#me and sister bobbie: true stories of the family band

[krispyweiss]

Book Review: “Me and Sister Bobbie: True Tales of the Family Band” by Willie and Bobbie Nelson with David Ritz

Willie and Bobbie Nelson have lived a combined 176 years - basically all of them together.

That Willie, 87, and Bobbie, 89, were able to tell their story from front to back in just 288 pages within “Me and Sister Bobbie: True Tales of the Family Band” says much about co-author David Ritz’s gift for distillation.

In short, alternating chapters titled “Brother,” “Sister,” “Brother,” “Sister,” Willie and Bobbie recount their lives from the begInning of their shared memory: the day they were abandoned by their parents to be raised raised by their paternal grandparents, Mama and Daddy Nelson. But Daddy died young and Mama became a single (grand) parent and a singular figure in their lives.

Willie’s chapters are folksy, often leaving off words like “I,” and beginning sentences, “Don’t know how ...” Bobbie’s are written more traditionally, often ending with cliffhangers to hold the reader in suspense until she picks up the story again.

When Bobbie married as a teenager, she and Brother joined their first band together, Bud Fletcher and the Texans, led by Bobbie’s alcoholic, non-musical husband. Two decades later, Willie’s dream came true when he and Sister reunited in the Family band. And today, Willie is an American treasure and elder statesman of country music and weed.

The long journey from childhood to old age is all between the covers of this easy-to-read book.

Family and music are the ties that bind through marriages, divorces, the births and deaths of children, remarriages and career ups and downs.

Readers learn Bobbie - an early master of the Hammond B3 organ, who worked for the company and taught clients to play - is the virtuoso of the clan. Willie’s the wandering journeyman who writes classics and has no idea how he does it.

And though it’s subtitled “True Tales of the Family Band,” “Me and Sister Bobbie” is more about family - small “f” - than the band itself, which formed in 1973 and fulfilled Willie’s desire to make music with Bobbie. And they’ve been doing it ever since.

Willie’s story has been told, in greater detail, elsewhere. But Bobbie’s has not. And it’s Bobbie’s story - as big sister, daughter and granddaughter, wife, mother, collaborator and master musician - that makes this book a must for anyone who loves Willie Nelson and most of those who don’t.

Because Willie loves Bobbie; Bobbie loves Willie. And everybody loves a good love story.

Grade card: “Me and Sister Bobbie: True Tales of the Family Band” by Willie and Bobbie Nelson with David Ritz - A-

10/22/20

[wackybuddiemewbs]

Random Buddie Fic Snippets - no title, just (bad) vibes

Here’s to another snippet of things that ghost through my Word files. This one’s particularly headache-inducing for me personally. For one, trigger warnings galore. And then I have *checks file* 41k (!!!) words worth of non-fic noted down, but it’s really just unassembled bits and pieces of mostly dialog. Grrrrrrr. 😖

Since such a fic would take a lot more planning... which is basically the antithesis of me for all intents and purposes... I pester you with snippets like they are pestering me. Said it before and can only reiterate: I make you suffer with me. *cackles*

Basically, the story plays on the idea that Eddie and Buck grew up together due to plot convenient purposes and meet again at the fire station after years apart. Anyway, here’s to more madness mingled with angst! Cheers!

Buck slings his duffel bag over his shoulder when his phone vibrates. Sighing, he shifts his weight to take it out of his pocket and take the call. A smile creeps up his lips when he sees the picture flare up on his screen.

“Hey, what’s up, Mads?”

“Hey, I just wanted to let you know that you were right about that little bakery downtown. It’s so worth the twenty minute trip,” she nearly groans. And Buck can relate. When he found that authentic Mexican bakery on a long run through the city, he may or may not have shed a few tears of happiness. And he may or may not have bought pastry worth a hundred bucks.

Totally worth it to run all those extra miles for the carbs, though.

“How many conchas did you have?” Buck asks, chuckling softly.

“I’m pleading the fifth.”

“Did you drive back to get more?” he questions, though Buck is fairly sure what the answer is already, which comes promptly, “Which is why I might be late for work.”

Buck laughs, leaning back against his car. “They are in the top 5 of conchas I ever had, which is saying something. So yeah, I get the feeling.”

And he should really know, he’s had the best in the world and no. 2 and 3 also. Though those are not up for sale.

“So, I need a bit of distraction to keep myself from digging through the remains of the bag before I make it to the car,” she tells him.

“Sure, what do you want to hear?”

“Howie told me that you’re getting someone new on the team today. Are you excited?”

“… Oh, ugh, sure.” Buck can feel his jaw cramping at that.

“You know you just sounded more excited about me being on a sugar high thanks to Mexican pastry than you are about your new teammate arriving.”

He’d hoped to avoid that conversation before he got over with it. Because that’s how he normally rolls with it. He gets over with it.

Works with band-aids and most situations that give you discomfort.

But Maddie has maybe not the sixth but seventh sense apparently big sisters seem to inherit by birth, so it appears that not even the most amazing conchas up for sale in all of Los Angeles will spare him having that conversation now. Which is the equivalent of tearing duct tape off, but slowly.

“I’m a huge concha fan, what can I say? And sure, it’s cool. It’d be nice to have a partner on the team, like, permanently, like Chim and Hen, more like.”

Buck rolls his eyes back as far as they will into his skull. It’s a small wonder that Maddie doesn’t buy his bullshit. He was fine just dodging the topic until now, it’s what normally works best for him. But yeah, Maddie just knows how to coax it out of him, and he loves and hates her for it.

“Talk to me, Buck.”

Buck looks up to the sky. “… I guess I’m just a bit nervous.”

“You are nervous? Don’t you think it’s up to the new teammate to be a bundle of nerves?”

“That’s kind of my thing, though,” Buck argues.

He has been ever since Bobby announced that they’d get a newbie, not a probie, but someone to be on the team with them. Dutifully, Buck laughed at the comments about how Bobby seemingly hired him a babysitter to make sure he doesn’t do reckless stuff all the time.

The nervous energy settled in when he got home that day and his leg wouldn’t stop bobbing well into lying in bed, trying to sleep. He only fell asleep halfway through reading the Wikipedia list of minor planets named after people.

“Then why do you feel nervous?”

“It’s nothing.”

“You know you can tell me,” she says softly.

Buck closes his eyes. He understood by now that yes, he can. But that doesn’t mean he wants to. Most of the time, Buck wished he didn’t have to tell anyone anything ever again and simply exist in the here and now. Because the here and now is sunny and tastes of pretty damn awesome conchas.

“I know it’s stupid, but…” His voice trails off.

And maybe she can read his mind, Buck wouldn’t be surprised if it turned out to be the case, because Maddie goes on to say, “You know he’s not taking your place, right?”

“What? Yeah, I mean…” Buck chews on his bottom lip. Whenever Maddie starts to talk like that, he feels like he’s sitting with a therapist. And suddenly, what he wants to believe are just his antics sounds like food for the shrinks.

“This is supposed to be your partner. Someone to have your back, not stab you in the back,” Maddie points out.

“Rationally, I know all that. It’s just…” He stretches out his legs.

“It’s just what?” she asks in a gentle tone of voice.

“What if he’s better than me?”

What if they realize that he’s expendable after all? What if someone comes along who can do things better than Buck without the attitude? What if he can’t prove his worth anymore because that guy can do it just as well, maybe even better?

“Then I will be glad because that means someone capable is watching out for my baby brother,” Maddie answers, pulling Buck back to the current conversation, not the fictional ones inside his head.

“What if we end up hating each other’s guts?” Buck continues. He had to restrain himself from actually typing a list of all those questions on his phone when his mind went spiraling upon receiving the news. Because that’s what’s been going on ever since Bobby announced. And Buck knows how stupid it is, but his brain didn’t get the memo. There are so many what ifs that it’s making him dizzy thinking about them.

“Then you talk about it like actual adults. And anyway, no one can hate you to your guts. You’re amazing.”

Buck has to fight hard not to blush. “Thanks, but you’re biased because you’re my sister.”

His heart still beats a little faster every time he says those words out loud. Something that comes so light and casual these days, though it isn’t. It is closer to what it should be. Because it should be casual, natural, given.

But apparently, the world didn’t get that memo yet. Seemingly a pattern.

“And as your sister, I’m also always right.”

“Are not.”

“Are too.”

He laughs. She chuckles back.

“Listen,” Maddie continues. “Just be yourself. You’re going to figure it out. This is exciting, Buck. More people to add to your family, okay?”

“Yeah, okay. Thanks,” he croaks.

“I’ll call you during lunch time, unless you’re out on a call. And then I want all the details on the newbie.”

“Alright. Pro tip: Put the bag of pastries in the trunk of your car. Only way to keep your paws off of them while driving.”

“I may actually crawl back, but yeah, it’d require a lot more effort.”

He smiles. “Drive save.”

“Will do.”

“Alright, I’m heading in,” Buck says, pushing away from his car. “Or else I will be running late, too.”

“Love you, little brother.”

“Love you, too. Talk to you later.”

“Bye.”

“Bye.”

Buck hangs up and stuffs his phone back into his pocket.

Maddie is right. There is nothing to be nervous about. He has a team now. No one is leaving. New people are arriving. That’s how it works. That’s normal. And he gets to pester the newbie. So he should really be excited, as Maddie said. Buck knows he should focus on that. On how great this could turn out to be. On having a partner. Someone to have his back. All the time.

He sucks in a deep breath as he comes to stand in front of the door leading inside the fire station.

“The door is not closed,” he mutters with closed eyes, grabbing the handle. Buck pushes inside. He is greeted by the familiar hum of the fire station coming to life. People are talking over coffee, some are still fastening the buttons on their shirts as they make up the stairs.

And there’s no place he’d rather be. Buck knew that the moment he first walked into the station for the first time, and that assessment hasn’t changed since.

Buck makes for the locker rooms to change, not wanting to run late like Maddie. Once changed into his uniform, Buck finds himself a little more at ease. Athena once pointed out that they wear those uniforms as a way of protecting themselves. You take them off after work and leave all the bad behind that you’ve witnessed on a call. For Buck, the other way is just as true, though.

When he puts on that uniform on, he can leave his anxious, knee-bobbing self behind and do something meaningful. Because that’s what he found here, beside the team that means so much to him. He found a purpose. A way of answering a calling that lies far back in a past he can’t and won’t remember. To save lives.

Buck looks at his reflection in the mirror, straightens out the collar, makes sure his hair sits perfectly. His glance lingers on the name tag a moment longer, brushes his fingers over the metal plate, the one thing he can’t fix or straighten out.

But that won’t make me flinch. Ever.

“Buckaroo! Time for coffee and talk! I need new material on that show Denny and you are watching and that you need to update me on, so I don’t have to watch it!”

Buck smiles as he closes the locker to see Hen standing there with two cups of coffee.

“Coming.”

But that fixes a whole lot already.

-------------------

Hen sips her coffee in silence as Bobby goes on about who is doing what for the day. She is glad that she isn’t assigned truck cleaning duty. That’s one of the best things about newbies and probies coming in. They get to do the dirty work for a bit. She had to jump those hoops, too, like everyone did, so it only seems fair.

Chim nudges her in the side, pulling her out of her musings. “Have you seen the newbie yet?”

She nudges him back a bit harder to tell him wordlessly that he is supposed to stop doing that. “If I had, don’t you think I would’ve told you by now?”

“Just saying, being late on the first day is not a good sign.”

“Can I help you with something, Han, Wilson?” Bobby calls out. “Care to share with the rest of the team?”

Buck laughs beside them, earning himself a nudge from Hen. That kid is going places sometimes, but Hen learned to love him fiercely after he stopped being a punk.

Fine, he’s still a punk sometimes, but we got to see there’s a heart of gold underneath all the punk and muscle and hair gel.

He grew on her the way he managed to grow on anyone, even the Captain who doesn’t like to admit that more than anyone around the station. He fired the boy first week in, and it was well-deserved, but he proved capable and kind.

Hen knew she was done for this humanoid golden retriever when she fussed over not having a babysitter for Denny and Buck jumped in after he’d just done a double-shift. She and Karen were still working things out and he just made the room, even though the boy deserved bed more than anyone else. Still, he took Denny to the park, finished homework with him, and got him to go to bed even though the kid is not so much a negotiator as he is a small dictator when it comes to bedtime. Karen and she found Buck passed out, snoring like a lawnmower, a book still in his lap while sitting next to Denny’s bed.

“Nothing, Cap,” Chimney answers. “Just sharing excitement about the newbie.”

“You’ll meet him shortly. He had to pick up his gear first and talk to the higher-ups another time. Once he arrives, you can pester him with questions as I know you will.”

“On it, Cap.”

Bobby rolls his eyes, but then his mind goes back to the clipboard and the rest of the chores yet to be divided among the firefighters on shift. The rest of the morning routine goes without further incident, so the three are soon walking down the stairs to their designated task of checking their stocks on medical equipment.

“Okay. That is a beautiful man,” Chimney says, suddenly stopping in his tracks.

Hen trains her eyes on the dark-haired Latino, putting on a shirt. That should be the newbie, then.

“Where’s the lie? And I like girls.”

“Eddie…,” Buck breathes beside her.

Hen whips her head around at the sound.

“Wait, you know this guy?” Chim asks, but Buck doesn’t say anything. Instead, he starts to walk towards the new guy, or almost staggers, she should rather say. The newbie only takes notice of him when his head pops out from the shirt.

“Buck?”

To Hen, it feels like the two just go in slow motion while the rest of the fire station is crazy and busy as always. As though the whole world disappeared around them.

She can’t make out whatever words may be exchanged between them before the new guy covers the last few steps between them and pulls Buck against him in a tight hug. Shock is written all over his face, but also huge relief. Though Hen honestly wished they stood the other way around, because she would like to know just what expression is flitting across her little golden retriever’s face.

“What on earth is going on here?” Chimney mutters.

“I ain’t got no clue.”

The newbie pulls away, smiling over both ears, both hands deftly resting on Buck’s arms. Even though Hen still can’t see Buck’s face, it seems that the guy is doing all the talking for a change. Then he is hugging him all over again.

“I repeat, what on earth is going on here?”

“Only one way to find out.”

Before they can overcome their paralysis, Buck starts to move, gesturing behind himself. The new guy nods with the brightest of smiles, not once letting go of Buck’s arm as they start to walk towards them.

Her confusion is multiplied by the way Buck carries himself, eyes downcast, looking nothing but nervous.

Did someone exchange the 118’s golden retriever this morning, or what’s going on here?

“... can’t believe we meet again in this place of all places,” she can hear the new guy say as they approach.

“S, same.”

Buck is stuttering. To repeat the repeat: What on earth is going on here?

“We have so much catching up to do.”

“Yeah.”

“Buckaroo?” Hen calls out, or maybe demands. She no longer cares for the details here. She needs to get down to the bottom of this. Fast.

“Oh, sorry, I just… this is Eddie.”

“Hi.”

“Hi Eddie, it is a pleasure meeting you. We will greet you good and proper in only just a moment. Hold the line,” Hen says, before turning her attention back to Buck. “Now to you, Buckaroo. Spill the beans.”

“Yeah,” Chim agrees.

But Buck is not forthcoming. Boy looks like a fish out of the water, his mouth opening and closing without any sounds coming out. This makes the sirens ring inside Hen’s head, not the ones at the station. Because their Buckaroo never stops talking, even when he should sometimes, and even when he wants to stop talking, he will keep talking. So him not finding anything to say may or may not force Mother Hen to have to look after her punk chick here.

“We grew up together,” Eddie says after a pause, still all soft smiles and maybe even softer curls, by the looks of it. Hen will worry about that later, too. “I honestly had no clue he was working at this station, let alone that he was in L.A. Color me surprised. Abuela will not believe this.”

“Abuela?”

“My grandmother. She’s the one who fostered him before…,” Eddie continues, but then stops himself when he notices the look of sheer panic on Buck’s face. “They do not know this.”

Buck shakes his head.

“Dios.”

“Wait, you were in foster care?” Chimney almost cries out.

“In Texas?” Hen adds, her mind still short-circuiting thanks to that input.

“Yeah. I was adopted by the Moores after that.”

Chimney gapes at him. “You were adopted?”

“Yeah.”

“Wait, they don’t know about that either?” Eddie asks, now almost as frantic as they are.

Welcome to the club, hon.

“Now they do,” Buck mutters.

“But Maddie isn’t adopted. I should know.” Chimney lifts his index finger.

“Right,” Hen agrees.

Eddie makes a face. “Who’s Maddie?”

“My girlfriend, Buck’s sister.”

“You have a sister?” Eddie slaps his hand against Buck’s arm, shock taking the place of confusion.

“Wait, you grew up with him and don’t know his sister?”

“It’s a long story,” Buck sighs.

“Like how you’re Texan?” Hen scoffs.

Buck holds up his hands. “Okay, guys, can we stop spiraling for a second?”

Hen opens her mouth to give him a piece of mind, but she’s abruptly cut off by their captain standing at the top of the stairs. “Buck! I could use a hand up here!”

“On my way, Cap!” Buck yells back, the amount of relief to opt out of the conversation more than imminent. “Sorry, duty calls!”

“Hey no,” Chim hisses, but Buck isn’t having it. He pats Eddie on the shoulder. “We’ll talk later, okay?”

“Okay.”

With that, he starts to jog, or rather run, up the stairs. All watch him go, before their eyes fall back on the people standing right in front of them.

Well, if that’s not awkward.

“So, ugh. Hi again,” the new guy says, smiling sheepishly. “Eddie Diaz, your newbie.”

“Hi. Hen Wilson.”

“Howard Han, but you can call me Chimney or Chim. And why I’m called that is between me and God.”

“Okay. That may be only the second most confusing thing to happen on my first day.”

“We don’t normally act like this,” Hen tries to reassure him.

Chim makes a face. “We don’t?”

Hen nudges him in the side hard enough to make Chim gasp.

“Wilson, Han, you’re supposed to get on with the stocks!” someone calls out.

“You’re not our boss!” Chim shouts back at what turns out to be that jackass Lambert from B-roll no one likes because his attitude stinks about as much as his aftershave.

“But Cap is and he told me to tell you to move it!”

“I hate that guy,” Chim grumbles.

“I think I’ll like it here,” Eddie chuckles.

“They are so young and innocent when they join,” Chim snorts.

“Welcome to the 118,” Hen says, giving the younger man’s shoulder a gentle squeeze. “I suppose you should go up there as well and talk to the captain.”

“Alright, I’ll see you around.”

“Most certainly.”

“That was only mildly threatening,” Chim laughs, rolling his eyes well before Hen jabs him another time.

“Good to have you here,” he adds.

“Indeed.”

“Good to be here. See you later.”

“Later,” both say in unison.

Eddie smiles at them before climbing up the stairs.

“You try to get a hold of your boo, I’ll see what info I can squeeze out of Cap or Buck, whoever I get my hands on first.”

“Aren’t we supposed to get on with…”

Hen glowers at him.

“I said nothing.”

“Less talking to me, more talking to your girlfriend.”

Chimney makes a mock salute, before walking away while fiddling with his phone. Hen let’s her gaze wander up to the gallery with a grimace. Something is not right, but she is going to figure it out. Because Hen Wilson keeps all her little chicks on track, even more so now that they got a new one to take care of.

-------------------

Eddie tosses the sponge into the water bucket. Getting some of the crappier chores for the day is something he fully expected to happen. What he didn't expect, not in a million years, was running into Buck. Eddie’s head is still reeling because of it. And for what it seems, the same is true for Buck.

Buck.

To say that he seemed shocked is an understatement. Eddie knows the way Buck expresses panic. He’s grown up making sure the kid breathed instead of keeling over when it hit him, so Eddie knows that this was not just surprise, this was fight-or-flight level panic. Eddie knows by now he was so panicked because his colleagues didn’t know about the fostering or adoption – and he could still kick himself for bringing it up unawares.

He jumped to the conclusion because Buck used to talk about it freely to anyone who asked, especially after he was adopted by the Moores. Because it was his way of signifying to the rest of the world that he’d made it from being abandoned to finding friends and family. So Eddie assumed that Buck wouldn’t act any different around his colleagues.

Far from it!

“Eddie, my friend.”

Eddie nearly jumps when Hen and Chimney materialize next to him.

Speaking of…

“Hi,” he greets them.

“How’re you liking it thus far?”

“The detergents smell not as bad as some others do,” Eddie snorts. “But I’m pretty sure that’s not what you came here to ask me about.”

“Just so that you know, you can tell us anything,” Hen says in that mild tone of voice, though Eddie is pretty sure she only says it this way not to scare him away.

“You are looking for bribing material on Buck, I take?”

“We always appreciate it, but we are more like… trying to get up to speed. Until you came to the station, we didn’t even know he’d been fostered,” Hen answers.

“Or adopted,” Chimney adds.

“In Texas.”

Eddie chews on the inside of his cheek. “Yeah, about that. So he actually found his sister?”

If seeing Buck nearly floored him, hearing about his sister was definitely not adding to Eddie’s calm.

“Yes, she’s my girlfriend. You’ll get to know her soon enough.”

There is a part in Eddie that’s very much relieved to hear that Buck found at least part of his family, but another part of him hurts at the news just as much. Because that means Buck likely learned some very uncomfortable truths about his past that won’t have added to the man’s confidence.

“Back in Texas, we knew nothing about where he came from, including whether he had siblings or not. There was an assumption, but no one could be sure.”

“How old were you by the time your grandmother fostered him?”

“I was eight years old.”

