Goodnight everyone, and have an anything but blue weekend!

May 31, 2019May 31, 2019 / This Just In... From Franklin, WI / 1 Comment

Every Friday night we smooth our way into the weekend with music, the universal language. These selections demonstrate that despite what is being passed off as art today, there is plenty of really good music available. Come along and enjoy.

Over the past several weeks this feature has been rather nostalgic. And that’ s fine. When that happens we like to focus on music selections that are more contemporary. And because I like those oldies some interesting cover versions usually make the cut.

So enjoy these newer renditions of popular songs from the past.

Guitarist George Benson’s career is five decades long. As a solo artist he has racked up more than 30 recordings along with 10 Grammy Awards.

In his latest album Benson pays tribute to Chuck Berry and Fats Domino.

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Another fine guitarist is Chris Standring. Born in Britain and now based in Los Angeles, Standring has been in the music business for the last 20 years. His latest album is “Sunlight.”

“Overall, ‘Sunlight’s got a joyful, upbeat vibe,” Standring said. ” I wanted to find some kind of word that described the overall feeling of the album, and thought ‘Sunlight’ captured the positivity and optimism of the music perfectly. It’s got an upbeat spirit about it. It probably wasn’t conscious, but maybe deep down I was being reactionary, calling out and taking a stand against the darkness of these times. For a lot of people, music can be a bright spot no matter what’s going on with them personally and in the world.

“The thing I like most about “Sunlight” is that it’s an album where you can just turn the musical faucet on and everything flows effortlessly and naturally.”

Watch this video with drummer Razz Lee. He’s all of 9 years old, the son of keyboard player Rodney Lee.

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Now we turn the clock back to 1968 and a song that sounded like this:

Many guys have come to you
With a line that wasn’t true
And you passed them by (passed them by)
Now you’re in the center ring
And their lines don’t mean a thing
Why don’t you let me try (let me try)
Now I don’t wear a diamond ring
I don’t even have a song to sing
All I know is
[Chorus:]
La la la la la la la la la means
I love you

The group was the Delfonics and that was their biggest hit peaking at #4.

It’s redone here by saxophonist Kenney Polson from Portland. Can you believe Polson has lived and performed in more than 50 countries?

Not surprisingly Polson comes from a musical family. His grandfather, “Chubby Wayne” Harshaw (Count Basie, Cab Calloway), was a major musical influence, along with his Uncle Charles, who sang with the Coasters.

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Herb Alpert is the Energizer Bunny. What a career! Five #1 hits. Nine GRAMMY® Awards. Fifteen Gold albums. Fourteen Platinum albums. Over 72 million records sold.

Now at 84 years old he’s cranked out another single, his cover of a #3 Bill Withers hit in 1971.

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That’s it for this week.

Goodnight.

Sleep well.

Have a great weekend.

We opened with a guitarist and we close with another.

Art Ruprecht had clips of tracks from his first album played on the Weather Channel during those “Local on the 8’s” forecasts. His music is now heard on stations across America and also streams live on Pandora and Music Choice, as well as most other music sites. From his 3rd album, released in March, a tribute to well-known jazz guitarist Wes Montgomery.

Friday Night Forgotten Oldie: The Moth Confesses

May 31, 2019May 28, 2019 / This Just In... From Franklin, WI / 1 Comment

When you think of a rock opera what immediately comes to mind?

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Tommy is the fourth studio album by the English rock band The Who, a double album first released in May 1969. The album was mostly composed by guitarist Pete Townshend as a rock opera that tells the story about a “deaf, dumb and blind” boy, including his experiences with life and his relationship with his family. It sold 20 million copies.

That was 50 years ago right about this time. Also happening then was the release of the album, “The Moth Confesses.”

The LP was the brainchild of Nashville-based session player and vocalist Don Gant and writer/arranger Tuppy Saussy. The latter was best known in the spring of 1969 for having adapted some of the Mary Poppins songbook to an adult oriented jazz sound via “The Swinger’s Guide to Mary Poppins” recorded in 1964. From the album liner notes.

Here is Mary Poppins as you’ve never heard it before. Tupper Saussy’s warm, amusing piano and Charlie McCoy’s engaging harmonicas take the magical Poppins music through the realm of jazz, giving it fresh new life.

Saussy admits that there was a temptation for the group to make the astonishingly simple chords of the original Sherman score more complex, which is the usual approach in jazz interpretation. “But rather than transform Mary Poppins to contemporary jazz harmonies,” Saussy says, “we decided to apply a contemporary jazz feeling to the Mary Poppins aura, thus preserving the original intentions of the composers.”

The music on this album, therefore, is quaint and swinging.

Charlie McCoy’s earthy harmonica is oft recorded and can be heard on dozens of hit pop records. Working with the Saussy group, this is his jazz debut.

Whether or not you’re a jazz buff, you’re sure to welcome this fresh look at one of the happiest motion pictures ever made.

Here’s the opening track from that 1964 LP.

