Well, dear readers, I am sitting here like so much tardy fish, late, late, late due to a very long telephonic conversation that was very long and telephonic, not necessarily in that order. To accompany these here notes, I am listening to wonderful Bacharach limited edition Something Big collection of all his albums, the ones he did himself. I’m not sure we’ll ever see his like again. One of a kind and certainly one of the most influential composers of pop music ever. Unconventional at times and yet his melodies are always hummable not matter how many time signature changes they contain. Now playing from what I think was his first album of him doing his songs – the song being Alfie. I mean, come on – what a tune, what a lyric by Hal David, and what an orchestration by Burt. He was my hero when I was growing up. I was his ardent fan from the time I heard The Blob and sought out his name, to the movie title songs he wrote that weren’t actually in the movies, but most importantly, from the time I first heard Miss Dionne Warwick sing Walk on By. There was no Dionne/Burt album I did not own, and when he started writing film scores, there was no film score by Burt I did not own, and when he began recording his own albums, there was no Burt album I did not own. We won’t even count all the other singers I bought when they did Burt songs. I loved him unequivocally, I thought his one and only Broadway show was sheer musical genius and paved the way for the “sound” of Sondheim’s Company, and of course, I had the pleasure and honor of rereleasing the cast album, remixed to fix all the singer pitch issues and to put the strings where they belonged, on the left. I was told he was very happy with it. And I was the first to do Broadway singers having their way with his songs – one of my favorites of all we did. We just had another of my all-time Burt songs – Are You There With Another Girl – these are all instrumentals, of course. Only after he went to A&M did he occasionally do his vocals. But even on this early album, he had background singers singing some of the lyrics. And as the orchestrator of his own songs, he was an absolute genius. Later, after the breakup with Hal David, when Lost Horizon was such a huge flop (I really like a lot of Burt’s music, however), his difficult period in the 1970s still produced some astonishing work. But when he came back with the theme from Arthur song, he never again had a difficult period – he weathered the storm of changing musical tastes over and over again, until the day he passed away. Hearing these early songs on his first real Burt does Burt album is like meeting up with old friends. And there you have it.
Yesterday was – I don’t quite know what it was. I actually was in bed by two but could not fall asleep. Got up and then got dressed and at four I drove over to CVS and picked up the prescription refill. Then I came home, reset the alarm for ten-thirty and fell asleep around five. I got up before the alarm at ten. I answered e-mails, ordered some Panda Express double orange chicken, chow mein, and white rice. That was very good. Then the Darling Daughter and friend came by and got the stuff to get into my personal storage locker. They sent me lots of questions whilst cleaning it up enough so that next time we can go and actually get in there. The cleverly put boxes of stuff that they think I can sell – books, all the stuff from my Varese Sarabande desk, which includes a ton of interesting correspondence from composers who became very well-known and demos of shows that became huge hits. I’ll definitely be putting that in my eBay seller stuff, and I’ll of course let everyone know when I do it before I let people on Facebook know. So, that was great. The daughter found a lot of our family photos and took those, and I told her she can keep them and just scan them and send to me. Very productive. Then they came back here and we gabbed for an hour and then they took their leave.
After that, I had a little frozen pizza here, so I made that. It was kind of typical frozen pizza but frankly it was better than a lot of real pizza I’ve had lately. Go know. I watched the final episode of that teen hacker documentary. The hacker guy is so disgusting – never taking responsibility for anything, constantly smirking – I mean, his actions resulted in people committing suicide – a real, authentic socio/psychopath. Can’t recommend because you’ll just want to fly to Finland and slap this guy silly. Then I had the long telephonic call and here we are.
Today, I’ll be up when I’m up, I’ll have me a ME day and that will include a quick trip to the mail place – have to ship the first three Kritzer books to a nice guy on Facebook who ordered them. And I think there may be a small package there for me. I’ll eat something mesmerizing – maybe some hot dogs, maybe some pasta of my own making – I now have quite a bit here that I can rustle up into something resembling food. Then I’ll watch, listen, and relax.
This week is very busy for all the reasons I’ve already mentioned so I shan’t repeat that here.
Let’s all put on our pointy party hats and our colored tights and pantaloons, let’s all break out the cheese slices and the ham chunks, let’s all dance the Hora or the Square Dance, because today is the birthday of our very own JohnG. So, let’s give a big haineshisway.com birthday cheer to our very own JohnG. On the count of three: One, two, three – A BIG HAINESHISWAY.COM BIRTHDAY CHEER TO OUR VERY OWN JOHNG!!!
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, have me a ME day, go to the mail place and ship some books, eat, and then watch, listen, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s free-for-all day, the day in which you dear readers get to make with the topics and we all get to post about them. So, let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, always happy to go back to Burt.