“Eight years old… Buck made it sound like he and Maddie were out of touch like, only by the time she got to know Doug.”

Eddie frowns. “Who’s Doug?”

“No one you want to know.” Chimney shakes his head.

Eddie shakes his head. All of this starts to make less and less sense. Why didn’t Buck tell them about any of this? Why didn’t he when he apparently found his sister? Why are they about as clueless as he is, even though they’ve been working side-by-side with him for how long now?

“We lost sight of each other when the Moores moved away from Texas. So they aren’t around anymore?”

Hen shrugs at that. “Let’s say we’ve never met them, never talked about them, or seen any pictures.”

“Kid arrived here with a travel bag and the will to become a firefighter,” Chimney adds.

Eddie can’t help but smile at that. “That sounds like him.”

“You sound pretty clueless actually, and not gonna lie, that is strangely reassuring,” Chimney snorts.

“I prepared for meeting many new people today. Not my best friend back from childhood.”

“Aw.” Hen clutches her hands in front of her chest.

“I just hope he’s not mad at me.” Eddie grimaces. There is something tugging at his heart, just thinking about it. A memory that goes way back in time. When he thought he’d messed it up with Buck forever and always, but he forgave quicker than Eddie could forgive himself.

“I don’t remember our Buckaroo being capable of keeping grudges for long.”

“Then that hasn’t changed at least,” Eddie sighs.

“I think you two should definitely get something to drink after work, reminiscence about the good old times. Catch up. Report back to us in the morning,” she says, her voice trailing off.

“You are aware that they are childhood friends.”

“But I can be far more intimidating.”

“I think getting something to drink and catch up is actually a good idea,” Eddie ponders. “So thanks.”

“You, I like.”

Eddie grins.

“You still missed a spot, though.”

Eddie chuckles, shaking his head. Buck made some good friends here, for what it seems. And he is more than glad for it. They can surely figure this all out.

-------------------

Waking up this morning, Buck thought his biggest worry would be to sort himself out with regards to the newbie and his standing on the team as a result. While that remains true, he just didn't imagine for one hot second it may be Eddie of all people in the entire universe.

Eddie.

When Buck saw him at the station, he didn’t know how to breathe. Even though he hadn’t seen him in years, he knew instantly, only to know that he suddenly knew nothing anymore. Buck used to think he made his peace never seeing Eddie again after they moved away, but then Eddie was hugging him and all those things Buck made sure to bury deep in the ground started to crawl up through the dirt, scratching at a way too thin surface.

And now he is sitting at a bar, nursing his alcohol free beer – because he doesn’t drink when driving, he has to get people out of cars thanks to that behavior way too often, thank you very much. He is at a bar. With Eddie. His Eddie. Because Eddie invited him to get a beer after the shift, and Buck didn’t know how to say no.

Story of my life, isn’t it?

“… I don’t even know where to begin,” Buck admits after a while of awkward silence spreading between them, wherein both men just started peeling the label off of their bottles of beer.

“Same. I mean, you got a sister.”

“Yeah, ugh, I would have told you that, but Chim is still over the moon with her, so of course he mentioned her before I could. They are cute together, but at the disgusting kind of stage,” Buck ponders.

“I’m just so happy for you that you found your family, Buck.”

He manages a feeble smile. Because Buck knows that Eddie means it, understands it perhaps better than most. Because he had to deal with it growing up, had to deal with Buck dealing it growing up.

“I didn’t really find Maddie. We just… happened to meet again. Like us two did today.”

Eddie blinks at him. “Really?”

Buck nods his head. The universe always had the strangest kind of humor when it came to him.

“She’s a dispatcher now. We talked over dispatch for a while, not knowing who we are to each other. We decided to hang out. As friends. She didn’t know people in the city after she moved there only recently, so we also went to a pub and… we started to talk.”

Déjà-vu much, huh?

“Over time, I told her some stuff about my past and, well, Maddie realized that the timing seemed oddly familiar to the brother she thought had died,” Buck continues. “DNA test confirmed it.”

“I was wondering about that,” Eddie sighs, still trying to process that input for what it seems. “I mean, I really put my foot in it, just blurting out with this.”

Buck holds up his hands. “Eddie, no. You had any reason to believe I had told them. I suppose I’ve been blowing this up out of proportions anyway, so this is really just on me.”

“It’s your choice what you want to share with people about yourself, Buck.”

Buck blinks. Sometimes, he forgets how wise Eddie used to be already at a young age. He was also a dumbass a lot of times, but when it came to talking about Buck’s feelings instead of his own, the guy always knew how to make sense of the chaos and make Buck feel like his feelings weren’t just a tedious affair best ripped off like band-aids.

Eddie always understood Buck, even when he couldn’t understand himself. And Buck wants to think that the same was true the other way around, for as long as it lasted.

“Thanks.”

Eddie smiles at him, sipping from his beer.

“Speaking of, thanks to Maddie I now know my official name,” Buck continues, doing his best to sound jovial. “Evan Buckley.”

“Buck-ley. Well, that explains how you got the name,” Eddie ponders, before tilting his head to the side with a cocked eyebrow. “So do I call you Evan from now on?”

“If you want me to call you Edmundo?”

Eddie narrows his eyes at him. “You wouldn’t dare.”

Buck sniggers. “You should know better than to tempt me.”

“Evan.”

“Edmundo.”

“This sounds all kinds of wrong,” Eddie laughs, shaking his head. “For me, you can only ever be Buck.”

“Which is convenient, because I can only be Buck.”

There was a brief moment in time when Buck considered changing his name, taking on that identity, the one intended. In the end, he dropped the idea for what he hopes to be for good. He doesn’t know who this Evan Buckley was or what he’d be now. He knows what Buck was like growing up. He knows what the guy is up to these days. And while they have their qualms, he’s mostly at peace with Buck.

Even a name tag doesn't change a thing about it.

Because he’s Buck. And thankfully, Eddie sees it the same way. So maybe he’s not entirely crazy for holding on to that, however schizophrenic it may be in the end.

“Anyway, part of the reason why I managed not to let anyone in on this is that Maddie agreed to run with not mentioning it. We just stuck to the part where we lost sight of each other and found one another again when anyone asked. And until now, no one really questioned the timeline.”

“And no one ever made the connection between Buckley and Buck?” Eddie asks.

Buck shakes his head. “Maddie’s married name is Kendall. She considered changing it back to Buckley after she broke up with her scumbag husband. But when she found out what kind of scumbags our parents are, it was out the window. So no one had reason to question the difference in names and just assumed that Maddie’s birth name was Moore, too.”

“I take that there is no good explanation as to how you ended up in Texas, then,” Eddie sighs. Buck can tell that he’s trying to sound casual, soft, but the white-knuckled grip on the beer bottle is an entirely different story.

“No, not really. As far as we understand it, our parents moved across state borders under the pretense to get treatment for me. Then they just dropped me at a fire station and drove back. They told Maddie I died.”

“Why would they do that? Why would anyone’s parents…?” Eddie shakes his head, disbelief settling in. Buck knows the feeling oh too well. When he found out, it didn’t make sense to him at all. But as more details were added, the clearer the bigger picture became, though it turned none the brighter.

Buck looks around, just to be sure none of the 118 was sent here to spy on them. Once he is sure there is really just them, Buck hunches forward in his seat.

“Well, I was a big, fat disappointment, I guess. They had me to save their oldest son, Daniel. He had juvenile leukemia. I was… I was a savior baby. Just that… ugh, I didn’t save him. My guessing is that they never wanted me, so they gave me away after Daniel died. I was just there for spare parts anyway.”

Buck suddenly feels something cold in his neck, only to realize it’s Eddie’s hand gently squeezing it. Buck tenses for a moment, then eases to the familiarity of the touch, suppressing the urge to lean into it like he used to.

“I’m so sorry. I would’ve hoped for something else to come out of this.”

Buck manages a feeble smile. “It’s fine. I got a sister now I never expected to find. That’s great. Over the moon kinda great. And now I also ran back into you, too. So I’m one lucky bastard after all.”

Eddie’s hand lingers for a while, no words spoken and yet all is said between them. And how much Buck missed that. Not having to say things for them to be understood.

Eventually, Eddie’s hand falls on his shoulder, giving it a light pat before returning to his beer. “So we’re still friends after I spilled to your colleagues?”

“I didn’t stop being your friend after you got so mad for me saying that you couldn’t bake for shit, so you covered a balloon stuck to a cardboard box in frosting and told me you’d baked a cake and I cut the thing only for it to explode in my face.”

“To this day one of my proudest achievements when it comes to pranks,” Eddie snorts, breaking out laughing at the memory.

Buck can’t help but laugh along. Many of those memories got stuffed away alongside the ones he’d buried in the ground. He had no reason to unearth them because he chose not to tell anyone. But with Eddie, those things come back to light and they shimmer like gold, even after all those years of packing on dust.

“Laugh it up all you want, I got back at you eventually.”

“Don’t remind me,” Eddie groans. “I got grounded for a month because you led my parents to believe I’d be stupid enough to have a folder for porn on the family’s computer and made a message pop up every time that the folder was overloaded and created a system error.”

“Yeah. That was a masterpiece,” Buck sniggers. “But anyway. If that didn’t cancel our friendship, I think we’re fairly good with all this here.”

“Then I’m glad. When you fled the scene, I got kind of worried.”

Buck shrugs. “You know me. I’m a whirlwind of emotions, so I thought it’d be best if I took the time to cool down.”

“That was definitely not how you went about it before,” Eddie argues.

And Buck can’t argue with that. Back in the day, Buck just let the storms rage, never minding the consequences. On the job, that’s still how he rolls, but it was also how he talked, how he presented himself. After he got to meet the Diaz family, he stopped hiding a lot of things. He screamed when he felt like screaming and he cried when he was sad. He laughed when he was happy. And sometimes he even cried because he was that happy, but he learned that this was okay. Abuela always told him this and he took it to heart.

At least for as long as I could.

“Which is why I’m working on it. But anyway! Enough of me. Tell me about you. How long have you been in L.A.? What got you here?” Buck asks. Judging by the look on Eddie’s face, his transition of topics is not nearly as smooth as he’d want it to be, but Eddie rolls with it anyway.

“I moved here only shortly, for the job,” he says. “Before that, I was working some odd jobs. Before that, Afghanistan.”

Buck winces. “Shit.”

“Yeah, that’s one way of describing it. After I came back home injured, I couldn’t do this anymore. I had to set priorities differently, and somehow… I ended up in L.A.”

“Fresh start.” Buck nods his head. There is still so much to unravel in just those few sentences. Afghanistan. Injury. Priorities. Eddie tends to hide a lot more in his words, even more so when they are scarce. But for what it seems, he will now get the time to dig deeper. Because that is what Buck knows someone has to do in order to understand someone like Eddie Diaz.

“Yeah, exactly.”

“I get that feeling,” Buck says. “Los Angeles is great for that, worked out for Maddie and me, too.”

“We’ll have to drink a lot of beers to catch up on all those years we didn’t hear from each other to wind up having a fresh start in the same city.”

“Then it’s a date.”

Eddie wants to say something, but then his phone vibrates. “Sorry about that.”

Buck holds up his hands. “It’s fine.”

Eddie takes out his phone and checks his messages. Buck can see the instant shift in the other man’s demeanor. He knows that change like the back of his hand, even with years between where they parted ways and now crossed them again. Eddie’s shutting down.

“Hey, uhm, sorry, I gotta head out. It’s urgent,” he says, grabbing his wallet, clearly embarrassed and beat-up for having to leave so suddenly.

Some things don’t change, do they?

“Hey, it’s fine, man. We, ugh, we are stuck together now anyway, right? We’ll find enough time to catch up. It’s a date, after all,” Buck assures him. “Also, you’re not paying for the beer, unless you wanna pick a fight with me. Just go.”

Eddie smiles at him wryly. “Thanks. I’ll pay next round?”

“Sounds like a plan to me. Now off you go.”

“Sorry another time. I really gotta…”

“See you at work!”

“See ya!”

Buck manages to keep up the smile until the door shuts behind Eddie. His shoulders drop and he sucks in a deep breath. He pays for the beers and nearly flies out the door.

He makes for his car and climbs in. Buck realizes only now how badly his hands are shaking. Struggling for breath, he takes out his wallet again and fishes out that one crumpled piece of the past he carries with him whenever he’s not on the job, so to be sure it doesn’t get further damage.

Buck unfolds the faded photograph with shaky hands and presses it against his mouth, breathing hard against it. The tears keep coming, no matter how hard he tries to stop them. They are happy and sad. Desperate and relieved. Everything and nothing. And all that at the same time.

Eddie is back.

Eddie is back in his life, just like that, after the years it took him to accept he’d never see him again. That he’d moved on as he should have.

How do you rip off the band-aid or duct tape for that?

Or maybe that’s just the universe telling him that some things really can’t be fixed.

Because apparently, the universe is still mocking him.

[sunset-bobby]

Title: You Mean the Holograms

Summary: Julie invites Carrie over to tell her the truth about her band, and maybe her dad, but what if she already knows

Word Count: 1886

Ao3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27822940

If there was one thing Carrie Wilson was good at, it was acting as if she was not aware of things. People often assume because she is the daughter of Trevor Wilson and shallow, which she is sometimes and is working on it, that she is not in tune with what’s going on in other people’s lives, but she is. So, when Julie texted her to come over saying she ‘needed to tell her something’. Carrie had a pretty good idea of what she was getting herself into. After all her dad is Trevor Wilson, and well he’s a terrible liar no matter how hard he tries. So that is how she found herself at Julie’s studio on a Saturday afternoon sitting on a chair, with Julie pacing in front of her nervously.

“Okay, so I called you here to introduce you to my band,” Julie stated and Carrie nodded along.

“The holograms?” she asked her in a false tone that made Julie believe she was clueless.

“That’s the thing. They aren’t actually holograms,” she paused and Carrie looked at her in anticipation., “ They’re ghosts.” Carrie gave her a look that was a mix of disbelief and confusion, but before she could say anything Julie cut her off.

“Before you say anything, let me show you,” and she heads off to the piano. Now Carrie can’t actually see the ghost, but she is already aware of their existence, so she sends a small smirk to the air and hopes one of them is catching on and finds this as amusing as she is. However if what she already knows about them is true the one most likely to catch on, is freaking out. Julie plays a piano riff that Carrie is familiar with before a faint whooshing sound comes in and before stands the face of 3 teenage boys that she is secretly very familiar with. Julie stops playing and the boys as well. Something new Carrie was not ready for. Point ghost.

“The new abilities are hard to explain as of right now, but they can now be seen after we play as well,” Julie explains and Carrie nods along once more.

“Okay, so Care this is-,” but Carrie takes the opportunity to expose her own secrets now.

“Luke, Reggie, and Alex. Formally of the early 90s rock band Sunset Curve, currently of the up and coming band Julie and the Phantoms,” she says and her tone is dripping with that false innocence she uses to really push certain statements over the edge, and from the looks on both the boys and Julie’s face it seems she has. The blonde one, Alex, is the first to speak.

“H-how does she know that?” he looks around at his shocked friends before looking back at her, “how do you know tha?” She smiles, not fully she doesn’t want it to seem like she’s finding amusement in his obvious sense of panic, but just enough to where they know she’s planned this.

“Did you ask your dad about it?” Reggie, the bassist, asked recovering next, and Carrie decided to add some more to the drama.

“My dad? Why would he be involved in this?” Her smile has dropped giving the illusion that she is serious about her confusion. The boys and Julie blubber out multiple excuses to each other trying to come up with the same story, and she lets them for a while, before cracking. A laugh escapes her lips drawing their attention back to her.

“I’m joking, no my dad told me everything,” she says in between laughs, but the others just continue to stare.

“So you already know everything?” Luke asks and there is a slight emphasis in his voice that makes her realize he is asking for something specific, and she knows what it is, but she isn’t going to let that out just yet.

“Oh do you mean how Alex likes to join me for Dirty Candi performances?”

“How did-”

“I’m pretty sure I’ve walked through you and that chill is pretty hard to miss,” she answers, interrupting Alex’s question. She looks over at Luke and his face is hard to read, but he’s definitely riled up.

“Or are you talking about if I know that you’re connected to Julie because of her mom, whom you met 20 mins prior to your, um….” she trailed off, she didn’t know if their passings were a sensitive topic or not.

“Wait, really?” Julie asked, and Carrie was not aware that she did not know.

“Um, yeah it’s how our parents met. However they didn’t become friends until your mom picked my sobbing dad up off of the streets of Sunset Boulevard, or at least that what he said,” she said nonchalantly. This topic was something her dad discussed multiple times. He was very open with his experience with grief, although she thinks it’s because Dr.Crystal advises him too. She takes another look at Luke, and by now she thinks he can tell she’s avoided the topic purposely. She sighs as he opens his mouth to speak, and talks before him.

“Fine. I know you want know if I am aware that the songs on my dad’s first two albums are Sunset Curves, that he didn’t credit you, and is legally not allowed to discuss it with anyone who doesn’t already know, because somehow his dumb 21 year old self didn’t know how to read through a contract,” she told him exasperated, but was shocked when she did not get an immediate response from the boy in return. Then again none of the others said anything either.

“Oh, you didn’t know about that detail did you?”

“No,” Luke said quietly, “no we did not.”

“Carrie if you knew all of this why didn’t you tell me. At least about the music part when we were friends?” Julie asked, and Carrie did not realize how this would look to her.

“I didn’t know until middle school, and I thought you knew too. I figured your mom was going to tell you.”

“I didn’t know she knew.”

“I’m sorry Juls. Maybe it was for a good reason. I only found out on accident,” Carrie offered and Julie nodded.

“Is there anything else you might know?” Reggie asked her, but the answer was a little iffy. She knew a lot of things thanks to her dad’s shrine to them, which she still finds weird despite the fact he’s also in the pictures.

“Maybe you should just ask me questions, and I can see what I can answer,” she suggested and they nodded. Alex started.

“Do you know anything about our families?”

“Some things, yes. Uh how sensitive is this topic though?” she wanted to make sure she covered all of her bases before continuing.

“It’s relatively sensitive, but we wanna know,” was all she got in response.

“Um okay, well despite the fact he did not credit you guys, my dad still gave money to your families, or at least those who deserved it. I don’t know much about your family, I’m sorry Reggie.”

“It’s okay,” he said, but she had a feeling it wasn’t. She did not want to over step.

“What about me?” Luke asked, “I know Julie and I saw my parents a couple weeks ago, and I try to visit them often, but I-,”

“You know,” she started cutting him off, “Ms. Emily is always telling my dad it does not do well to keep replaying your mistakes.”

“You’ve met my mom?”

“Yeah I saw her earlier in the month with my dad. We were continuing a tradition he and Julie’s mom started,” she explained.

“What tradition?”

“They bring her flowers on special occasions. I think it was a birthday or something. He’s never gone alone before. If Rose couldn’t go, he’d send them by mail, but he says that anniversaries are hard. I think that’s why he took me too.”

“Oh.”

“ Hey, I don’t know your story, but I don’t believe you should keep blaming yourself.”

“I’m not.”

“You are, I am very familiar with that look.”

“What about my family?” Alex asked, however his situation was a little different, and Carrie was not sure when the right time would come again.

“My dad doesn’t really like to talk to all of them. Mainly just my mom, but-”

“Mom!” Alex exclaimed, cutting her off.

“Yeah, my mom is Alyssa Da-”

“LYSSA, she’s like 10 years younger than him. I can’t believe he…” The boys looked at one another in disgust, but Carrie and Julie, just bubbled with laughter, causing the disgusted looks to turn into confused ones.

“What’s happening. Why are you laughing at the fact that Bobby defiled Alex’s little sister?” Luke asked.

“Okay, can we not say it like that,” Alex grimaced.

“Alex, don’t worry, he didn’t do anything with your sister,” Julie stated.

“Yeah, despite the small resemblances, he isn’t my biological dad,” she added.

“Then why-”

“She had me when she was 16, but instead of putting me up for adoption, she gave me to my dad. I don’t really know everything, but my dad told me when I was 7.” Alex nodded.

“Okay, but earlier you were laughing?” he asked, and Julie giggled beside her.

“Because I’m pretty sure we both thought of the same response,” Julie answered, and looked at Carrie.

“He says it whenever anyone asks about his relationship status in interviews,” Carrie also added.

“ Honey, I haven’t touched a woman since 1999,” they both quoted in sync before breaking out in a fit of laughter once more.

“Bobby is gay?!” all three boys shouted.

“Bi actually,” Julie corrected.

“With a preference for men...guitar players specifically,” Carrie continued.

“Not that any of them last very long according to tabloids,” Julie said aimlessly.

“Yeah, well you know dad is always picky. Apparently he has this thing where they have to match his talent,” Carrie said and she and Julie looked at one another again silently confirming if they were thinking the same thing, before turning back to the boys who were flickering.

“I guess this is our goodbye,” Reggie joked and Carrie cracked a smile.

“For now,” she added.

“Do you think you can come back? Tell us more about your dad and what we missed?” Luke asked, and she shook her head yes.

“Yeah, or you guys could come to mine and I can show you my dad’s Sunset Curve room that he likes to cry in sometimes.” That didn’t really get the laughs she thought it would, and she scolded herself for not remembering that joking about trauma was a Wilson thing, but the boys were gone before she could even back track, so she turned to Julie.

“Well I know they’re still here, but I drove myself so if you wanna hang out I could stick around,” she suggested, and Julie smiled.

