Greatest Song Evah 2/28/25

Driver’s Seat

Sniff ‘n’ the Tears were as big of a one hit wonder as it gets. That description is sometimes used as an insult, but that is not what I’m doing here. Sometimes an otherwise nondescript band can put it all together for one magical moment and create something really special. Such is the case with Driver’s Seat.

There is something very recognizable about the song; it’s one of those tunes that even on first listen it feels like something you’ve known your whole life. When this first came out I was certain that it was a cover. Surely this was a song that had been part of our collective unconsciousness for years. Nope, it was an original tune.

It is also a perfect representative of the late 1970’s. It’s got a terrific echo effect to it as well as a keyboard track that is vaguely electronic sounding without leaning too heavily in that direction. Those opening acoustic guitar chords that lead into the recognizable electric riff make for a nice touch, and there is a Goldilocks feel to the guitar solo. It’s juuuust right, sounds impressive without being too flashy. It’s all capped with some terrific harmonies on the chorus.

This was pretty much it for the band. They never had another hit in the US, not even a minor one. Nor did they have much success in their native Britain. No matter, for 4 minutes in 1979 they achieved perfection. All these years later I love it just as much as I did the first time I heard it. And that’s all you need for a little jiving on a Saturday night.

The Side Categories

The Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame Class of 2025 will not just consist of the acts who receive the most votes from the 14 person ballot. As much as half of the class will come from honorees in the side categories - Musical Influence, Musical Excellence, and the Ahmet Ertegun Award for non-performers. (Once again, Ertegun was a legend and was one of the founders of the Hall. But he also had a long history of sexual harassment allegations. They really need to change the name of that award. I will now step down from that soapbox.)

Just as is the case with artists, there are so many worthy contenders that it’s not possible to honor everyone that is deserving. I’ll offer some suggestions over the next few weeks but I’ll begin today by looking at 2 who I feel are all but certain to make it in this year along with the 2 most ridiculous omissions by far.

It’s possible I’m reading too much into things but the fact that Kris Kristofferson led off the In Memoriam segment of last year’s induction ceremony has gotta mean something. In addition to his recording career he has written several songs that are modern day standards and he was also an all around badass of the highest degree. He should be a Musical Excellence inductee. In addition, even before the news of David Johansen’s dire health became public I was fairly confident that The New York Dolls stand a strong chance this year in either category. They are a lot like The MC5, who were honored last year. Both were highly influential and vital links in the evolution of music, but didn’t make enough of a commercial impact to resonate with enough of the voting bloc to be elected. Johansen is the lone surviving member of the Dolls. Even though he is almost certainly not well enough to attend the ceremony the Hall needs to do the right thing before it’s too late.

For years people have been publicly lobbying for the election of Carol Kaye, so far to no avail. In one sense I understand the reluctance to honor her; there have been dozens of musicians who have been part of The Wrecking Crew. Where to start? Kaye is still worthy of being singled out, she was the bass player who layer down some great lines and as many members of The Wrecking Crew as there were, she was one of the most prolific. She turns 90 next month, time is of the essence. Carol Kaye’s absence is glaring, Estelle Axton’s is indefensible. In 2002 Jim Stewart, the “ST” in Stax Records was deservedly inducted. Axton, his sister and the “AX” was not. That’s inexcusable, she was just as instrumental as Stewart was, and even worse she was still alive at the time. She has since passed. You don’t need me to tell you yet again that the gender imbalance in the Hall is unbecoming. The omissions of both Kaye and Axton make that disparity even more striking. I swear, if Axton is overlooked yet again this year and the Ertegun award goes to a lawyer or an agent instead…

Legend

Lots of respect for the way that Gene Hackman stepped away from Hollywood and the public eye. One day he just decided that it was time to retire and he did so quietly without any fanfare so that he could devote his time to painting and just living like a regular guy. The drawback was that it meant Welcome To Mooseport was his final film. Oh well.

I’m fairly certain that the first Hackman movie I ever saw was The Poseidon Adventure, which although an entertaining piece of popcorn fluff, wasn’t exactly his most representative work. Hear me out on this, that movie well demonstrates his particular genius. He knew exactly the type of movie it was, so he went with it and the movie was a 2 hour long competition between he and Ernest Borgnine to see who could chew the most scenery. Hackman so often perfectly calibrated himself to fit the tone of any movie that he was in.

