British Open Quiz: 1) Tom Watson won three of his five Open Championships in 1980, 82 and 83. What American won in 1981? 2) What years did Arnold Palmer go back-to-back for his two titles?
Trying to Defend the Paterno Legacy
Someone please tell the Paterno family to shut up. With the passage of time, maybe a new generation will look at Joe Pa’s record, including the non-football side, and judge him differently.
But those of us who’ve been alive all his years in the game, who ate up the B.S. (as Rick Reilly aptly described in the column of his I noted last time), will never judge Paterno any differently than the way former FBI Director Louis Freeh did in his report.
Yet now we have the Paterno family, scared to death their father’s fortune (and their inheritances) will be swept away in a tsunami of civil suits (which it will, of course), saying:
“We are dismayed by, and vehemently disagree with, some of the conclusions and assertions and the process by which they were developed. Mr. Freeh presented his opinions and interpretations as if they were absolute facts.”
“It can certainly be asserted that Joe Paterno could have done more. He acknowledged this himself last fall. But to claim that he knowingly, intentionally protected a pedophile is false.”
Understand I only put all this down for the archives. I treat all big stories the same way. Give both sides, give my own opinion, you come up with your own.
Now it’s up to the school. I noted James Carville’s thoughts that the students and small business owners shouldn’t be penalized by shutting the program down, but it has to….for one year. I think the school will do the right thing and then the NCAA will add some sanctions and severely reduce scholarships. The program should effectively be a shell for about five years, but after one year should be allowed to generate revenue.
One problem with this outcome. As a former chair of the NCAA infractions committee told Eric Prisbell of USA TODAY, there is no obvious NCAA rules violation in this case.
“Because Penn State’s transgressions might not involve violating traditional NCAA bylaws, leveling sanctions might require the NCAA enforcement staff to alter how it holds programs accountable and for what behavior….
“NCAA President Mark Emmert said Monday in a PBS interview that he does not want to ‘take anything off the table’ if the NCAA determines penalties are warranted against Penn State and that he has ‘never seen anything as egregious as this in terms of just overall conduct and behavior inside a university.’
“One possibility is for the NCAA to hit Penn State with lack of institutional control – a charge that historically warrants harsh penalties such as those recently levied against Ohio State and Southern California – but that dubious distinction has always been tied to other specific rules violations, said Tom Yeager, a former chair of the infractions committee.”
Bylaw 3.2.5.1 states: “The membership of any active member failing to maintain the academic or athletics standards required for such membership or failing to meet the conditions and obligations of membership may be suspended, terminated or otherwise disciplined by a note of two-thirds of the delegates present and voting at an annual Convention.”
“Essentially, this means NCAA members – not the NCAA Committee on Infractions – would decide Penn State’s fate. If the NCAA were to get involved in Penn State and set a precedent with that kind of activity, it might be best to have the full membership making that call.”
For another take, similar to Carville’s…Editorial / New York Post:
“Indeed, (Mark) Emmert is likely right when he says he has ‘never seen anything as egregious as this in terms of just overall conduct or behavior inside a university.’
“But the people who would be directly affected by such a severe sanction don’t include anyone who participated in the scandal and its cover-up.
“Paterno, his once-sterling reputation permanently shattered, is dead. Sandusky hadn’t coached since 1999 – and, anyway, he’s going to die in prison.
“The ones who would take the brunt of the ‘death penalty’ are today’s football players, many of whom staked their future careers on attending the university.
“And who had nothing whatsoever to do with Jerry Sandusky.
“Penn State’s other athletic departments would suffer, too – because college football is a huge revenue generator for the university. Certainly there’s no evidence that any of them were involved in the cover-up.
“Killing football would also hurt literally every student at Penn State, where the loss of revenue would only drive up the school’s already sky-high tuition. [Ed: That’s not the only thing that will drive up tuition!]
“Only once before has the NCAA imposed the death penalty: SMU, which was sanctioned for repeated recruiting violations. But those involved not just university officials, but student athletes themselves.