“Yeah, I’d like that. Besides I think we have some things to talk about.” She led her out of the studio and Carrie happily followed, knowing that there were most likely three teenage ghosts following her. So yes, sometimes she does pretend to be clueless, because she likes being underestimated, but sometimes it’s good to show all of her strengths, because you might be able to mend a couple of friendships.

[holylulusworld]

Royal Pain – Part 8 - Love of a prince - FIN

Summary: You are princess, about to marry the Alpha of your dreams, or rather your true mate but he’s not what you thought he would be…

Pairing: Alpha!Dean x PrincessReader, King John, King Bobby, Queen Mary, OFC’s

Warnings: angst, Abo dynamics, caring Alpha, fluff, comforting, pregnant Omega, giving birth

A/N: I thought this story needs a short epilogue. I only planned 7 chapters, but I just needed to give them a perfect ending.

Royal Pain Masterlist

You are nine months pregnant and pretty sure a single pup shouldn’t make you this round. Barely able to get up on your own, always hungry and high on hormones you snarl into Dean’s direction.

Not even flinching at your outburst Dean smiles, as he rounds the bed to help you get up. You are due every day and your Alpha can’t wait to welcome his child to his or her home.

“Let me help you, Y/N. I’ll do anything to make you feel better…” Purring you nuzzle Dean’s cheek, let him help you stand to change your clothes.

He’s quite skilled in getting you out of your night robe and you chuckle as his eyes land on your heavy breasts.

You can see the lust in those green orbs but right now, you can’t offer Dean releases.

“You’re so beautiful filled with my child. After we welcomed our little wonder, I’ll fill you with pups again.”

“As much as I love having your pups, let me give birth to this one and we can talk about more later.” Exhausted you let Dean do most of the work. “You know, this is an enormous bump, it could be more than one pup inside.”

“Wait…” Suddenly kneeling Dean presses his ear against your belly. “Can you hear me? Are you alone in there, baby boy?”

“Baby boy?” Chuckling you slide your fingers through your husband’s hair. “What makes you believe it’s a son? It could be a little princess too.”

“I bet she would be as pretty as you are, my love. I don’t care if it’s a son or a daughter, as long as our child will be healthy your Alpha is more than happy.” His hands placed onto your belly Dean gently rubs your baby bump.

Patting his head, you chuckle lightly. “Your son will be a tall and strong Alpha for sure. Let’s see if fate grants us a girl and a boy, Dean. I’d love to have both…”

“You are greedy, my princess.” Smirking he presses soft kisses to your belly. “But I would love to have a little girl and boy too. We will just have to try to fill you with pups.”

“Alpha! You only want to get me into your bed.” Dean’s grin widens as he looks up at you with darkened eyes.

“I’ll fill you with pleasure.” While Dean’s hands gently roam your belly, you feel wetness run down your legs. “Omega…Y/N?”

“Dean, I think…the pup…” Panting you fist his hair. “You need to get your mom and the midwife. I need her now…” Pain ripples through your abdomen and you cry out. “Hurry…”

“You are doing so well, Y/N. I can see the head.” Talking softly the midwife tries to soothe and calm you. “Just a bit more, princess and you can welcome your child.”

“Shhh…you are strong, Y/N. We are proud of you.” Mary presses a soft washcloth to your face, tries anything to make you feel comfortable.

“Princess, you need to push one last time.” While the midwife gives you orders Mary rubs your back and you nod. “Now, Y/N…”

It takes twenty more minutes before you can finally hold your son in your arms. While you look at the bundle in your arms the midwife gasps and you cry out as another woe let tears well up to your eyes.

“Mary, can you hold him?” Whimpering you watch Mary take your son out of your arms. She’s careful, smiling as you throw your head back to press again.

“I can see the tiny head, princess. I know you are exhausted, and the pain is still present, but you need to press again to help me.

While you cry out in pain, whimpering as the head slipped out Dean paces outside of the room. He’s nervous as hell, rubs his arms as he can hear you whimpering in pain.

“I need to go in there, help my mate.” Whining low in his throat Dean stops in front of the room to press his ear against the wooden door. “She’s in pain, father.”

“Son let your mother and the midwife do this. I am sure she will …” Dean doesn’t listen. Instead of waiting outside the room like all other Alpha’s he storms into the room to rush to your side.

He’s sitting behind you, brings his chest to your back and his hands to your belly. While his eyes are fixated on his son in Mary’s arms.

“A son, Alpha…” Panting you press again, and you can hear your pup cry.

Sweat drips down your forehead and you are sure you felt the worst pain ever but the moment the midwife places your second pup into your arms let you forget anything else.

“Look at you…” Sniffling you kiss your baby’s still wet head. “So beautiful.”

“Omega, my princess…” Purring Dean nuzzles you, kisses your neck as you welcome your son and daughter in your arms. “A son and a daughter.”

“I know…” Tears slip down your cheeks as you can’t decide which baby you want to kiss first. “They are so tiny and beautiful, Dean. Look at their hands…”

“When will we be allowed to visit them?” Standing in front of your and Dean’s room John smirks at your father, shrugging.

“I don’t think my son will let anyone, but the midwife and Mary get close to his mate or pups right now. He snarled at me not an hour ago as I dared to knock. Give them a few more days.”

“I still remember how it feels to hold my child in my arms.” Bobby sighs, hearing your pups cry. “I bet she’s exhausted…”

“Your daughter is strong and a good mother, a perfect Omega. Dean is determined to help her with taking care of the pups.” John explains as the door finally opens, and Mary holds both babies in her arms.

“Only a minute or Dean will snarl at all of you. We just wanted to show you the babies.” Smiling John and Bobby step closer to have a look at your children.

“They are beautiful,” Bobby sniffles as John wants to touch your son's head but Mary steps away.

“John, don’t. Dean would smell you on the pup. Give him a bit more time…”

Snuggled between you and your Alpha your pups sleep peacefully while Dean is gently stroking your son's head with shaking fingers.

“So tiny and vulnerable. I need to make sure no one gets close to our babies.” Purring you nod as Dean takes your hand in his to press your wedding band to his lips.

“What about we have some well-deserved rest?” Nodding Dean kisses your hand again before he presses his lips to your daughter’s hair.

“I love you, my love…”

“I love you too, Dean…”

While you sleep next to your Alpha and pups you dream about your life with Dean, your children, and your family.

It was a long way, but you finally found your little slice of heaven…

THE END...

Royal Pain

@werewolfbanshee-love​​​, @xcastielbabyangelface​​

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[mirkwoodshewolf]

Burn; Current!Roger Taylor x reader

*Author’s note*

In light of Hamilton coming out on Disney+ today (watched it earlier this afternoon and WAS BLOWN AWAY!!!!!) I wanted to post this for awhile but never had the time nor did I think I was going to but I then thought screw it I'll post it in light of Hamilton. So this fanfic goes around "That would be enough" (If you haven't read that story GO READ THAT CAUSE SPOILERS!!!) but this time it's in YOUR POV. Plus this song had some heavy inspiration for a sequel-ish part of that fic. So I hope you all enjoy it and have a safe and happy 4th of July to my fellow American readers :)

You can read pt.1 here -------> READ ME

Taglist:

@plethora-of-things

@waddles03

@psychosupernatural

@ixchel-9275

@simonedk

@platawnic

@jd-johndeacon-or-jackdaniels

@queensdivas

@geek-and-proud

@kairosfreddie

@queendeakyy

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I sat there in the pub trying to enjoy our victory at the Grammy’s with my Hamilton fam, but what Roger had told me just clouded my mind and it was all I could think about.  He was my dad. All this time I really did have a father, a freakin Rockstar legend no doubt.  The man I had come to idolize out of all the four members of my favorite rock band was none other than my dad.

What if he was lying? Maybe he know about this all along? Maybe he kicked my mother aside as soon as she told him? So many questions were buzzing through my mind.  So many what if’s and maybes that I almost was about to just start bawling right there in the club.

“(Y/n)? You okay?” I felt a hand at my shoulder and when I turned around there stood Lin.  His brown eyes filled with concern.

“Yeah. I’m fine.”

“You sure? You looked really out of it for a second there.” Said Renée.

“I’ll bet she’s still just star struck from having to sing alongside her favorite rock group. Am I right?” Daveed teased as he wrapped an arm around me and poked my cheek teasingly.

“Yeah how did it feel to be up there with Queen themselves (n/n)? You’ve always raved on about how you wished to perform alongside them.” Leslie said.

“Oh it was—amazing.” I trailed off. “Excuse me.” I removed Daveed’s arm from my shoulders and walked out ot eh club to try and get some air.

Once outside I was automatically hit with the cool winter LA air.  I took a left to the side of the club and leaned up against the wall trying to compose myself.  Of course I wasn’t gonna tell the guys what Roger just told me, no. This was my mess and they don’t deserve this gossip, but I’ve got to see whether Roger Taylor was either playing me for a fool or if in fact he really is my—father.

In the weeks that went by after the award season was done, I called up my mom’s brother and sister, my uncle Bobby and aunt Jodie to finally see just what the truth was.  I first arrived at my aunt Jodie’s home down in Sioux Falls and knocked on the door. The door opened after about five seconds and there stood my aunt Jodie, sheriff of the Sioux Falls police force.

“Hey, there’s my Tony award winning niece.”

“Aunt Jodie you know I didn’t win the award.”

“I don’t care you were denied that award. I’ve heard the album and I saw the show the day it came to Broadway and you were sensational!” I smiled and thanked her with a hug. “Come in, I was just making some coffee before I headed out to start my shift.”

“Oh well if you’re too busy we can talk later.” I said as I was gestured inside.

“Nonsense, besides I’m the sheriff I can come in whenever I want.” She bragged.  I shook my head playfully at her as she went into the kitchen and got the coffee poured out.  “So, you said over the phone that you wanted to talk about your mom, right?”

“In a way.” I said as I took one of the coffee mugs she soon came in with.  She and I sat down in the dining room and she said.

“Okay. What’s going on?”

“Look I’m just gonna cut to the chase. Is Roger Taylor my father?” her eyes widened and she gulped noticeably.

“Wow. That is cutting to the chase.”

“Aunt Jodie please. I’ve—been literally freaking out about this ever since he told me after the Grammy’s……”

“Wait, wait, whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on. You mean you actually met him?”

“Is it true?!” I demanded.  Aunt Jodie set her mug down and sighed heavily.

“God (m/n) you should’ve told her the truth.” She muttered into her hands as she buried her face into them.

“So it is true? Roger Taylor really is my dad?” she turned to me with solemn eyes and took my hand in hers.

“Your mom and Roger were a couple. And they seemed really happy with each other, even from being across the world from each other most days until one day she did move to London with him. God I could’ve sworn they would’ve been married by the end of the year. But you mom showed up at my apartment one night, drenched in the storm that was here that night with a heartbroken expression.”

“So—did he…..dump her? Break her heart?” I snapped lowly.

“Truth be told, your mom left him.” I looked at her in shock. “Yeah. It was also when she told me that she was pregnant. With you. Roger’s child.” She said as she stroked my cheek.  I turned away from her and I said as I stared at my mug of coffee.

“Why the hell would she lie to me all these years?”

“Believe me sweetie. Your uncle Bobby and I tried to convince your mom to tell you the truth. Especially once you heard your first Queen song. And—” But before she could finish her statement, her phone rang.  She picked it up and answered in a firm tone, “Sheriff Jodie……yeah. Okay. Alright I’ll be there soon.” She hung up and sighed heavily. “Sorry sweetie, the team needs me to do a press interview and it can’t wait any longer.”

“I understand.” I said solemnly.

“Here.” She spoke after a moment of silence.  She went over to the living room where she kept all her books and reached the very top of it and pulled out a scrapbook.  “Take this.” She handed it to me.

“What is this?” I asked.

“Your mom got into scrapbooking while she was up there. It—has all the pictures of her and Roger together. She told me to hide this shortly after you were born, but I think now since you know the truth, you should take it.” She held it out to me and I took it.  “You know, if you don’t wanna wait for me. You can see your uncle Bobby. He might have some things to tell you.”

“Wait, uncle Bobby knows about this too?!” I said aghast.  “Did the entire family know about this too? Did grandma and grandpa know about this too?”

“No. Just Bobby and I as her siblings. In fact your grandfather tried to keep your mom away from Roger when they started seeing each other. Said that he was no good for her.” With that she forced herself to leave the house so that she could meet for that press interview.

“Mom—why didn’t you ever tell me any of this?” I sighed as I left aunt Jodie’s place and headed 30 miles north to meet my uncle Bobby over at his place.

I arrived at his home/garage shop and we were both sitting down in the kitchen. He was currently eating a steak and potatoes and he even asked if I wanted anything but I told him I didn’t have the appetite to eat.  I then explained to him everything that I had found out and it was then he gently lowered his fork filled with mashed potatoes and he said grimly.

“So you met your old man?”

“Got to perform with him actually. I know you really don’t do award shows except for the CMA’s but yeah. I performed alongside Queen and Adam Lambert at the Grammys back in February.”

“And he told you that he was your father?”

“Yeah. Aunt Jodie gave me mom’s scrapbook. Would’ve told me more but she had to do a press junket or something like that.”

“Always busy that little sister of mine.” He sighed solemnly. “Listen sweetheart; when your mom first started seeing Roger I knew a bit of his playboy rep. Then again what rockstar back then didn’t have one? I just told her to be careful. Sure I wasn’t all that thrilled with her dating a Brit but I couldn’t stop her. But when Jodie called and told me that she had come back home pregnant with you, I wanted to drag her ass back there and have her tell Roger what had happened.”

“So she left—because of me?”

“Of course not sweetie. Her reason was because of the fact that Queen was finally rising to the heights they had dreamed of. She—she was honestly scared of what Roger would say if she told him. Jodie and I tried to convince her but you know your mama. Stubborn as an ox. Much like yourself.”

He stood up and went to open a drawer and pulled out a small rusted box.  He set it down before me and he told me.

“While your mom could never physically tell you the truth, she tried to see if she could write you a letter. She wrote one every year on your birthday, but could never find the heart to give them to you. She also even wrote some letters to Roger.”

“Let me guess, and she entrusted you with this like she did with aunt Jodie for the scrapbook.”

“There’s also this.” He left and grabbed an envelope from the kitchen cabinet where he would usually keep bills at.  “This…..was the letter she wrote on her deathbed. She entrusted me to give this to you when you were ready. Well, guess now’s a good time as any.” He handed me the envelope and I held that along with touching the lid of the box to reveal hundreds maybe thousands of letters.

I tried to keep the tears at bay from the hurt I was feeling in my chest.  Uncle Bobby was silence for a moment before he said to me.

“Take your time when you read these letters.”

After a couple of months of finally going through all the letter my mum tried to write to both Roger and myself throughout the years, and finally able to see every single picture of her and Roger together I was numb.

I was the only one left up on stage since everyone decided to go out to eat for their lunch break before tomorrow tonight’s performance which would in fact be Lin’s last performance with us on stage.  I took out one specific letter that was actually written just a few days before my mom finally died of cancer, the letter that she was actually able to finish completely with supposedly the right words she needed to tell me.

I had read this letter so many times that I could recite it almost as easy as my lines and the songs from Hamilton.  I sat down at the edge of the stage and looked down at it before taking out my phone and went through my rehearsal track and found the instrumental version of Burn.

Much like I had done once before when I was betrayed by my ex-fiancé at the time I was to star in the show when it first came to Broadway, I sung Burn aloud to myself filling each verse with as much emotion and betrayal I was feeling inside.

However unlike before, I couldn’t help myself but mix up some words to what I would normally sing on stage.

Play video

*Me*

I saved every letter you wrote to us From the moment I read them I knew you were his He said you were his Which makes me his

Do you know what aunt Jodie said, When we saw your first record arrive? You said, be careful with that one, love He will do what it takes to survive

You and your words flooded my senses Your sentences left me defenseless You built me palaces out of paragraphs You built cathedrals

I'm re-reading the letters you wrote to me I'm searching and scanning for answers in every line For some kind of sign And when you were mine The world seemed to burn. Burn.

You published your works to the world You told me of How you brought my mom into your bed In clearing your name You have ruined my life

Do you know what uncle Bobby said When he heard what you'd done? He said, she’s partnered with an Icarus He has flown too close to the sun

You and your words obsessed with your legacy Your sentences border on senseless And you are paranoid in every paragraph How they perceive you You, you, you!

I'm erasing you both from the narrative Let everyone wonder how (Y/n) reacted When you both broke her heart You have torn it all apart I'm watching it burn Watching it burn

The world has no right to my heart The world has no place in your bed They don't get to know what I said I'm burning the memories Burning the letters that

Might have redeemed you both

You forfeit all rights to my heart You forfeit the place in his bed You'll sleep in your office instead With only the memories of when you were mine

I hope you both

Burn

“I haven’t heard you sing that song with that much emotion since your ex fiancé cheated on you.” I turned around and there stood Lin.  He took off his newsies hat and said. “You sure you don’t wanna tell me what’s going on? We’re all worried about you.”

“Just—some personal family drama Lin. You wouldn’t understand.” I said as I sat back down at the edge of the stage.

“I may not get it. But I am willing to lend an ear, if you’d like.” He said as he came up and sat down close to me.  His shoulder brushing against mine as his legs mimicked the same way mine were swinging.

“Why do you always have to make me succumb to your charms Lin Manuel Miranda?” he shrugged while giving me the puppy dog eyes.  I looked down at my letter before handing it over to him. “You can read it out loud if you’d like.”

“Are you sure?”

“It’s better than just you reading in silence. My thoughts will just attack me if there’s silence.” He took the letter from my hand and proceeded to read it.

“‘My darling (y/n). I’ve written this letter over a thousand times in both versions. I could never find the right words to say but with my time coming to an end, you deserve to know the truth. You know how you’ve always loved the songs from Queen? Well, it would seem fate has decided to let you hear them for you see your father is known other than the drummer of Queen.’ Whaaaat?”

“I know. In fact Roger Taylor himself told me he was my father right after the Grammy’s. That’s why I was late to celebration. I didn’t want to believe him, thinking he was a senile old man trying to mess with me. But—hehe turns out he wasn’t. I’ve got pictures from my mom’s scrapbook that she made while she was in London of her and Roger together. All domestic like or her being in the studio with them. And then my uncle shows me some of the many letters she’s tried to write not only to me but to Roger himself about this whole shitshow. So yeah Roger Taylor’s my long lost baby daddy. Surprise!”

“My god.” Lin said after a long pause. “No wonder you’ve been out of sorts lately. I can’t blame you.”

“I’m so confused Lin.”

“About what exactly?”

“Everything. My mom lied to me for so long. Not only to me but apparently to Roger as well cause my aunt Jodie said he never knew. But then again I feel this—utter hatred for Roger because he could’ve told me sooner the moment he found out. Or maybe it would’ve been better had he never told me at all. I mean—I never knew I had a dad. I always believe he never cared about me or my mom, or died of a drug overdose or whatever. It feels like—my whole life has been nothing but one big lie. My entire family knew this secret and yet I find out now almost 30 years later that my father is Roger Fucking Taylor. My idol and favorite member of my most favorite rock band!”

“That is seriously a lot to take in. I mean—if I were in your place I’d be reacting the same way. Lost, betrayed, confused, heartbroken.”

“I just—why would she lie to me? I thought we told each other everything, and she goes and hides for all my life of who my real father was.” I sighed heavily. “You know; I used to always come up with the worst scenarios of why I never had a father. It’s all ranged from the basic ‘you get rid of the baby or I’m leaving you’ scenario. To overdosing or whatever. Or just dying of cancer or some shit like that. But no he’s been living his life as a Rock god. I mean—I should hate him but……he never knew. But then he did, how?”

“Well from what I can tell, and from the pictures you’ve shown me of your mom, you both look similar in a way. But your actions is what really makes you like your mom. I’ve seen all the plays she’s been in as a dancer or ensemble and you have that same fire as she did on the stage. It’s like—you both were made for it.”

“But I guess I get it from both of them.”

“Yeah, you do.”

“Still I—I feel so angry with her for lying to me.”

“And it’s okay to be angry. And like you said, Roger didn’t know either. He was kept in the dark about it just as much as you were. But maybe when you got to know them along with Adam it might’ve brought some memories back.” He scooted closer to me and allowed me to rest my head on his shoulder.

“What do I do now?” I asked defeated.

“Well there is one option, but you’re not gonna like it.” We looked at each other and I said.

“You’re right I don’t.”

“But you’ve got to. (Y/n). you can be angry about this but don’t stay mad about it forever. Remember he didn’t know either. It’s not like he packed up and took off. Just tell him how you really feel. I’m not saying you have to accept him and call him dad as soon as you see him. Just—tell him you want to take things slow. Maybe go out for coffee or well tea since he’s British.” I softly laughed at that last remark. “Now there’s that fabulous smile my Eliza is known for.”

“Nice touch calling me my character’s name.”

“I know my Eliza like I know myself.” He shrugged.

“You know that’s Renée’s line right?”

“Yeah I know. Remember I wrote the script.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. C’mon Alexander, I’m hungry and we’ve got an until rehearsal.”

“Sure thing, let us spread our wings and fly away.”

“Okay now you’re just showing off.” I playfully shoved him as we left the theatre and went to go get lunch.

After another couple months, which made it four months since Roger Taylor told me the truth, I found myself in London to where I had told Roger and discussed with him with what I was feeling.  He said he was willing to go at whatever speed I needed in order to process this whole thing.

One day after seeing them perform at MSG, Roger and I were sitting together at Central Park right by the Balto statue having a cup of coffee together.

