The number one single in the U.K. todayyyyyyy in 19677777777 …
One yearrrrrr laterrrrrr, the Beatles recorded Eric Clapton’s guitar part for “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” making him the first non-Beatle on a Beatle record:
The College of Rock and Roll Knowledge reports:
… The Beatles’ George Harrison was heading in to London for a recording session for “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”. His neighbor, Eric Clapton needed a lift into London, so George offered to take him. George had a different idea though.
Harrison wasn’t happy with his own guitar tracks on the song so while driving, he asked Eric to come to the session and do a track on.
Clapton at first refused, saying that “nobody (famous) ever plays on the Beatles records!” but George insisted. Clapton came in and the invitation has its intended effect: the band members were completely professional and Eric’s solo sounded great.
As Clapton was listening to a playback, the thought his solo wasn’t “Beatle-y enough,” so the solo is run through an ADT circuit with “varispeed”, with the session engineer manually ‘waggling’ the oscillator: Engineer Chris Thomas has recalled: “Eric said that he didn’t want it to sound like him. So I was just sitting there wobbling the thing, they wanted it really extreme, so that’s what I did.” The effect sounded like the guitar was run through the Leslie rotating speaker of the Hammond B-3 organ cabinet.
James Taranto writes about the secretary of education (a position that shouldn’t exist), who also appears to be an enemy of teacher unions:
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos liked what she saw Tuesday when she visited a pair of schools in Florida’s capital. When we met that afternoon, she had just come from the Florida State University School, a K-12 charter sponsored by the FSU College of Education. “I had a little roundtable with teachers,” she says. They raved about the school’s culture, which enables them “to be free to innovate and try things in the classroom that don’t necessarily conform with the instructor in the next classroom.”
Earlier in the day Mrs. DeVos had been at Holy Comforter Episcopal, a parochial school that serves pupils from prekindergarten through eighth grade. “They started STEM programs before STEM became the cool thing to do,” she says, “and it was just great to visit a variety of the classrooms and see some of the fun things that they’re doing to get kids interested.”
Local officials in this heavily Democratic area were less enthusiastic. “It’s obvious that the secretary and our federal government have very little respect for our traditional public-school system,” Rocky Hanna, Leon County’s superintendent of schools, groused to the Tallahassee Democrat. “And it’s insulting that she’s going to visit the capital of the state of Florida, to visit a charter school, a private school and a voucher school.” (A correction on the newspaper’s website noted that she did not visit the voucher school, Bethel Christian Academy, but rather attended a “private roundtable event” at the church center that houses it.)
Mrs. DeVos, 59, stirs more passionate antagonism than any other member of President Trump’s cabinet—and that was true even before she took office. Two Republicans dissented from her February confirmation and no Democrat supported it, resulting in a 50-50 vote. She is the only cabinet secretary in U.S. history whose appointment required a vice-presidential tiebreaker.
Since then Mrs. DeVos has hit the road and visited 27 schools. Her first call, three days after she was sworn in, was Jefferson Middle School Academy in Washington, less than a mile from the Education Department’s headquarters. She was met by protesters, who blocked the entrance and shouted: “Go Back! Shame, shame!” When I ask about that incident, she plays it down: “There were just a few people that really didn’t want to see me enter the school. I don’t think they had anything to do with that school. But we, fortunately, found another way to get in, and I was greeted very warmly by all of the teachers.”
The hostility toward Mrs. DeVos is curious, because in many ways she is Mr. Trump’s stylistic opposite. Whereas the president is a bellicose, brash outer-borough New Yorker, the secretary is a pleasant, staid Midwesterner, a native of Holland, Mich. While Mr. Trump gleefully defies the strictures of political correctness, Mrs. DeVos approaches them with caution.
That becomes clear when I ask my most provocative question, about an Obama administration Title IX policy now being reconsidered. In 2011 the Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights construed Title IX, which bars sex discrimination, as mandating that colleges and universities take a series of actions meant to prevent and punish “the sexual harassment of students, including sexual violence.” That prompted campus administrators to set up disciplinary tribunals that lack basic due-process protections for the accused.
Candice Jackson, Mrs. DeVos’s acting head of the Office of Civil Rights, told the New York Times in July that “the accusations—90% of them—fall into the category of ‘we were both drunk,’ ‘we broke up, and six months later I found myself under a Title IX investigation because she just decided that our last sleeping together was not quite right.’ ” I tell the secretary this is consistent with my own reporting on the subject. Was Ms. Jackson right?
