Singer/songwriter Kinky Friedman died June 27 of Parkinson’s disease. I never saw Kinky perform live, but I read all his mystery novels and admired that he was able to create a more clever fictional version of himself that replaced the real guy in the public eye.
I imagine he’d appreciate that when People magazine wrote his obit, it neglected to mention his song, “People Who Read People Magazine.”
You’ve heard this song in commercials. You’ve heard it on oldies radio. It’s been used in The Crown and I, Robot and even as the name for a TV series, but odds are still good you see the wrong face in your mind when you hear Fontella Bass sing “Rescue Me.” Despite the song reaching #4 on the Billboard pop chart two years before Aretha Franklin ever had anything close to a hit single, so many people still think “Rescue Me” belongs to the Queen of Soul. Here’s the original Fontella Bass track laid over a colorized version of a live TV appearance.
You can understand why someone might hear Aretha in “Rescue Me.” Both Bass and Franklin were soul singers who grew up in the gospel choir – Bass in St. Louis and Franklin in Detroit. Aretha never officially covered “Rescue Me,” although she recorded a thirty-second version with new lyrics in the early 1990s to promote Pizza Hut. You gotta wonder if the ad agency knew it was Fontella Bass’ song when making the pitch.
It seems appropriate that singer Brenda Lee was born in December as so many people know her for her 1958 hit “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree.” At 13, she was already a hit as a child singer on the radio when she got the chance to record a new song by Johnny Marks. Marks had previously written “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” and “A Holly Jolly Christmas,” so the record company was a little surprised when Lee’s recording of “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” fizzled. Over the years, the tune has built momentum and made a comeback to become a holiday classic. It probably helped a bit when the song was featured in 1990’s “Home Alone” with Kevin faking a swinging party to throw off robbers Harry and Marv.
Today is when I learned that RuPaul already has three Christmas records and this new 2o23 “Essential Christmas” is a remastered and remixed greatest-hits collection. Of course, I don’t have a CD in hand. Like everyone else these days, I’m streaming the first thirty seconds of various tracks until I find one I like. This is the first one I hit that lets Ru’s personality come through without overtaxing his range. I’d definitely put it on the Christmas party spin list.
This next song has been bouncing around the back of my head since I was a kid, but I learned only yesterday that it’s not Roger Miller. It sure sounds like the guy who wrote and performed country-leaning novelty hits including “Dang Me” and King of the Road” … but it’s actually one-hit wonder Leroy Pullins from Berea, Ky. His full name was Carl Leroy Pullins, but I think we can all agree that “Leroy” is funnier than “Carl.”