My Vinyl: Leslie Gore (A Quincy Jones Production)

I had the exceptional honor of interviewing Ms. Leslie Gore, who was born as Leslie Goldstein, in her suite at the Hilton hotel on Avenue Of The Americas in the spring of 1992. She was in town for performances, of course, and I got wind of it and reached out to her.  Oh…my..God!, she granted me this talk maybe because I was jocking the seven pm until midnight shft at an oldies station, WXNJ 94.3 in Avalon, New Jersey at the time. It is one of the highlights of my life as a radio on-air talent! I mean, this was a real recorded interview on a cassette tape and if I can ever get my life together again and retrieve it/process and reproduce it, I will share it again with the world via YouTube, maybe!

Known for the smash, “It’s My Party”, Leslie Gore’s body of musical work encompassed many more Top 40 hits with bullets [to number one status]. I didn’t know until recently that she was produced by the legendary Quincy Jones and that she had turned “femenist/gay”. Yet even those personal choices, from her music, it did not sway me. That is rare for me, an “old school G”. Many have been burnt and mischaracterized by that kind of mentality – including family members.

from Wikipedia I read, “The lyrics of “She’s a Fool” tell of a romantic triangle.^[5] The singer is upset that the boy she likes is being treated poorly by his current girlfriend.^[6]Allmusic critic Richie Unterberger believes that the success of this song was crucial to Gore’s career because it was dissimilar lyrically and musically from the two singles with crying themes that preceded it, and thus she was able to avoid being typecasted”.

Whateva. I had no hint that she was gay. I think she even flirted with me. It is all so silly and confusing with that shit. lol
Leslie was a great interview and I think that if I’d been brave enough to ask her out for a post-interview drink, she would have said “yes!” with enthusiasm. I always hear her music in my mind from time-to-time, or randomly sampled on some commercial, as they do these days in the twenty-first century of media advertising.

I began this post upon the news of her death in February of 2015. I am sorry that I let it lay dormant in my “drafts” until now. Please forgive me, Ms. Gore. When I think of my old transistor radio that I would keep under my pillow, so that my parents could not hear me listening to MusicRadio77 WABC when I should have been asleep on school nights, I cannot help but hear you singing, “It’s My Party and I’ll Cry If I Want to…”

By the way, for more of my musical musings, check out my burgeoning music-only blog, https://achilliadsmyvinylrecordshoppe.wordpress.com/

Wistful Thinking

Yeah, indeed this tune wedgie just came to haunt me as if she really called or emailed me a “letter”…You have heard this one before, right? It is a classic “tune wedgie” from The Box Tops!

“Gimme a ticket for an aeroplane
Ain’t got time to take a fast train
Lonely days are gone, I’m a-goin’ home
My baby, just-a wrote me a letter
I don’t care how much money I gotta spend
Got to get back to baby again
Lonely days are gone, I’m a-goin’ home
My baby, just-a wrote me a letter
Well, she wrote me a letter
Said she couldn’t live without me no more
Listen mister, can’t you see I got to get back
To my baby once-a more
Anyway, yeah!
Gimme a ticket for an aeroplane
Ain’t got time to take a fast train
Lonely days are gone, I’m a-goin’ home
My baby, just-a wrote me a letter
Well, she wrote me a letter
Said she couldn’t live without me no more
Listen mister, can’t you see I got to get back
To my baby once-a more
Anyway, yeah!
Gimme a ticket for an aeroplane
Ain’t got time to take a fast train
Lonely days are gone, I’m a-goin’ home
My baby, just-a wrote me a letter
My baby, just-a wrote me a letter
”

Recurring MOR Dream: “Cathy’s Clown” by The Everly Brothers

“Whoa, Nellie!” Now here is a ‘TUNE WEDGIE’ that you can help me figure out:
Why does this tune play in my “DJ Mind” even while I am in non-REM sleep or while making my breakfast before going to weekday work? Maybe it is because I am a Baby Boomer and product of being raised in New York City with some of the greatest and legendary terrestrial radio stations of all times?…
Whatever…This song by the Everly Brothers is one of the first hits I ever heard when I discovered radio in the early 1960s.
They were country-influenced rock and roll performers, best known for their steel-string guitar playing harmony sound. Their hottest streak of chart success was between 1957 and 1961, but radio stations played them as “recurrents” well into the 1970s! Even today I can hear, in my musical mind, the likes of DJ Dan Ingram back-announcing “Cathy’s Clown” or any number of the Everly Brother hits with a clever double-entendre. Back then, if you had to classify their music, they called it “Middle-Of-The-Road” or “MOR“.
“Cathy’s Clown” was track #14 on the Everly Brothers album with a bullet!
I always liked their kind-of competitive interplay when they sang; unsure whether they really were “brothers” or even if they liked each other (standing so close to each-other like that) when I saw them on shows like “The Ed Sullivan Show” or “Shindig”!
Come on now, and sing along!

Don’t want your love any more
Don’t want your kisses, that’s for sure
I die each time I hear this sound
Here he comes, that’s Cathy’s clown

I’ve got to stand tall, you know a man can’t crawl
For when he knows you’re telling lies
And he lets them pass him by
He’s not a man at all

Don’t want your love any more
Don’t want your kisses, that’s for sure
I die each time I hear this sound
Here he comes, that’s Cathy’s clown

When you see me shed a tear
And you know that it’s sincere
Don’t you think it’s kind of sad, that you’re treating me so bad?
Or don’t you even care?

Don’t want your love any more
Don’t want your kisses , that’s for sure
I die each time I hear this sound
Here he comes, that’s Cathy’s clown
That’s Cathy’s clown, that’s Cathy’s clown

Well, that’s a wrap for this “Wedgie” and please pray with me now that this tune will not intrude on this night’s sleep. Comments welcome and I will reply when I awaken from my “Dream, Dream, Dreams. Bye-Bye, Love!”

Book Excerpt: Frankie Crocker, The Chief Rocker

                                                                  Whether you are a regular or infrequent visitor to my blog, undoubtedly you have heard me refer to Frankie Crocker as my inspiration for wanting to become a high-paid celebrity professional radio personality. I haven’t looked, but I bet in each of “My Vinyls” I mention him. The “high-paid” part never happened, but he hipped me to so much music via his programming and radio show, while teaching me, in a vicarious way, how not to take any shit from people while doing my shows.

I remember him once giving me the advice, to take full control of your show whenever you are on, no-matter what or who (but he put it another way as described in my book) tries to interfere. Frankie was very quotable and had a lot of “sayings” – many direct and controversial.

In my first radio memoir book, “He’s In A Meeting…Adventures In Getting Past Gatekeepers (My Pursuit of Modest Fame In The Radio Game And Other Assorted Lefe Letters/Short Stories)” – which you can see the front cover of below in the right sidebar – I write about Mr. Crocker and how he influenced me and so many of us during his times. I describe some of the ways I got “past” his gatekeepers; secretaries like Denise Colon and Champaine of WBLS FM, New York, and some other fun “things” I did to get his attention along the way, in the book. 

Pickhitt: I’d  be remiss if I didn’t credit my loving and full-of-good-ideas beloved, Inna, who thought of me doing this book promotional post! Cheers, Babychka!

Read more about the legendary ‘Chief Rocker’ in “He’s In A Meeting, Adventures In Getting Past Gatekeepers” [CreateSpace/Amazon KDP].

~

“If Frankie Crocker’s not on your radio, your radio’s not really ON…”  😀  ~~ Jimi