And oh, what a spectacular career he had. His list of brilliant movies is staggering, both acknowledged classics and under the radar movies that make for rewarding viewings. His unassuming physical presence served him well, particularly when he was portraying a villain. He looked like the sort of guy you would find working at a hardware store, so it was easy to underestimate him. But you would do so at your own peril. That’s why he was so effective in Unforgiven, but his natural charm also made him a perfect choice to play Lex Luthor.

All of the tribute clips to Gene Hackman include the usual suspects in his personal canon, up to and including his uncredited cameo in Young Frankenstein. I was glad to see that several remembrances of Hackman have taken the time to mention The Quick and the Dead. A starring role for Sharon Stone, it’s a western which features Hackman as the bad guy. Channeling his Unforgiven past as a malevolent presence controlling a frontier town, the plot concerns a quick draw contest with life or death stakes. Among the supporting stars were Russell Crowe in one of his first American roles and Leonardo DiCaprio in one of his earliest young adult roles. I highly recommend it.

It wasn’t his final role, but The Royal Tenenbaums serves as a perfect coda to his career. It meshes all of his past roles so perfectly that he got to use every single acting muscle that he had. Royal Tenenbaum was a complete scoundrel, yet Hackman imbued him with enough charm that you could understand how people could have been drawn into his orbit. It ranks up there with Popeye Doyle, Little Bill Daggett, and Harry Caul as the greatest characters that he ever played.

Gene Hackman was 95; he leaves a legacy as one of the premiere actors from a decade that was a golden age for American film, and he continued to produce work just as impactful for an additional 20+ years.

RIP

Several other notable people have passed recently, beginning with longtime sportscaster Al Trautwig, who died a few days shy of his 69th birthday. I was shocked that he was that young; the guy was around forever. My first memory of Trautwig was when he played a crucial role in ABC’s coverage of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. ABC greatly increased their hours of coverage for those games, which meant they were going to cover a lot of sports that they had not previously, which meant they needed voices to call those sports. Trautwig called more than a half dozen different sports in those Olympics; I started to think they had cloned him and there were actually 6 Al Trautwigs in Los Angeles. He might do shooting one day, fencing the next, and hey Al if you’re not too busy we could use you for field hockey.

He also called later Olympics for both CBS & NBC. He was the go-to guy to provide a voiceover narrative for sports such as road cycling and cross country skiing, events which took too long for the networks to fully cover, but which used Trautwig’s deep resonant voice to tell a story. Eventually he became the lead voice for the high profile sport of gymnastics. He spent decades as the main studio host for the MSG Network.

Keyboardist and singer Chris Jasper passed away. He joined The Isley Brothers in the early 70’s and was there for their most creatively fruitful era. In addition to his decade with the Isleys he also formed the trio Isley-Jasper-Isley with younger Isley siblings Marvin and Ernie. They never had a major crossover pop hit, but they were steady R&B hitmakers, most notably with the often covered Caravan Of Love. A member of the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame from his Isley stint, Jasper was 73.

Robert John was the voice behind what just might be the most obscure #1 record from the 1970’s. He had a big hit earlier in the decade with a cover of The Lion Sleeps Tonight, and he returned to the charts years later with the chart-topping Sad Eyes. I’ll bet that you haven’t heard or thought of the song in years, and if you were too young to have been listening to the radio in 1979 you have no idea what song I’m talking about. He sang the tune with a falsetto that would have impressed Barry Gibb. Robert John was 79.

The saddest recent celebrity passing by far was that of Michelle Trachtenberg, who died at the tragically young age of 39. A child actress who starred in Harriet the Spy, she gained her greatest fame from playing Buffy’s younger sister Dawn in the later seasons of Buffy, the Vampire Slayer. Fans really hated her character, treating her as if she were a modern day Cousin Oliver. I always thought that was unfair, so I instinctively felt protective of the character and the actress by proxy. Those feelings amplified years later when we all learned what a disgusting POS Joss Whedon is; one of the stories that had come out is that he wasn’t allowed to be alone in a room with Trachtenberg. Sickening.