“Well, she has apologized for those remarks,” says Mrs. DeVos, looking somewhat pained. “They were made in a flippant manner, and she has acknowledged that.” The secretary adds that “sexual assault has to be taken seriously” and is “not something to be dismissed.” That’s indisputable, but Mrs. DeVos carefully avoids stating a view on whether Ms. Jackson’s assertion was factually accurate.
Understandably, Mrs. DeVos also doesn’t tip her hand as to what direction the review of the Obama policy may be taking. “I actually give credit to the last administration for raising this issue and trying to address it on campuses,” she says. But as to the current policy, “it’s clear that for many people, it’s not working, and for many institutions, it’s not working.”
She has met with advocates on both sides, including sexual-assault survivors and wrongfully accused students; the latter meeting prompted another protest, outside her office. “It’s important to listen to all perspectives, and to hear from those who, as I heard that day, have never felt that they’ve had a voice in this discussion,” she says. “We’re listening and we’re considering what future options might be.” Stay tuned.
Mrs. DeVos had a rhetorical stumble of her own in February, when she praised historically black colleges and universities as “real pioneers when it comes to school choice.” She now says: “I should have been very clear about decrying the horrors and ravages of racism. I also should have been clear that when I said pioneers of choice, it was because it was the only choice that black students had at that time.” Yet there is a contemporary parallel: “There are millions of kids today that are stuck in schools that are not doing justice for them, and I think we need to do something totally different and allow them the freedom to have choices like I did for my kids.”
Unlike Mr. Trump, Mrs. DeVos does not relish the culture wars, and her instinct is for conciliation rather than confrontation. But don’t mistake that quality for a lack of determination. On the cause she most cares about, school choice and innovation, she leaves no doubt where she stands: “The reality is, for many students today, they have no choice in the K-12 system, and I am an advocate for giving those students more choices—and I’ve been an advocate for them for 30 years.”
In 2000 she and her husband, Dick, led a ballot initiative to allow vouchers in Michigan. It failed, with 69% of voters opposed, as did similar school-choice measures in other states. In part that was because of opposition from suburban parents, who, as Mrs. DeVos puts it, already “had the economic means to make those choices” by living in areas with better schools. Since then, however, “times have continued to change and move more in favor of giving parents and students more choices, because we’ve seen consistently that too many kids are not being served in the schools to which they’ve been assigned.”
She notes that Illinois, one of “the bluest of blue states,” is “on the brink of adding to the number of states—bringing it to 26—that will have some form of a private choice program.” Two days after our interview Gov. Bruce Rauner, a Republican, signed a bill establishing a tax-credit scholarship program for poor students—a concession he exacted from the Democratic Legislature as the price for bailing out Chicago’s public schools.
Mrs. DeVos sees choice as a means to the end of promoting educational innovation—including within traditional public schools. “Instead of focusing on systems and buildings, we should be focused on individual students,” she says. That means encouraging young people “to pursue their curiosity and their interests, and being OK with wherever that takes them—not trying to conform them into a path that everybody has to take.”
What stands in the way? “I think a real robust defense of the status quo is the biggest impediment,” Mrs. DeVos says. She doesn’t mention teachers unions until I raise the subject, whereupon she observes: “I think that they have done a good job in continuing to advocate for their members, but I think it’s a focus more around the needs of adults” rather than students.
Many of the adults are frustrated, too. Recently I met a veteran middle-school teacher who said his creativity in the classroom has been increasingly constrained by federal and state mandates on curriculum and testing. Another teacher I know, who wants to start a charter, complains that “it is getting harder and harder to work for the idiots in traditional schools.”
That sounds familiar to Mrs. DeVos. “I do hear sentiments from many teachers like that,” she says, “and particularly from many teachers that are really effective and creative themselves. I’ve also heard from many teachers who have stopped teaching because they feel like they can’t really be free to do their best, because they’re either subtly or not subtly criticized by peers who might not be as effective as they are—or by administrators who don’t want to see them sort of excelling and upsetting the apple cart within whatever system they’re in.”
She continues: “I talked to a bunch of teachers that had left teaching that had been Teachers of the Year in their states or their counties or whatever. I recall one of the teachers said he just felt so beaten down after being told repeatedly to have his class keep it down—that they were having too much fun, and the kids were too engaged. Well, what kind of a message is that?”