“So what’s new with you my dear?”

“Well…..I’ve been giving this some thought. And—I think it’s time I announced my leaving of Broadway’s Hamilton. Maybe even leaving Broadway all together.”

“Really? What made you decide that?”

“Well. Truthfully I’ve been thinking about……moving to London.” He turned to look at me and I turned to face him.  “Now before you say anything I know I should be thinking about this but I have. My aunt and uncle don’t even live remotely close to me so there’s nothing really tying me to New York. And also, I was—hoping that now that Queen’s done with touring for now, maybe you and I could……spend more time together.”

“I would like that very much.” He said with a warm smile. “I just hope you aren’t doing all this just for my sake. Like I told you before, I’m willing to go at your own pace.”

“And I thank you for that Roger. Truly I do. But…..I gotta stop giving into this anger that’s been festering up inside of me. After all you didn’t know about my mom being pregnant when she left you. And—I guess I just need some time away from home.”

“If you need a place to stay until you get on your feet. Or for even longer than that I will not say no to it. You can stay with Sarina and I. We’ve got more than enough rooms.”

“Thanks……..dad.” he looked at me surprised and he said.

“You—you actually called me…..”

“I figured it was about time I did so. I—hope I didn’t make things….”

“No, no, no, no, no not at all love.” He hesitantly reached up towards my face before he finally placed it up against my cheek.  I closed my eyes and leaned into his palm. “God. You’re—the perfect mixture of both your mother and myself.”

“You know, Daveed always teased me about just how much I looked like you when you were in drag for the I want to break free music video.” He laughed.

“Oh god that was a fun day on set. Probably one of my favorite videos to shoot.” I smiled softly at him and leaned up against his shoulder and said.

“Do you think they would’ve liked me? John and Freddie I mean.” I felt Roger sigh heavily and he said as I felt his arms wrap around me.

“There’s no doubt in my mind Freddie would’ve tried to spoil you. And John, I’d bet he’d be trying to turn you against me.” I softly chuckled and embraced my dad and nuzzled my head into his shoulder.

The two of us hugging each other finally sitting together as a real father and daughter.

[pearlposts]

The Best of Soft Rock: More Than A Feeling

 SONG TITLE                                ARTIST       TIME

Lowdown                                     Boz Scaggs    5:18

Whenever I Call You “Friend”  Kenny Loggins    3:18

Piano Man                                    Billy Joel         5:40

Longer                                     Dan Fogelberg    3:18

Miracles                                Jefferson Starship  3:33

Lost in Love                              Air Supply          3:55

More Than I Can Say              Leo Sayer            3:39

Rosanna                                         Toto              4:03

More Than a Feeling                  Boston              3:26

Take It on the Run               REO Speedwagon  3:37

Make Me Lose Control           Eric Carmen         4:48

Total Eclipse of the Heart       Bonnie Tyler         5:35

Living Inside Myself              Gino Vannelli          4:25

The Flame                            Cheap Trick            4:50

Sara                                        Starship               4:23

SONG TITLE                                  ARTIST                   TIME

Livin’ Thing                         Electric Light Orchestra        3:34

This Is It                                   Kenny Loggins                 3:59

Africa                                                Toto                          4:59

Eye In The Sky                      Alan Parsons Project          4:35

Look What You’ve Done to Me       Boz Scaggs                5:18

You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling Daryl Hall & John Oates  4:36

All Out Of Love                              Air Supply                    4:03

Can’t Fight This Feeling           REO Speedwagon            4:55

The Search Is Over                        Survivor                       4:14

All by Myself                               Eric Carmen                    7:11

Without You                               Harry Nilsson                   3:21

Year of the Cat                           Al Stewart                        6:38

Dust in the Wind                         Kansas                            3:27

Vincent                                    Don McLean                       4:01

Please Come to Boston         David Loggins                     4:09

SONG TITLE                                    ARTIST                                  TIME

Baby I’m-a Want You                           Bread                                   2:32

A Horse with No Name                       America                                 4:09

Diamond Girl                                    Seals & Crofts                          4:04

I Saw the Light                                 Todd Rundgren                         3:01

Blinded by the Light                Manfred Mann's Earth Band              3:51

It Might Be You                               Stephen Bishop                          4:14

She’s Gone/Sara Smile/Rich Girl        Hall & Oates                           3:29

Minute By Minute                         The Doobie Brothers                     3:28

Sentimental Lady                                Bob Welch                              3:46

How Much I Feel                                 Ambrosia                                 4:44

Everybody’s Got To Learn Sometime The Korgis                               4:12

If You Leave Me Now                          Chicago                                   3:57

Sailing                                        Christopher Cross                             4:17

Waiting For A Girl Like You             Foreigner                                     4:52

Against All Odds                            Phil Collins                                    3:25

SONG TITLE                                    ARTIST                                              TIME

Ride Like the Wind                        Christopher Cross                                  4:32

Saturday in the Park                          Chicago                                              3:57

Sister Golden Hair                              America                                              3:20

You’re So Vain                                Carly Simon                                            4:18

If                                                          Bread                                                  2:35

Ooh Baby Baby                              Linda Ronstadt                                        2:42

Him                                                Rupert Holmes                                         3:40

You Are the Woman                         Firefall                                                    2:45

All I Need                                       Jack Wagner                                             3:32

Walking In Memphis                       Marc Cohn                                                4:19

Making Love Out Of Nothing At All  Air Supply                                                5:01

I Want to Know What Love Is        Foreigner                                                   5:00

The Living Years                    Mike + the Mechanics                                       5:33

Drive                                               The Cars                                                   3:57

One More Night                           Phil Collins                                                   4:48

I’ll Be There                             The Escape Club                                             4:57

SONG TITLE                                                     ARTIST                                TIME

Summer Breeze                                           Seals & Crofts                             3:26

Key Largo                                                     Bertie Higgins                             3:19

Make It with You                                                 Bread                                    3:12

Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?     Chicago                               3:22

Dream Weaver                                           Gary Wright                                  4:18

Hello It’s Me                                            Todd Rundgren                                3:52

Sara Smile                                      Daryl Hall and John Oates                       3:12

Chuck E.’s In Love                             Rickie Lee Jones                                  3:28

Black Water                                  The Doobie Brothers                                 4:16

Still the One                                             Orleans                                           3:56

Hurt So Bad                                      Linda Ronstadt                                      3:18

Cool Change                                  Little River Band                                      4:08

Biggest Part Of Me                            Ambrosia                                              5:27

Never Be the Same                    Christopher Cross                                       4:41

You Can Do Magic                           America                                                 3:57

SONG TITLE                                    ARTIST                                                TIME

The Guitar Man                                 Bread                                                   3:45

Tin Man                                           America                                                  3:27

Wildfire                               Michael Martin Murphey                                     4:50

25 or 6 to 4                                  Chicago                                                     4:52

Lotta Love                               Nicolette Larson                                             2:43

What a Fool Believes         The Doobie Brothers                                          2:27

Steal Away                              Robbie Dupree                                              3:31

You’re the Only Woman              Ambrosia                                                   4:22

Sexy Eyes                                Dr. Hook                                                       3:00

Kiss You All Over                       Exile                                                           3:30

Even the Nights Are Better   Air Supply                                                       3:59

Arthur’s Theme                  Christopher Cross                                             3:55

Dance with Me                       Orleans                                                         3:21

Beautiful in My Eyes            Joshua Kadison                                              4:10

Black Velvet                        Alannah Myles                                                 4:48

SONG TITLE                        ARTIST                                                         TIME

California Dreamin’      The Mamas & The Papas                                       2:54

Kokomo                        The Beach Boys                                                     3:36

Ventura Highway             America                                                               3:32

Listen to the Music      The Doobie Brothers                                               3:27

I Can See Clearly Now     Johnny Nash                                                     2:43

It Never Rains in Southern California  Albert Hammond                             3:38

Thank You For Being A Friend            Andrew Gold                                   4:45

Everything I Own                                    Bread                                           3:07

When Will I Be Loved                     Linda Ronstadt                                     2:10

I Keep Forgettin’                         Michael McDonald                                    3:41

Baby Come Back                               Player                                                2:16

Circle in the Sand                       Belinda Carlisle                                         4:27

Hold On                                     Wilson Phillips                                            3:41

I’ll Be Over You                              Toto                                                        3:50

Just the Way It Is, Baby          The Rembrandts                                           4:09

 SONG TITLE                            ARTIST                                                     TIME

We Don’t Talk Anymore       Cliff Richard                                                      4:13

Baker Street                       Gerry Rafferty                                                     2:13

When Your in Love with a Beautiful Woman  Dr. Hook                                  2:56

Fool (If You Think It’s Over)       Chris Rea                                                     3:33

You’re No Good                     Linda Ronstadt                                                 3:46

Reminiscing                        Little River Band                                                 3:17

The Air That I Breathe           The Hollies                                                       4:12

Sad Eyes                            Robert John                                                        1:55

I Go Crazy                          Paul Davis                                                           5:23

Hearts                                Marty Balin                                                           4:19

These Dreams                     Heart                                                                  4:17

Jessie                           Joshua Kadison                                                         4:22

Release Me                   Wilson Phillips                                                          3:54

The Doctor                 The Doobie Brothers                                                    3:45

SONG TITLE                    ARTIST                                                               TIME

Maggie May                Rod Stewart                                                               5:15

Higher and Higher      Rita Coolidge                                                             4:01

Whatcha Gonna Do?  Pablo Cruise                                                              4:15

I’m in You                   Peter Frampton                                                           4:11

Drift Away                     Dobie Gray                                                              3:56

More Love                   Kim Carnes                                                               3:37

Babe                             Styx                                                                         4:01

Into The Night        Benny Mardones                                                            4:31

It’s a Heartache       Bonnie Tyler                                                                 3:45

While You See a Chance   Steve Winwood                                                 4:06

Show Me the Way       Peter Frampton                                                        2:30

Fooled Around and Fell in Love    Elvin Bishop                                           4:37

Lonesome Loser           Little River Band                                                     3:54

I’m Not in Love                10 CC                                                                    6:07

I Just Wanna Stop         Gino Vannelli                                                           3:37

SONG TITLE                    ARTIST                                                              TIME

Daniel                          Elton John                                                                3:53

I Need You                   America                                                                    3:07

I Can Dream About You    Dan Hartman                                                       4:11

Escape                      Rupert Holmes                                                            3:54

I’d Really Love to See You Tonight  England Dan & John Ford Coley          2:38

On and On                 Stephen Bishop                                                          3:01

Tempted                        Squeeze                                                                  4:01

The Things We Do For Love   10 CC                                                           3:31

The Best of Times           Styx                                                                      4:18

Cry                       Godley and Creme                                                          3:55

Your Wildest Dreams   The Moody Blues                                                    4:51

Higher Love                 Steve Winwood                                                       5:46

More Than Words           Extreme                                                               5:36

I’d Do Anything for Love    Meat Loaf                                                          5:17

Do You Feel Like We Do      Peter Frampton                                              7:20

SONG TITLE                      ARTIST                                                          TIME

So In to You             Atlanta Rhythm Section                                             4:23

Fly, Robin, Fly           Silver Connection                                                     3:50

Sentimental Lady        Bob Welch                                                              3:46

Show And Tell             Al Wilson                                                                 3:29

Wild Flower             The New Birth                                                             3:59

Delta Dawn             Helen Reddy                                                               3:09

American Pie          Don McLean                                                                8:35

Rock Me Gently      Andy Kim                                                                     3:29

Go All The Way      The Raspberries                                                          3:22

Mr. Big Stuff            Jean Knight                                                                 2:49

Oh Babe, What Would You Say     Hurricane Smith                                   3:26

Hooked On A Feeling     Blue Swede                                                         2:53

 Having My Baby           Paul Anka                                                             2:33

Last Song                     Edward Bear                                                          3:13

The Streak                   Ray Stevens                                                           3:18

SONG TITLE                  ARTIST                                                               TIME

Rhinestone Cowboy   Glen Campbell                                                         3:16

Too Late To Turn Back Now  Cornelius Brothers And Sister Rose             3:20

Boogie Fever             The Sylvers                                                              3:30

Reminiscing            Little River Band                                                         3:17

I Just Want To Celebrate    Rare Earth                                                      2:54

One Bad Apple           The Osmonds                                                         2:43

Have You Never Been Mellow   Olivia Newton-John                                 3:33

Magic                            Pilot                                                                      3:05

Boogie Oogie Oogie     A Taste of Honey                                                  3:38

Right Back Where We Started From   Maxine Nightingale                        3:15

Sad Eyes                        Robert John                                                        1:55

Gonna Fly Now                Bill Conti                                                            2:48

My Sharona                  The Knack                                                            4:02

You Sexy Thing          Hot Chocolate                                                        4:05

Puppy Love               Donny Osmond                                                       3:06

SONG TITLE                 ARTIST                                                              TIME

Love Train                  The O'Jays                                                              2:58

Knock Three Times     Dawn                                                                      2:55

Brandy                    Looking Glass                                                             3:04

Little Willy                  Sweet                                                                       3:12

Baby Don’t Get Hooked on Me    Mac Davis                                              3:06

Take Me Home, Country Roads    John Denver                                         3:13

It Never Rains in Southern California   Albert Hammond                           3:38

Brand New Key                Melanie                                                              2:26

Come and Get Your Love       Redbone                                                      3:32

More. More, More (Part 1)      Andrea True Connection                              3:02

I Can See Clearly Now         Johnny Nash                                                  2:43

Everybody Plays the Fool     The Main Ingredient                                       3:22

Indian Reservation             Paul Revere & The Raiders                              2:52

The Cover of “Rolling Stone”   Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show                2:55

When Will I See You Again      The Three Degrees                                     3:00

SONG TITLE                           ARTIST                                                      TIME

Rich Girl                    Daryl Hall and John Oates                                        2:23

Lady Marmalade                    LaBelle                                                         3:21

Best of My Love              The Emotions                                                      3:41

Fire                             The Pointer Sisters                                                �� 3:28

Miracles                        Jefferson Starship                                                 3:33

You Make Me Feel Like Dancing    Leo Sayer                                            2:51

Here You Come Again         Dolly Parton                                                   2:58

Disco Lady                        Johnnie Taylor                                                  4:25

Saturday Night                Bay City Rollers                                                  2:56

Rock On                           David Essex                                                      3:26

Wildfire                  Michael Martin Murphey                                              4:50

You Take My Breath Away   Rex Smith                                                    3:15

I Go Crazy                      Paul Davis                                                         5:23

Stumblin’ In        Suzi Quatro and Chris Norman                                      3:31

Torn Between Two Lovers    Mary MacGregor                                         3:44

SONG TITLE                      ARTIST                                                          TIME

Bad, Bad Leroy Brown     Jim Croce                                                         3:00

Don’t Pull Your Love     Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds                          2:41

Love Will Keep Us Together  Captain and Tennille with Neil Sedaka        3:24

Another Somebody Done Somebody Wrong Song  B.J. Thomas             3:22

She’s A Lady                 Tom Jones                                                           2:51

How Do You Do?       Mouth & MacNeal                                                   4:07

Black and White        Three Dog Night                                                      3:51

Escape                      Rupert Holmes                                                        3:54

Drift Away                 Dobie Gray                                                              3:56

It’s a Love Beat     The DeFranco Family                                                 3:09

I’m in You               Peter Frampton                                                          4:11

The Candy Man     Sammy Davis, Jr.                                                      3:10

Spiders & Snakes   Jim Stafford                                                              3:05

Billy, Don’t Be A Hero  Bo Donaldson and the Heywoods                       3:40

The Morning After     Maureen McGovern                                                2:20

SONG TITLE                                   ARTIST                                          TIME

Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves          Cher                                               2:36

Maggie May                                Rod Stewart                                         5:15

Baby Come Back                            Player                                              2:16

I Just Wanna Stop                   Gino Vannelli                                           3:37

Jackie Blue                 Ozark Mountain Daredevils                                  3:37

Higher And Higher               Rita Coolidge                                              4:01

I’m Not in Love                           10 CC                                                   6:07

Y.M.C.A.                               Village People                                            3:45

Will It Go Round in Circles     Billy Preston                                              3:46

I Just Want to Be Your Everything   Andy Gibb                                        3:44

Do You Wanna Make Love        Peter McCann                                        4:01

Signs                            Five Man Electrical Band                                    4:02

Disco Duck                              Rick Dees                                                3:14

Montego Bay                       Bobby Bloom                                               2:55

If I Can’t Have You            Yvonne Elliman                                              3:00

SONG TITLE                         ARTIST                                                     TIME

Play That Funky Music      Wild Cherry                                                    3:16

One Toke Over the Line    Brewer & Shipley                                            3:21

Afternoon Delight          Starland Vocal Band                                           3:14

Life is a Rock                      Reunion                                                        3:31

I Can Help                         Billy Swan                                                       2:57

My Maria                       B.W. Stevenson                                                  2:31

Magnet and Steel            Walter Egan                                                     3:25

Beach Baby                    First Class                                                         2:42

The Rapper                   The Jaggerz                                                        2:45

Brother Louie                  Stories                                                               3:57

Precious and Few            Climax                                                              2:46

O-o-h Child               The 5 Stairsteps                                                      3:15

Playground in My Mind    Clint Holmes                                                     2:57

Put Your Hand In The Hand   Ocean                                                        2:53

Please Come to Boston    David Loggins                                                  4:09

SONG TITLE                      ARTIST                                                         TIME

Turn The Beat Around    Vicki Sue Robinson                                            3:24

Ring My Bell                     Anita Ward                                                        3:31

Sometimes When We Touch   Dan Hill                                                      2:22

Rose Garden               Lynn Anderson                                                      2:49

In The Summertime      Mungo Jerry                                                         3:37

Seasons in the Sun      Terry Jacks                                                           3:30

The Night Chicago Died   Paper Lace                                                       3:32

Rock The Boat            Hues Corporation                                                  3:09

Don’t Give Up on Us        David Soul                                                        3:39

Kung Fu Fighting         Carl Douglas                                                         3:17

Love Grows                Edison Lighthouse                                                  2:51

Sweet Mary              Wadsworth Mansion                                                 2:42

The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia   Vicki Lawrence                     3:36

TSOP             MFSB featuring the Three Degrees                                   3:35

Feelings                    Morris Albert                                                            3:45

[wordshelp919]

Words Help.

It’s hard to admit to being the victim of abuse. Oftentimes it is the condition of the abusee to believe that they are not worthy of qualifying their experiences as ‘abuse’. Most likely due to repeated conditioning on the part of the abuser. That is the case for me.

I have spent my whole life trying to figure out how to be. Not who. How. My identity did not have the freedom to develop for my own sake, but always for others. As all people are different, it meant that I had to learn varying ways to accommodate all types of people. As a child, I was rarely angry. Even when other people were angry with me, I never lost my cool, at least without attempting to understand the situation. If I could just figure out why they were angry and then fix it, then there wouldn’t be a need for anyone to be upset. It is not always to the benefit of any individual to be so accommodating. 

I was isolated in a house with only four people to love. I wanted a happy family, peace, and love and I worked for it as best as I could. In my undying attempt to love the first the members of the family, I neglected to love the fourth. Through my own constant self-adjustment, I somehow became the answer to all of their life’s grievances; their punching bag. My mom’s helplessness from being forced by her mom to beg for rice, being beat up by her dad, brother, uncles, aunts, tormented by her cousins, and every single black person in the all-black neighborhood that she grew up in was subconsciously redirected an iron fisted need for control for me and my sister. My sister is not as accommodating, and eventually her subconscious redirected most of her control therapy to just me. 

I was a good kid. Easy-going, kind, and obedient. Unfortunately for me and Ella, the virtue of  obedience grays when given to the wrong people.

I cried much too often, and still do. I am very sensitive by nature, but even for someone like that, young Donna cried way too much. I would earn an intense punished no less than once a week. By intense, I mean that it would last for over an hour with screaming and yelling and crying and snot. By third grade I mastered the art of hiding my puffy eyes by deepening my eyelid crease with a bobby pin. I didn’t think it was abnormal to be so puffy eyed from crying so often. I just didn’t want to look weird for school. It’s true, even good children need to be disciplined, but I don’t consider what happened discipline. I know that now because it never was to the benefit of my own virtue. All I learned from those countless hours of being yelled at was that my mom was a severely broken person. After the punishment ended and I was allowed to wash my face and go to bed, I would be left thinking about the knife-tongued words that would echo in my mind well into my early twenties. In an exhausted daze, I would wonder to myself.. why was I so bad at listening to her the first time? Why was I so disobedient? I never thought that I took her for granted or even felt a lack of gratitude towards either of my parents, but I mustn’t do this again because according to her, that is what this all equates to. I don’t want to be those things. But apparently I am. Was. Am. Won’t be starting now.

My dad has a lot of blanks in his life. It is his pride, I believe that is what keeps him from sharing any part of his life that is a story and not just numbers that equate to his grand self-earned worth. Also, probably the fear of someone hearing his story and thinking that it is not that bad. I have that same fear, but I learned about pride from a young age, and I try to do the opposite of whatever my pride tells me to. Pride, my dad, my sister; to disobey one is to disobey all. So fighting pride is not so difficult sometimes. I may be missing the stories of his life that fuel his type of abuse, I can look to my sister’s for the answers.