SNL Preview

After a longer than usual hiatus, it’s time to commence Saturday Night Live: The Second 50 Years. Shane Gillis, with Tate McRae as musical guest, will serve as the host for his second time. I may be biased because I don’t find him all that funny, but I was very underwhelmed the first time he hosted. There was nothing about his episode that made it paramount that he return to the hosting stage so soon. Besides, I don’t know if this week of all weeks is a good one to have a standup comic act as host. When a standup hosts that means there will be an extended monologue. After so many weeks off, I would suspect that the writers and cast have built up a backlog of ideas. It seems like a shame to have to carve out so much time for Gillis’s monologue.

Oscar, Oscar, Oscar

Awards show season comes to its end with Sunday night’s Oscar ceremony. Like most such shows this year the promotion has been relatively low key out of respect to the victims of the wildfires. The run up this year has been unusual for an additional reason. Emilia Perez has the most nominations even though no one seems to actually like the movie. There was real concern that it would win Best Picture, followed by an immediate reaction from the Academy of “my God, what have we done!” That suddenly changed when old offensive tweets from the movie’s star Karla Sofia Gascon which brought the movie’s momentum to a screeching halt. The movie will still win some trophies but it’s shot at Best Picture appears to be gone.

The parade of guild awards in the weeks preceding the Oscars usually provide a strong hint as to what will happen, but it’s no guarantee as all those who assumed that Chadwick Boseman was certain to win a few years ago can attest. With that caveat, for the big 6 awards there appear to be 2 sure things, 2 likely results, and 2 front runners with a possible upset lurking. Kieran Culkin and Zoe Saldana have swept the supporting awards in every award show so far, so they are almost certain Oscar winners. Anora is the clear Best Picture favorite, but don’t count out The Brutalist. The Brutalist’s director Brady Corbet looks like a good bet for Best Director, but Anora’s momentum could be a good harbinger for Sean Baker. As for the lead actors, it looks like it should be a good night for Adrian Brody and Demi Moore, but either Timothee Chalamet of Mikey Madison could pull off upsets.

Oh, and the show producers are once again going to have the groups of 5 present each of the acting awards. Past winners come out to praise the current nominees. We get to hear 20 different people say something in the vein of “Your performance moved me, you are an inspiration!” I feel bad for whichever former Best Actress winner drew the short straw and will have to say nice things about Gascon.

The Oscar Mulligan - 2004

Best Picture: Million Dollar Baby

Other Nominees: The Aviator, Finding Neverland, Ray, Sideways

This is really a competition between 2 options, because 3 of this year’s nominated movies feel like they were concocted in an Oscar Movie Laboratory. 2 biopics, 1 examination of an author’s creative process, all 3 essentially movies about show business and/or artistry. These were all worthwhile films but none of them were special enough to be legitimate Oscar contenders.

Time sometimes loses all meaning, but I was still somewhat surprised to realize that Sideways is 20 years old. Doesn’t it feel like it only came out a handful of years ago? It’s a wonderful film, with Virginia Madsen and Thomas Haden Church earning acting nominations, providing more evidence that there are so many outstanding veteran actors out there who simply need that one great role to show what they can really do.

Sideways has had a huge impact as well. Winemakers have spoken of how sales of Merlot plummeted after the movie’s release with Pinot sales increasing. And who can forget the famous scene in which a furious Paul Giamatti chugs from a spit bucket? Gross, but it revealed so much about the character. In short, it was an adult romantic comedy without any sort of unrealistic cloying plot turns that can be irritating at times.

As good as Sideways was, Million Dollar Baby was better and remains the deserving winner. It contains an extremely drastic tonal pivot, essentially changing the theme from a flawed man finding a second chance in life through his relationship with a surrogate daughter to that of a flawed man who achieves penance with a controversial yet selfless and compassionate act.

Clint Eastwood was 74 years old when he made this movie, and I have to imagine that he had no idea that he would still be directing films 20 years later. This was one of many movies that he made in a prolonged time period which were self reflective stories featuring a leading man looking back on his life and seeking to make amends for his past. These movies have the feel of a man seeking to make a Final Statement, but he obviously still had many stories he wished to tell. Million Dollar Baby is not his singular masterpiece - that would be Unforgiven - but it’s a damn fine film in its own right.

Closing Laughs

That does it for today. Thanks as always for joining in and have a terrific weekend everybody. Opening Day is less than a month away! See you on Monday.