21st & 22nd February, 2004
Click here for details of 3 new
Rod McKuen appearances
Rod's new book "Rusting in
the Rain" now available! Click on the Stanyan House logo to order.
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Photograph by Donna Marie
Bergeniao 11/11/2003
A Thought for Today
Without the singer, there is no song.
FLIGHTS FROM6THE
PAST
February 22, 2000
THE CLOUDS ARE SO LOW, YOU CAN TOUCH THEM . . .
William Oliver Swofford would have been 55 today. He died this past week of
cancer. You might have known him better by his stage name Oliver. He was a songwriter who wrote literate, lovely songs and the voice that took "Good Morning Starshine" to the top of the charts. And, not so incidentally, turned my title song from "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie" into an international hit.
Bill Swofford was another of those people that happened along in my life and changed its course.
In the spring of 1969 I was in New York for a guest shot on a Nancy Sinatra television special. The director, Dwight Hemian asked me to perform "A Cat Named Sloopy" as part of my program. He was a friend of writer/producer Bob Crewe and knew that Bob had a beautiful white Persian cat named Simon. He suggested that I should get together with Simon for some photographs that could be used during the performance.
I'd go anywhere to meet a cat and getting to meet Bob, the architect of The Four Seasons and so many other acts I admired, was the alamode.
I left Bob with a test pressing of the "Jean Brodie" soundtrack and forgot about it. I had no idea he was Oliver's producer and anyway it couldn't possibly make a difference. I didn't have any unusual expectations for "Jean," after all a year earlier I'd written the songs and score for another film, "Joanna" and nobody was tripping over themselves to record "I'll Catch The Sun" or "The Ivy That Clings To the Wall." (to my way of thinking still two of my best
songs).
By September Oliver had made "Jean" the number two song in the country. At the end of the year Oliver's "Jean" was such an enormous hit that it was covered by nearly a hundred artists around the world, including Johnny Mathis, Glenn Campbell, Henry Mancini and Andy Williams. Jazz and polka artists did it and a couple of female singers even performed it as "Gene." I, myself, sang it to Gene Kelly at the Golden Globes and won the statue. It earned me the Motion Picture Exhibitors Award as the
years' best film song and an Oscar nomination.
No song, good, bad or so-so means anything unless it's performed and performed well. Oliver didn't just sing "Jean" well; he and Bob Crewe's production values set a standard for its performance.
I'm sorry to say I never got to know Bill Swofford as well as I'd like to have known him. My
loss. With his passing all of us have lost yet another voice for our kind of song. His voice has been missing for a long while and now will be missed evermore.
- first published
February 22, 2000
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ROD McKUEN
CONCERTS
ROD
McKUEN APPEARANCES
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SATURDAY 21 FEBRUARY
W.H. Auden o
William Baldwin o
Richard Beymer o
Robert Gomez Bolanos o
Erma Bombeck o
Lucille Bremer o
Charlotte Church o
Tyne Daly o
David Geffen o
Hubert Givenchy o
Kelsey Grammer o
Jennifer Love Hewitt o
Barbara Jordan o
Arline Judge o
Gary Lockwood o
Rue McClanahan o
Peter McEnery o
Nikita Magaloff o
John Henry Newman o
Anais Nin o
Tricia Nixon o
Sam Peckinpah o
Alan Rickman o
Zachary Scott o
Andres Segovia o
Ann Sheridan o
Nina Simone o
Alan Trammell o
August von Wasserman
SUNDAY
22 FEBRUARY
WASHINGTON'S BIRTHDAY (US)
Lady Baden-Powell o
Lord Baden-Powell o
Drew Barrymore o
Nacio Herb Brown o
Luis Bunuel o
Michael Chang o
Frederic Chopin o
W.E.B. DuBois o
Sean O. Faolain o
Ellen Green o
Julius (Dr. J) Irving o
Edward (Ted) Kennedy o
Sheldon Leonard o
James Russell Lowell o
Dorothy McGuire o
Ellen McLachlan o
Edna St. Vincent Millay o
Dan Millman o
John Mills o
Guy Mitchell o
Oliver (William Oliver Swofford) o
Lee Salonga o
Arthur Schopenhauer o
Robert Wadlow o
George Washington o
Robert Weede o
Kenneth Williams o
Bud Yorkin o
Robert Young o
George Zukerman |
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If you stargaze long enough, you learn that no two fireballs or constellations are alike, and the star that shines the brightest is often the one most different. Resolve, therefore, to be unique by being you.
It is a wondrous thing to have a country you can love.
A lie is more trouble to remember than the truth.
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JEAN |
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Jean, Jean, the
roses are red
and all the leaves have gone green
and the clouds are so low
you can touch them and so
come out to the meadow, Jean.
Jean, Jean, you’re young and alive
come out of your half-dreamed dream
and run, if you will
to the top of the hill
open your eyes, bonnie Jean.
Till the sheep in the valley come home I’ll wait
till the stars fall around me and find me alone
when the sun comes a-singin’
I’ll still be waitin’.
Jean, Jean, the roses are red
all the leaves have gone green
and the clouds are so low
you can touch them and so
come into my arms, bonnie Jean.
All the hills are ablaze
with the morn’s yellow haze
come into my arms, bonnie Jean... Jean.- from the CD "Rod McKuen's Greatest Hits Vol. 2", 1996 |
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