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Both were members of song writing teams that shifted the landscape of American popular music. The titles say it all: try to imagine a world without the Leiber-Stoller penned Jailhouse Rock, Hound Dog, Stand by Me, Yakety Yak, Kansas City, Is that All There Is? Everyone from Peggy Lee to Steely Dan’s Donald Fagen (check…
Continue reading“Who is that?” I recalled thinking as a child when I first saw Jane White in a television version of Once Upon a Mattress. As the imperious Queen Aggravain, her performance was a lesson in comedy and drop-dead stylishness; she was something special, and I looked forward to seeing her again. But sightings were rare—hers…
Continue readingYou could almost call him the voice of America. Dan Peek‘s dry, wary baritone is the one you heard fronting such songs as A Horse with No Name, Tin Man, Ventura Highway and Lonely People. Some would say that America was at the forefront of the California sound that pervaded FM Radio back in the seventies;…
Continue readingUnless you are a fan of television’s Damages (guilty), most people are unfamiliar with the work of the great Tom Aldredge. On that show he played Glenn Close’s protector, the circumspect Uncle Pete in a subtle character portrayal that was typical of a man whose career made more of a mark on the Broadway stage,…
Continue readingToo sad for words. A real talent, gone too soon. RIP, miss…
Continue readingWhen Alexander Steinweiss pitched the idea of using original art on covers used to house vinyl records back in 1937, it revolutionized Columbia Records. Sales soared, and other companies followed suit. Album covers are all but dead now, miniaturized into jewel cases for CDs (whose death knell peals with the advent of MP3s), but some…
Continue readingA modern master. Read Jerry Saltz’s consideration of this great artist here. RIP
Continue readingOne of the best British actresses ever, she could go from light comedy to period drama without breaking a sweat. Retrospect: catch her in anything, but especially Hitchcock’s Frenzy, Another Country and the Powell/Pressburger masterwork (her second film) Peeping Tom. RIP.
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