Mrs. DeVos is unfailingly polite, even toward her antagonists. In April, Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, invited the secretary to join her on a visit to the public school district in rural Van Wert, Ohio. “It was clear that the school is strongly supported by the community,” Mrs. DeVos recalls. “But my suspicion is that if you polled every single parent in that school, a few of them would probably say if they had a choice to do something different, they probably would for their child.” Still, she believes she and Ms. Weingarten “can find some common ground on some of the things that we are both advocating for.”
Ms. Weingarten is not so agreeable. At a union conference in July she gave a speech with the portentous title “Our David vs. Goliath Battle to Resist Injustice and Reclaim Promise of Public Education.” The talk noted that Van Wert “went overwhelmingly Republican” in the 2016 election. (Mr. Trump took 76% of the county’s vote.) “Does that mean that the people of Van Wert agree with everything Donald Trump and Betsy DeVos are trying to do, like end public schools as we know them in favor of vouchers and privatization and making education a commodity?” Ms. Weingarten asked. “Not in the least. The people of Van Wert are proud of their public schools.”
She went on: “Unfortunately, just like climate change deniers deny the facts, Betsy DeVos is a public school denier, denying the good in our public schools and their foundational place in our democracy.” She answered Mrs. DeVos’s clumsy remark about black colleges with a calculated show of racial demagoguery: “The ‘real pioneers’ of private school choice were the white politicians who resisted school integration.”
Mrs. DeVos’s opponents show no indication of repaying her civility in kind. Perhaps that is a backhanded acknowledgment that they regard her as a formidable foe.
The MacIver Institute has bad news for parents, with school starting statewide by tomorrow:
Back-to-school shopping in Wisconsin is once again more expensive than in neighboring states thanks to the state’s minimum markup law, which outlaws sale prices that are too low.
The minimum markup law, formally known as the Unfair Sales Act, bans retailers from selling merchandise below cost. The law, originally passed back in 1939, also requires a 9 percent price markup on specific items like alcohol, tobacco and gasoline.
Unfortunately, Wisconsinites are forced to pay for this archaic law that’s still on the books despite ongoing efforts to repeal it.
According to advertisements obtained by the MacIver Institute from late August, Walmart stores in Milwaukee charged higher prices for a number of back-to-school items compared with other Walmart stores in Minnesota, Iowa, and Michigan.
Families in Milwaukee buying basic items like composition books, markers, and crayons can expect to pay anywhere from 12 to 146 percent more than shoppers in St. Paul, Minn., Dubuque, Iowa, and Kalamazoo, Mich.
Some common school items cost on average 90 percent more in Milwaukee. Crayola Crayons posted the single biggest price variance, costing almost 150 percent more in Milwaukee than in cities in neighboring states.
Parents picking up a Composition book in St. Paul, for example, only paid 50 cents. That same Composition book cost 56 cents in Milwaukee. Crayola markers cost 97 cents in St. Paul, but thanks to the archaic minimum markup law, those same markers cost $1.97 in Milwaukee, a 103 percent difference.
Walmart’s circulars boast that their great sale prices mean “$10 goes far,” but it goes a lot farther if you’re not shopping in Wisconsin. A basic shopping list would cost 90 percent more for a Milwaukee back-to-school shopper than in nearby states.
Shoppers in Illinois have previously enjoyed the same lower prices as other Midwestern states, as pointed out by the MacIver Institute last year. But this year, possibly thanks to the state’s recent draconian tax increases, families from Rockford to Chicago are joining Wisconsinites in paying inflated prices.
Efforts to repeal the antiquated minimum markup law stretch back several years.
In 2015, Sen. Leah Vukmir (R-Wauwatosa) and Rep. Jim Ott (R-Mequon) introduced a bill that would have eliminated the Unfair Sales Act. Unfortunately, the repeal bill did not receive even a public hearing in either house.
Another effort earlier this year by Rep. Dale Kooyenga (R-Brookfield) to reduce the minimum markup as part of a transportation funding package also fell flat, so the law remains on the books.
Vukmir, Ott, and other legislators haven’t given up. Earlier this year, they were joined by Sen. Dave Craig (R-Town of Vernon) and Rep. Dave Murphy (R-Greenville) in introducing a modified repeal bill.
This latest effort to relieve Wisconsinites from the burden of higher prices, however, has received the same silent treatment as previous repeal efforts.
Even though minimum markup repeal has hit a wall in the Legislature, a 2015 poll found that Wisconsinites are tired of paying higher prices and want the law taken off the books. The poll was conducted by reputable research firm Public Opinion Strategies and found that 80 percent of respondents had an unfavorable view of the minimum markup law when told “Wisconsin residents are required to pay more for many on-sale items than residents in neighboring states simply because of this 75-year-old law.”
