Sunday, March 24, 2019

The Sweetest Sounds

Started off a lovely, sunny morning with The Music of Spring as I made lemon ginger pancakes for breakfast. This is a "limited edition" Columbia LP that I'm guessing is from the early 60's, as it includes the title songs of Camelot and Never on a Sunday. Side one are songs that do revolve around spring, or at least have spring in the title, like "Spring In Manhattan," "April In Paris," and the New Christy Minstrels folk number "Green Green." Side two seems more like a collection of whatever happened to be popular at the time, including the two title songs and "Wouldn't It Be Loverly."

 Spent the next hour or so writing. Rudy has taken off in the furniture van, thanks to Luke having left the keys in the ignition. Luke agrees to take Charlie after his friend in his vintage 1950's Cadillac. Charlie's more annoyed than anything. He understands the need for haste, but Rudy just stole these nice people's car, and he could get into trouble. Luke's more upset that he left his precious Jedi Knights comics in the car than anything.

Broke for a very quick lunch at 1 while listening to my Starflight K-Tel record. There's a couple of unusual selections on this album, including "Makin' It" from Meatballs and "Do It Or Die" by the Atlanta Rhythm Section. I bopped along while enjoying my Chocolate-Coffee-Banana Smoothie.

Headed off to work as soon as I finished cleaning up from my drink. Work was...very boring, especially for a Sunday. There just isn't much going on besides March Madness, and most people were probably out and about, enjoying the sunny, lower-60's weather. For once, we also had way too much help. There were two young baggers in training, plus at least two others while I was there along with me. Considering how many cashiers they had on as well, I'm wondering if they expected it to be a lot busier today.

Went straight home after work. It had gotten cloudy, windy, and cooler, making it no day to linger. Had leftovers for dinner, then decided I'd give Angry Birds Star Wars another shot. I'm really having a hard time trying to get to three stars with some of these. I spent almost a half-hour on one round before I gave up and moved on, and then did ten minutes on another before I finally decided that it was late and I needed a shower.

Finished the night with the original cast album for No Strings. This would be Richard Rodgers' only solo outing on Broadway writing words and music...and honestly, he's not bad. There's some lovely music in this simple tale of a black model in Paris (Diahann Carroll, who won a Tony for her role) who falls for a layabout writer (Richard Kiley) with a bad case of writer's block. He eventually goes home to Maine, but she enjoys living in Paris too much and stays. Broadway's first interracial romance is highlighted by the standard "The Sweetest Sounds," which is used as a duet for our lovers at the beginning and end of the show to highlight their longing for someone new...and for a way to forget the other after they leave.

It's not the most complex musical in the universe, and some of the side characters can get a little obnoxious, but if you're a fan of Rodgers, Carroll, or Kiley, or want to hear some nice love songs about an unusual love affair, this is worth checking out.

2 comments:

Linda said...

I have the summer version of your spring record. It has, of course, "Summertime" on it, and "Those Lazy, Hazy, Crazy Days of Summer," and my most favorite of all, "June is Bustin' Out All Over," which I used to play every June 1 when I was younger.

Emma said...

Oooh, I'll have to look for that! I don't have too many records purely for summer. :)