She learned about his pride from an even younger age than I and it’s through her responses to it that I can understand my dad. We learned about pride from the same live-in teacher, but the only difference between me and her is that she loved power more than people and instead of fighting pride, she became its prodigious student. If only her ease of learning was limited to art, music, and math. She was tainted by evil and became a jaded, angry adult at only 8 years old. The beautiful and innocent nature of children died when she discovered her love for pride and power over others. I asked her one night, bringing to surface the odd, powerful, mysterious quality in her, “what is your secret? How can I be like you?”. She told me she would tell me, but I had to swear that I wouldn’t tell our parents. I promised. “The secret to being like me is that I don’t love Mommy and Daddy all the time”. I was spooked. I broke my promise within the minute.

I am so proud of young Donna for that night. It’s odd, the memories that we choose to keep, but that night I clearly remember feeling terrible for the instinctual decision I made. I was scared and naturally gravitated towards my parents but I betrayed my sister. To think that that night young Donna went with her gut would be a proud moment for young adult Donna. Yet I can’t help feeling as though I failed her(y.d.) She could call out those wrong things with much more clarity than I can even now, all the while loving those wrong people much more than I do. 

Anyways my sister’s secret to her twistedness was to withhold love. The opposite of love. Hate. 

When you find out that Hester’s power came from Satan worship, you run.

I always thought she loved me differently than how she did our parents. It was clear how much more she loved me, although both her hatred and love was combined with elements of obsession and ownership. Unfortunately, she valued power more. She was fueled by hatred and was enormously jealous of me for the love I received which was so different from that which she did. She never thought once that the difference between us may have been because of the love that I gave. Her pride wouldn’t allow for that kind of thinking. It had to be my fault. 

Instead of facing the obvious truth of why my parents loved me more sweetly than they did her, she decided to level the playing field on her own terms. I could not smile in certain ways because she thought I was trying to be cute and by extension, curry favor of people, and by extension, take it away from her. I wasn’t allowed to be sad, in case it would cause someone to comfort me. I was an attention grabber, a brat, selfish, and spoiled. According to her, that is. And most damaging of all, I was a crybaby. Her constant criticism worked for the most part. I don’t smile like that anymore. I not only aggressively hate myself for portraying her other definitions for me but I hate others for those very things as well. 

One thing I could not ‘fix’ was the frequency of my tears. I tried holding them off for the first time in my life. I remember that first day clearly. I had given up. I decided not to fight her anymore, but just completely let her have her way and do nothing. I sighed a lot, and with every breath, I felt my energy leaving me. The attempt at complacency didn’t last.

Since that moment, I have cried an average of once a day. It has been 8 years. I guess crying is something that I never grew out of. 

So that was a long segway to introduce my father’s story. It is the same, only the subjects are different, the reason for adopting pride is different, and the self-delusion is different. My dad was jealous. Is jealous. Of both me and my sister. It is only a theory, but if not jealousy there is comparison and transactional thinking taking place in his head. No words, just numbers. If there were any words in his brain, a conscious to speak the truth, he would have to hate himself as well. Luckily for him, no such thing has taken place and he can continue to believe that he is a perfect man. He is far from perfect. All too calculative, all too focused on the hurt in his life and not on the well-being of his children. And if my theory serves to be true, then it would be my sister who would have suffered the most from his jealousy. She was the one who was actually good at everything. My dad claims to have been the same. The only difference is that he endorsed for his children what his own father refused to. Not that they didn’t have the financial means to, but his own father chose his eldest son and no one else. 

The abuse that comes from my dad is the most twisted and intricate and frightening of all three. I still don’t understand why he is so frightening other than the fact that he worships pride and loves hatred without realizing it. Those things are only momentary band-aids for deep wounds. He has 30 years of bandaids stacked in layers on his heart 10 miles high. What he needs is for those band-aids to be removed, the wound assessed, and then surgery performed to cut deep into the flesh to reveal the cancer that has sprouted and matured into every vague nook and crevice of his body.

My sister and I are treated the same when it comes to his manner of abuse, but my mom bears the brunt of it. 

His ego is fueled by putting everyone down. Apparently he requires a lot of fuel because his ego has a half life of one hour.

No one is allowed to ask him a question he doesn’t know the answer to. How dare you make him feel inadequate. Poor kids and your inevitable need to question everything in the world. Poor kids and your tendency to ask for help. You should have known better before asking him a question from your third grade Wordly Wise workbook. Of course he wouldn’t know and of course you would get punished for making him feel stupid. I still remember telling my friends from school that he hit me on the head with a golf club. They were shocked and then I had to tell them it was plastic. As long as it’s plastic it’s okay. I didn’t mention that he screamed in my face and dragged me back by my feet into the study when I tried to run away, scraping my knees on the polished hardwood floor. I didn’t tell them that the golf club bruised my head. And I didn’t tell them that when I told my mom later that night, she didn’t care. 

For us, it was a typical Friday night. 

Poor kid, you should have just agreed that european is spelled europian. But by then you were already a student of pride.

Poor wife, there are no “should haves” for you. Your poor treatment is inevitable no matter how you change yourself for him. Your existence is for the purpose of being his cannon fodder. When the cannonball is released on enemy territory, it is far away from him, unable to do him any harm. Allegedly. Oddly, you are also enemy territory. It’s confusing, both the metaphor and the real life scenario that it illustrates.

He needs you to anger him so that his own anger and resentment towards his own family can escape him. It allows him to express pent up emotions in the form of hatred against you. The fact that you take his hatred to be constructive criticism is the result of your own abuse. That is not accomodation. Take it from me.

Not everyone has the privilege of learning what it feels like to be treated well.

[blackkudos]

Charles Mingus

Charles Mingus Jr. (April 22, 1922 – January 5, 1979) was an American jazz double bassist, pianist, composer and bandleader. A major proponent of collective improvisation, he is considered to be one of the greatest jazz musicians and composers in history, with a career spanning three decades and collaborations with other jazz legends such as Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Dannie Richmond, and Herbie Hancock.

Mingus' compositions continue to be played by contemporary musicians ranging from the repertory bands Mingus Big Band, Mingus Dynasty, and Mingus Orchestra, to the high school students who play the charts and compete in the Charles Mingus High School Competition. In 1993, the Library of Congress acquired Mingus's collected papers—including scores, sound recordings, correspondence and photos—in what they described as "the most important acquisition of a manuscript collection relating to jazz in the Library's history".

Biography

Early life and career

Charles Mingus was born in Nogales, Arizona. His father, Charles Mingus Sr., was a sergeant in the U.S. Army. Mingus was largely raised in the Watts area of Los Angeles. His maternal grandfather was a Chinese British subject from Hong Kong, and his maternal grandmother was an African-American from the southern United States. Mingus was the third great-grandson of the family's founding patriarch who was, by most accounts, a German immigrant. His ancestors included German American, African American, and Native American.

In Mingus's autobiography Beneath the Underdog his mother was described as "the daughter of an English/Chinese man and a South-American woman", and his father was the son "of a black farm worker and a Swedish woman". Charles Mingus Sr. claims to have been raised by his mother and her husband as a white person until he was fourteen, when his mother revealed to her family that the child's true father was a black slave, after which he had to run away from his family and live on his own. The autobiography doesn't confirm whether Charles Mingus Sr. or Mingus himself believed this story was true, or whether it was merely an embellished version of the Mingus family's lineage.

His mother allowed only church-related music in their home, but Mingus developed an early love for other music, especially Duke Ellington. He studied trombone, and later cello, although he was unable to follow the cello professionally because, at the time, it was nearly impossible for a black musician to make a career of classical music, and the cello was not yet accepted as a jazz instrument. Despite this, Mingus was still attached to the cello; as he studied bass with Red Callender in the late 1930s, Callender even commented that the cello was still Mingus's main instrument. In Beneath the Underdog, Mingus states that he did not actually start learning bass until Buddy Collette accepted him into his swing band under the stipulation that he be the band's bass player.

Due to a poor education, the young Mingus could not read musical notation quickly enough to join the local youth orchestra. This had a serious impact on his early musical experiences, leaving him feeling ostracized from the classical music world. These early experiences, in addition to his lifelong confrontations with racism, were reflected in his music, which often focused on themes of racism, discrimination and (in)justice.

Much of the cello technique he learned was applicable to double bass when he took up the instrument in high school. He studied for five years with Herman Reinshagen, principal bassist of the New York Philharmonic, and compositional techniques with Lloyd Reese. Throughout much of his career, he played a bass made in 1927 by the German maker Ernst Heinrich Roth.

Beginning in his teen years, Mingus was writing quite advanced pieces; many are similar to Third Stream because they incorporate elements of classical music. A number of them were recorded in 1960 with conductor Gunther Schuller, and released as Pre-Bird, referring to Charlie "Bird" Parker; Mingus was one of many musicians whose perspectives on music were altered by Parker into "pre- and post-Bird" eras.

Mingus gained a reputation as a bass prodigy. His first major professional job was playing with former Ellington clarinetist Barney Bigard. He toured with Louis Armstrong in 1943, and by early 1945 was recording in Los Angeles in a band led by Russell Jacquet, which also included Teddy Edwards, Maurice Simon, Bill Davis, and Chico Hamilton, and in May that year, in Hollywood, again with Teddy Edwards, in a band led by Howard McGhee.

He then played with Lionel Hampton's band in the late 1940s; Hampton performed and recorded several of Mingus's pieces. A popular trio of Mingus, Red Norvo and Tal Farlow in 1950 and 1951 received considerable acclaim, but Mingus's race caused problems with club owners and he left the group. Mingus was briefly a member of Ellington's band in 1953, as a substitute for bassist Wendell Marshall. Mingus's notorious temper led to his being one of the few musicians personally fired by Ellington (Bubber Miley and drummer Bobby Durham are among the others), after a back-stage fight between Mingus and Juan Tizol.

Also in the early 1950s, before attaining commercial recognition as a bandleader, Mingus played gigs with Charlie Parker, whose compositions and improvisations greatly inspired and influenced him. Mingus considered Parker the greatest genius and innovator in jazz history, but he had a love-hate relationship with Parker's legacy. Mingus blamed the Parker mythology for a derivative crop of pretenders to Parker's throne. He was also conflicted and sometimes disgusted by Parker's self-destructive habits and the romanticized lure of drug addiction they offered to other jazz musicians. In response to the many sax players who imitated Parker, Mingus titled a song, "If Charlie Parker were a Gunslinger, There'd be a Whole Lot of Dead Copycats" (released on Mingus Dynasty as "Gunslinging Bird").

Mingus was married four times. His wives were Jeanne Gross, Lucille (Celia) Germanis, Judy Starkey, and Susan Graham Ungaro.

Based in New York

In 1961, Mingus spent time staying at the house of his mother's sister (Louise) and her husband, Fess Williams in Jamaica, Queens. Subsequently, Mingus invited Williams to play at the 1962 Town Hall Concert.

In 1952 Mingus co-founded Debut Records with Max Roach so he could conduct his recording career as he saw fit. The name originated from his desire to document unrecorded young musicians. Despite this, the best-known recording the company issued was of the most prominent figures in bebop. On May 15, 1953, Mingus joined Dizzy Gillespie, Parker, Bud Powell, and Roach for a concert at Massey Hall in Toronto, which is the last recorded documentation of Gillespie and Parker playing together. After the event, Mingus chose to overdub his barely audible bass part back in New York; the original version was issued later. The two 10" albums of the Massey Hall concert (one featured the trio of Powell, Mingus and Roach) were among Debut Records' earliest releases. Mingus may have objected to the way the major record companies treated musicians, but Gillespie once commented that he did not receive any royalties "for years and years" for his Massey Hall appearance. The records, however, are often regarded as among the finest live jazz recordings.

One story has it that Mingus was involved in a notorious incident while playing a 1955 club date billed as a "reunion" with Parker, Powell, and Roach. Powell, who suffered from alcoholism and mental illness (possibly exacerbated by a severe police beating and electroshock treatments), had to be helped from the stage, unable to play or speak coherently. As Powell's incapacitation became apparent, Parker stood in one spot at a microphone, chanting "Bud Powell...Bud Powell..." as if beseeching Powell's return. Allegedly, Parker continued this incantation for several minutes after Powell's departure, to his own amusement and Mingus's exasperation. Mingus took another microphone and announced to the crowd, "Ladies and Gentlemen, please don't associate me with any of this. This is not jazz. These are sick people." This was Parker's last public performance; about a week later he died after years of substance abuse.

Mingus often worked with a mid-sized ensemble (around 8–10 members) of rotating musicians known as the Jazz Workshop. Mingus broke new ground, constantly demanding that his musicians be able to explore and develop their perceptions on the spot. Those who joined the Workshop (or Sweatshops as they were colorfully dubbed by the musicians) included Pepper Adams, Jaki Byard, Booker Ervin, John Handy, Jimmy Knepper, Charles McPherson and Horace Parlan. Mingus shaped these musicians into a cohesive improvisational machine that in many ways anticipated free jazz. Some musicians dubbed the workshop a "university" for jazz.

Pithecanthropus Erectus

and other recordings

The decade that followed is generally regarded as Mingus's most productive and fertile period. Over a ten-year period, he made 30 records for a number of labels (Atlantic, Candid, Columbia, Impulse and others), a pace perhaps unmatched by any other musicians except Ellington.

Mingus had already recorded around ten albums as a bandleader, but 1956 was a breakthrough year for him, with the release of Pithecanthropus Erectus, arguably his first major work as both a bandleader and composer. Like Ellington, Mingus wrote songs with specific musicians in mind, and his band for Erectus included adventurous musicians: piano player Mal Waldron, alto saxophonist Jackie McLean and the Sonny Rollins-influenced tenor of J. R. Monterose. The title song is a ten-minute tone poem, depicting the rise of man from his hominid roots (Pithecanthropus erectus) to an eventual downfall. A section of the piece was free improvisation, free of structure or theme.

Another album from this period, The Clown (1957 also on Atlantic Records), the title track of which features narration by humorist Jean Shepherd, was the first to feature drummer Dannie Richmond, who remained his preferred drummer until Mingus's death in 1979. The two men formed one of the most impressive and versatile rhythm sections in jazz. Both were accomplished performers seeking to stretch the boundaries of their music while staying true to its roots. When joined by pianist Jaki Byard, they were dubbed "The Almighty Three".

Mingus Ah Um

and other works

In 1959 Mingus and his jazz workshop musicians recorded one of his best-known albums, Mingus Ah Um. Even in a year of standout masterpieces, including Dave Brubeck's Time Out, Miles Davis's Kind of Blue, John Coltrane's Giant Steps, and Ornette Coleman's prophetic The Shape of Jazz to Come, this was a major achievement, featuring such classic Mingus compositions as "Goodbye Pork Pie Hat" (an elegy to Lester Young) and the vocal-less version of "Fables of Faubus" (a protest against segregationist Arkansas governor Orval Faubus that features double-time sections). Also during 1959, Mingus recorded the album Blues & Roots, which was released the following year. As Mingus explained in his liner notes: "I was born swinging and clapped my hands in church as a little boy, but I've grown up and I like to do things other than just swing. But blues can do more than just swing."

Mingus witnessed Ornette Coleman's legendary—and controversial—1960 appearances at New York City's Five Spot jazz club. He initially expressed rather mixed feelings for Coleman's innovative music: "...if the free-form guys could play the same tune twice, then I would say they were playing something...Most of the time they use their fingers on the saxophone and they don't even know what's going to come out. They're experimenting." That same year, however, Mingus formed a quartet with Richmond, trumpeter Ted Curson and multi-instrumentalist Eric Dolphy. This ensemble featured the same instruments as Coleman's quartet, and is often regarded as Mingus rising to the challenging new standard established by Coleman. The quartet recorded on both Charles Mingus Presents Charles Mingus and Mingus. The former also features the version of "Fables of Faubus" with lyrics, aptly titled "Original Faubus Fables".

Only one misstep occurred in this era: The Town Hall Concert in October 1962, a "live workshop"/recording session. With an ambitious program, the event was plagued with troubles from its inception. Mingus's vision, now known as Epitaph, was finally realized by conductor Gunther Schuller in a concert in 1989, a decade after Mingus died.

The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady

and other Impulse! albums

In 1963, Mingus released The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady, described as "one of the greatest achievements in orchestration by any composer in jazz history." The album was also unique in that Mingus asked his psychotherapist, Dr. Edmund Pollock, to provide notes for the record.

Mingus also released Mingus Plays Piano, an unaccompanied album featuring some fully improvised pieces, in 1963.

In addition, 1963 saw the release of Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus, an album praised by critic Nat Hentoff.

In 1964 Mingus put together one of his best-known groups, a sextet including Dannie Richmond, Jaki Byard, Eric Dolphy, trumpeter Johnny Coles, and tenor saxophonist Clifford Jordan. The group was recorded frequently during its short existence; Coles fell ill and left during a European tour. Dolphy stayed in Europe after the tour ended, and died suddenly in Berlin on June 28, 1964. 1964 was also the year that Mingus met his future wife, Sue Graham Ungaro. The couple were married in 1966 by Allen Ginsberg. Facing financial hardship, Mingus was evicted from his New York home in 1966.

Changes

Mingus's pace slowed somewhat in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In 1974, after his 1970 sextet with Charles McPherson, Eddie Preston and Bobby Jones disbanded, he formed a quintet with Richmond, pianist Don Pullen, trumpeter Jack Walrath and saxophonist George Adams. They recorded two well-received albums, Changes One and Changes Two. Mingus also played with Charles McPherson in many of his groups during this time. Cumbia and Jazz Fusion in 1976 sought to blend Colombian music (the "Cumbia" of the title) with more traditional jazz forms. In 1971, Mingus taught for a semester at the University at Buffalo, The State University of New York as the Slee Professor of Music.

Later career and death

By the mid-1970s, Mingus was suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). His once formidable bass technique declined until he could no longer play the instrument. He continued composing, however, and supervised a number of recordings before his death. At the time of his death, he was working with Joni Mitchell on an album eventually titled Mingus, which included lyrics added by Mitchell to his compositions, including "Goodbye Pork Pie Hat". The album featured the talents of Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, and another influential bassist and composer, Jaco Pastorius.

Mingus died, aged 56, in Cuernavaca, Mexico, where he had traveled for treatment and convalescence. His ashes were scattered in the Ganges River.

Musical style

His compositions retained the hot and soulful feel of hard bop, drawing heavily from black gospel music and blues, while sometimes containing elements of Third Stream, free jazz, and classical music. He once cited Duke Ellington and church as his main influences.

Mingus espoused collective improvisation, similar to the old New Orleans jazz parades, paying particular attention to how each band member interacted with the group as a whole. In creating his bands, he looked not only at the skills of the available musicians, but also their personalities. Many musicians passed through his bands and later went on to impressive careers. He recruited talented and sometimes little-known artists, whom he utilized to assemble unconventional instrumental configurations. As a performer, Mingus was a pioneer in double bass technique, widely recognized as one of the instrument's most proficient players.

Because of his brilliant writing for midsize ensembles, and his catering to and emphasizing the strengths of the musicians in his groups, Mingus is often considered the heir of Duke Ellington, for whom he expressed great admiration and collaborated on the record Money Jungle. Indeed, Dizzy Gillespie had once claimed Mingus reminded him "of a young Duke", citing their shared "organizational genius."

Personality and temper

Nearly as well known as his ambitious music was Mingus's often fearsome temperament, which earned him the nickname "The Angry Man of Jazz". His refusal to compromise his musical integrity led to many onstage eruptions, exhortations to musicians, and dismissals. Although respected for his musical talents, Mingus was sometimes feared for his occasionally violent onstage temper, which was at times directed at members of his band and other times aimed at the audience. He was physically large, prone to obesity (especially in his later years), and was by all accounts often intimidating and frightening when expressing anger or displeasure. When confronted with a nightclub audience talking and clinking ice in their glasses while he performed, Mingus stopped his band and loudly chastised the audience, stating: "Isaac Stern doesn't have to put up with this shit." Mingus reportedly destroyed a $20,000 bass in response to audience heckling at the Five Spot in New York City.

Guitarist and singer Jackie Paris was a first-hand witness to Mingus's irascibility. Paris recalls his time in the Jazz Workshop: "He chased everybody off the stand except [drummer] Paul Motian and me... The three of us just wailed on the blues for about an hour and a half before he called the other cats back."

On October 12, 1962, Mingus punched Jimmy Knepper in the mouth while the two men were working together at Mingus' apartment on a score for his upcoming concert at The Town Hall in New York, and Knepper refused to take on more work. Mingus' blow broke off a crowned tooth and its underlying stub. According to Knepper, this ruined his embouchure and resulted in the permanent loss of the top octave of his range on the trombone – a significant handicap for any professional trombonist. This attack temporarily ended their working relationship, and Knepper was unable to perform at the concert. Charged with assault, Mingus appeared in court in January 1963 and was given a suspended sentence. Knepper did again work with Mingus in 1977 and played extensively with the Mingus Dynasty, formed after Mingus' death in 1979.

In addition to bouts of ill temper, Mingus was prone to clinical depression and tended to have brief periods of extreme creative activity intermixed with fairly long stretches of greatly decreased output, such as the five-year period following the death of Eric Dolphy.

In 1966, Mingus was evicted from his apartment at 5 Great Jones Street in New York City for nonpayment of rent, captured in the 1968 documentary film Mingus: Charlie Mingus 1968, directed by Thomas Reichman. The film also features Mingus performing in clubs and in the apartment, firing a .410 shotgun indoors, composing at the piano, playing with and taking care of his young daughter Caroline, and discussing love, art, politics, and the music school he had hoped to create.