“But to penalize all of Penn State’s students – and especially its current football players – would be monumentally unfair.”
As for the broader topic of the school itself, like I said when the scandal first broke, there’s one family, mine, that’s happy my nephew chose Pitt over Penn State.
Jeremy Lin…bye-bye, part deux
After I wrote my bit last time on Lin’s departure, there were some writers in New York who were still hopeful that the Knicks would match the Rockets’ “ridiculous” [Carmelo Anthony] offer that included a guarantee of $14.8 million in the third year that would have led to a $30 million payment, including the new luxury tax, if he was on the Knicks then. Yeah, right…I mused. Not even the Knicks are that freakin’ stupid.
And so they aren’t. Lin be gone. I have zero problem with this. I mean, heck, I didn’t shell out $000s as a retailer to stock Linwear.
Can you imagine how sick some of these guys are? Goodness gracious. Mitch Modell, whose namesake sporting-goods retailer has some 40,000 Lin jerseys in stock, told Bloomberg he’d have to discount ‘em down to $5. T-shirts listed for $24.99 on Modell’s website, with jerseys going for as much as $89.99.
“Because the Knicks did precisely what they should have done…They refused to be treated as an ATM machine by a basketball player who has started exactly 25 games in the NBA, and had somehow finagled an offer sheet from the Rockets good for $1 million for each of those games. Just because the Knicks can afford to write absurd checks doesn’t mean they have to. And doesn’t mean they should.
“And doesn’t mean that Jeremy Lin – who outed himself as a clever manipulator of the system the past few weeks, not anything close to the pie-eyed innocent he portrayed himself during the teeth of Linsanity – is worth crazy, absurd, ridiculous money. At the end of the day, the Knicks made a basketball decision and not a marketing decision. Which is exactly as it should be….
“(Lin) seems like a nice enough kid that you can root for (to become a star in Houston).
“But he also wasn’t near the Pollyanna he was perceived to be. On the one hand, he reportedly celebrated his original offer sheet from the Rockets by having dinner with Knicks assistant Ken Atkinson, the man he always credited with working with him so tirelessly, even before Linsanity hit. On the other, he also apparently shared with Houston the Knicks’ strategy of matching that original offer, which helped Houston decide to re-do the deal, and angered Knicks brass.”
Lin didn’t do anything wrong, writes Vaccaro, but “For years (the Knicks have) been unable to help themselves in moments like this, always wrote the check, worried about it later. They don’t write the check now, and maybe it means they’ll get to write an even bigger one for Chris Paul down the line. [Ed: Noooo!!!!] And even if they didn’t? For once they choose game over glitter. It was a brassy choice. And, it says here, the right one.”
Meanwhile, I reported the other day on Jason Kidd’s DWI but didn’t have a lot of details at the time. As they’ve come out the situation is even uglier than first thought, as in he’s really lucky he’s not only alive but that he didn’t kill anyone. No telling what he would have blown since he refused to take a breathalyzer, but police say he was an absolute mess.
On a different topic, what it takes to win an NBA title, Michael Salfino of the Wall Street Journal had an interesting take. As the Knicks sign and acquire all these ancient mariners like Kidd (39), Marcus Camby (38) and Kurt Thomas (40), Salfino notes that coach Mike Woodson recently said:
“I haven’t seen a young team win an NBA title in the last 15 years. I think that’s why the Heat are loading up with older guys and why Boston did what they did. It’s veteran guys who are winning NBA titles.”
“The average age of the players on every conference champion in the NBA since 2001 is 29 years, eight days – about a year and a half older than the current NBA average for all players (27 years, 192 days).
“What’s more, the more experienced (read: older) team in the finals generally wins, too. This season, the Heat (29 years, 251 days) were more than four years older than the Thunder. Overall, seven of the past 11 NBA runners up were among the eight youngest teams to make the finals, while seven of the past eight champions were at or above the average for all finalists.”