Gant and Saussy were eventually signed by Warner Brothers and their debut album on the label was “The Moth Confesses.” From the album liner notes:

“The Moth Confesses is a condensed opera, with variations on a single itinerary theme: desperation. There is great movement in desperation. The state of being desperate implies a choice between alternatives, and as we watch a protagonist choose his directions we are held in suspense. The protagonist in this miniature opera is moth like, indeed. He is hardly bound to one place; he is always looking for an elusive light. He emerges from his cocoon in the first song, in which he shares his initial fascination for making love with his first lover. It might be said that all the remaining songs have to do with rediscovering, recreating that feeling … Don Gant’s rough hewn voice gives the material a very exciting texture.”

The artists behind the album were called “The Neon Philharmonic,” a chamber-sized orchestra of musicians from the Nashville Symphony Orchestra. A single, “Morning Girl” made it to #17 on the Billboard chart.

In those days Milwaukee had two popular Top 40 radio stations: WOKY at 920 on the AM dial, and WRIT down the dial at 1340.

“Morning Girl” timed in at just a tad over two minutes. The condensed opera also had a track entitled “Morning Girl Later,” just slightly longer than the single that received radio airplay.

WRIT would occasionally play the extended versions of singles (think FM radio) whereas WOKY would not. So you could catch on WRIT “Morning Girl” and “Morning Girl Later” edited together (the two tracks were on opposite sides of the album).

Tupper Saussy’s son, Haun Saussy, a professor of comparative literature one said, “The Neon Philharmonic stuff is so ornate. There’s so much going on, it can almost be overwhelming, but when you do strip it down to just the bones of the music, you really realize how beautiful and elegant and simple the melodies and the chords are.”

Listen and see if you remember.

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Don Gant died in Nashville in 1987 after a serious boating accident in Florida.He was 44.

Tupper Saussy died in 2007 at his home in Nashville of a heart attack. He was 70.

Godzilla and…Judy Garland?

May 31, 2019May 31, 2019 / This Just In... From Franklin, WI / Leave a comment

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“Godzilla: King of the Monsters” opens in theaters today.

The story is about humongous monsters, including the mighty Godzilla, that rise again to battle for supremacy. The critics have not been kind.

Many of you may not be surprised to learn that G:KotM has a cockamamie plot with logic holes big enough to drive a King Kong through. What if you just want to see Godzilla, Mothra, Ghidorah, Rodan, and friends slap each other around, shoot lasers, and set off explosions?

The film’s 130-minute runtime includes a grand total of three fight sequences, and they’re all utter bummers. Worse, the one monster-on-monster fight that takes place in a real-world city, Boston, does not in any way use its real-world landmarks in compelling ways. Why doesn’t someone slam one of these green monsters into Fenway’s Green Monster? Or grab a giant monument like Bunker Hill and use it as a deadly implement? Instead, most of the combat revolves around massive blasts of lightning, fire, or radiation, which conveniently fill the screen with distracting amounts of light so that the visual effects crew doesn’t have to render anything complicated, detailed, or compelling.
Arstechnica.com

It’s a massive but uninspiring movie, a visual effects extravaganza without a vision.
Theringer.com

One goes to see Godzilla: King of the Monsters for the enormous supernatural creatures destroying cities and each other, not for nuanced drama and characterizations. Which is good, because there’s considerable large-scale carnage—and very little logic—to be found in this big, dumb and only sporadically fun monster mash.
The Daily Beast

There’s too much shaky camera work and too many quick cuts, making the action unclear.
CNET.com

We had no intention of seeing Godzilla, even after watching the monster’s preview just before “Aladdin” a few weeks ago. There was something about that trailer that was weird, strange, definitely out of place.

Seeing it, no, hearing it told me, this just isn’t right.

One website called the background “a melancholic and soaring version of ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’ atop of all the glorious carnage and jaw-dropping visuals for the biggest kaiju battle yet.”

And that’s exactly what’s wrong. Here’s one of the most beautiful movie songs ever, one so magnificent and splendid that no one since Judy Garland has been able to do it justice being used to peddle a monster flick.

Overreaction? I asked my wife. She said no, that she felt the same way.

Stunning, incredible, and beautiful some reviewers call the trailer. Maybe that’s one of the reasons why I choose (except on rare occasions) to keep my money rather than send it to Hollywood.

2ND UPDATE: This pro-lifer wanted Charles Manson executed in the 70’s

May 31, 2019May 30, 2019 / This Just In... From Franklin, WI / Leave a comment

Previously on This Just In…

The update.

Tough to watch, the NBA Finals minus the Bucks

May 30, 2019May 30, 2019 / This Just In... From Franklin, WI / Leave a comment

It was such a fantastic season.

Milwaukee Bucks forward Giannis Antetokounmpo (34) dunks over Toronto Raptors forward DeMarre Carroll (5), forward Serge Ibaka (9) and forward PJ Tucker (2) during first-half NBA playoff basketball game action in Toronto on Saturday, April 15, 2017.

And now Bucks fans are left to ponder what might have been.

Toronto knocked the Bucks out of the playoffs with four straight victories. That now sets up this match-up starting tonight for the NBA title.

