“Lean On Me” – Bill Withers

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In 1967 Bill Withers moved to Los Angeles to try to make it as a songwriter. While pursuing this dream he worked at Lockheed Aircraft, making around $3.50/hour. He spent $2500 of his own money to record some demo tracks. Not one record company or publisher expressed interest.

While working at a factory making toilet seats for 747s, he formed friendships with his co-workers and appreciated how they would help each other out. The mutual support this group of workers offered inspired him to compose a song. He titled it “Lean on Me.”

His upbringing played a large part in the song’s sentiment. “Being from a rural, West Virginia setting, that kind of circumstance would be more accessible to me than it would be to a guy living in New York where people step over you if you’re passed out on the sidewalk, or Los Angeles, where you could die on the side of the freeway and it would probably be 8 days before anyone noticed you were dead. Coming from a place where people were a little more attentive to each other, less afraid, that would cue me to have those considerations.”

He recorded the track for his album Still Bill. The single went to #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in July 1972. He left his factory job, but retained a good perspective, telling the L.A. Times: “Even when I was working on bathroom seats, this was at least constructive. I challenge anybody: I won’t sing for a month and you don’t go to the bathroom for a month and let’s see who comes off with less misery.”

“Lean On Me” won Withers a Grammy award for Best R&B Song … in 1987. On March 21 of that year Club Nouveau took their rendition of the song to #1, only the fifth time in the rock era that two different versions of the same song hit #1. (The first four? “Go Away Little Girl” – Steve Lawrence/Donny Osmond, “The Loco-Motion” – Little Eva/Grand Funk, “Please Mr. Postman” – The Marvelettes/The Carpenters, and “Venus” – The Shocking Blue/Bananarama.)

Bill Withers turns 77 years old today. Being he is an American institution, federal offices and banks are closed today. Many parts of the country are celebrating his birthday with fireworks displays, as they should. Here are twenty Withers tracks worth hearing, starting with the classic “Lean on Me.”


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Erasure + Winston 1

It’s Vince Clarke’s Birthday And I Need To Dance!

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Erasure + Winston 1
As a member of Depeche Mode, Vince Clarke made one album. As one-half of the duo Yaz (Yazoo outside the US), Vince Clarke made two albums. As one-half of Erasure, Vince Clarke has made more albums than he did with both of his prior bands put together!

About his Yaz partner Alison Moyet, Vince said “I don’t think we could have continued working together without probably strangling each other.”

About his Erasure partner Andy Bell, Vince said “In him I’ve found somebody that I feel incredibly comfortable with, who I could have married.”

Vince also said “I’m a terrible dancer.”

Well, I’m not a terrible dancer and today is Friday, which is dance day at Tunes du Jour. Vince Clarke turns 55 today, so let’s celebrate the birthday of this self-proclaimed terrible dancer with twenty of his biggest dance hits, kicking off with “A Little Respect,” because dammit, I’d like some of that right about now!


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Blondie + Ringo

The Magic Of Blondie

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“Lost inside adorable illusion and I cannot hide”

The first Broadway show I ever saw was The Magic Show, a musical with lyrics and music written by Stephen Schwartz, no relation to me, but a relation to some other Schwartzes, I assume.

My parents took me to the show for my eleventh birthday. I recall I was wearing green corduroy pants, a white turtleneck, and a New York Jets jacket. Or New Jersey Jets. No, I think they were from New York. They were a football team. Maybe they still are. I digress.

Magic was one of my main hobbies at that age, along with coin collecting and rock polishing. It was around that birthday that music overtook all other interests of mine.

At one point during The Magic Show, its star, Doug Henning, asked for a volunteer from the audience. I raised my hand. Henning pointed to me and asked me to come on to the stage. My job was to check that the chains that went around a trunk from which Henning was going to escape while inside a sealed sack were sturdy and locked. Who better to check their strength than a 67-pound boy in a New York Jets jacket? Or New Jersey. No, I’m pretty sure New York.

I checked the chains and gave the thumbs up for the trick to begin. Somehow, Henning escaped from the sack in the trunk and from the trunk itself! I was standing right next to the trunk. I could tell you how the trick was done, had I been paying attention. I was too caught up in the sets. My interest in magic instantly waned while my interest in performing rose.

What happens to a child after he makes his Broadway debut at age 11? Some end up depressed alcoholics who spend their rest of their days trying to recapture the magic but they can’t because they are no longer cute or bankable and their stage parents oh their stage parents alienated the artistic community and they have no option but to turn tricks for cash which is spent on drugs or would be spent on drugs except nobody wants to hire the porcine past-his-prime actor. Nobody except those who fetishize former “stars” and I put stars in quotes because come on, get real.

