So I got Chappell Roan in front of me for the very first time when I decided to follow an impulse to check out the fashion getups at Sunday night’s Grammy Awards show. One never knows what might appear there as “clothes,” however scanty, billowing, or seemingly fitted for extraterrestrial giants they might be. Landing on the page, I beheld Ms. Roan’s utterly ridiculous looking “gown” (THIS IS THE GRAMMYS, after all!), which the “New York Times” described thusly: “Ms. Roan arrived in a burgundy, opaque chiffon cape, a custom design by Mugler, that perfectly matched the color of her…
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The most profound spiritual truths in the world can usually fit on a bumper sticker. That doesn’t mean they’re easy to put into practice, “Simple, not easy” being the profound truth of that matter! But in general, if we manage to faithfully follow a set of core maxims in our daily lives, we will very likely die happy and content in the knowledge we have fulfilled our most basic human obligation: to have lived a decent life. “Be kind,” “Love thy neighbor,” “Practice compassion,” “Show mercy,” “Express gratitude,” “Dare to hope,” “Spread joy,” “Tell the truth,” “Commit to something beyond…
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For many of the January 1st’s of this blog’s existence I offered up a New Year’s Day song or poem or song-and-poem that I thought might engender a few moments of repose, hope, gladness and gratitude for the life before us, in all its sometimes complicated-as-hell feeling states. But in reviewing my previous new year’s posts yesterday, I discovered, with no small degree of dismay, that the past two January 1st’s have been unaccountably and inexplicably quiet, dark, unexpressed, unlit. Oh, dear……My very very verrrrry bad! Lord knows I need me some of that repose, hope, gladness and gratitude after…
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“Why JEFF BECK is UNCOPYABLE” goes the title of a video discussion from three years ago that has garnered 2.9 million views and 11,271 comments for all-purpose music pro Rick Beato’s You Tube channel. Beato, a musician, producer, sound engineer and educator with a graduate degree from the New England Conservatory of Music, came to that conclusion over years of listening to Beck play but never quite being able to figure out how he produces the sounds that come from his guitar. “No one sounds like Jeff Beck and no one could sound like Jeff Beck,” he says. “He plays the…
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Yes, we must always give credit to the songwriters. They are the poets of the musical world, and though the best singer-songwriters only rarely match poets for sheer literary value, the challenge of linking words, their syllables and their sounds with musical notes makes for a heady and challenging art form for which no composer-lyricist should ever have to apologize. So: hosannas to Don McLean, he of “American Pie” and “Vincent” fame, still going strong with an active concert schedule at age 80, a good 55 years after his less renowned, less brilliant “And I Love You So” premiered on…