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My thoughts as we head into Game One at Toronto.

1) I still can’t figure out or accept how Toronto got there instead of the Bucks who seemed all season long to be a team of destiny. Best record. Best defense. Best bench. Winning by leaving opponents in shambles, including 3 out of 4 wins against Toronto in the regular season.

2) The Bucks can really shoot. But that of their game, a critical one, left them and never returned.

3) SORE LOSER ALERT: Though to win when your opponent has eight men on the court. How many times was Giannis knocked to the floor with no foul. Merely touch Kawhi Leonard and he’s going to the foul line.

4) Was our potential Coach of the Year out-coached? Sure looked like it.

5) In my view TNT analysts Reggie Miller and Chris Webber, Webber more so than Miller, were clearly biased in favor of Toronto. Why do I suggest that? It’s pretty evident when your commentary is predominantly coming from a Raptors perspective…here’s what Toronto has to do, just one example. It became sickening for awhile.

6) Toronto can make history! They go the Finals for the first time since they entered the NBA in 1995, 24 years ago. So what! Who cares! Not me. The Bucks were last in the NBA finals in 1974. That’s 44 years ago. Was anyone gripping a microphone cognizant of that math?

7) OK, so no Reggie Miller or Chris Webber. That means we’re stuck with the disgustingly annoying Jeff Van Gundy as an analyst in this series. One of my favorite You Tube sports videos is when Van Gundy coached the NY Knicks.

They should have buried him.

8) And then of course making it difficult to watch…

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Finally, can both teams lose? I can’t stand either one of them.

But one team has to win. And if it’s Golden State, with players that can hit the wide open look jumpers, unlike the Bucks in their Eastern Conference Semifinal slump, I could live with that.

Today’s highly interesting read (05/30/19): Make School Hard Again

May 30, 2019 / This Just In... From Franklin, WI / 1 Comment

Students hold a 2019 banner and umbrellas

Today’s read is from Reason.com:

It is still very hard to get into elite schools, but it’s not at all difficult to graduate.

In a different era, obtaining a diploma from an Ivy League school required hard work and real educational attainment for almost any major.

Not so anymore.

Read the entire column here.

Crime Alert in Franklin

May 29, 2019May 29, 2019 / This Just In... From Franklin, WI / 1 Comment

From the FPD:

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Crime Alert!

This morning (05/21/19) the Franklin Police Department responded to the 8100 block of South 47th Street for the report of a vehicle that was taken after it was left running in the driveway for just a few minutes. FPD also responded to the 2800 block of West Central Avenue for the report of entry to unlocked vehicles where a garage door remote was used to enter a vehicle parked in the garage.

The Franklin Police Department would like to remind citizens to always keep your doors locked and valuables (including keys) out of plain sight. We also recommend you bring your garage door opener in, if you park outside. By locking your doors you minimize the chances of you becoming a victim.

We ask that if you see any suspicious activity to report it to the Franklin Police Department at 414-425-2522.

HT: Jason Perry

I would also add don’t leave your car unlocked on the driveway with the key in the ignition and your wallet with all the important stuff on the front seat. Someone actually did that last summer.

OMG, what is about to happen in Franklin!

May 29, 2019May 29, 2019 / This Just In... From Franklin, WI / 2 Comments

I cannot believe it. I just can’t.

People will go into a tizzy, an absolute frenzy.

A virtual panic will permeate our fine city, probably right into parts of Greendale.

The need for a support group will escalate.

Oh, the pain, the pain.

Why? Why? Can’t we make it stop?

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I’m not sure we can fully grasp the enormity, the rather serious nature of this situation.

An outdoor party, every Saturday night, through almost the end of September. This is Franklin, after all. Apparently those party-goers who are about to descend are unaware how we pull up the sidewalks around 7:00 pm.

Egad, for nearly four months our besieged community will be subjected to lights, cars, and music. That’s right.

Lights, cars, and music, oh my!

All the while, folks like those in the above pictures will be gathering.

Laughing.

Joking.

Singing.

Some might even resort to, GASP, dancing.

Good God Almighty, what is our city coming to?

An actual destination spot with people of all ages leaving their homes to gather here for a good time.

Won’t anybody listen? We can’t be having any of that in Franklin.

24TH UPDATE: Today’s highly interesting read (08/08/17): Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?

May 29, 2019May 29, 2019 / This Just In... From Franklin, WI / 3 Comments

Previously on This Just In…

The update: A Third of Teens Check Mobile Devices Overnight

Today’s highly interesting read (05/28/19: Bill Buckner’s error didn’t define him and our mistakes shouldn’t paralyze us either

May 28, 2019May 28, 2019 / This Just In... From Franklin, WI / 1 Comment

Before today’s read, watch, and listen to legendary broadcaster Vin Scully.

From Paul J. Batura:

Men and women are often remembered for single acts, whether acts of heroism – like aviator Charles Lindbergh flying solo across the Atlantic, or occasions of heartache – like a ball going through Bill Buckner’s legs in a late-inning game. But no life is a single act and nobody’s value is ever summed up in a lone effort of success or failure.