The Rolling Stones at 50
It was on July 12, 1962, that the Stones played their first gig at London’s Marquee Club. They played white-boy blues and would soon become the first bad boy band. As Damien Murphy wrote in the Sydney Morning Herlad, “a rough, ready and publicly urinating counterpoint to the Beatles’ cleancut appeal to teenage girls.
“The band’s golden anniversary may cause some baby boomers to silently lament lost youth but five decades on the Rolling Stones are still chugging along, proof there is life after meth, blues and the other addictions that bedeviled the postwar generation.”
Actually, Ben Machell of the London Times (known there as The Times, but I always feel I have to differentiate it from the New York Times) wrote, while the Marquee Club date is the official launching point for the group, you can really go back to April 1962 and a meeting Mick Jagger and Keith Richards had with Brian Jones at the Ealing Jazz Club. It was there they took “the stage tentatively with a rolling line-up of more experienced players on Saturday nights.
“After the Marquee Club gig…the Stones would return to Ealing to play the club 22 times until March 1963.
“Richard Hattrell, a friend and flatmate of Jones, remembers the evening that Jagger, Richards and Jones first met. ‘Mick had borrowed his father’s car, and he and Keith drove over from Dartford,’ he said.
“ ‘When they arrived the place was packed, and Brian was already playing . The place used to get so damp! When it rained, the water would drip down on to the stage, it’s a wonder nobody got electrocuted.
“ ‘They met after Brian had finished playing. I remember Brian told them that he was thinking about forming a blues band of his own, and would they be interested in joining him?’”
The late, great Timothy White once authored a book “Rock Lives: Profiles and Interviews” from which I note the following concerning the Stones’ start.
“(Born July 26, 1943, in Dartford, England) – Jagger grew up on the same block as Keith Richards. The son of a physical-education instructor, Mick was five years old when he met Richards (also born in 1943) at Wentworth Primary School. They lost track of each other when the beleaguered Richards family moved to a housing project at the other end of town. Then, in 1960, Mick and Keith met again by chance and realized that they both had an advanced interest in American rhythm and blues. They also discovered they had a mutual friend in Dick Taylor, a classmate of Keith’s, who played guitar with Mick in a combo called Little Boy Blue and the Blue Boys. Keith joined the band and became tight with Jagger. At a gig of Alexis Korner’s Blues Incorporated [Marquee Club], they met Brian Jones, a blond-haired lady’s man whose rousing slide-guitar solos quickened the crowd. Brian thought they should form their own group, and they invited Dick Taylor [Ed. Not to be confused with Mick Taylor], pianist Ian Stewart, and traveling salesman-drummer Tony Chapman on board. Brian named the pack the Rolling Stones in homage to a Muddy Waters standard. A pat appellation; a sapient lot.
“Brian, Mick, and Keith began sharing a flat in Edith Grove, Chelsea. They lived on boiled potatoes and pipe dreams, pestering entrepreneur Giorgio Gomelsky for a Sunday afternoon spot on the bill at the Crawdaddy club, the epicenter of the emerging blues craze. Advertising designer Charlie Watts replaced Chapman, and Bill Wyman took over the bass slot from Taylor. Gomelski finally acceded to their pleas. The Rolling Stones drew sixty-six people the first time out at the Crawdaddy and made 24 pounds.”
“So who says we have to choose anyway? ‘Ruby Tuesday’ or ‘Elanor Rigby’? The Jagger moue or the Lennon sneer; the Jack Flash strut or the Fab Four hip bob; ballsy or brainy? Is it so unnatural to love them both?
“A lot of the contrast was manufactured hype: the Beatles did cheek, the Stones did dope (and Mars Bars). The adoption of the Beatles by high culture (‘greatest songwriting since Schubert’) only made the nice-nasty yin-yangery of it sillier. The Beatles were supposed to be soft and symphonic, the Stones coarse-ground. The Beatles cleverer, more poetically adventurous (or pretentious); the Stones ruder, rougher, tougher, harder. But the Beatles could do fierce rock ‘n’ roll – they started that way and they never lost it. ‘Back in the USSR’ is as rocky-cocky as ‘Roll Over Beethoven’. And there’s plenty of soft and soppy in the Stones archive – try listening to ‘Angie’ or Keef’s lovely, torrentially drippy ‘As Tears Go By’.
