Featured Cut: The Ronettes, "Be My Baby"

Ellie Greenwich's obit here.
A lively article (if a little too Greil Marcusian) on the influence of the song from Warren Ellis.

Dardenne Brothers Film Festival

Here is a lovingly detailed unofficial website dedicated to the brothers.

La Perfectly Swell Romance

Now and again, the Prof nods. Somehow he missed this very good piece in the NYTimes about Fred and Ginger.

Featured Cut: The Flamingos, "Golden Teardrops"

(Read the NYTimes obit here.)

from Marv Golberg's Flamingos article on his R & B site.

“We had a gentleman by the name of Bunky Redding who wrote the song, but we added a little bit here and there. [Bunkie Redding was a friend of the group; actually, he and Johnny Carter wrote the song.] We started rehearsing that song at my mother's apartment on 46th and Langley. I never will forget it. We rehearsed and we rehearsed. And we changed it and changed it and we were trying to get a beginning. And we began to put the song together like a puzzle. It took us about three months to do that song. Then we finally got it. If you listen to the background, there is very little music. It was almost a cappella. You could hear the notes, the blending of the voices. We rehearsed a long time on that song. In fact we were almost ready to give it up. We couldn't get it like we wanted to. And Johnny started bringing in that tenor and it started fitting in. And so when we felt like we were comfortable with it, we recorded it. We never sang it in public [before it was recorded]. Once we got it together, we went to the studio and recorded it. We never did pre-sing our songs to see how the audience would accept it. We rehearsed it and went to the studio.”

Marshall Crenshaw, Jaggedland

Les Paul has died.

Obituary here.

"Love Goes On" Grant McClenan Tribute CD Review

Review to be added in an update. This is growing on me (played it every day since I got it).
Many thanks and happy birthday to the amazing Tom (TG the TA) for sending the disc along.
Party on, Tom!

Update (review): The Prof and his pals were shocked and saddened three Mays back by the sudden passing of Grant McLennan, co-leader of the beloved Go-Betweens. Grant and Robert Forster had kept the band going despite the many headaches and heartaches rock showbiz threw their way. Then they called it quits. In the last decade the pair revived the band with more modest goals, but with no loss in the quality of tunes and words, and in three succeeding albums they pulled the old fans into the 21st century and recruited a new cadre of the faithful.

70 Years Ago Today: Roy Eldridge Recorded Live at The Arcadia Ballroom

Happy Birthday, Satchmo! August 4, 1901--July 6, 1971

And to you, too, Mr. President, sir! And to Percy Bysshe Shelly (1792), Helen Kane (1903), William Schuman (1910), Frankie Ford (1939), Frank Vincent (1939), Billy Bob Thornton (1955), Roger Clemens (1962).

And R.I.P. Billy Lee Riley.