To thine own self be true

Best known as the lead singer of Gerry and The Pacemakers, one of the ’60s British Invasion groups. Their hits included:

Ferry Cross the Mercy
You’ll Never Walk Alone
Don’t Let the Sun Catch You Crying
How Do You Do It? (a Beatles song–their 1st hit)
It’s Gonna Be All Right
I Like It
I’m the One.

A late Edmonton teacher-friend, Ron Blond, befriended Gerry, who sent his well wishes after Ron passed. I still sing and play “Don’t Let the Sun Catch You Crying”; I used to do it in my Grand Centre/Cold Lake groups (1973-1975).

Charlie at his best. Nicely cleaned up with a dubbed-in piano accompaniment, just as it would have been done in 1925 theatres. The first New Year’s Eve classic as well as The Gold Rush classic, complete with a recreated 1897 hillside climb using bums-off-the-street extras!

Amazingly, shot in a Hollywood studio with all the famous scenes: including Charlie superimposed and chased in a chicken costume, the cabin dangling on a cliff as the Little Tramp and Big Jim jump on the floor trying to balance it, Charlie’s famous bread-roll dance, and many other slapstick classics.

Two-disc set includes the shortened 1945 version with sound and Charlie narrating. Both versions are very clean and watchable. Highly recommended New Year’s Eve and New Year’s day watching.

Very timely and charitable, especially with people not travelling and sitting around on banks of unused Air Miles that could actually do some good for the many others.

500 Air Miles=a $50 donation to the Food Bank to help fellow Canadians.

Thinking of/helping others made a simple no-brainer.

(Thoreau complete, minus the journals. A profound lived example of “To thine own self be true”. How to be an individual in the context of Nature.)

“I adore simple pleasures. They are the last refuge of the complex.”
–Oscar Wilde

“I would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself, than be crowded on a velvet cushion.”
–Henry David Thoreau

“Nature always wears the colors of the spirit.”
–Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The truly rich are those who enjoy what they have.”
–Yiddish Proverb

“Look at everything as though you were seeing it for the first or last time. Then your time on earth will be filled with glory.”
–Betty Smith

“Beware the barrenness of a busy life.”
–Socrates

“Simplicity is the essence of happiness.”
–Cedric Bledso

“Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.”
–Mahatma Gandhi

“A well-spent day brings happy sleep.”
–Leonardo da Vinci

“Less is more.”
–Mies van der Rohe

“The art of living lies in a fine mingling of letting go and holding on.”
–Havelock Ellis

“It’s not what you look at that matters; it’s what you see.”
–Henry David Thoreau

“The world is but a canvas to the imagination.”
–Henry David Thoreau

“While we are postponing, life speeds by.”
–Seneca

“I go to Nature to be soothed and healed, and to have my senses put in order.”
–John Burroughs

“A contented mind is the greatest blessing a man can enjoy in this world.”
–Joseph Addison

“It matters not how long we live, but how.”
–Philip James Bailey

“Expect nothing, live frugally on surprise.”
–Alice Walker

“There is enchantment right in front of you, waiting for you to notice.”
–Janet Luhrs

“Only from the heart can you touch the sky.”
–Rumi

Here on the electric 12-string Rickenbacker: “Hey, Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me.” Out of D as you can see, same key as The Byrds’ original.

Interesting year, figuring out which songs for which of the 3 guitars. Fine-tuning singing keys and rhythms on SR-16, now in its 3oth year. Learning new-old songs: lately “Little Things” by Bobby Goldsborough on 12 string. And overduely re-learning old songs like Cohen’s “Suzanne” which I used to perform with early groups (“That’s pretty, Rich” said Stan Helmer, the drummer of Four in 1973, the first time I played it at a show.)

Taking out songs that are now beyond me or which I don’t care for in my master songbook. But as I begin to listen to old reel-to-reel tapes and cassettes of old groups, I see now that I’m missing a lot of good songs I used to perform well. So I may have to do some more reactivations.

I went through the Betty Plus Four live tapes from 1974-5. We sound purty good. Nice harmonies with Betty, in particular. She had a good voice; we used to do songs by The Bells, The Everlys, and The Beatles.

The Fudge tapes go back to 1991. Listening (as I walk the basement circuit daily) currently to the middle of a ‘rehearsal’-show Ken Klause and I did in January, 1992, in my English teacher-friend’s, Kristine’s kitchen. Nice sound and lots of fun. Talking to the old gang from Scona: Larry, Kim, Gloria, Petra, Kelly (now gone), Dave, et al. We are in all form, with them joining in on singing, taking verses, and playing percussion. I sure knew how to get a crowd goin’. Of late, my daughter has been threatening to digitize me of late.

There are also performances from about 20 or more so tapes including Scona room and gym performances as well as June Scona Stag parties just involving the male teachers. Boy, they sure loved to sing and Fudge played these gigs several times. I can still remember Cliff, Bob Berube, and Bob Malcolm (he played the old ’50s country) on guitars. We’d play nonstop into the wee small hours and shut the parties down. Great memories await me when I get around to those tapes.