Wisconsinites were just as angry when told that “the law forbids retailers from selling to consumers below cost and also requires that gasoline retailers sell gas to consumers with a minimum 9 percent markup, meaning Wisconsin drivers have to pay more for gas here than drivers do in other states.”
Some retailers have used the law to file complaints with the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection (DATCP) against competitors who were offering items for too low of a price. In 2015, MacIver first reported on numerous complaints filed against Meijer, a privately owned Michigan-based grocery and supercenter chain of stores with more than 200 locations nationwide, as it made its first foray into the Wisconsin market.
The minimum markup law also makes illegal in Wisconsin many of the discounts received on popular national bargain hunting days like “Black Friday” or “Amazon Prime Day,” which in Wisconsin could better be called “Amazon Crime Day.”
Today in 1962, the Beatles recorded “Love Me Do,” taking 17 takes to do it right:
Three years later, the Beatles had the number one single …
… which referred to something The Who could have used, because on the same day the Who’s van was vandalized and $10,000 in musical equipment was stolen from them while they were buying … a guard dog:
The number one song in the U.S. today in 1955 was written 102 years earlier:
The number one song in the U.S. today in 1966:
Today in 1970, Arthur Brown demonstrated what The Crazy World of Arthur Brown was like by getting arrested at the Palermo Pop ’70 Festival in Italy for stripping naked and setting fire to his helmet during …
On the same day, the Erie Canal Soda Pop Festival was held on Bull Island in the Wabash River between Illinois and Indiana. The festival attracted four times the projected number of fans, three fans drowned in the Wabash River, and the remaining crowd ended the festival by burning down the stage:
Skip Prokop, the big-hearted drummer, co-founder and visionary behind Canadian rock band Lighthouse, has died. He was 74.
Band manager Brenda Hoffert, wife of Lighthouse co-founder Paul Hoffert, said the beloved musician died Wednesday in a St. Thomas, Ont., hospital. She said Prokop had been living with a heart condition and was ill for some time.
Born Ronald Harry Prokop, the Hamilton native had his initial taste of international success with Canadian psychedelic rock band the Paupers in the early 1960s. After the group disbanded, Prokop was an in-demand session musician for industry heavyweights including Carlos Santana, Janis Joplin and folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary.
But Prokop envisioned the creation of a rock orchestra infused with horns, strings and a rhythm session. He was able to realize his dream through a meeting with jazz pianist and film composer Paul Hoffert, co-founding Lighthouse in 1968. The duo teamed with guitarist Ralph Cole and some 10 other musicians from the jazz, rock and classical disciplines.
Brenda Hoffert said their first gig on May 14, 1969 at the Rockpile in Toronto was memorable for unexpected reasons. Lighthouse had been due to perform with the musical collective behind the album “Super Session” — but the other group didn’t show up.
“This was Lighthouse’s first gig and they only had a certain amount of material because it was their first gig, so they had to play their whole show twice in order to fill the time,” she recalled in a phone interview on Thursday. “But fortunately, Lighthouse was such an improvisational band that it wouldn’t have mattered, because Lighthouse has never done the same show twice ever.”
The band had chart success and was well-known for infectious tracks like “You Girl,” “One Fine Morning,” “Pretty Lady” and “Sunny Days.”
Lighthouse won Junos for group of the year in 1974, vocal instrumental group of the year in 1973, and outstanding performance of the year in 1972.
The band also earned an early celebrity admirer: Billy Bob Thornton.
In the early 70s, the musician and future Oscar-winning actor was a roadie for the band when they performed in Texas.
“He always remembered that moment,” Hoffert said of Thornton’s encounter with Prokop. “The reason that he did was that he just remembered how kind this guy Skip Prokop was. He was just a roadie with the venue and Skip let him play his drums and he never forgot that. He was just a kid, and this is the kind of thing Skip did all the time.”
More name-dropping: Singer Richie Havens recommended they take their first demo to MGM Records in New York. Their first gig was at the Rock Pile in Toronto, where they were introduced by none other than Duke Ellington, who said, “I’m beginning to see the Light … house.”
Where would you get an idea for something like Chicago with an orchestra? Ask the Canadian Pop Encyclopedia:
As a young boy, Skip Prokop served in RCSCC LION Sea Cadets Corps in Hamilton, Ontario. At the age of fourteen he became Leading Seaman/1st Class as well as Lead Drummer and Instructor in the Corps. Prokop was also one of two cadets chosen nation-wide to serve in the Royal Canadian Naval Band. His leadership qualities won him an offer of scholarship to the Royal British Naval Academy which he turned down to pursue his love of music. He moved to Preston, Ontario (now Cambridge) and played in the Preston Scout House Drum Corps.
