Johnny Carson (1925-2005)

Los Angeles, Jan. 23, 2005—Johnny Carson died peacefully today at his home in Malibu, Calif., with his family and friends at his side. He was 79.

During the 30 years he hosted the Tonight Show on NBC-TV, he interviewed more than 22,000 guests. He followed Jack Paar and Steve Allen as the Tonight Show host. He retired in May 22, 1992 and led a quiet life at his home in Malibu.

Big band fans will remember Johnny for his love and generous support of big bands during the entire time he hosted the Tonight Show. When Johnny took over the show in 1962, NBC brought back Skitch Henderson, director of Tonight Show Orchestra in the mid-1950s, to lead the band again.

In 1967, Doc Severinsen was named musical director and remained until Johnny left the show. Tommy Newsom sometimes filled in for Severinsen. Severinsen and Newsom joined the Tonight Show Orchestra in 1962.

The Tonight Show Orchestra was highly respected because it always employed top musicians, both in New York (1962-1972) and in Los Angeles (1972-1992).

Johnny often featured Benny Goodman, Duke Ellington, Woody Herman, Count Basie, Stan Kenton, Lionel Hampton, Maynard Ferguson, and Buddy Rich with their orchestras during his 30-year reign as Tonight Show host. No one on television has ever supported the big bands as Johnny did. No one.

Now, almost 13 years after Johnny left television, a new generation is coming forth with no first-hand recollection of him. That is sad indeed.

But for those of us who stayed up late for 30 years to watch him, we will never forget all the laughter, all the fun, all those great moments and great memories.

And we will always remember how witty he was:

“If life was fair, Elvis would still be alive and all the impersonators would be dead,” Johnny once said.

Thank you, Johnny!

Read more about Johnny Carson....

California? Say What?

The new year is now 20 days old. President Bush was sworn in for his second term today. The weather in Southern California this week has been sunny and warm, but last Monday, Jan. 10th, we had a horrible rain storm.

Horrible, that is, by Southern California standards. Out here, a light rain storm with only one or two inches of rainfall is enough to cripple freeway traffic and cause hundreds of fender benders. The Jan. 10th storm is the kind of rain storm that people in the Midwest, the East, and the South have all the time. No big deal. But in Southern California, everyone panics!

When we have this great weather while the rest of the country is being clobbered, do you think Southern Californians are feeling sorry about folks elsewhere? No way, Jose! Southern Californians don't give them a second thought.

What you might find surprising about Southern Californians is that relatively few of them have been any farther east than Las Vegas. A few years ago, when I worked at the Los Angeles Times, I was floored by how few of my co-workers had any desire to visit other parts of the country. The same is true of people in my own family who live out here. Why go away for a vacation?

I think it is idiotic and stupid to feel that way. But, hey, I'm from Chicago. I've been all over this country and know how much fun it is to visit other states. I know that California is not the end of the world.

Well, maybe in a way it is....

Tsunami Photos

A grammar school buddy of mine, Roger Wisinski, sent me this link to photos of the tsunami disaster in South Asia and India.

Ironically, some of the "Before" photos remind me of where I live today, not far from Venice Beach in Los Angeles. In fact, in some cases the tsunami eliminated buiildings, trees, shrubs, etc. over an area going three miles inland! That scares the hell out of me!

Judging from some of these photos, the area from the Venice coastline to at least Lincoln Boulvard and possible as far inland as Centinela could have been wiped out. The Venice Skills Center, where I take classes, and everything around it would have been destroyed.

Just look at these tsunami photos by clicking on this link:

http://homepage.mac.com/demark/tsunami/9.html

Had the tsunami hit here, a good portion of Venice, Santa Monica, Pacific Palisades and many other communities up and down the Southern California coast would have been destroyed.

Artie Who?

It's been almost a week since Artie Shaw's passing. The major TV networks ran brief stories about him. They talked about his great success as a bandleader during the 1930s and 1940s, his departure from the music business and the spotlight in 1954, and his eight wives.

Newspaper coverage was better. I read about Artie Shaw in the online editions of all the major newspapers. Curiously, the Chicago Tribune was the only major paper to wait until Saturday to run a story; all of the others ran one on Friday, the day after Shaw's death. Once again, the Trib dropped the ball, as it has done so often in recent years.

A couple of TV news reporters admitted that they didn't know much about Shaw or his music. The reporters were probably born between 1970-1980. The Swing Era was 1935-1945, some 30-40 years before they were born. These same reporters probably don't know much about the Beatles or the 1960s. That's OK, and perhaps that's the way it should be. I don't know beans about pop music in recent decades, do you?

Music is a generational thing. I grew up in the 1940s hearing the music of the big bands on the radios and the phonograph in our home. It is still second nature to me. In the 1950s, I saw rock n'roll enthrall my generation.

But nothing before or since was like the music of the 1960s. Nothing!

I was in my 20s in the 1960s, which I consider the most tumultuous decade of my life. Many of my generation share that view, but we seldom talk about it anymore. That is really too bad, because the 1960s were so alive, so thrilling, and so explosive.

I lived on the north side of Chicago for most of that decade. Beginning in early 1967, I often went to a bar on State near Pearson called Barnaby's. They had a dynamite young band playing there five nights a week. It was named "The Chicago Transit Authority," or C.T.A. for short. When they released their first LP a year later, a couple of songs soared to the top of the charts, including "Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?" The real C.T.A. sued and made the group change their name. They chose "Chicago."

In the 1960s, music was central to everyone I knew in Old Town in Chicago (where I lived), Greenwich Village in New York City, Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco, or the Sunset Strip in L.A. Our lives revolved around music. The Doors, Janis Joplin and Big Brother and the Holding Company, The Jefferson Airplane, The Mothers of Invention, Cream topped the list of our favorite groups.

We also loved blues. I worked at Big John's in Chicago in the mid-1960s. Every night I heard the likes of Paul Butterfield, Mike Bloomfield, Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Buddy Guy, Junior Wells, and many others. Talk about exciting!

Once in awhile, I'll hear or play a song from the 1960s. One of my favorites begins with the lines:

Millionaires and paupers walk the hungry streets
Rich and poor companions of the restless beat
Strangers in a foreign land
Strike a match with trembling hand
Learn too much to ever understand
But nobody's buying flowers from the flower lady

A great song, a great lyric, a great decade. The song was called "Flower Lady" and written by Phil Ochs. To read the full lyrics, just click the title to this entry.

And that was only part of the 1960s I lived!

To be continued....