Wideo Wednesday

 

I was born in 1963, so one might well assume that I grew up and was influenced by ‘the Groovy Age,’ listening to the Beatles or Bob Dylan, to music as anodyne as Simon and Garfunkel or as subtly dangerous as the Rolling Stones. True, it was always there, lurking in the background, knocking to get in, but at the time and place I was in, it was rather firmly denied entrance. It would nearly be the Eighties (when such music became retro, almost classic) that even the Beatles (the despised ‘bug-music’ of my childhood) began to be appreciated. Before that, there was an odd cluster of popular music from the Fifties and before, by actors and recording stars, that populated the variety shows on TV, music whose quirkiness appealed to my strange sensibilities, more or less approved by the older generation. The Danny Kaye is more of a routine than a song, but it was a record. I remember hearing ‘Sukiyaki’ (which has nothing to do with the food but was named that as being a word Americans might be familiar with) at the SMI Christmas party. Anyway, here is a small sampling of such songs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sh9V2H2B73k Danny Kaye; Mommy, Gimme A Drinka Water

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBD68bFyhQY Doris Day, Glass Bottom Boat

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyye06skfbE Bing Crosby, Cranky Old Yank

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1pD1WihY3g Try to Remember, Andy Williams

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C35DrtPlUbc ‘Sukiyaki’, Kyu Sakamoto