One year later, he was accepted by the Toronto Optimist Drum Corps – the world famous Canadian National Champions. Prokop was encouraged to pursue a career in music and perfected his skill as a drummer. He won the prestigious ‘Canadian National Individual Rudimental Drumming Championship’ at the age of seventeen and later that year, placed in the top three (losing within tenths of a point below 1st and 2nd place) for the same title in the United States. A scholarship from prestigious Westpoint Military Academy was offered to him as the first Canadian to be sponsored by a U.S. Senator but turned it down.
While in Toronto, Ontario he graduated from Lakeshore Business College and took a position with the Metropolitan Toronto Police force in the Identification Bureau. Prokop was offered a position with the United States Air Force Blue Angels Presidential Drum Corps at the age of nineteen. At the same time he was perfecting his guitar and piano skills and had started to write his first musical compositions.
He then left the Drum Corps to establish his first rock group called The Paupers who, in very short time, became Yorkville Village’s media darlings and fan favourites. They became the first Canadian group to sign a major US record deal through Verve/MGM. After successfully touring internationally for 4 years on the back of two critically acclaimed studio albums – “Magic People” and “Ellis Island”, the group broke up.
Under the continued managerial eye of Paupers’ manager Albert Grossman (Bob Dylan, The Band, Janis Joplin), Prokop stayed in the US and became one of the most sought after live and studio musicians. He would work with Peter Paul & Mary, Alvin Bishop, Carlos Santana, Steve Miller, Mama Cass Elliot, Richie Havens as well as Al Kooper & Michael Bloomfield. In the summer of 1968 Grossman handed him the unenviable task of putting a band together for Janis Joplin post-Big Brother & The Holding Company (which found him face-to-face with the Hell’s Angels ‘welcoming committee’). But Joplin’s independent spirit found her drifting back to old habits and band-mates and Prokop found himself at loggerheads with attempting to assemble a professional act around an unpredictable circle of hangers on and undisciplined artistes.
Prokop decided to return to Toronto and assemble his dream band – one that would take the Blood, Sweat & Tears idea of a horn-based jazz rock combo and turn it into a full-fledged fusion orchestra with the additional of strings. Prokop had been kicking the idea around as far back as his days with the Paupers – discussing it occasionally with fellow Torontonian and Broadway keyboardist and arranger Paul Hoffert when they’d hang out in New York’s Greenwich Village.
He called Hoffert immediately when he arrived back in Toronto and set about building the musical dream machine. Prokop then called up American guitarist Ralph Cole who had been in a band called The Tyme – an act that opened many shows for The Paupers during their tours stateside in 1967 and 1968 – to let him know that there was an opening in his new group. Cole packed his bags and caught the first flight to Toronto. Prokop then canvassed his old Yorkville stomping grounds looking for additional players. Popular group A Stitch In Tyme were in their deathrows and Prokop snagged guitarist Pinky Dauvin and bassist Grant Fullerton to help round out the core of the group’s rock base.
Still, the focal point was going to be horns and strings so Prokop called around to find the cream of the crop in Toronto’s brass and string instrument players from CBC radio’s session men, producer Doug Riley’s Dr. Music’s session men and anyone else not already attached to the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. After interviewing and auditioning dozens of potential players – and finding people that could grasp the idea of a rock orchestra (this was pre-Electric Light Orchestra days) – the first team to sign on were Ian Guenther (strings), Leslie Snider (strings), Don Whitton (strings), Freddy Stone (horns), Arnie Chycoski (horns), Howard Shore (saxophone, flute), Don Dinovo (violin), and Russ Little (trombone).
The 13-piece ensemble crammed into a small garage on Paul Hoffert’s property near the Lawrence & Bathurst area of Toronto where they soon discovered that the strings were all but drowned out by the rhythm section. They immediately set up finding someone that could build new violins and cellos with built-in pickups and solid bodies so that the instruments could be amplified. This was new territory and even amplification as going to be an issue for a 13-piece act on stage.
You’d think finding a stage large enough for 13 players — two percussionists, a keyboard player, a guitar player, a bass player, two trumpet/flugelhorn players, a trombone player, a saxophone player, a violin player, a violin/viola player and two cello players — would be an issue in itself. (However, a St. Louis radio station used the open of the song you’re about to read about to open its news. That would have been at the same time that a Washington TV station used the bridge to the last song in Chicago’s “Ballet for a Girl from Buchannon” as bumper music for its 1972 election coverage.)
