebrity chefs as Paul Prudhomme. Fellow chef Justin Wilson, also a well-known humorist, had his own “Cookin’ Cajun” show on PBS. CBS, meanwhile, showcased the Creole elements of the city in the innovative 1987-88 program “Frank’s Place”.

The music world certainly took note of what Louisiana had to offer. Country radio aired such popular Cajun artists as Jo-El Sonnier and Eddy Raven, while Aaron Neville and the Neville Brothers received airplay on several formats with their own mix of musical genres. In jazz, a young pianist named Harry Connick, Jr. would break through to the mainstream in 1989 with his soundtrack to “When Harry Met Sally…” – but his two previous discs emphasized a style more heavily influenced by his hometown. Among the tracks on 1988’s “20” was a duet with Dr. John on a Louis Armstrong standard that had also served as the “Frank’s Place” theme a year earlier.

Shortly after a video featuring a live version of that collaboration hit VH1, Dr. John released his first album in six years, “In A Sentimental Mood”, that featured another duet. This time his singing partner was Rickie Lee Jones, who had featured the pianist on her debut album a decade earlier. Their version of “Makin’ Whoopee” – curiously, one of three versions of that song that had a video that year – led to their joint appearance on “The Tonight Show” that summer.

That December, Dr. John and retro singer Leon Redbone filmed a video for “Frosty The Snowman”, from Leon’s 1988 album “Christmas Island”. (In a sad coincidence, Mr. Redbone passed away just a week before Dr. John.)

Dr. John continued to attract attention over the next couple of years, including taking part in the first incarnation of Ringo Starr’s All-Starr band. His voice could be heard in commercials – he wrote and sang the “Love that chicken from Popeyes!” jingle! – and on the theme to the TV show “Blossom”. In 1992 he put out the album “Goin’ Down To New Orleans” – and while Al Hirt and the Neville Brothers weren’t available when the video was made for the title cut that featured them (and which is longer on the album version), it does have an appearance by Pete Fountain – while Dr. John wears the same elaborate outfit that he also sports on the album’s cover (seen at the start of this article).

After visiting funk again on 1994’s “Television”, he put a modern spin on a variety of standards with 1995’s “Afterglow”, while also including a few of his own compositions, like “There Must Be A Better World Somewhere” (co-written with Doc Pomus).

For the next twenty-plus years, Dr. John would continue to present the sights and sounds of New Orleans as only he could, working along the way with everyone from the Blind Boys Of Alabama to Christina Aguilera. He was certainly one of a kind, and we have him to thank for shining a light on one of our nation’s most diverse and creative communities.

Quote Challenge 2019: The answer to Quote #10 – and results!

Answer to Quote #10:

“There was a time when nearly all of [those] used in the United States and Canada were made in East Hampton.”

– George Simon Roberts, discussing the Connecticut town that was once home to 30 different manufacturers of sleigh bells (or jingle bells), in his 1906 book “Historic Towns of the Connecticut River Valley”

There’s quite a story that goes with this! It began with Captain William Barton, who had been making bells in parts of Connecticut as early as the 1770’s, and continued to do so for decades afterwards. His son of the same name opened a sleigh bell company in 1808, back when East Hampton was called Chatham (until 1815), and that company was later on passed on to his son and grandson. For a while the town had as many as 35 (!) bell makers , producing 90 percent of all sleigh bells throughout the continent. (You can see his East Hampton house, built in 1855, in the above picture, courtesy of Historic Buildings Of Connecticut.)

Mr. Barton had a couple of indentured servants – that’s the term that gets used in several sources – named William and Abner Bevin, and their own Bevin Brothers bell-making company is the only one of its kind still making bells in that area today. It needed help to keep going from the state after a 2012 lightning strike burned down much of the factory.  The person who lobbied for that help was descendant Matt Bevin, the president of the company. If that name sounds familiar, it’s the same Matt Bevin who became governor of Kentucky in 2015 and then lost his re-election bid last month. He also ran some anti-immigration ads, despite boasting to Connecticut officials about his factory’s immigrant employees back in 2012, and most recently made a series of controversial pardons before leaving office.

But wait, there’s more! Thanks to those factories, East Hampton has long had a nickname of Belltown. Okay, so why does a section of Stamford have the same nickname? We asked Ron Marcus, a historian at the Stamford History Center who has done extensive research on the city’s past. He says that there’s no clear answer – yeah, as in ‘clear as a bell’ – but he believes it may be because there was a much-larger-than-average number of people who lived there who had the last name of ‘Bell’!

The results:

Name	R1	R2	R3	R4	R5	R6	R7	R8	R9	R10	Total
MagicWands1978	3	n	4	4	4	4	3	4	4	x	30
NotCloudyAllDay	2	4	n	n	3	n	4	x	n	n	13
DancingTava	4	n	n	n	n	n	n	n	n	n	4

Congratulations to MagicWands1978! By request, in lieu of the usual prize of chocolate, a donation will instead be made to Connecticut Humanities. Thanks to everyone who followed along, and enjoy the rest of the holiday season!

Quote Challenge 2019: Quote #10 (and the answer to Quote #9)

Quote #10:

Here’s the final quote! You’ll need to provide two words, not one – and there are two possible answers!

