Adam Posted January 17, 2011 Report Share Posted January 17, 2011 Not seen any comments on here about the death of Margaret Whiting. Admittedly, her name was one I had almost forgotten but my ears pricked up when I heard on the radio that she had died. She was not in the class of the great American vocalists like Ella Fitzgerald or Sarah Vaughan but she was a cut above the average pop singer and could teach today's overpaid kids a thing or two about music. She was particuarly good on love songs (so unfashionable these days) such as My Foolish Heart, Moonlight in Vermont and Time after Time - three wonderful pieces of popular music which are still popular today (among the discerning few). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sue Durnim Posted January 17, 2011 Report Share Posted January 17, 2011 Adam, I visited Youtube to search for 'Margaret Whiting' her tunes and voice sound familiar, always a loss when a talent has passes away. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jerry Posted January 18, 2011 Report Share Posted January 18, 2011 I didn't know she had passed. I enjoyed her voice along with Jo Stafford, Marilyn Maxwell, Dinah Washington, Lena Horne, Rosemary Clooney, Mildred Bailey. My favorite Whiting was Moonlight in Vermont, even though I never saw Vermont until the 1990s. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adam Posted January 18, 2011 Author Report Share Posted January 18, 2011 Jerry - I have never been fortunate enough to see Vermont. Is it as beautiful as the song suggests? My favourite verson is the Johnny Smith guitar solo, with Stan Getz in the background on tenor sax. A beautiful recording which won Smith an award and made me a lifelong lover of guitar music. I rushed out and bought a guitar and spent probably 10 years trying to play it, with only a limited degree of success. Good enough to play rock (which I didn't want to play) but not good enough to play Moonlight in Vermont, which was fiendishly difficult. I really believe Johnny Smith has a claim to be the greatest plectrum guitarist ever - the Segovia of the plectrum guitar in fact. It makes me smile when I hear people describing various rock guitarists as the "best ever." Compared with Smith they are a bunch of amateurs! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jerry Posted January 29, 2011 Report Share Posted January 29, 2011 Adam, I visited Vermont back in the 90s when my son married an East Coast girl and took a side trip into New England for a week. Yes, Vermont I now realize is named for Green Mountains. East coasters go there to ski in the winter. There was a quaint little post office in a small town that it seems 'time forgot'. The stage play OUR TOWN best describes the people of that state. The house we rented boasted that it had no telephone wire connections. This was before the onslaught of cell phones. My father was a guitar picker but I ruined the fingers on my right hand trying to learn. My son picked it up, though, and could impress visitors to our house with Mason Williams Classical Gas. By the way, I recently discovered in unpacking some souvenirs that we still have two picks used by Keith Richards -- they look just like any other picks. Can't imagine why anyone saved them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jerry Posted February 5, 2011 Report Share Posted February 5, 2011 In the Feb. 7 issue of The New Yorker there is an article on the Most Interesting Man in the World. For five years he was featured in a beer commercial for Dos Equis -- perhaps a label unknown in the UK, but popular here. After a few scenes illustrating WHY he is the Most Interesting Man in the World, he speaks surrounded by a bevy of young beauties: I don't always drink beer, but when I do, it is Dos Equis. He's a world traveler, doer, sailboat enthusiast, cliff diver in Acapulco, riding in a space capsule, lying in a hospital bed stitching up a wound in his shoulder while the doctors and nurses laugh at his jokes. And why am I telling this: because he is now 73 years old and is looking to retire to a place in Vermont. Vermont. Perhaps he has heard of the Moonlight. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adam Posted February 5, 2011 Author Report Share Posted February 5, 2011 Jerry I guess if you ruined the fingers of your RIGHT hand, you must be left handed. It was the fingers of my LEFT hand that I ruined. I am, I suppose, part left handed, but I do many things right handed, including playing the guitar. No, I have not heard of your beer, nor the "most interesting man in the world" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jerry Posted February 6, 2011 Report Share Posted February 6, 2011 I may have mentioned this before, by son Paul, just like Paul McCartney is left handed and plays the guitar extremely well. He has been to Scotland, wooed a girl in Glasgow in his younger days. Sometimes we fathers can live vicariously through our sons, eh? (as they say in Canada) Music makes the world go round. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.