...and so overcome by Mellencamp's election to the Rock Hall of Fame that I can hardly function! Actually, it's just the usual Christmas madness, and I've been too friggin' busy to do much blogging this week. I hope to make up for it voluminously over the long weekend coming up...
YOU SAY IT'S YOUR BIRTHDAY...
Happy 62nd b-day to Peter Criss of Kiss. The Catman has been dogged-on (ohhh, bad pun!) by both critics and fans alike at times over the years, and even I don't consider him to be the best drummer Kiss ever had—the two Erics both blew him away—but I think he's a good guy overall. Certainly the most down-to-earth member of the original four of Kiss. If you look at concert videos from the '70s, Peter was quite the basher and very animated in his playing style. Over the years, he's refined his technique and is more of a timekeeper now. I also give him credit for having sense enough to leave the circus with a little dignity, realizing he's in his '60s now. I really wish Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley would have retired the make-up after the so-called "Farewell Tour" in 2000 when Peter (and later Ace Frehley) left the band for good. Kiss looks too much like a tribute band now.
"SOFT ROCK" REVISITED
I got to thinking about the remark I made early this week regarding the late Dan Fogelberg and the "Soft Rock" genre being something I can only take in small doses. In DF's case, I tended to shy away from his music because I didn't really relate to songs about forest Primevals and such, but it occurred to me that there are lots of "mellow" songs out there that I truly love, some more than I realized. People who know me well might even be shocked at some of the stuff I enjoy. Take Gordon Lightfoot, for instance: "If You Could Read My Mind" from 1971 is an old favorite from my Top 40 listening days, as is 1974's "Sundown", and is there not a more chilling song than "Wreck of The Edmund Fitzgerald" from '76? Friggin' brilliant!
My man Mark Lindsay of Paul Revere & The Raiders had a brief solo career in the early '70s and scored hits with songs like "Arizona", "Silver Bird" and "Miss America" (not the Styx song), but my favorite is his minor hit recording of a Neil Diamond song called "And The Grass Won't Pay No Mind" from 1970. Hell, Diamond himself put out some wonderful stuff during that time, like "I Am...I Said" and "Play Me" (even though it included the non-existent word "brang" in its lyrics). I even groove to songs by Country crossover artists like the late Charlie Rich and "Most Beautiful Girl" and Glen Campbell's "Wichita Lineman". Quite possibly my all-time favorite "mellow" song ever is the late Brook Benton's "Rainy Night In Georgia" from 1970. The instrumentation on that track is so atmospheric, and Benton's vocal is so convincing that he truly made you feel he really was some drifter hitching train rides.
That's all I have for now—I'll reactivate the ol' verbal bazooka over the weekend...
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