“There was a time when nearly all of [those] used in the United States and Canada were made in East Hampton.”

– George Simon Roberts, discussing the Connecticut town that was once home to 30 different manufacturers of _____ _____, in his 1906 book “Historic Towns of the Connecticut River Valley”

Answer to Quote #9:

“Who can listen to objections regarding such a book as this? It seems to me a national benefit, and to every man or woman who reads it a personal kindness.”

– British author William Makepeace Thackeray, in his surprisingly positive review of “A Christmas Carol” for the February 1844 edition of Fraser’s Magazine

Charles Dickens and William Makepeace Thackeray (the author of “Vanity Fair”) were not always on good terms, but Mr. Thackeray was quick to defend “A Christmas Carol” from those who thought it was too sentimental. The book went on to make more people aware of – and more sympathetic to – the plight of the poor, leading to more efforts to help tackle poverty. The message, of course, is still relevant today.

The leader board:

Name	R1	R2	R3	R4	R5	R6	R7	R8	R9	R10	Total
MagicWands1978	3	0	4	4	4	4	3	4	4		30
NotCloudyAllDay	2	4	0	0	3	0	4	x	n		13
DancingTava	4	n	n	n	n	n	n	n	n		4

Quote Challenge 2019: Quote #9 (and the answer to Quote #8)

Quote #9:

“Who can listen to objections regarding such a book as this? It seems to me a national benefit, and to every man or woman who reads it a personal kindness.”

– British author William Makepeace Thackeray, in his surprisingly positive review of “___ ___ ___” for the February 1844 edition of Fraser’s Magazine

Answer to Quote #8:

“It would be nice, wouldn’t it? It has a better sense of completion.”

– director Michael Apted, 7/1/2019, to Patrick Carey and Jason Di Rosso of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, on whether he’ll continue his decades-long film series and make a sequel called “70 Up”

Michael Apted has kept the series of movies going that look at the same group of English citizens every seven years, starting with the 1964 film “7 Up”, and the latest, “63 Up” just opened.

The leader board:

Name	R1	R2	R3	R4	R5	R6	R7	R8	R9	R10	Total
MagicWands1978	3	0	4	4	4	4	3	4			26
NotCloudyAllDay	2	4	0	0	3	0	4	x			13
DancingTava	4	0	0	0	0	0	0	0			4

Quote Challenge 2019: Quote #8 (and the answer to Quote #7)

Quote #8:

“It would be nice, wouldn’t it? It has a better sense of completion.”

– director Michael Apted, 7/1/2019, to Patrick Carey and Jason Di Rosso of “The Screen Show” , on whether he’ll continue his decades-long film series and make a sequel called “____ ____”

Answer to Quote #7:

“It’s a great thing for people to bring families down to when they’re visiting – [to] have a photo in front of it. It’s quite the conversation piece.”

– Chandler, Arizona spokesman Craig Younger, interviewed for a 12/5/2019 article in the Santan Sun News about the town’s 62-year-old tradition of lighting a 50-foot Christmas tree – made from 2,000 tumbleweeds!

According to the city’s website, the collected tumbleweeds are attached to a wire frame, then sprayed with white paint and glitter (along with a substance making it resistant to fire), before over 1,200 holiday lights are added to finish off the look. Here’s a picture of the tree in question!

The leader board (sorry for the formatting issues):

Name	R1	R2	R3	R4	R5	R6	R7	R8	R9	R10	Total
MagicWands1978	3	0	4	4	4	4	3				22
NotCloudyAllDay	2	4	0	0	3	0	4				13
DancingTava	4	0	0	0	0	0	0				4

Quote Challenge 2019: Quote #7 (and the answer to Quote #6)

Quote #7:

“It’s a great thing for people to bring families down to when they’re visiting – [to] have a photo in front of it. It’s quite the conversation piece.”

– Chandler, Arizona spokesman Craig Younger, interviewed for a 12/5/2019 article in the Santan Sun News about the town’s 62-year-old tradition of lighting a 50-foot Christmas tree – made from 2,000 _______!

Answer to Quote #6:

“This is OUR session! We came in here to make a Christmas boogie! … This is 1968, brother, not 1958!”

– Bob “The Bear” Hite of Canned Heat, during his band’s 1968 B-side cover of “The Chipmunk Song”

“Hey! We’re just gonna play a little blues!”

– Bob “The Bear” Hite of Canned Heat, just before playing an hour-plus set at Woodstock on 8/16/1969, and just after his band was introduced by MC ‘Chip‘ Monck

There’s a longstanding tradition with this challenge, in which one clue will require providing two answers that have something in common with each other. Here the first quote is from the strange flipside to Canned Heat’s 1968 holiday single “Christmas Boogie”, apparently featuring Ross Bagdasarian again voicing Alvin, Simon, and Theodore. During the track, the Chipmunks’ session gets interrupted by Bob’s band, who play a totally different tune, to which the Chipmunks eventually sing along. The following summer, Canned Heat got its biggest audience to date by playing at Woodstock – where lighting designer Edward Herbert Beresford “Chip” Monck spent most of the weekend as the MC! Chip had some of the most famous quips from Woodstock – including the one about avoiding the brown acid.

Here’s that version of “The Chipmunk Song”:

 

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