Greatest Song Evah - 1/13/23

Moonage Daydream

David Bowie gets right to the point with this one. Brief opening guitar notes lead directly into Bowie’s vocals, and voilà - the 3rd track from the classic Ziggy Stardust album, which also serves as the introduction to the titular character. Ziggy is one of my all time favorite albums and this is the tune that really kicks it into a new gear. One touch that I really love is the use of the pennywhistle. It takes great skill to make such a simple instrument sound almost futuristic.

But the song really serves as an ideal showcase for Mick Ronson. His guitar work, from the riffs to the solo is top notch throughout the entire track. It’s arguably the number one highlight of his entire career.

Things I Miss, Or Why Can’t Everything Remain the Way It Was When I Was a Kid?

Back in the day one of the surest signs that baseball season was quickly approaching would be the appearance of preview magazines on newsstands. I used to spend a good chunk of my allowance snatching up as many of them as I could. Street & Smith’s was the clear gold standard, but in an average year multiple publishers would put one out. Most of them went out of business quickly, so by the 80s I stuck with the Street & Smith and Sporting News yearbooks.

These mags contained plenty of interesting articles, but the greatest value came from the reams of info. In a pre-internet era, it was always easy for off-season trades to fall through the cracks. I can’t remember how many times I would read a team preview and realize “Wait a minute! Player A is now on team B? When did that happen?” I also loved the Player Targets pages in S & S. It listed career leaders in assorted statistical categories. I spent a lot of time looking over that data to see what milestones might be in reach this season or which players were on a good pace to hit magic numbers over the next few years. I continued to read Street & Smith up until it finally ceased publishing. It was as much due to brand loyalty and force of habit, as by the end it had clearly outlived its usefulness, but I do still lament its absence this time of year. Yes, I realize I’m starting to sound like Abe Simpson.

Like so many print publications, the internet eventually made them superfluous. There were a couple of other factors that signaled the death knell. First, the fantasy sports explosion did a lot of damage. It may seem that would lead to larger readership, but serious fantasy players are much more interested in reading previews on individual players rather than actual teams. Initially the annual yearbooks started to devote more pages to fantasy info, but eventually they spun those sections off to create stand alone fantasy preview publications instead. Those had a larger audience, so there was much less rack space devoted to standard preview issues. The most damage occurred, however, during that period of a few years when the free agency market moved at an especially molasses like pace. I remember the Bryce Harper/Manny Machado year. They were both still unsigned when the mag hit newsstands. With 2 such prominent names still out on the open market, team previews and season predictions were completely meaningless.

I haven’t perused magazine racks much recently, so it’s possible a stray publisher still puts something out, but if so it would be a last gasp effort. Oh well. I realize there are more important symbols than this of bygone eras that have passed by the wayside, but it’s still sad to see a type of publication that had given so much pleasure over the years fade away.

Jeff Beck 1944-2023

We’ve just lost legendary guitarist Jeff Beck. His unique style helped him stand out from most of his peers in the rock guitar pantheon. He wasn’t a singer, which made him more dependent on the rest of his band than most, but he also had a reputation for not playing well with others. Because of that he often had trouble keeping his backing bands together for very long. But at the same time, he was a perfect example of the term “musician’s musician.” He had the utmost respect of his peers.

Beck first came to prominence as the second of the 3 legendary Yardbirds guitarists, following Eric Clapton and proceeding Jimmy Page, although Beck and Page spent some time in the band simultaneously. His tenure lasted the longest of the three, and he performed on the majority of Yardbirds hits with which casual fans are most familiar. His career upon leaving was hit or miss. His initial band famously introduced Rod Stewart to the world, but he spent the bulk of his solo career following his own muse. He could just as easily put out a mass appeal rock album as he could experiment with jazz fusion. He would also often step away from the spotlight and spend years in his garage tinkering with his collection of classic cars, reappearing in the public eye whenever the mood would strike him.

He provided a couple of amusing moments in past Rock & Roll HOF induction ceremonies, back in the era before the galas were televised. When he entered as a Yardbird, he talked about how he wasn’t feeling especially proud, because “they kicked me out!” There was some uncomfortable laughter, as people weren’t sure if he was doing a bit or not, but he reiterated that he was still somewhat bitter over his departure from the band. Years later he gave the presentation speech as Rod Stewart was inducted as a solo artist, making reference to their long running love-hate relationship. “This is true. He loves me and I hate him!” Rim shot!

Ultimately, it’s always the music and talent that matters most. Beck was a distinctive musician. One of his solo albums was titled “Flash,” and there may not be a better word to describe his style. He had some of the fastest fingers imaginable on that fretboard. Always imitated, never duplicated? That’s a good description of Beck. Plenty tried their best, but no one sounded exactly like he did. Those recurring lists of greatest guitarists of all time change a lot over the years as newer names gain prominence, but Beck has always held a lofty position spot in those rankings and likely always will.

Zantz Can’t Dance

The news has come out John Fogerty completed purchase of the publishing rights to his Creedence classics, finally bringing that lengthy saga to a close. The loss of ownership had left him long embittered, refusing to perform his old material for a prolonged stretch of time. He was sadly estranged from his brother/band mate Tom, which they unfortunately could not reconcile before Tom’s death. And of course Fogerty’s comeback album Centerfield contained multiple lyrical swipes at Fantasy Records owner Saul Zaentz. Nothing topped the comical sight of Zaentz suing Fogerty for essentially ripping himself off. It took a long time, but now it’s finally over.

Sundry

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