I have four sounds to work with on 3 guitars. The 1973 Gibson 335 TD can be played with a regular chorus or a hard-sound pedal for heavier tunes: “Born to Be Wild”, “Foxy Lady” and the like. The new tuner is fast and easy. Could have used to decades ago at gigs. A good technology for sure.

Voice is hanging in–I can still sing 2 hrs. or more at a time; sometimes I use No Snore to open up the nose to reach higher notes better/clear the throat–works well. Right playing hand is fine; it’s not often I lose a pick. Left hand has some arthritis in the long finger so I can’t do barred chords anymore (F#m loses something, for sure, when minimally played in 1st position).

Wisely, I did a blog entry in December reviewing my musical career, to have a minimal record. But these tapes and supporting photos certainly flesh out the story. There are also 20 original songs, one praised by Jack Richardson, producer of The Guess Who; the others performed live at various gigs for the record.

In 2021, I suspect I’ll be playing 1-2 x a week in the basement performing space. Important to keep the voice, breathing, fingering, and focus in place. It, of course, remains a ‘wonder’ that I can do credible versions of the songbook songs with guitar, the ‘illusion of bass and backup drums’ by SR-16. A one-man band still, after all this time.

Singing and playing is good mentally, physically, audially, and spiritually. Still the most soulful exercise I get.

They’re made by child labor to produce the palm oil ingredient.
Another assumption bites the dust before the end of 2020.

for passenger travel even though this, below, happened one week before, as reported here:

“As the Canadian Gov’t blithely rubber-stamps
(posted on December 17, 2020 by rdavies)
the new Boeing design, I’m sure we’ll all get on our phones a.s.a.p. to book flights with revised Boeings.

Boxing Day Boeing update: An Air Canada Boeing 737 flying between Arizona and Montreal was forced to divert to Tucson b/c of mechanical failure ( shut off 1 engine first).”

…………………………………………….

Are these planes safe to fly with people on them? No!

‘Tis the time of year when I take a break from daily blogging. It’s been a busy year despite the pandemic as the blog enters its 8th year. I have finished running hard copies of all the entries and am looking forward to assembling a collection of the best essays and overviews–which is one main reason why I started this blog–following in Montaigne’s footsteps pursuing a variety of non-fictional topics while trying to summarize key ideas and patterns I’ve observed in the past 71 years.

So it’s hunker-down/cocoon/family phase-time beginning this week. Cheers and all the best in 2021.

RD

German composer of the late Baroque. It is impossible to fully absorb how much influence Bach had on listeners, other composers, and classical music history. Mozart and Beethoven, for instance, had great appreciations for his music.

This highly recommended DVD does the impossible in cramming in Bach’s life, music, and influence into an entertaining 1 hr. documentary narrated by Kenneth Branagh. Filmed on location, there are several noteworthy performances and appraisals given by John Eliot Gardiner, Andras Schiff, Jacques Loussier, Ton Koopman, Tini Mathot, Jonathan Miller, Joanna MacGregor, The Monteverdi Choir, and the Thermanerchor of Leipzig. They demonstrate and describe what made Bach unique and great.

Musical highlights include excerpts from “The Well-Tempered Clavier”, “Mass in B Minor”, “The Goldberg Variations”, “Toccata and Fugue in D Minor”, and the “St. Matthew Passion”.

His weekly schedule as choirmaster was amazing: writing a new piece every two days, transcribing it for musicians and choir, and then rehearsing Fridays and Saturdays, performing finished pieces on Sundays.

Ironically, when he died, Bach was remembered as an organist first and foremost (he also played violin and his wife BTW was a notable vocalist); it was only a century later that his reputation as a composer was widely and popularly known.

In terms of output, he wrote 1898 cantatas, 23 secular cantatas, orchestral music, chamber music, works for organ, harpsichord, and clavichord including sonatas, fantasias, preludes, fugues, toccatas, 143 chorale preludes, French suites, English suites, patitas, and an Italian concerto.

Significantly, he expanded the keys that compositions were played in to include preludes and fugues in each of the 24 major and minor keys–something that was previously impossible.

The ultimate 142 CD boxset of Bach’s complete works is a consummation devoutly to be wished for.

at Percy Page school used to waft through the hallways and drive the teachers nuts. (The housemaster was a gentle man recovering from a heart attack or some other serious health event and this was, undoubtedly, his notion of relaxing and keeping his stress to a minimum. And maybe others, so he thought.)

I remember one PD day returning late for a morning session in the cafeteria and could not believe my ears when I walked in. Zamfir was playing as the rest of the staff sat cornered with the headmaster looking self-satisfied at the front as if he had done everyone a favor.

One of the more cynical types, Chuck, who had a face like one of Sendak’s Wild Things whispered to me as I sat down, “Get out, Davies, while you can. Keep moving. Head for the exit.” Other teachers were restless in their seats until the music finished and the headmaster muttered something about how soothing and uplifting this music was.

Anyway, that was the morning I (and no doubt others there) came to loathe Zamfir for making us a most unwilling, unreceptive audience. As for the headmaster, he left at the end of term and I’ve often imagined what other captive audiences of teachers were held hostage to experience the torture of Zamfir airs.