“And yet. We bought into it in the 1960s. I was blown away by Revolver and Sgt Pepper but it was the Stones that made me really happy (and still do). If you put a gun to my head, I’d be a Stoner. The reason couldn’t be simpler: dancing. You got woozily high with the Beatles but you rocked with the Stones, no adrenalin surge higher. No one got sweaty with Mr. Kite; we all did with the collective woo of ‘Brown Sugar’. There are moments of pure wild mad glee in the Stones – the gallop that opens ‘Paint It Black’ (one of the greatest pop songs ever written); the rising mischief of ‘Sympathy for the Devil’; the faux-innocent choirboys of ‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want’.
“The Beatles fell victim to the cult of their musical grandeur and got hoity-toity about concerts. For the Stones it’s perform or perish. So as we all go grey together (save Mick), it’s their death-defying romping, thumping noise I want at my funeral: ‘Wild Horses’, ‘19th Nervous Breakdown’, ‘Harlem Shuffle’, ‘Bitch’ (sorry about that), ‘Honky Tonk Woman’ and everyone had better join in with ‘It’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll’ because, even dead, I will, really, really like it.”
Personally, I was a Beatles fan (and Beach Boys, Dave Clark Five and Four Seasons) more so than the Stones. But I still loved the Stones early work and I remain partial to it.
Rolling Stones…early Top Ten Hits
11/64…#6…Time Is On My Side
4/65…#9…The Last Time
6/65…#1…(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction
10/65…#1…Get Off Of My Cloud
1/66…#6…As Tears Go By…don’t care if its sappy or drippy…like it
3/66…#2…19th Nervous Breakdown
5/66…#1…Paint It, Black…agree, one of the great rock tunes all time
7/66…#8…Mothers Little Helper
10/66…#9…Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing In The Shadow?
2/67…#1…Ruby Tuesday
*Here’s some trivia…did you know “Sympathy For The Devil” only peaked at #97? It’s true.
So will they tour next year, as is the latest rumor? Many of us hope so. I stupidly have never seen them. This is a black mark on my record that I need to rectify.
Ball Bits
–I noted the other day (7/12) that the Mets’ Dillon Gee was out with a blood clot in his shoulder and it turns out that according to Adam Rubin of ESPN.com, “doctors could not find a pulse in the limb the day after his final first-half start.” Gee underwent successful surgery to patch up a damaged artery that “had been 96 percent blocked.” Rather scary. He’s probably out for the year but should be fine next season.
Meanwhile, the Mets had another horrific loss on Tuesday in Washington with the bullpen blowing leads in the ninth and tenth innings. The Mets might be in the wild-card race, technically, but when it comes to trying to improve themselves for the stretch run, as General Manager Sandy Alderson put it the other day, “We don’t want to do anything to disrupt 2013 and ’14.” Ergo, we have a plan and don’t rush us when it comes to some of the prospects in the farm system. So 2012 will be sacrificed for the future.
–Last time I mentioned Cincinnati Reds prospect Billy Hamilton, he of the tremendous speed and over 100 stolen bases already in the minors this year. Johnny Mac passed along a clip from Yahoo Sports that showed Hamilton motoring around for an inside-the-park home run in an astounding 13.8 seconds on Sunday while with Pensacola. That’s fast, sports fans.
–J. Mac reminded me that the Nats’ Stephen Strasburg is not only 10-4 on the mound with 135 strikeouts in 105 innings, but he’s also 10 for 26 at the plate, .385, with a 654 slugging percentage.
–I have been careful not to mention Joey Votto’s ‘doubles’ figure this year. Long-time readers know how I feel about the all-time single-season records in both doubles and triples. As in there’s a reason why they are so longstanding, such as Earl Webb’s record 67 doubles in 1933. As the dog days of summer roll around, players get tired and triples in the spring turn into doubles and doubles turn into singles.