Legacy

The Mingus Big Band

Charles Mingus' music is currently being performed and reinterpreted by the Mingus Big Band, which in October 2008 began playing every Monday at Jazz Standard in New York City, and often tours the rest of the U.S. and Europe. The Mingus Big Band, the Mingus Orchestra, and the Mingus Dynasty band are managed by Jazz Workshop, Inc. and run by Mingus' widow Sue Graham Mingus.

Elvis Costello has written lyrics for a few Mingus pieces. He had once sung lyrics for one piece, "Invisible Lady", backed by the Mingus Big Band on the album, Tonight at Noon: Three of Four Shades of Love.

Epitaph

Epitaph is considered one of Charles Mingus' masterpieces. The composition is 4,235 measures long, requires two hours to perform, and is one of the longest jazz pieces ever written. Epitaph was only completely discovered, by musicologist Andrew Homzy, during the cataloging process after Mingus' death. With the help of a grant from the Ford Foundation, the score and instrumental parts were copied, and the piece itself was premiered by a 30-piece orchestra, conducted by Gunther Schuller. This concert was produced by Mingus' widow, Sue Graham Mingus, at Alice Tully Hall on June 3, 1989, 10 years after Mingus' death. It was performed again at several concerts in 2007. The performance at Walt Disney Concert Hall is available on NPR. Hal Leonard published the complete score in 2008.

Autobiography

Mingus wrote the sprawling, exaggerated, quasi-autobiography, Beneath the Underdog: His World as Composed by Mingus, throughout the 1960s, and it was published in 1971. Its "stream of consciousness" style covered several aspects of his life that had previously been off-record. In addition to his musical and intellectual proliferation, Mingus goes into great detail about his perhaps overstated sexual exploits. He claims to have had more than 31 affairs in the course of his life (including 26 prostitutes in one sitting). This does not include any of his five wives (he claims to have been married to two of them simultaneously). In addition, he asserts that he held a brief career as a pimp. This has never been confirmed.

Mingus's autobiography also serves as an insight into his psyche, as well as his attitudes about race and society. It includes accounts of abuse at the hands of his father from an early age, being bullied as a child, his removal from a white musician's union, and grappling with disapproval while married to white women and other examples of the hardship and prejudice.

Scholarly influence

The work of Charles Mingus has also received attention in academia. According to Ashon Crawley, the musicianship of Charles Mingus provides a salient example of the power of music to unsettle the dualistic, categorical distinction of sacred from profane through otherwise epistemologies. Crawley offers a reading of Mingus that examines the deep, imbrication uniting Holiness-Pentecostal aesthetic practices and jazz. Mingus recognized the importance and impact of the midweek gathering of black folks at the Holiness-Pentecostal Church at 79th and Watts in Los Angeles that he'd attend with his stepmother or his friend Britt Woodman. Crawley goes on to argue that these visits were the impetus for the song "Wednesday Prayer Meeting." Emphasis is placed on the ethical demand of the prayer meeting felt and experienced that, according to Crawley, Mingus attempts to capture. In many ways, "Wednesday Night Prayer Meeting" was Mingus's memorial, homage, to black sociality. By exploring Mingus' homage to black Pentecostal aesthetics, Crawley expounds on how Mingus figured out that those Holiness-Pentecostal gatherings were the constant repetition of the ongoing, deep, intense mode of study, a kind of study wherein the aesthetic forms created could not be severed from the intellectual practice because they were one and also, but not, the same." Gunther Schuller has suggested that Mingus should be ranked among the most important American composers, jazz or otherwise. In 1988, a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts made possible the cataloging of Mingus compositions, which were then donated to the Music Division of the New York Public Library for public use. In 1993, The Library of Congress acquired Mingus's collected papers—including scores, sound recordings, correspondence and photos—in what they described as "the most important acquisition of a manuscript collection relating to jazz in the Library's history".

Cover versions

Considering the number of compositions that Charles Mingus wrote, his works have not been recorded as often as comparable jazz composers. The only Mingus tribute albums recorded during his lifetime were baritone saxophonist Pepper Adams's album, Pepper Adams Plays the Compositions of Charlie Mingus, in 1963, and Joni Mitchell's album Mingus, in 1979. Of all his works, his elegant elegy for Lester Young, "Goodbye Pork Pie Hat" (from Mingus Ah Um) has probably had the most recordings. Besides recordings from the expected jazz artists, the song has also been recorded by musicians as disparate as Jeff Beck, Andy Summers, Eugene Chadbourne, and Bert Jansch and John Renbourn with and without Pentangle. Joni Mitchell sang a version with lyrics that she wrote for it.

Elvis Costello has recorded "Hora Decubitus" (from Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus) on My Flame Burns Blue(2006). "Better Git It in Your Soul" was covered by Davey Graham on his album "Folk, Blues, and Beyond." Trumpeter Ron Miles performs a version of "Pithecanthropus Erectus" on his CD "Witness." New York Ska Jazz Ensemble has done a cover of Mingus's "Haitian Fight Song", as have the British folk rock group Pentangle and others. Hal Willner's 1992 tribute album Weird Nightmare: Meditations on Mingus (Columbia Records) contains idiosyncratic renditions of Mingus's works involving numerous popular musicians including Chuck D, Keith Richards, Henry Rollins and Dr. John. The Italian band Quintorigo recorded an entire album devoted to Mingus's music, titled Play Mingus.

Gunther Schuller's edition of Mingus's "Epitaph" which premiered at Lincoln Center in 1989 was subsequently released on Columbia/Sony Records.

One of the most elaborate tributes to Mingus came on September 29, 1969, at a festival honoring him. Duke Ellington performed The Clown, with Duke reading Jean Shepherd's narration. It was long believed that no recording of this performance existed; however, one was discovered and premiered on July 11, 2013, by Dry River Jazz host Trevor Hodgkins for NPR member station KRWG-FM with re-airings on July 13, 2013, and July 26, 2014. Mingus's elegy for Duke, "Duke Ellington's Sound Of Love", was recorded by Kevin Mahogany on Double Rainbow (1993) and Anita Wardell on Why Do You Cry? (1995).

Material loss

On June 25, 2019, The New York Times Magazine listed Charles Mingus among hundreds of artists whose material was reportedly destroyed in the 2008 Universal fire.

Awards and honors

1971: Guggenheim Fellowship (Music Composition).

1971: Inducted in the Down Beat Jazz Hall of Fame.

1988: The National Endowment for the Arts provided grants for a Mingus nonprofit called "Let My Children Hear Music" which cataloged all of Mingus's works. The microfilms of these works were given to the Music Division of the New York Public Library where they are currently available for study.

1993: The Library of Congress acquired Mingus's collected papers—including scores, sound recordings, correspondence and photos—in what they described as "the most important acquisition of a manuscript collection relating to jazz in the Library's history".

1995: The United States Postal Service issued a stamp in his honor.

1997: Posthumously awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

1999: Album Mingus Dynasty (1959) inducted in the Grammy Hall of Fame.

2005: Inducted in the Jazz at Lincoln Center, Nesuhi Ertegun Jazz Hall of Fame.

[whileiamdying]

‘Janis’ celebrates one of the most incandescent musicians of our time

Somewhere around 1 a.m. on Oct. 4, 1970, Janis Joplin skin-popped a dose of heroin in Room 105 of the Landmark Motor Hotel, which was a little less than a mile from the Hollywood studio where she’d been the day before, listening to a tape of “Buried Alive in the Blues,” which she’d recorded earlier with her latest band, Full Tilt Boogie. Instead of mainlining the drug into a vein, she injected it under the skin of her left arm in a way that delayed its effect by roughly 10 minutes, which enabled her to go to the hotel lobby with $5 to get some quarters for the cigarette machine. There she chatted with the desk clerk before returning to her room, where she put her pack of Marlboros on the nightstand, sat on the edge of the bed and slid to the floor. Her heart and lungs failed, and she died, the $4.50 in change still in her hand.

An editor’s foreword to “Janis: Her Life and Music” calls this “the first major biography of Janis Joplin,” which is not exactly true. The first bio, “Buried Alive: The Biography of Janis Joplin,” appeared just three years after the singer’s death, and it was by the late Myra Friedman, ostensibly Joplin’s publicist but, like so many others in her life, someone who quickly became an intimate. Perhaps for that reason, “Buried Alive” is, if thorough, emotionally red-hot and often overwritten. There’s also “Love, Janis,” a 1992 memoir by Joplin’s younger sister, Laura, which became the basis for the musical of the same name. At any rate, there’s no need to hype any book by Holly George-Warren, an award-winning author whose previous work includes the superb “A Man Called Destruction: The Life and Music of Alex Chilton,” one of the best rock biographies of the past 10 years. Her account is sober and thorough, and it amounts to the last word on a brief candle of an existence, a life whose peaks and valleys make your average mountain range look as flat as an acre of Texas farmland.

No matter who tells the story, though, it doesn’t end well. That’s why this review begins with a succinct recitation of Joplin’s final moments — I’m giving you the bad news first. Let us now celebrate one of the greatest soul voices and incandescent stage presences of our time: “It was as if the earth had opened up,” wrote rock historian Joel Selvin of Joplin’s performance at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival, and guitarist Darby Slick of the San Francisco band the Great Society said that, as Joplin pranced, strutted, shrieked and whispered at an earlier show, “It was nearly impossible not to stare constantly at her.”

It wasn’t always that way. A kindergarten teacher noted Joplin’s refusal to “rest quietly,” and the qualities that took her to the top of the entertainment world made her both enemies and friends along the way. A misfit in her hometown of Port Arthur, Tex., she was nominated for the ugliest man on campus competition as a student at the University of Texas at Austin, her picture on posters all over the school. Not long after, she made her way to the West Coast with fellow dropout and future concert promoter Chet Helms, thumbing rides like the protagonists of “Me and Bobby McGee,” a Kris Kristofferson song she’d later make famous. Helms managed a band that needed a “chick singer,” and in more ways than one, Joplin became a key member of Big Brother and the Holding Company. In the spirit of the times, she and the other band members became more of a family than a business arrangement, making it that much harder for her to part company with them, even after they made mistakes while playing or forgot their parts.

Joplin’s next band, Kozmic Blues, was put together hastily by her manager, Albert Grossman, but the musicians were chosen for their individual prowess, and the group lacked chemistry. Her third band, Full Tilt Boogie, was the charm: The members were picked thoughtfully over time, and Janis loved playing with them. She only had a few months to live.

Joplin took such joy in performing that she made it look effortless, but George-Warren reminds readers how hard she worked, not only doing take after take in the studio but also doing the kind of behind-the-scenes research associated more with musicologists than whiskey-swigging blues shouters. As a ninth-grader, Joplin watched Elvis’s pelvispalooza on “The Ed Sullivan Show” and become so enamored of “Hound Dog” that she tracked down Big Mama Thornton’s 1953 original. “How a thirteen-year-old white girl in segregated Port Arthur found the R&B single remains a mystery,” writes George-Warren, “but she did.” During her Big Brother days, Joplin heard Thornton sing “Ball and Chain” at a San Francisco club and asked her if she could cover it. Thornton gave her the okay but warned, “Don’t [mess] it up.”

Joplin was the first female rock star at a time when rock was almost exclusively a boys club, and she had to put up with appalling sexism from musicians, the press and industry pros. Yet she showed other women what to do and taught men to accept them. The hotel where Joplin died is now the Highland Gardens Hotel, and it’s possible to stay in the room where her life ended. Recently I spoke to the manager and asked what it’s like to spend the night there, and he said, “Everyone who has ever booked that room says they love it.”

David Kirby is the author of “Crossroad: Artist, Audience, and the Making of American Music.”

Her Life and Music By Holly George-Warren Simon & Schuster. 400 pp. $28.99

[queereyeanalysis]

Black Girl Magic; Kaija Villagrand (Part 2)

Queer Eye’s “Black Girl Magic” does a fantastic job of addressing the gender stereotypes that Jess faces as a lesbian, and it also does a great job of reflecting on societal norms that affect the way people think about sexuality as a whole. Jess grew up in a very religious family, and spent her childhood worrying about how her adoptive parents would react when she came out as a lesbian. Jess hoped that they would love her enough to accept her regardless of her sexual orientation. This in itself is heartbreaking, and it reflects the awful truth that it is acceptable in our society to abandon someone due to their sexual orientation. Someone from Jess’s high school outed her to her adoptive parents, and their immediate reaction was to kick her out of their home. Due to this rejection, Jess is afraid of her identity and experiences anxiety when it comes to telling people that she is a lesbian. Jess explains that whenever she starts a new job in Kansas, she has to accept that she may lose the job as soon as she comes out as a lesbian. The terrible reality that she may face unemployment due to her sexual orientation has led Jess to feel ashamed of who she is. This is a reflection of how societal norms regarding sexuality can lead a person to believe there is something wrong with them. These societal norms also reflect the idea behind conversion camps, which attempt to change people’s sexual or gender identities. The Fab Five make a point of teaching Jess to love her entire identity. As five Queer men, they are able to relate to Jess’s experiences with homophobia. They also highlight the fact that her adoptive parent’s homophobia is a fault of their own, and that Jess needs to figure out who her real family is, because a true family would never abandon her like her adoptive family did. In this episode, Bobby Berk, the Fab Five’s interior design expert, reconnects Jess with her sister Janice to remind her that Jess does actually have a family who cares for her. The Fab Five’s role in this episode is to show Jess that she is loved and to bring out the things in her life that bring her happiness and comfort.

While Jess has experienced many struggles regarding her gender and sexual identity, she has also faced racism as a Black woman in Kansas. Karamo Brown, the Fab Five’s culture expert and activist, dedicated his time in “Black Girl Magic” to making sure Jess embraces her culture and ethnicity. When discussing her taste in music, Jess expresses that Paramore is one of her favorite groups ever. Jess says she loves Paramore, but she used to get picked on for listening to rock music. She says she got called an “oreo” all the time, because her peers decided that her taste in music made her “less Black”. She says that this has led her to have a warped sense of Black culture and what it means to be a Black woman. With her experience, she feels like she can’t really fit in. This is a reflection of the repercussions of racism around the world. Due to the fact that Paramore is a white rock band from Tennessee, Jess is made fun of for liking their music because it makes her “less Black”. In an attempt to help Jess feel connected with her culture, Karamo Brown brings her to the Friends of Alvin Ailey Studio. Alvin Ailey is one of the most prolific African American modern dancers who has established a company that has become successful worldwide. The Alvin Ailey Studio celebrates Black excellence with the goal of inspiring young people who are the future of Black excellence. The dancers in the studio tell their stories of being told that they aren’t Black enough, and hearing these similar experiences allowed Jess to realize that she isn’t alone and that there are people who relate to what she has been through. This experience at the Alvin Ailey Studio highlights the importance of finding your authentic self, which is exactly what Karamo Brown wanted for Jess when he brought her there.

This episode of Queer Eye reflected many current political issues in today’s society. One main issue in today’s society has been white people’s lack of respect for Black culture. This has been shown through the trend of white people wearing Black hairstyles, for example box braids. This is disgraceful because Black women have endured a painful history of having to erase their cultural identity associated with their natural hair, while white women have had the privilege of easily removing their hairstyles as they please and escaping prejudice. I was reminded of these scandals in “Black Girl Magic” when Jess explained to Jonathan Van Ness, the Fab Five’s grooming expert, that she was forced to wear her hair straight or wear a perm from a very young age. Jess’s family probably made Jess wear her hair straight to avoid the prejudice that is connected with Black hairstyles in America. According to Jonathan, “Jess was never able to be curious about her hair because society taught her that it needs to be straighter”. In America, Black women may not be hired in a corporate job due to their hairstyles. Jess has felt forced to conform to Eurocentric standards of beauty in order to feel accepted and hopefully avoid discrimination. This contributed to her loss of personal identity and confusion as she grew up. Jonathan Van Ness’s makeover allowed Jess to embrace her natural hair, which reminded her of her natural beauty and led her to feel proud of her appearance and self. This newfound confidence greatly contributed to Jess’s positive change. Overall, the Fab Five’s makeover for Jess Guilbeaux was extremely successful, and according to Jess, they all showed her that “...it’s beautiful and sexy to like, care for yourself [...] and it’s cute and confident to just be Black, and be gay, and be a woman and what that is is me and I’m always that”.

[tabloidtoc]

People, November 2

You can buy a copy of this issue for your very own at my eBay store: https://www.ebay.com/str/bradentonbooks

Cover: Widowed by COVID-19 -- three months after actor Nick Cordero’s death at 41 his grieving wife Amanda Kloots opens up about staying strong for their son Elvis

Page 1: Chatter -- Kate Hudson on smooching frequent costar Matthew McConaughey onscreen, Eva Mendes on raising two daughters with Ryan Gosling, Sam Smith on trying to find love online, Jennifer Hudson on the late Aretha Franklin whom she portrays in Respect, Blake Shelton on his early performances, Jennifer Lopez on bringing her daughter Emme out during her Super Bowl halftime performance 

Page 2: 5 Things We’re Talking About This Week -- A PAW Patrol movie enlists A-list actors, Dexter plots its return, Dunkin’ debuts the Spicy Ghost Pepper Donut, Yes Cameron Diaz and Nicole Richie are related, Jacob Tremblay plays a young Justin Bieber 

Page 4: Contents 

Page 7: Editor’s Letter 

Page 8: StarTracks -- stars rock the remote Billboard Music Awards -- Lizzo used her speech to speak out against suppression 

Page 9: Alicia Keys, Garth Brooks, Post Malone with host Kelly Clarkson, En Vogue’s Rhona Bennett and Terry Ellis and Cindy Herron celebrated their 30 anniversary as a band 

Page 10: Tom Cruise shared a laugh with his Mission: Impossible 7 costar Hayley Atwell in Rome, Chris Rock sparked romance buzz when he stepped out for lunch with actress Carmen Ejogo in Malibu, Bella Hadid was all smiles during a Michael Kors photo shoot in New York City, Nick Cannon wore a Protect Black Women shirt to the Feed Your City Challenge COVID-19 relief event in Chicago 

Page 11: Royals at Work -- Princess Kate stopped by Imperial College in London to learn about new research on pregnancy loss and premature births, Prince William joined Queen Elizabeth on her visit to the Science and Technology Laboratory in Porton Down for their first public outing in two years

Page 12: First Look at  the upcoming comedy Superintelligence with Melissa McCarthy and Bobby Cannavale, Katie Holmes and boyfriend Emilio Vitolo Jr. went for a spin around Manhattan, Sarah Jessica Parker posed in front of one of her SJP Collection stores for a photo shoot in New York City

Page 13: Jason Derulo attended the drive-in premiere of the musical drama Clouds with his girlfriend Jena Frumes in L.A., Macaulay Culkin and girlfriend Brenda Song went for a walk with their dog on a leash and their cat in a stroller in L.A., just four months after Courtney Robertson and Humberto Preciado welcomed their son Joaquin the couple wed in an intimate outdoor ceremony at the Tlaquepaque Arts & Crafts Village in Sedona, Arizona 

Page 17: Scoop -- John Cena tied the knot with Shay Shariatzadeh in Tampa 

Page 18: Armie Hammer fights Elizabeth Chambers over child custody 

Page 20: Heart Monitor -- Keanu Reeves and Alexandra Grant going strong, J.P. Rosenbaum and Ashley Hebert surprise split, Taraji P. Henson and Kelvin Hayden engagement called off, Zac Efron and Vanessa Valladares getting serious 

Page 21: John Legend and Chrissy Teigen healing after the loss of their third child, Anthony Hopkins has found a creative to help children affected by COVID-19 -- he’s launching a namesake fragrance brand which benefits the nonprofit No Kid Hungry 

Page 22: Maren Morris’ new life as a mom, Then & Now -- Thomas Brodie-Sangster -- the Love Actually kid turns 30 

Page 25: Marlon Wayans from funny man to leading man, how Gretchen Carlson is moving on 

Page 29: Passages, Why I Care -- Lily Collins works to raise funds for vulnerable children as a GO Campaign ambassador 

Page 31: Stories to Make You Smile -- an artist spreads joy with her natural art, this dog is a connoisseur with chopsticks 

Page 35: People Picks -- The Undoing 

Page 36: Roald Dahl’s The Witches, Bad Hair, Bruce Springsteen -- Letter to You, Q&A -- Emily is Paris’s Lucas Bravo 

Page 37: The Queen’s Gambit, Hubie Halloween, Time, One to Watch -- Fargo’s Kelsey Asbille 

Page 39: Books 

Page 40: Cover Story -- Nick Cordero’s widow Amanda Kloots -- I definitely feel Nick’s presence -- her actor husband died of COVID-19 in July and now she’s staying strong for their son and finding solace in support from around the world 

Page 46: Brooke Shields -- what I know now -- the actress opens up about embracing her wage and wearing a bikini at age 55 and how she finally found true confidence 

Page 50: Missing -- help us find these kids -- whether the search has gone on for months or decades loved ones and law enforcement refuse to give up hopes of bringing each one of these children home 

Page 54: Jill Duggar Dillard -- small changes, controversial choices -- for years she followed her family’s rules without question but now after distancing herself from them the reality star opens up about why she’s changed some of her ways 

Page 58: Reasons for Hope in America -- in these uncertain times a celebration of creative people and inspiring acts and natural beauty and much-needed good news 

Page 62: Sarah Cooper -- from Google staffer to comedy star -- a daughter of Jamaican immigrants she went to work at the tech giant then her videos satirizing President Trump went viral and now she’s living her dream 

Page 64: Photographer Camilla McGrath -- candid camera -- photos by an Italian aristocrat wed to a party-hearty American offer a rare peak into the private celebrity life of a bygone era -- Mick Jagger, Yoko Ono and Sean Lennon, Sharon Tate and Roman Polanski 

Page 65: Barbra Streisand and Sydney Pollack, Audrey Hepburn and Anita Loos, Keith Richards and son Marlon 

Page 66: Jacqueline Kennedy and sister Lee Canfield, Michael Douglas and son Cameron

Page 67: Jerry Brown and Linda Ronstadt, Carrie Fisher and Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher and Mark Hamill and Griffin Dunne, Angelica Huston and Robert Graham 

Page 69: Cameron Dallas -- social media was a drug for me -- he was one of the first influencers to catapult to megafame but the fun soon turned debilitating and now the former teen idol reveals how he got sober and created a more meaningful life 

Page 72: Volunteer Pilots Make a Special Delivery -- puppies with a purpose -- after COVID-19 travel restrictions grounded dozens of young service dogs in training local pilots stepped up to help 

Page 75: Hollywood at Home -- Jane the Virgin star Justin Baldoni’s California oasis -- the actor-director and his wife Emily created a Feng Shui-ed farmhouse in the middle of the city 

Page 87: Second Look -- Chris Hemsworth and Elsa Pataky release tasmanian devils into a sanctuary north of Sydney, Australia 

Page 88: One Last Thing -- Kristin Chenoweth -- the actress stars in Netflix’s rom-com Holidate 

[go-redgirl]

Kenny Rogers, Actor, Country Music Icon, Dead at 81

Actor-singer Kenny Rogers, the smooth, Grammy-winning balladeer who spanned jazz, folk, country and pop with such hits as “Lucille,” “Lady” and “Islands in the Stream” and embraced his persona as “The Gambler” on record and on TV, died Friday night. He was 81.

