The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Hitler, the Nobel Prize and ‘Grease’

Truth is stranger than fiction, it is proverbially said, and such is the course of history that events and people can be connected in ways that you never imagined. Certainly I never dreamed that the hit musical Grease could be connected to a Nobel Prize-winning physicist and a World War II military intelligence officer, until […]

Rolling Stone Has Become the SPLC?

One sentence in this Rolling Stone article caught my attention: Dolly Parton knows Kid Rock can be, uh, polarizing but she decided to release “Either Or,” her duet with the Bud Light-blasting personality anyway. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, the Country Music (and Rock & Roll) Hall of Fame member said she could […]

On ‘Rich Men North of Richmond’

After 10 days of reading endless commentary about Oliver Anthony’s viral hit “Rich Men North of Richmond,” I finally decided to watch the YouTube video and see for myself: Red-bearded young man with a muscular voice picking a Gretsch dobro and singing the blues about “what the world’s gotten to,” and how it feels to […]

Have a Holly Jolly (Commie) Christmas

Perhaps some of you kids you don’t recognize this dangerous subversive, because Burl Ives died in 1995, and even if you’re old enough to remember him, the only time he crosses your mind is when you hear “Have a Holly Jolly Christmas” playing in the background music at the shopping mall or wherever. And our […]

Who Put the Bomp?

What does a car made in Wolfsburg, Germany, have to do with a novelty hit from 1961? It’s a strange tale, with musical connections to Dolly Parton, the Mamas and Papas, a children’s cartoon and an iconic scene from a famous 1980s movie. It’s about a boy from Brooklyn. Last weekend, I had my home […]

Born in Odessa, Ukraine, in 1886

Louis Wolfe Gilbert emigrated to the United States as a boy and became “one of the most prolific lyricists of Tin Pan Alley.” He started out as a singer on Coney Island, eventually settled in Hollywood, where he helped popularize Cuban rumba music and “was an innovator in his field, having been one of the […]

A Genuinely Weird Rock ’n’ Roll Story

Do you see that guy with the gold top Gibson Les Paul guitar? That’s Bill Bartlett, lead guitarist of a one-hit-wonder band from 1967. The Lemon Pipers had formed in 1966 in the college town of Oxford, Ohio, and signed a deal with New York-based Buddah Records. Their first single, an original written by Bartlett, […]

‘Watch This!’

The headline is a two-word text message I sent to my youngest daughter after watching producer Rick Beato’s “What Makes This Song Great” video about the 1970 Chicago hit, “Make Me Smile,” which is an absolute must-see. I’ve talked before about my love of Chicago: It happened the other day (thank you, YouTube algorithm) that […]

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