So I have vowed never again to get all fired up about someone getting 20 doubles in the first 40 games, things of that sort.
Thus, I have said nothing all year about Votto…and now for good reason. He’s out three to four weeks with a knee injury, having hit 36 doubles in 86 games. Earl Webb is secure yet another season.
[Someday Mike Trout might threaten a record like Webb’s, I have to admit. If he keeps up his awesome attitude, he can do anything.]
–We have our “Jerk of the Year” candidate…Marlins Manager Ozzie Guillen. He’s already being considered for “Idiot of the Year” off his earlier actions, but his going after Bryce Harper for having too much pine tar on his bat and then saying Harper “was unprofessional” when he pointed his bat at Ozzie was beyond absurd. Guillen started yelling at Harper from the dugout, grabbed a bat himself and shook it in the direction of Harper and the Nationals’ dugout, Nats Manager Davey Johnson started yelling back (Davey not suffering fools like Guillen gladly) and it went from there.
—Johan Santana is 3-4 with a 5.67 ERA since he threw his no-hitter, not that the Mets are bothering me or anything.
–Odds to win British Open [Err, The Open Championship]:
Tiger 6/1
Lee Westwood 12/1
Rory McIlroy 14/1
Luke Donald 16/1
Padraig Harrington 16/1
I’ve read a number of articles on Luke Donald and how bad he wants that first major. He’s talked to everyone from Nicklaus to Faldo about handling the pressure. Aside from seeing how Tiger does, this Open is about Westwood and Donald and their quests for the first big one of their careers. Westwood has eight top tens in majors since 2009, including seconds in the 2010 Masters and British Open.
–Ah yes, the Tour de France…Le Tour de ‘Roids. Luxembourg rider Frank Schleck failed a drug test on July 14 and will not continue. He finished third last year and tested positive for the diuretic Xipamide.
And how ‘bout the guy(s) who threw tacks on the road the other day, puncturing a bunch of cyclists tires. Where is the guillotine when you need one?!
“Wes Welker did everything a player is supposed to do.
“Like many in the NFL, he worked hard. While it has always been juvenile and simple minded to portray Welker as this scrappy little white dude playing a position mostly populated by blacks, utilizing only grit, mental acuity and duct tape – Welker is straight up talented, period – he has indeed been one of those men who made the most of his abilities.
“He rarely complained publicly about his contract status. He just produced Hall of Fame numbers. Last season he had a career-high 1,569 receiving yards. Since 2007 no receiver in football has caught more passes. There has been no slowing down and also no arrests or Gronkifications. Just Super Bowls and big numbers and a fairly classy demeanor.
“Oh, and there was something else: trust in the Patriots they would one day take care of him.”
Welker signed the franchise tender, “saying it was the right thing to do,” as Freeman writes.
“I called Welker a sucker for doing that and it turns out I was right because he has been royally screwed by the Patriots.
“Now, that doesn’t mean the average person should feel sorry for Welker, because he’s going to earn more than $9 million this season, but from a football standpoint, absolutely…totally… screwed.”
The Pats refused to give Welker a long-term deal, i.e., it’s likely his last year in New England. As Freeman notes, New England could use the tag again next season but probably won’t. Assuming he stays healthy, there will be some teams salivating come next winter.
Or as Mike Freeman concludes: “There had to be a way for this to work…for Welker to get some long-term comfort and the Patriots to get what they wanted; for the Patriots to keep a valued player, maybe until he retires, and Welker to get security.
“You would have hoped that some way, somehow, loyalty would have mattered.
–While the Pats screwed Welker, Chicago finally did the right thing with running back Matt Forte, granting him a four-year deal worth $32 million, with $17 million of it guaranteed. Like Welker, Forte has done everything right for the Bears but they had forced him into a situation where he would receive $7.75 million or have to sit out. [Yes, I know these numbers are crazy, but Forte deserved better and he got it.]