He died at home in Sandy Springs, Georgia, representative Keith Hagan told The Associated Press. He was under hospice care and died of natural causes, Hagan said.

The Houston-born performer with the husky voice and silver beard sold tens of millions of records, won three Grammys and was the star of TV movies based on “The Gambler” and other songs, making him a superstar in the ’70s and ’80s. Rogers thrived for some 60 yearsbefore retired from touring in 2017 at age 79. Despite his crossover success, he always preferred to be thought of as a country singer.

“You either do what everyone else is doing and you do it better, or you do what no one else is doing and you don’t invite comparison,” Rogers told The Associated Press in 2015. “And I chose that way because I could never be better than Johnny Cash or Willie or Waylon at what they did. So I found something that I could do that didn’t invite comparison to them. And I think people thought it was my desire to change country music. But that was never my issue.”

“Kenny was one of those artists who transcended beyond one format and geographic borders,” says Sarah Trahern, chief executive officer of the Country Music Association. “He was a global superstar who helped introduce country music to audiences all around the world.”

Rogers was a five-time CMA Award winner, as well as the recipient of the CMA’s Willie Nelson Lifetime Achievement Award in 2013, the same year he was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. He received 10 awards from the Academy of Country Music. He sold more than 47 million records in the United States alone, according to the Recording Industry Association of America.

A true rags-to-riches story, Rogers was raised in public housing in Houston Heights with seven siblings. As a 20-year-old, he had a gold single called “That Crazy Feeling,” under the name Kenneth Rogers, but when that early success stalled, he joined a jazz group, the Bobby Doyle Trio, as a standup bass player.

But his breakthrough came when he was asked to join the New Christy Minstrels, a folk group, in 1966. The band reformed as First Edition and scored a pop hit with the psychedelic song, “Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In).” Rogers and First Edition mixed country-rock and folk on songs like “Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love To Town,” a story of a Vietnam veteran begging his girlfriend to stay.

After the group broke up in 1974, Rogers started his solo career and found a big hit with the sad country ballad “Lucille,” in 1977, which crossed over to the pop charts and earned Rogers his first Grammy. Suddenly the star, Rogers added hit after hit for more than a decade.

“The Gambler,” the Grammy-winning story song penned by Don Schlitz, came out in 1978 and became his signature song with a signature refrain: “You gotta know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em.” The song spawned a hit TV movie of the same name and several more sequels featuring Rogers as professional gambler Brady Hawkes, and led to a lengthy side career for Rogers as a TV actor and host of several TV specials.

Other hits included “You Decorated My Life,” “Every Time Two Fools Collide” with Dottie West, “Don’t Fall In Love with a Dreamer” with Kim Carnes, and “Coward of the County.” One of his biggest successes was “Lady,” written by Lionel Richie, a chart topper for six weeks straight in 1980. Richie said in a 2017 interview with the AP that he often didn’t finish songs until he had already pitched them, which was the case for “Lady.”

“In the beginning, the song was called, ‘Baby,’” Richie said. “And because when I first sat with him, for the first 30 minutes, all he talked about was he just got married to a real lady. A country guy like him is married to a lady. So, he said, ‘By the way, what’s the name of the song?’” Richie replies: “Lady.”

Over the years, Rogers worked often with female duet partners, most memorably, Dolly Parton. The two were paired at the suggestion of the Bee Gees’ Barry Gibb, who wrote “Islands in the Stream.”

“Barry was producing an album on me and he gave me this song,” Rogers told the AP in 2017. “And I went and learned it and went into the studio and sang it for four days. And I finally looked at him and said, ‘Barry, I don’t even like this song anymore.’ And he said, ‘You know what we need? We need Dolly Parton.’ I thought, ‘Man, that guy is a visionary.’”

Coincidentally, Parton was actually in the same recording studio in Los Angeles when the idea came up.

“From the moment she marched into that room, that song never sounded the same,” Rogers said. “It took on a whole new spirit.”

The two singers toured together, including in Australia and New Zealand in 1984 and 1987, and were featured in a HBO concert special. Over the years the two would continue to record together, including their last duet, “You Can’t Make Old Friends,” which was released in 2013. Parton reprised “Islands in the Stream” with Rogers during his all-star retirement concert held in Nashville in October 2017.

Rogers invested his time and money in a lot of other endeavors over his career, including a passion for photography that led to several books, as well as an autobiography, “Making It With Music.” He had a chain of restaurants called Kenny Rogers Roasters and was a partner behind a riverboat in Branson, Missouri. He was also involved in numerous charitable causes, among them the Red Cross and MusiCares, and was part of the all-star “We are the World” recording for famine relief.

By the ’90s, his ability to chart hits had waned, although he still remained a popular live entertainer with regular touring. Still he was an inventive businessman and never stopped trying to find his way back onto the charts.

At the age of 61, Rogers had a brief comeback on the country charts in 2000 with a hit song “Buy Me A Rose,” thanks to his other favorite medium, television. Producers of the series “Touched By An Angel” wanted him to appear in an episode, and one of his managers suggested the episode be based on his latest single. That cross-promotional event earned him his first No. 1 country song in 13 years.

Rogers is survived by his wife, Wanda, and his sons Justin, Jordan, Chris and Kenny Jr., as well as two brothers, a sister and grandchildren, nieces and nephews, his representative said. The family is planning a private service “out of concern for the national COVID-19 emergency,” a statement posted early Saturday read. A public memorial will be held at a later date.

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[bongaboi]

59th Annual Grammy Awards Winners Part 2

Country

Best Country Solo Performance

"My Church" – Maren Morris

"Love Can Go to Hell" – Brandy Clark

"Vice" – Miranda Lambert

"Church Bells" – Carrie Underwood

"Blue Ain't Your Color" – Keith Urban

Best Country Duo/Group Performance

"Jolene" – Pentatonix featuring Dolly Parton

"Different for Girls" – Dierks Bentley featuring Elle King

"21 Summer" – Brothers Osborne

"Setting the World on Fire" – Kenny Chesney & P!nk

"Think of You" – Chris Young with Cassadee Pope

Best Country Song

"Humble and Kind"

"Blue Ain't Your Color"

"Die a Happy Man"

"My Church"

"Vice"

Lori McKenna, songwriter (Tim McGraw)

Clint Lagerberg, Hillary Lindsey & Steven Lee Olsen, songwriters (Keith Urban)

Sean Douglas, Thomas Rhett & Joe Spargur, songwriters (Thomas Rhett)

busbee & Maren Morris, songwriters (Maren Morris)

Miranda Lambert, Shane McAnally & Josh Osborne, songwriters (Miranda Lambert)

Best Country Album

A Sailor's Guide to Earth – Sturgill Simpson

Big Day in a Small Town – Brandy Clark

Full Circle – Loretta Lynn

Hero – Maren Morris

Ripcord – Keith Urban

New Age

Best New Age Album

White Sun II – White Sun

Orogen – John Burke

Dark Sky Island – Enya

Inner Passion – Peter Kater & Tina Guo

Rosetta – Vangelis

Jazz

Best Improvised Jazz Solo

"I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" – John Scofield, soloist

"Countdown" – Joey Alexander, soloist

"In Movement" – Ravi Coltrane, soloist

"We See" – Fred Hersch, soloist

"I Concentrate on You" – Brad Mehldau, soloist

Best Jazz Vocal Album

Take Me to the Alley – Gregory Porter

Sound of Red – René Marie

Upward Spiral – Branford Marsalis Quartet with special guest Kurt Elling

Harlem on My Mind – Catherine Russell

The Sting Variations – The Tierney Sutton Band

Best Jazz Instrumental Album

Country for Old Men – John Scofield

Book of Intuition – Kenny Barron Trio

Dr. Um – Peter Erskine

Sunday Night at the Vanguard – The Fred Hersch Trio

Nearness – Joshua Redman & Brad Mehldau

Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album

Presidential Suite: Eight Variations on Freedom – Ted Nash Big Band

Real Enemies – Darcy James Argue's Secret Society

MONK'estra, Vol. 1 – John Beasley

Kaleidoscope Eyes: Music of the Beatles – John Daversa

All L.A. Band – Bob Mintzer

Best Latin Jazz Album

Tribute to Irakere: Live in Marciac – Chucho Valdés

Entre Colegas – Andy González

Madera Latino: A Latin Jazz Perspective on the Music of Woody Shaw – Brian Lynch & various artists

Canto América – Michael Spiro/Wayne Wallace La Orquesta Sinfonietta

30 – Trio Da Paz

Gospel/Contemporary Christian Music

Best Gospel Performance/Song

"God Provides" – Tamela Mann

"It's Alright, It's OK" – Shirley Caesar featuring Anthony Hamilton

"You're Bigger [Live]" – Jekalyn Carr

"Made a Way [Live]" – Travis Greene

"Better" – Hezekiah Walker

Kirk Franklin, songwriter

Stanley Brown & Courtney Rumble, songwriters

Allundria Carr, songwriter

Travis Greene, songwriter

Jason Clayborn, Gabriel Hatcher & Hezekiah Walker, songwriters

Best Contemporary Christian Music Performance/Song

"Thy Will" – Hillary Scott & The Scott Family

"Trust in You" – Lauren Daigle

"Priceless" – For King & Country

"King of the World" – Natalie Grant

"Chain Breaker" – Zach Williams

Bernie Herms, Hillary Scott & Emily Weisband, songwriters

Lauren Daigle, Michael Farren & Paul Mabury, songwriters

Benjamin Backus, Seth Mosley, Joel Smallbone, Luke Smallbone & Tedd Tjornhom, songwriters

Natalie Grant, Becca Mizell & Samuel Mizell, songwriters

Mia Fieldes, Jonathan Smith & Zach Williams, songwriters

Best Gospel Album

Losing My Religion – Kirk Franklin

Listen – Tim Bowman, Jr.

Fill This House – Shirley Caesar

A Worshipper's Heart [Live] – Todd Dulaney

Demonstrate [Live] – William Murphy

Best Contemporary Christian Music Album

Love Remains – Hillary Scott & The Scott Family

Poets & Saints – All Sons & Daughters

American Prodigal – Crowder

Be One – Natalie Grant

Youth Revival [Live] – Hillsong Young & Free

Best Roots Gospel Album

Hymns That Are Important to Us – Joey + Rory

Better Together – Gaither Vocal Band

Nature's Symphony in 432 – The Isaacs

Hymns and Songs of Inspiration – Gordon Mote

God Don't Never Change: The Songs of Blind Willie Johnson – (Various Artists); Jeffrey Gaskill, producer

Latin

Best Latin Pop Album

Un Besito Más – Jesse & Joy

Ilusión – Gaby Moreno

Similares – Laura Pausini

Seguir Latiendo – Sanalejo

Buena Vida – Diego Torres

Best Latin Rock, Urban or Alternative Album

iLevitable – ile

L.H.O.N. (La Humanidad o Nosotros) – Illya Kuryaki & The Valderamas

Buenaventura – La Santa Cecilia

Los Rakas – Los Rakas

Amor Supremo – Carla Morrison

Best Regional Mexican Music Album (Including Tejano)

Un Azteca en el Azteca, Vol. 1 (En Vivo) – Vicente Fernández

Raíces – Banda El Recodo de Cruz Lizárraga

Hecho a Mano – Joss Favela

Generación Maquinaria Est. 2006 – La Maquinaria Norteña

Tributo a Joan Sebastian y Rigoberto Alfaro – Mariachi Divas de Cindy Shea

Best Tropical Latin Album

Donde Están? – Jose Lugo & Guasábara Combo

Conexión – Fonseca

La Fantasia Homenaje a Juan Formell – Formell y Los Van Van

35 Aniversario – Grupo Niche

La Sonora Santanera en Su 60 Aniversario – Sonora Santanera

American Roots

Best American Roots Performance

"House of Mercy" – Sarah Jarosz

"Ain't No Man" – The Avett Brothers

"Mother's Children Have a Hard Time" – The Blind Boys of Alabama

"Factory Girl" – Rhiannon Giddens

"Wreck You" – Lori McKenna

Best American Roots Song

"Kid Sister"

"Alabama at Night"

"City Lights"

"Gulfstream"

"Wreck You"

Vince Gill, songwriter (The Time Jumpers)

Robbie Fulks, songwriter (Robbie Fulks)

Jack White, songwriter (Jack White/The White Stripes)

Eric Adcock & Roddie Romero, songwriters (Roddie Romero and the Hub City All-Stars)

Lori McKenna & Felix McTeigue, songwriters (Lori McKenna)

Best Americana Album

This Is Where I Live – William Bell

True Sadness – The Avett Brothers

The Cedar Creek Sessions – Kris Kristofferson

The Bird and the Rifle – Lori McKenna

Kid Sister – The Time Jumpers

Best Bluegrass Album

Coming Home – O'Connor Band with Mark O'Connor

Original Traditional – Blue Highway

Burden Bearer – Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver

The Hazel and Alice Sessions – Laurie Lewis & The Right Hands

North by South – Claire Lynch

Best Traditional Blues Album

Porcupine Meat – Bobby Rush

Can't Shake the Feeling – Lurrie Bell

Live at the Greek Theatre – Joe Bonamassa

Blues & Ballads (A Folksinger's Songbook: Volumes I & II) – Luther Dickinson

The Soul of Jimmie Rodgers – Vasti Jackson

Best Contemporary Blues Album

The Last Days of Oakland – Fantastic Negrito

Love Wins Again – Janiva Magness

Bloodline – Kenny Neal

Give It Back to You – The Record Company

Everybody Wants a Piece – Joe Louis Walker

Best Folk Album

Undercurrent – Sarah Jarosz

Silver Skies Blue – Judy Collins & Ari Hest

Upland Stories – Robbie Fulks

Factory Girl – Rhiannon Giddens

Weighted Mind – Sierra Hull

Best Regional Music Album

E Walea – Kalani Pe'a

Broken Promised Land – Barry Jean Ancelet & Sam Broussard

It's a Cree Thing – Northern Cree

Gulfstream – Roddie Romero and the Hub City All-Stars

I Wanna Sing Right: Rediscovering Lomax in the Evangeline Country – (Various Artists); Joshua Caffery & Joel Savoy, producers

Reggae

Best Reggae Album

Ziggy Marley – Ziggy Marley

Sly & Robbie Presents... Reggae For Her – Devin Di Dakta & J.L

Rose Petals – J Boog

Everlasting – Raging Fyah

Falling Into Place – Rebelution

SOJA: Live in Virginia – SOJA

World Music

Best World Music Album

Sing Me Home – Yo-Yo Ma & The Silk Road Ensemble

Destiny – Celtic Woman

Walking in the Footsteps of Our Fathers – Ladysmith Black Mambazo

Land of Gold – Anoushka Shankar

Dois Amigos, Um Século de Música: Multishow Live – Caetano Veloso & Gilberto Gil

Children

Best Children's Album

Infinity Plus One – Secret Agent 23 Skidoo

Explorer of the World – Frances England

Novelties – Recess Monkey

Press Play – Brady Rymer And The Little Band That Could

Saddle Up – The Okee Dokee Brothers

Spoken Word

Best Spoken Word Album

(includes Poetry, Audio Books and Storytelling)

In Such Good Company: Eleven Years of Laughter, Mayhem, and Fun in the Sandbox – Carol Burnett

The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo – Amy Schumer

M Train – Patti Smith

Under the Big Black Sun: A Personal History of L.A.Punk (John Doe with Tom DeSavia) – (Various Artists)

Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink – Elvis Costello

Comedy

Best Comedy Album

Talking for Clapping – Patton Oswalt

...America...Great... – David Cross

American Myth – Margaret Cho

Boyish Girl Interrupted – Tig Notaro

Live at the Apollo – Amy Schumer

Musical Theatre

Best Musical Theater Album

The Color Purple – Danielle Brooks, Cynthia Erivo & Jennifer Hudson, principal soloists; Stephen Bray, Van Dean, Frank Filipetti, Roy Furman, Joan Raffe, Scott Sanders & Jhett Tolentino, producers; (Stephen Bray, Brenda Russell & Allee Willis, composers/lyricists) (New Broadway Cast)

Bright Star – Carmen Cusack, principal soloist; Jay Alix, Peter Asher & Una Jackman, producers; Steve Martin, composer; Edie Brickell, composer & lyricist (Original Broadway Cast)

Fiddler on the Roof – Danny Burstein, principal soloist; Louise Gund, David Lai & Ted Sperling, producers; (Jerry Bock, composer; Sheldon Harnick, lyricist) (2016 Broadway Cast)

Kinky Boots – Killian Donnelly & Matt Henry, principal soloists; Sammy James, Jr., Cyndi Lauper, Stephen Oremus & William Wittman, producers; (Cyndi Lauper, composer & lyricist) (Original West End Cast)

Waitress – Jessie Mueller, principal soloist; Neal Avron, Sara Bareilles & Nadia DiGiallonardo, producers; Sara Bareilles, composer & lyricist (Original Broadway Cast)

Music for Visual Media

Best Compilation Soundtrack for Visual Media

Miles Ahead – (Miles Davis & Various Artists)

Amy – (Various Artists)

Straight Outta Compton – (Various Artists)

Suicide Squad (Collector's Edition) – (Various Artists)

Vinyl: The Essentials Season 1 – (Various Artists)

Steve Berkowitz, Don Cheadle & Robert Glasper, compilation producers

Salaam Remi & Mark Ronson, compilation producers

O'Shea Jackson & Andre Young, compilation producers

Mike Caren, Darren Higman & Kevin Weaver, compilation producers

Stewart Lerman, Randall Poster & Kevin Weaver, compilation producers

Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media

Star Wars: The Force Awakens – John Williams, composer

Bridge of Spies – Thomas Newman, composer

Quentin Tarantino's The Hateful Eight – Ennio Morricone, composer

The Revenant – Alva Noto & Ryuichi Sakamoto, composers

Stranger Things Volume 1 – Kyle Dixon & Michael Stein, composers

Stranger Things Volume 2 – Kyle Dixon & Michael Stein, composers

Best Song Written for Visual Media

"Can't Stop the Feeling!" – Max Martin, Shellback & Justin Timberlake, songwriters (performed by Justin Timberlake, Anna Kendrick, Gwen Stefani, James Corden, Zooey Deschanel, Walt Dohrn, Ron Funches, Caroline Hjelt, Aino Jawo, Christopher Mintz-Plasse & Kunal Nayyar)

"Heathens" – Tyler Joseph, songwriter (performed by Twenty One Pilots)

"Just Like Fire" – Oscar Holter, Max Martin, P!nk & Shellback, songwriters (performed by P!nk)

"Purple Lamborghini" – Shamann Cooke, Sonny Moore & William Roberts, songwriters (performed by Skrillex & Rick Ross)

"Try Everything" – Mikkel S. Eriksen, Sia Furler & Tor Erik Hermansen, songwriters (performed by Shakira)

"The Veil" – Peter Gabriel, songwriter (performed by Peter Gabriel)

Composing

Best Instrumental Composition

"Spoken at Midnight"

"Bridge of Spies (End Title)"

"The Expensive Train Set (An Epic Sarahnade for Big Band)"

"Flow"

"L'Ultima Diligenza Di Red Rock – Verisione Integrale"

Ted Nash, composer (Ted Nash Big Band)

Thomas Newman, composer (Thomas Newman)

Tim Davies, composer (Tim Davies Big Band)

Alan Ferber, composer (Alan Ferber Nonet)

Ennio Morricone, composer (Ennio Morricone)

Arranging

Best Arrangement, Instrumental or A Cappella

You and I

Ask Me Now

Good 'Swing' Wenceslas

Linus & Lucy

Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds

We Three Kings

Jacob Collier, arranger (Jacob Collier)

John Beasley, arranger (John Beasley)

Sammy Nestico, arranger (The Count Basie Orchestra)

Christian Jacob, arranger (The Phil Norman Tentet)

John Daversa, arranger (John Daversa)

Ted Nash, arranger (Jazz At Lincoln Center Orchestra With Wynton Marsalis)

Best Arrangement, Instruments and Vocals

Flintstones

Do You Hear What I Hear?

