Subject: Re: I Wanna Be Sedated...
From: Jive Monkey (monkey_jive@hotmail.com)
Date: Wed Apr 18 2001 - 09:37:01 GMT
I know Dinah, Scottie, she was quite a lady.
From: "Scottie Bowman" <rbowman@indigo.ie>
Reply-To: bananafish@roughdraft.org
To: <bananafish@roughdraft.org>
Subject: Re: I Wanna Be Sedated...
Date: Wed, 18 Apr 2001 08:49:52 +0100
I remember ... I remember ...
In the days when we were locked in a true - but,
for some, really rather enjoyable - life & death
struggle with another evil empire; & when the occasional
Ju 88 would pass over the back garden trailing smoke
on its final descent towards the Comeragh Mountains
where we would all presently scramble off our bikes
to retrieve bits of twisted & scorched duralamin as
momenti of its recent encounter with No.10 Group,
RAF Fighter Command; in those days, I remember,
I was deeply in love with Dinah Shore.
Now Dinah is, of course, as remote & unrecognisable
a figure for you little ones as Joey or Patti will, one day,
be for your own grandchildren. But then, she was
known as the Memphis Nightingale & lit the hearts
of many young men longing desperately for their girls
& homes during the short space of time left to them
before being made, in sudden & brutal ways, to relinquish
this earthly existence. Dinah herself died not so long ago
& had in later years, I understand, become something
of an icon for lesbian golfers. (She was a practitioner
of one activity - though possibly not both.)
Then in my younger teens, I spent much of my pocket
money on whatever of her records (10’’, 78rpm shellac)
had finally made their way - through the U-boat infested
Irish Sea - to Howard’s Music & Gramophones, No 27,
The Quay, Waterford. You cannot imagine the eagerness
& finicky discrimination with which I studied her rendition
of those heart-breaking songs: the St Louis Blues, the Memphis
Blues, Chloe, Sophisticated Lady, I’ll walk alone, Give me
something to remember you by ... my God, the list goes on
forever.
It soon became evident there was an Early Shore (raw &
vibrant with hungry, uninhibited feeling), a Middle Shore
(confident & masterful as she became more established
- rather like Middle Sinatra) & a Late Shore (rather too
smooth, with swoony backings & all the implicit corruption
that came with her selling-out to the big studio, Columbia.)
There were a number of small, tentative shoots within each
main group - & I could date & assign each newly encountered
number to its appropriate slot. I spent many, many hours
doing just that: listening, savouring, pondering & allotting.
With that recollection, how could I be so crabbed &
dismissive of all you tiny folk who treat the current ephemera
with the same solemnity that I once treated Dinah? What we
are all doing, of course, is not so much celebrating an artist
as what that artist represents of ourselves at a time when he
or she meant so much to us.
So, easy up, now, Bowman. Tout lasse, tout casse, tout passe.
Sic transit gloria mundi. (Or, as those who knew her naughty
little ways insist: Sick transit Gloria Mundy.)
Scottie B.
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