Running back Ray Rice of Baltimore also got a good deal from the Ravens, five years at $40 million with $25 million guaranteed if I’m reading it right.
Which makes the Welker situation all the worse, frankly.
–Kevin Hassett and Stan Veuger of the Los Angeles Times have an absurd piece on the New Orleans Saints and bountygate.
“(While) there is strong evidence that the Saints’ coaches encouraged misbehavior, what if the players ignored their coaches’ exhortations to violence on the field, while providing token participation – and appeasement – off the field? As the commissioner’s rulings are appealed, there’s one important question that must be answered: Did the Saints actually cause more injuries than the average team?”
Hassett and Veuger then go on to document how the Saints did not injure more players… “Only one other team, the San Diego Chargers, injured fewer opponents per game over this entire time frame”…blah blah blah.
That’s not the point! What is it with people these days? This is the same logic applied by apologists for Barclays Bank and the Libor scandal. “Everyone else did it…and it’s just a few basis points so what’s the big deal?”
It’s illegal! It doesn’t matter if regulators, or the NFL, didn’t care or catch the action before. They have the ultimate power, they decided to act, and the Saints, like Barclays, got caught. Saints head coach Sean Payton, like Barclays’ Bob Diamond, also got caught lying to investigators.
So, no, I don’t feel in the least bit sorry for Saints linebacker Jonathan Vilma and other players suspended by the NFL.
–Jay Bilas of ESPN.com has his own take on the upcoming 2012-2013 ACC basketball season. Uh oh….
1. North Carolina State
2. North Carolina [“James Michael McAdoo is set to explode”]
3. Duke
4. Florida State
11. Wake Forest
12. Boston College
Oh well. At least Bilas said “Wake Forest is steadily building back up.” I guess I’ll hold onto some Deaconwear, as opposed to packing it all off to Yap.
–Forbes has their richest athletes list and now Sports Illustrated came up with one that also has Floyd Mayweather passing Tiger Woods, though it’s Phil Mickelson who is second and Tiger third.
Mayweather, sitting in prison for three months after pleading guilty to domestic battery charges against a former girlfriend, made $85 million the past year while Mickelson made $60 million ($57 million endorsements).
The Mickelson commercial for Enbrel cracks me up. It shows “Champion parents,” his real parents, and then ‘fake doctor’ in the next shot. Talk about goofy.
But I want to be a fake doctor. Hell, I’ll be a fake bartender…fake gas station attendant…fake patient, like for Dr. Tendler. They could run a little blurb. “Fake patient in love with Dr. Tendler.”
“You take Restasis, too?” “Yes, I use it every day.” “Can I buy you a beer?” Cut!
–We have a Dirtball Nation alert. The Solomon Islands. It seems the Solomons is a hub for “laundering” wild birds into the global captive-bred bird trade, according to a wildlife trade watchdog Traffic.
“Thousands of parrots, cockatoos, and other exotic birds have been exported over the last 10 years,” the group reports. “But officials admit there are no major captive breeding units in the islands.”
Many of the birds being smuggled out are on the Red List of Threatened Species.
What a bunch of a-holes. Where’s Charles Bronson when you need him?! [Richard Black / BBC News]
“Ironwoman athlete Leah Prudhomme knew she could get bitten when she swam in Minnesota’s Island Lake last week. She was prepared for beavers or muskrats, but not for an otter.
“One of the normally peaceful mammals savaged her back, legs and feet 25 times, forcing the 33-year-old to get rabies shots, the Star Tribune reported.
“ ‘It just kept coming after me,’ she said. ‘You never knew where it was going to bite next.’”
Good lord…the otter tore through her wetsuit leaving bites as deep as two inches!
So for this we place the Otter, No. 86 on the All-Species List, on six months probation, including community service at aquariums and zoos nationwide.
[There is a similar story out there concerning beaver(s) attacking some little girls, but as editor I have chosen to give perennial Top Ten Beaver a pass.]