This is Lighthouse, and apparently others, at Expo ’70 in Japan — (front, from left) Louie Yacknin, Skip Prokop, Ralph Cole,(back) Keith Jollimore, Howard Shore, Bruce Cassidy, Pete Pantaluk, Larry Smith, Don DiNovo, Paul Armin and Dick Armin. From the Lighthouse website.
It’s often been said that watching The Beatles perform on ‘The Ed Sullivan Show’ in 1964 made a million boys buy guitars, but what made as many steal saxophones, trumpets and trombones from unattended high school orchestra lockers? Lighthouse’s massive one-hit-wonder, One Fine Morning, is practically evidence of criminal intent, the 1971 hit’s flowing groove, bass-slapping attack and hard rock guitar presaging its roaring brass bluster. As the band quakes below, the vocalist—who sounds as if he’s riding aloft a black stallion racing down the beach—shouts “As long as you love me girl, we’ll fly,” as over-stimulated harmony vocals and a breezy acoustic piano “bring it all back home,” as we used to say.
The Verdict: A massive hit single boasting a sky-cracking horn section that retains it majesty year after year (*** ½)
Besides the obvious similarities between Chicago and Lighthouse, one less obvious similarity is that both groups were invited to play at Woodstock, but didn’t. Chicago was going to go, but had a conflict created by promoter Bill Graham, who scheduled the group for his Fillmore West during Woodstock so the group he promoted, Santana, could go to Woodstock. Lighthouse turned down its invitation, though Prokop later regretted it, saying, “I knew it was going to be one big drugfest. I thought you’re not going to be able to get a glass of water without something in it.”
Both did go to the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival, where 600,000 people attended. Both groups also recorded albums at Carnegie Hall in New York City (twice in Lighthouse’s case). And both houses had their early songs unforgivably hacked for American radio airplay due to their length. (The song in the next paragraph was used as news sounder music by a St. Louis radio station at about the same time that the Washington, D.C. CBS-TV station used the bridge to the last part of Chicago’s “Ballet for a Girl from Buchannon” as its bumper music for 1972 election coverage.)
Lighthouse’s best known, highest charting — it got to number 2 on the Canadian charts and 24th on the Billboard Hot 100 — and most popular according to its website poll is “One Fine Morning,” sung by later lead singer Bob McBride, who sounded something like a cross between David Clayton Thomas of Blood Sweat & Tears and Jim Peterik of the Ides of March:
Following the pop music scene in Canada teaches one many and myriad virtues, not the least of which is patience. Canadian groups, no matter how highly touted at the offset, seem to require a considerably longer period of time to mature than their English and American counterparts. …
Now, after considerable personnel changes, which have seen the group shrink to 11 members from 13 (with only five of the originals still with us), the now slightly older Y.C.R.F. is happy to announce that Lighthouse’s new effort, One Fine Morning, is everything he hoped and expected the first one to be.
The reasons for the new-found success are many. First off, the group now boasts a new lead singer in the person of Bob McBride, who shows considerably more flexibility and vocal power than his predecessor Pinky Dauvin could ever muster. Secondly, Skip Prokop and Paul Hoffert have now matured as writers to the point where they seem incapable of writing a song which isn’t both highly original and moving. Their more up-tempo numbers (“Love of a Woman” and “One Fine Morning” being the best examples), shake you as well, if not better, than anything ever written by any of their competitors in the neo-big band field to date. At the same time, their “production” type numbers, (“Step Out on the Sea,” and particularly “1849””), display a singular power and mood that almost makes you want to stand up and salute something (a tree, a telephone pole, the mailman, anything).
But probably the most important advancement the group has made is in its new tendency to allow every song to run to its logical conclusion. Previously, the group tended to make shorter two- and three-minute songs, and still attempt to crush all 13 members into each song. Thus, even a number like “The Country Song” from the third album would have horns strings squeezed into its 2:26. On One Fine Morning however, each song is allowed to have their own say without having to compete with the regular rock instruments for the listener’s ear. The result is not only that the record buyer gets and album that runs over 25 minutes on one side and 22 on the other, but also one in which each song has a power and sense of completeness that the previous efforts lacked.
I really can’t conceive of Lighthouse getting much better than this. They’ve been around long enough by now so that they’ve found their own relative level of the ozone, and will probably settle there, sending out music of an equal caliber to One Fine Morning for at least another year or so. But that’s plenty good enough, believe me. I can recommend this album to anyone without fear of getting it thrown back at me.