Do You Want to Know a Secret

The Music

Somewhere (Dirty Blvd) (Extended Version)

Jacob Collier, arranger (Jacob Collier)

Gordon Goodwin, arranger (Gordon Goodwin's Big Phat Band Featuring Take 6)

John Daversa, arranger (John Daversa Featuring Renee Olstead)

Alan Broadbent, arranger (Kristin Chenoweth)

Billy Childs & Larry Klein, arrangers (Lang Lang Featuring Lisa Fischer & Jeffrey Wright)

Packaging

Best Recording Package

Blackstar

Anti (Deluxe Edition)

Human Performance

Sunset Motel

22, A Million

Jonathan Barnbrook, art director (David Bowie)

Ciarra Pardo & Robyn Fenty, art directors (Rihanna)

Andrew Savage, art director (Parquet Courts)

Sarah Dodds & Shauna Dodds, art directors (Reckless Kelly)

Eric Timothy Carlson, art director (Bon Iver)

Best Boxed or Special Limited Edition Package

Edith Piaf 1915–2015

401 Days

I Like It When You Sleep, For You Are So Beautiful Yet So Unaware Of It

Paper Wheels (Deluxe Limited Edition)

Tug of War (Deluxe Edition)

Gérard Lo Monaco, art director (Edith Piaf)

Jonathan Dagan & Mathias Høst Normark, art directors (J.Views)

Samuel Burgess-Johnson & Matthew Healy, art directors (The 1975)

Matt Taylor, art director (Trey Anastasio)

Simon Earith & James Musgrave, art directors (Paul McCartney)

[wendyimmiller]

The Soul of Knox Lane

  Otis Knox in his 2018 sunflower field.

I would not have batted an eye at Mr. Stripey if Otis Knox had not insisted it was the best tomato—ever. It matters little whether this is true or not. Otis signed off on the heirloom, and that’s all I needed to know. For weeks this summer, I have made Mr. Stripey tomato sandwiches on toasted white bread, smothered with Duke’s mayonnaise. I haven’t jumped ship, yet.

Otis passed last month. My friend and neighbor was 82 years old.

We were an odd couple. He—the poor country boy from Gritter’s Ridge, near Rogers, in eastern Kentucky; I—the privileged suburban boy from Louisville. He tilted right; I leaned left. Neither birthright nor party affiliation was a deal breaker. Our mutual affection was forged by friends, neighbors, love of God, trees, storytelling, music and even—tomato sandwiches.

Mr. Stripey

Precious memories.

Rose and I bought ten acres in North Mercer County, on a bend of the Salt River, in 2010. Neighbors asked if we had met Otis. They rolled their eyes when I answered, “No.” I wondered, then, if this was a warning. I understand, now, it was a tip for:  You’re in for a treat.

I waited to meet Otis.

Otis and his wife Ilene once owned our farm. Our county-maintained road is named Knox Lane in their honor.

Otis and Ilene in 2014

Otis came calling one day.

He heard through the North Mercer County grapevine that we had cut down a large white pine to put in a graveled driveway. He wasted no time before telling me, graciously and unequivocally, that he was sorry to see one of his precious trees cut down.

Otis had dug small, white pine seedlings from a hillside, near Ilene’s Wolfe County home place, to plant shortly after he moved to our farm in 1976.

Otis in the pines, 2015.

I tried feebly to explain that I loved trees and planned on planting more pines, oaks, hickories, sassafras, yellowwoods and persimmons here on the farm.

He remained devoted to his pines, even after he moved across the river in 1990.  Rose and I planted hundreds of trees before he was convinced that he could trust me on trees.

My sister-in-law, Holly Cooper, a few years later, spotted a peculiar witches’ broom in one of Otis’s pines. Later on, my arborist friend, Robert Rollins, cut some scion sections with a pole pruner and they were grafted onto white pine seedling understock. I anointed the new, dwarf pine tree Pinus strobus ‘Otis Knox.’ I offered Otis his progeny, but he said he’d be happier if I gave it a home, where it belonged—here on the river. Otis, the tree, five years later, is a healthy, slow-poking, one footer. (An ordinary white pine seedling would grow to three to four inches in five years.)

Witches’ broom in Otis’s pine.

  Karl Klein of Crestwood, KY grafts ‘Otis Knox’.

Our Salvisa farm expanded to 47 acres.

Soon Otis was visiting regularly. He brought his wife Ilene, his sister Edith, and his brother-in-law, Kenny, to show them what was going on. This was a subtle vote of confidence. Otis pointed out the crooked but still graceful chicken coop and corn crib he had built years ago.

Otis once ran cows on our place and planted corn and cut timber. He worked days as a tool and die maker at I.B.M. in Lexington. On many Saturday nights, friends came over. He and brother R.D. played music from a hay wagon, in the bottomland below the barn. R.D. passed in 2012; Ilene in 2014.

Otis and brother R.D. make music.

Otis lived alone but was not lonely. He enjoyed company. Lots of company. I began to see more of him. We loved University of Kentucky basketball. Rose and I didn’t have a TV then, so he began inviting me to his place to watch games on his big screen. He sat in his recliner; I took to the sofa. Basketball games were an excuse for storytelling. The games were muted, while Otis launched story after interesting story about his many adventures and misadventures.

Saturday evening basketball games were pushed aside for the Marty Stuart show on RFD-TV. There was little talking when Marty started picking. Rose and I became fans. We saw Marty and his band at Lexington’s Opera House on Saturday March 7th. Marty Stuart and His Fabulous Superlatives were, indeed, superlative.

Coincidentally, the first Kentucky Covid case had been diagnosed earlier in the day.

This was our last night out.

The pandemic was underway.

I continued to visit Otis, masked up, once or twice a week, and talked to him every day. Carla, his beloved niece, took care of Uncle “Oat.”

Otis had an appetite as big as his heart. Carla liked to cover fresh biscuits with chocolate gravy for breakfast and fry crappie filets for lunch. The refrigerator was always stocked to the gills.

Cleisa McCoy occasionally brought over meat loaf, and Bobby Jo Monroe delivered cornbread. Noble Boswell gathered wild morels, spring poke leaves and Shawnee salad. Freida Peachey dropped off fried grated potatoes, mixed with sausage and green beans and topped with cheese.

The Peachey family, seven of them, would also phone and sing songs that Otis loved.

Mark Peachey leased land from Otis, where he grew soybeans, hay and the most beautiful field of a sunflowers I have ever seen. Otis loved his sunflowers.

Sunflowers, July 15, 2020.

Otis called a couple of times, in late spring and early summer, and asked me to take him to drive-in church services on a hilltop at the Kirkwood Baptist Church. The congregation sang old country hymns from cars and trucks. I didn’t know the words to any of the songs.  I was a woefully ignorant Episcopalian, good with Beethoven’s Ode to Joy, and weak on Old Rugged Cross, but I was very happy and humbled to be here with my friend. No mask could muffle Otis’s beautiful baritone or his uncanny recollection of so many old songs that he was happy to sing anytime—anywhere.

Carla told me “Precious Memories” was Uncle “Oat’s” favorite song.

“Precious memories, how they linger How they ever flood my soul In the stillness of the midnight Precious, sacred scenes unfold.”

Otis was hospitalized three previous times this year with a variety of ailments. He seemed down for the count each round but proved remarkably resilient and kept bouncing back. On his third hospital stay in July he had been unresponsive for several days, but his health improved again.

He began singing from his room at the end of the hallway. A patient across the hall, came over and said, “I know that voice.” She remembered Otis and brother R.D. singing at one of their impromptu shows long ago in the small town of Duncan, down the hill from Cornishville. Otis told me he and R.D. had sung on every hilltop in Mercer County. When Carla wheeled him out of the hospital to go home, Otis sang his way down the hallway.

The nurses loved him.

Everyone loved Otis

Otis did not survive his 4th hospital stay. He slipped away before he could return to his 150-acre farm and the little tomato patch—full of ripe Mr. Stripeys.

The past few weeks, since he left us, I have continued with a ritual, lunchtime tomato sandwich every few days.

The tomato line up at Otis’s—Mr Stripey on either end with Early Boys and Chef’s Choice (yellow).

I look out the window and see Otis’s white pines.

I am drawn closer to a handful of pine seedlings.

Precious memories grow on Knox Lane.

  Listen to Otis talk about the Knox Lane farm.

https://www.gardenrant.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Otis-Knox-on-the-Knox-Lane-farm-1218-.mp3

The Soul of Knox Lane originally appeared on GardenRant on September 9, 2020.

The post The Soul of Knox Lane appeared first on GardenRant.

from Gardening https://www.gardenrant.com/2020/09/the-soul-of-knox-lane.html via http://www.rssmix.com/

[turfandlawncare]

The Soul of Knox Lane

  Otis Knox in his 2018 sunflower field.

I would not have batted an eye at Mr. Stripey if Otis Knox had not insisted it was the best tomato—ever. It matters little whether this is true or not. Otis signed off on the heirloom, and that’s all I needed to know. For weeks this summer, I have made Mr. Stripey tomato sandwiches on toasted white bread, smothered with Duke’s mayonnaise. I haven’t jumped ship, yet.

Otis passed last month. My friend and neighbor was 82 years old.

We were an odd couple. He—the poor country boy from Gritter’s Ridge, near Rogers, in eastern Kentucky; I—the privileged suburban boy from Louisville. He tilted right; I leaned left. Neither birthright nor party affiliation was a deal breaker. Our mutual affection was forged by friends, neighbors, love of God, trees, storytelling, music and even—tomato sandwiches.

Mr. Stripey

Precious memories.

Rose and I bought ten acres in North Mercer County, on a bend of the Salt River, in 2010. Neighbors asked if we had met Otis. They rolled their eyes when I answered, “No.” I wondered, then, if this was a warning. I understand, now, it was a tip for:  You’re in for a treat.

I waited to meet Otis.

Otis and his wife Ilene once owned our farm. Our county-maintained road is named Knox Lane in their honor.

Otis and Ilene in 2014

Otis came calling one day.

He heard through the North Mercer County grapevine that we had cut down a large white pine to put in a graveled driveway. He wasted no time before telling me, graciously and unequivocally, that he was sorry to see one of his precious trees cut down.

Otis had dug small, white pine seedlings from a hillside, near Ilene’s Wolfe County home place, to plant shortly after he moved to our farm in 1976.

Otis in the pines, 2015.

I tried feebly to explain that I loved trees and planned on planting more pines, oaks, hickories, sassafras, yellowwoods and persimmons here on the farm.

He remained devoted to his pines, even after he moved across the river in 1990.  Rose and I planted hundreds of trees before he was convinced that he could trust me on trees.

My sister-in-law, Holly Cooper, a few years later, spotted a peculiar witches’ broom in one of Otis’s pines. Later on, my arborist friend, Robert Rollins, cut some scion sections with a pole pruner and they were grafted onto white pine seedling understock. I anointed the new, dwarf pine tree Pinus strobus ‘Otis Knox.’ I offered Otis his progeny, but he said he’d be happier if I gave it a home, where it belonged—here on the river. Otis, the tree, five years later, is a healthy, slow-poking, one footer. (An ordinary white pine seedling would grow to three to four inches in five years.)

Witches’ broom in Otis’s pine.

  Karl Klein of Crestwood, KY grafts ‘Otis Knox’.

Our Salvisa farm expanded to 47 acres.

Soon Otis was visiting regularly. He brought his wife Ilene, his sister Edith, and his brother-in-law, Kenny, to show them what was going on. This was a subtle vote of confidence. Otis pointed out the crooked but still graceful chicken coop and corn crib he had built years ago.

Otis once ran cows on our place and planted corn and cut timber. He worked days as a tool and die maker at I.B.M. in Lexington. On many Saturday nights, friends came over. He and brother R.D. played music from a hay wagon, in the bottomland below the barn. R.D. passed in 2012; Ilene in 2014.

Otis and brother R.D. make music.

Otis lived alone but was not lonely. He enjoyed company. Lots of company. I began to see more of him. We loved University of Kentucky basketball. Rose and I didn’t have a TV then, so he began inviting me to his place to watch games on his big screen. He sat in his recliner; I took to the sofa. Basketball games were an excuse for storytelling. The games were muted, while Otis launched story after interesting story about his many adventures and misadventures.

Saturday evening basketball games were pushed aside for the Marty Stuart show on RFD-TV. There was little talking when Marty started picking. Rose and I became fans. We saw Marty and his band at Lexington’s Opera House on Saturday March 7th. Marty Stuart and His Fabulous Superlatives were, indeed, superlative.

Coincidentally, the first Kentucky Covid case had been diagnosed earlier in the day.

This was our last night out.

The pandemic was underway.

I continued to visit Otis, masked up, once or twice a week, and talked to him every day. Carla, his beloved niece, took care of Uncle “Oat.”

Otis had an appetite as big as his heart. Carla liked to cover fresh biscuits with chocolate gravy for breakfast and fry crappie filets for lunch. The refrigerator was always stocked to the gills.

Cleisa McCoy occasionally brought over meat loaf, and Bobby Jo Monroe delivered cornbread. Noble Boswell gathered wild morels, spring poke leaves and Shawnee salad. Freida Peachey dropped off fried grated potatoes, mixed with sausage and green beans and topped with cheese.

The Peachey family, seven of them, would also phone and sing songs that Otis loved.

Mark Peachey leased land from Otis, where he grew soybeans, hay and the most beautiful field of a sunflowers I have ever seen. Otis loved his sunflowers.

Sunflowers, July 15, 2020.

Otis called a couple of times, in late spring and early summer, and asked me to take him to drive-in church services on a hilltop at the Kirkwood Baptist Church. The congregation sang old country hymns from cars and trucks. I didn’t know the words to any of the songs.  I was a woefully ignorant Episcopalian, good with Beethoven’s Ode to Joy, and weak on Old Rugged Cross, but I was very happy and humbled to be here with my friend. No mask could muffle Otis’s beautiful baritone or his uncanny recollection of so many old songs that he was happy to sing anytime—anywhere.

Carla told me “Precious Memories” was Uncle “Oat’s” favorite song.

“Precious memories, how they linger How they ever flood my soul In the stillness of the midnight Precious, sacred scenes unfold.”

Otis was hospitalized three previous times this year with a variety of ailments. He seemed down for the count each round but proved remarkably resilient and kept bouncing back. On his third hospital stay in July he had been unresponsive for several days, but his health improved again.

He began singing from his room at the end of the hallway. A patient across the hall, came over and said, “I know that voice.” She remembered Otis and brother R.D. singing at one of their impromptu shows long ago in the small town of Duncan, down the hill from Cornishville. Otis told me he and R.D. had sung on every hilltop in Mercer County. When Carla wheeled him out of the hospital to go home, Otis sang his way down the hallway.

The nurses loved him.

Everyone loved Otis

Otis did not survive his 4th hospital stay. He slipped away before he could return to his 150-acre farm and the little tomato patch—full of ripe Mr. Stripeys.

The past few weeks, since he left us, I have continued with a ritual, lunchtime tomato sandwich every few days.

The tomato line up at Otis’s—Mr Stripey on either end with Early Boys and Chef’s Choice (yellow).

I look out the window and see Otis’s white pines.

I am drawn closer to a handful of pine seedlings.

Precious memories grow on Knox Lane.

  Listen to Otis talk about the Knox Lane farm.

https://www.gardenrant.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Otis-Knox-on-the-Knox-Lane-farm-1218-.mp3

The Soul of Knox Lane originally appeared on GardenRant on September 9, 2020.

The post The Soul of Knox Lane appeared first on GardenRant.

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[itsfinancethings]

March 21, 2020 at 09:31AM

Actor-singer Kenny Rogers, the smooth, Grammy-winning balladeer who spanned jazz, folk, country and pop with such hits as “Lucille,” “Lady” and “Islands in the Stream” and embraced his persona as “The Gambler” on record and on TV, died Friday night. He was 81.

He died at home in Sandy Springs, Georgia, representative Keith Hagan told The Associated Press. He was under hospice care and died of natural causes, Hagan said.

The Houston-born performer with the husky voice and silver beard sold tens of millions of records, won three Grammys and was the star of TV movies based on “The Gambler” and other songs, making him a superstar in the ‘70s and ’80s. Rogers thrived for some 60 years before retired from touring in 2017 at age 79. Despite his crossover success, he always preferred to be thought of as a country singer.

“You either do what everyone else is doing and you do it better, or you do what no one else is doing and you don’t invite comparison,” Rogers told The Associated Press in 2015. “And I chose that way because I could never be better than Johnny Cash or Willie or Waylon at what they did. So I found something that I could do that didn’t invite comparison to them. And I think people thought it was my desire to change country music. But that was never my issue.”

“Kenny was one of those artists who transcended beyond one format and geographic borders,” says Sarah Trahern, chief executive officer of the Country Music Association. “He was a global superstar who helped introduce country music to audiences all around the world.”

Rogers was a five-time CMA Award winner, as well as the recipient of the CMA’s Willie Nelson Lifetime Achievement Award in 2013, the same year he was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. He received 10 awards from the Academy of Country Music. He sold more than 47 million records in the United States alone, according to the Recording Industry Association of America.

A true rags-to-riches story, Rogers was raised in public housing in Houston Heights with seven siblings. As a 20-year-old, he had a gold single called “That Crazy Feeling,” under the name Kenneth Rogers, but when that early success stalled, he joined a jazz group, the Bobby Doyle Trio, as a standup bass player.

But his breakthrough came when he was asked to join the New Christy Minstrels, a folk group, in 1966. The band reformed as First Edition and scored a pop hit with the psychedelic song, “Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In).” Rogers and First Edition mixed country-rock and folk on songs like “Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love To Town,” a story of a Vietnam veteran begging his girlfriend to stay.

After the group broke up in 1974, Rogers started his solo career and found a big hit with the sad country ballad “Lucille,” in 1977, which crossed over to the pop charts and earned Rogers his first Grammy. Suddenly the star, Rogers added hit after hit for more than a decade.

“The Gambler,” the Grammy-winning story song penned by Don Schlitz, came out in 1978 and became his signature song with a signature refrain: “You gotta know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ’em.” The song spawned a hit TV movie of the same name and several more sequels featuring Rogers as professional gambler Brady Hawkes, and led to a lengthy side career for Rogers as a TV actor and host of several TV specials.

Other hits included “You Decorated My Life,” “Every Time Two Fools Collide” with Dottie West, “Don’t Fall In Love with a Dreamer” with Kim Carnes, and “Coward of the County.” One of his biggest successes was “Lady,” written by Lionel Richie, a chart topper for six weeks straight in 1980. Richie said in a 2017 interview with the AP that he often didn’t finish songs until he had already pitched them, which was the case for “Lady.”

“In the beginning, the song was called, ‘Baby,’” Richie said. “And because when I first sat with him, for the first 30 minutes, all he talked about was he just got married to a real lady. A country guy like him is married to a lady. So, he said, ‘By the way, what’s the name of the song?’” Richie replies: “Lady.”

Over the years, Rogers worked often with female duet partners, most memorably, Dolly Parton. The two were paired at the suggestion of the Bee Gees’ Barry Gibb, who wrote “Islands in the Stream.”

“Barry was producing an album on me and he gave me this song,” Rogers told the AP in 2017. “And I went and learned it and went into the studio and sang it for four days. And I finally looked at him and said, ‘Barry, I don’t even like this song anymore.’ And he said, ‘You know what we need? We need Dolly Parton.’ I thought, ‘Man, that guy is a visionary.’”

Coincidentally, Parton was actually in the same recording studio in Los Angeles when the idea came up.

“From the moment she marched into that room, that song never sounded the same,” Rogers said. “It took on a whole new spirit.”

The two singers toured together, including in Australia and New Zealand in 1984 and 1987, and were featured in a HBO concert special. Over the years the two would continue to record together, including their last duet, “You Can’t Make Old Friends,” which was released in 2013. Parton reprised “Islands in the Stream” with Rogers during his all-star retirement concert held in Nashville in October 2017.

Rogers invested his time and money in a lot of other endeavors over his career, including a passion for photography that led to several books, as well as an autobiography, “Making It With Music.” He had a chain of restaurants called Kenny Rogers Roasters and was a partner behind a riverboat in Branson, Missouri. He was also involved in numerous charitable causes, among them the Red Cross and MusiCares, and was part of the all-star “We are the World” recording for famine relief.

By the ’90s, his ability to chart hits had waned, although he still remained a popular live entertainer with regular touring. Still he was an inventive businessman and never stopped trying to find his way back onto the charts.

At the age of 61, Rogers had a brief comeback on the country charts in 2000 with a hit song “Buy Me A Rose,” thanks to his other favorite medium, television. Producers of the series “Touched By An Angel” wanted him to appear in an episode, and one of his managers suggested the episode be based on his latest single. That cross-promotional event earned him his first No. 1 country song in 13 years.

Rogers is survived by his wife, Wanda, and his sons Justin, Jordan, Chris and Kenny Jr., as well as two brothers, a sister and grandchildren, nieces and nephews, his representative said. The family is planning a private service “out of concern for the national COVID-19 emergency,” a statement posted early Saturday read. A public memorial will be held at a later date.

___

Associated Press journalist Mallika Sen contributed from Los Angeles.