–In reading a piece on the aftermath of Western Australia’s fifth fatal shark attack in ten months, I learned that way back in 1952, Durban, South Africa “installed an elaborate shark net system to put an end to the high number of fatal attacks they were suffering. The nets have had the desired effect in Durban, but attacks are still common in more rural stretches of coast.” [Chris Mauro / GrindTV.com…interesting video on this site of Miss Supercross 2013, guys]
–Love this one…another reason why the Black Bear is a solid Top Ten on the All-Species List.
Many of you have heard the tale of a 400-pounder nicknamed “Meatball” that has been roaming Glendale, California. Last spring it was captured and relocated to Angeles National Forest about 100 miles away.
Well this week Meatball returned! And was promptly recaptured. How cool is that? 100 miles, found his way back. Then again, imagine the startled trucker who stopped to pick him up. “I want to go to Glendale. I suggest you take me there.” “Just don’t kill me, Meatball, OK?” “Deal.”
Understand that while many younger fans have no clue who she was, Kitty Wells scored the first country No. 1 hit by a solo female artist with “It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels” in 1952. She ended up with 25 Top 10 country hits and from 1953 to 1968 was generally regarded as the No. 1 female country singer until Tammy Wynette dethroned her.
Wells was actually prepared to quit in ’52, but needed the $125 union scale pay she’d receive for a final session and it was at this she recorded “It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels” and everything changed.
“ (“Honky Tonk Angels”) delivered a strikingly assertive response to Hank Thompson’s massive 1952 hit ‘The Wild Side of Life,’ in which a man laid all blame on a woman he met in a honky tonk for breaking up his marriage and then leaving him to go ‘where the wine and liquor flows, where you wait to be anybody’s baby.’
“Wells, singing a song written by J.D. Miller, shot back, ‘It wasn’t God who made honky tonk angels / As you said in the words of your song / Too many times married men think they’re still single / That has caused many a good girl to go wrong.’
–We note the passing of Jon Lord, keyboardist for the British hard-rock band Deep Purple. He was 71. Deep Purple was the true heavy metal pioneer vs. more blues-based riffs in the first wave of the British Invasion. And Lord’s Hammond B-3 organ was a key, as on “Smoke on the Water,” though Lord always had an interest in classical music and composed a number of long-form pieces the group did with the likes of the Royal Philharmonic. Lord later went on to work with an early version of the band Whitesnake.
–On Tuesday in Dublin, Bruce Springsteen and Steve Van Zandt went onstage and said, “Before we were so rudely interrupted…” and then played the end of “Twist and Shout” before opening the show with “I Fought the Law” in response to having the plug pulled on their concert in London with Paul McCartney. Evidently when Bruuuce and the E Street Band played “Dancing in the Dark,” the video screens showed only a generator battery switched “on.”
[Dublin also had a curfew, 11 p.m., so the boys started early. No issues this time.]
Top 3 songs for the week 7/18/64: #1 “Rag Doll” (The 4 Seasons) #2 “Memphis” (Johnny Rivers…great guitar riff in this one…but always drives me crazy it’s only played once) #3 “I Get Around” (The Beach Boys)…and…#4 “Can’t You See That She’s Mine” (The Dave Clark Five) #5 “The Girl From Ipanema” (Getz/Gilberto… became a popular tune for high school stage bands) #6 “The Little Old Lady (From Pasadena)” (Jan & Dean) #7 “Don’t Let The Sun Catch You Crying” (Gerry and The Pacemakers) #8 “Dang Me” (Roger Miller…always gotta say it, one of the most underrated artists/performers of the century) #9 “My Boy Lollipop” (Millie Small…opposite of Roger Miller) #10 “Keep On Pushing” (The Impressions… we were between rounds of the Beatles…the next week “A Hard Day’s Night” rockets to #2…and you can see from the above the Stones hadn’t made their grand entrance yet…actually, the Animals struck it big before the Stones did)
British Open Quiz Answers: 1) Bill Rogers won in 1981. 2) Arnie won in 1961 and 62.