Unlike Chicago, Lighthouse broke up in 1976, three years after firing McBride for missing recording sessions. Also unlike Chicago, original members returned for live shows, and the group’s been back together since 1992, but fired McBride for the second time. McBride died in 1998, reportedly of substance abuse complications.
According to the always-accurate Wikipedia, Lighthouse has had 25 horn players, nine strings players, six percussionists, eight lead singers, six bass players, eight keyboard players, and three guitar players. Off the top of my head I can’t think of any group with that kind of lineup (though some are counted twice, such as Prokop on vocals, drums and, once, guitar). Lighthouse’s website has the listing of everyone by album.
Prokop’s son, Jamie, apparently took over after his father was too ill to continue with the band. I suppose that’s in the tradition of Julian Lennon, son of John; Jason Bonham, son of John; and Ziggy Marley, son of Bob. According to Lighthouse’s website, a stage show about the band is in the works, presumably not like “Mamma Mia,” which combined ABBA songs with an unrelated story.
How could classic rock radio call itself that and not include this song?
Oh, you’ll hear it in Canada. Lighthouse is one of Canada’s great rock bands and virtually a national institution. Here in Detroit, we’re fortunate enough to be able to hear AM 580, CKWW, with its unique blend of rarely played oldies, especially songs by Canadian artists, along with the usual oldies radio fare. In fact, most of the forgotten songs we’ve spotlighted here can be heard there. If you want to hear this bona fide rock classic on the radio in 2014, you have to tune to a 500-watt AM station across the border (or stream it – I highly recommend you do). …
This is a great song; a jazzy and brassy rock classic that truly deserves to be heard. Now I don’t have the playlist of every U.S. classic rock and classic hits station handy, but Detroit’s WCSX and WOMC are good examples of their respective formats, and you won’t hear it on either. No, you have to go to one of Canada’s last AM stations that still plays music, and we’re glad they could share it with us here. …
Wow, this is a remastered version and it sounds great! The horns cut right through to the forefront as they should, and it doesn’t sound brickwalled at all. Good job, remastering engineer!
And Michael Panontin adds;
The title track, leading off side two of this LP, is still Lighthouse’s finest moment, a buoyant paean to love riddled with crisp horns and blistering guitar, not to mention McBride’s lusty vocal performance. …
Though Lighthouse would crack the lucrative juggernaut south of the border once again with the more radio-friendly ‘Sunny Days’, the torrid brass/guitar workout of ‘One Fine Morning’ will forever remain the band’s signature staple up here in Canuckistan.
One of the sites has a place where someone can write. That’s what prompted this, which may be shared on the other two sites.
My perspective does not come as one of the network announcers, or a major pro or college announcer. I have almost 30 years experience announcing sports part-time, on radio and cable TV. (Three games so far this season, with another tonight at 7 Central Time here.)
I am good enough at doing this to be employed part-time to keep doing this. I haven’t been hired to do this at a higher level. I’ve figured out that’s probably all right, because I’ve learned that while journalism has poor pay and long and irregular hours, broadcasting adds to it nearly nonexistent job security, where people get fired for no really good reason.
Other part-time announcers I’ve known had day jobs in customer service, a telephone company (remember those?), welding and education. Even though it’s part-time, though, it’s essential to treat it seriously, if for no other reason than to remain employed. That means taking game prep seriously, rather than just thinking you can show up at the game site and not suck.
Broadcasting Ripon College football on The Ripon Channel with former college hockey player Howard Hansen.
If you’re doing this part-time, you’re probably paid per game. The key to getting paid more, therefore, is to do more games. Some of that is tied to how far the team you’re assigned to cover goes in the postseason; that’s out of your hands. Unless I really wasn’t available, I have always accepted a game assignment. That means I’ve done sports I wasn’t familiar with in announcing terms, including wrestling, volleyball and soccer. (Ironically, volleyball is the one sport I actually played in high school, but evidently I learned nothing about the game from sitting on the bench for two years. There is nothing quite like announcing volleyball on the radio for the first time, particularly if you lack the proper equipment and are in a poor broadcast position.) That also means doing games I wasn’t planning on doing when an emergency comes up and the radio station calls me. (And on the couple of instances where I became unavailable for a game, I arranged for my replacement a few days in advance.) Employers will stick with people who may be subpar in other areas if the employee in question is reliable.
Broadcasting Ripon High School football on The Ripon Channel with Marty Ernser, whose voice you can hear on the first video.
Part-time or not, you should always try to improve. That means listening to or watching your games, whether you like to do that or not. It’s not an ego exercise; you are not likely to remember or realize something you did poorly until you hear or see yourself.
A UW–Platteville men’s basketball game on White Out Night, with former coworker Brian Roebke.
You should always try to be more descriptive, to a point. Instead of “ground ball to short,” did the ball roll to shortstop, bounce high to short, dribble to short, roll like a cueball to short, or what? Instead of a three-yard run, did the running back slide through a hole, bang off defenders, spin off defenders, sweep outside, or what? But at the same time your description shouldn’t go over the heads of your listeners or viewers. I know some announcers have a thesaurus-worthy description of plays, but you’re probably overdoing it if your call makes listeners wonder what just happened.
Broadcasters are told to be themselves. (Which brings to mind the question of what happens when your self isn’t good enough, but never mind that right now.) The only way you can discover what your on-air self is, of course, to announce games. That’s easier than ever thanks to Facebook Live, from which comes broadcast example number three in this blog. Early-career announcers are likely to sound something like the announcers they watched or listened to, such as, in my case, Jim Irwin (Packers, Badgers and Bucks), Bob Uecker (who started announcing the Brewers when I was 7 years old), and Dick Enberg (who announced a lot of touch football in my neighborhood, though he probably doesn’t know that).
I’ve watched sports long enough to have figured out what I like and what I don’t like when I’m watching a game, and therefore what to avoid when I’m announcing a game. By now no one is probably completely original in a game call. (For instance: There are probably four acceptable calls for a goal in hockey — “GOAL!,” “SHOT AND A GOAL!”, “SCORE!” and “HE SCORES!” I don’t think I’ve heard any other goal call other than Pittsburgh’s Mike Lange’s “HEEEEEEEEE shoots and scores!,” which is a variation of the fourth choice.) The only catch-phrase I have that I can think of is my three-point call, which started as “Bango!” in honor of original Bucks announcer Eddie Doucette, but became “Bullseye!” because Mrs. Presteblog said no one would get the “Bango!” reference.
Later the same season as the aforementioned White Out game, UWP had an alumni night. I’m not a UWP alumnus, so I tried to figure out a look from my college days, which I guess here is a cross between Sonny Crockett of “Miami Vice” and “The Terminator.” I’ll be bock.
I try not to yell on the air. I think the worst trend in sports announcing is the announcer who screams like a banshee, yells like his dog is about to run into traffic, or adds a fake growl or other pale imitation of boxing ring announcer Michael Buffer. The viewer or listener knows when a big moment is taking place in a game, and to quote the great Vin Scully, you have to announce with your head, not your heart.
I got to do a state soccer match with the house soccer player, which was a better experience than broadcast, though it went to overtime and penalty kicks.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with borrowing from another announcer if he’s doing something better than you are, even if you don’t otherwise care for that announcer’s work or style. Many basketball announcers use the term “top of the key” for a player in front of the semi-circle through which goes the free-throw line, because originally the lane was narrower than the free-throw-line circle, and it thus looked like an old-style key hole. I heard someone use “top of the silo,” and if you think about it the lane, viewed from above, does look like a farm silo, so I use that, since I do games in the agricultural Midwest. (You will not, however, hear me do the “5-4-3-2-1” countdown to the end zone in football, which is bush league and inaccurate.)
I try to remember to give the score at every new first down, or immediately after that, in football, and after every out at least in baseball. Legendary Tennessee announcer John Ward gave the score after every play of a football game.
One more thing: Enjoy what you’re doing. I go into games now mentally assuming the team I’m covering (assuming it’s not a neutral game) is going to lose, so I don’t sound crushed if they lose. But win or lose, there are few things as good as getting to announce sports, even if (maybe especially if) you’re doing it part-time. I’m announcing for people who can’t get to the game for one reason or another (including being out of state or, once, out of the country), as well as the players’ families thanks to the ability to record broadcasts for future viewing or listening. (I became one family’s personal broadcaster, sort of, after announcing a player’s four years in high school and four years of college.) That should be a fun responsibility.
I’ve gotten to announce state basketball, football and volleyball, NCAA tournament games, games on the way to state tournaments, and great regular-season games. More than once in the middle of broadcasting an exciting, thrilling game I thought to myself that I’m being paid to do this. (I’ve never offered to return my pay, however.)
Steve Prestegard.com: The Presteblog 