That’s not what happened to me. I became a stand-up comedian with a large record collection.

Blondie + Ringo
In my record collection one will find Blondie’s “Heart of Glass,” from which the lyric that opens this post is taken. The song was written by band members Debbie Harry and Chris Stein and had the working title of “The Disco Song.” Drummer Clem Burke said his part was inspired by the Bee Gees’ “Stayin’ Alive.”

Said Harry “When we did ‘Heart of Glass’ it wasn’t too cool in our social set to play disco. But we did it because we wanted to be uncool,” with the band’s keyboardist Jimmy Destri adding “We used to do ‘Heart of Glass’ to upset people.”

The song was included on Blondie’s Parallel Lines LP “as a novelty item to put more diversity into the album,” per Stein. The novelty song became the group’s first charted single and first #1, in 1979. Its success prompted John Lennon to send Ringo Starr a postcard advising to write songs like “Heart of Glass.”

Today Debbie Harry celebrates her 70th birthday. Here are twenty of her finest moments.


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A Hint Of Mint: Marriage

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Marriage between two consenting non-related adults is now legal throughout the United States!

This week’s installment of A Hint of Mint features songs related to marriage, performed by artists from the LGBTQQISA communities. It is with great pleasure that I can write that some of the entries are outdated, though still a fun listen.

If you like the playlist, please click the heart button on the 8tracks page.

Get ready to say I do I do I do I do I do!

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The Last Dance

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Jerome Felder was born on June 27, 1925. Stricken by polio at age six, Felder spent the rest of his life getting around with the help of crutches or a wheelchair.

He set out to be a blues singer, going by the stage name Doc Pomus, but hadn’t much success.

He married a tall, beautiful Broadway actress named Willi Burke. Due to his physical disability, he was unable to dance with her at their wedding. This inspired him to write a song on the back of his wedding invitation in which the narrator tells his lover that she can dance with any guy who asks her to; however, “If he asks if you’re all alone, can he take you home, you must tell him no. Don’t forget who’s taking you home and in whose arms you’re gonna be. So darling, save the last dance for me.”

Set to music by Pomus’ songwriting partner Mort Shuman, “Save the Last Dance for Me” was recorded by The Drifters in May of 1960. Atlantic Records released as the b-side to the single “Nobody But Me.” Dick Clark played “Save…” on American Bandstand and a hit was born. In October of 1960, the song went to #1 on the Billboard Hot 100, where it spent three weeks.

Pomus died in 1991, but his legacy lives on with his collection of great songs. Here are twenty of them.


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It’s Paula Abdul’s Birthday And I Need To Dance!

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I was in my convertible car with my then-friend Victor, sitting in traffic on La Cienega Boulevard just below Sunset. It was late afternoon or evening a few months after I moved to Los Angeles. A convertible containing two young ladies pulled out of a parking garage onto La Cienega. They stopped next to us. One of the women excitedly told us “The lakers won!”

Victor and I looked at the lass and then each other. Neither of us knew to what she was referring. What is a laker? Someone who works on a lake, obviously, but what do they do on/to the lake? Was there an ongoing lake workers’ strike that finally ended when their greedy overlords caved in to their demands? Did the lake workers pool their money to buy Powerball tickets and succeed in matching each number? Who are these lakers, what did they win, and how does this benefit Victor and me?

That we didn’t respond quickly and with equal enthusiasm upset the woman who shared with us this news. “I was going to tell you guys you’re cute, but I changed my mind.” Oh, darn. The traffic moved and off we went. I made a left on Sunset; the woman went right.

Victor and I went for chocolate malts at Mel’s Drive-In, where we learned that the Lakers are a local basketball team. Oh, those Lakers! I heard of them. They gave us Paula Abdul. She was an LA Lakers cheerleader before she became a well-known choreographer/”singer”/reality show judge. If only those ladies said to Victor and me “The basketball team for which Paula Abdul was a cheerleader in the early eighties won a game today,” they may have gotten lucky with two cute guys.

Today Paula Abdul turns 53 years old. We kick off our weekly dance party with “Straight Up.”


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It’s Robyn’s Birthday And I Need To Dance!

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Another New York Moment

    In those halcyon days before we thought about skin cancer, when David Dinkins was the mayor of New York City, Kathy and I would go to Central Park to tan. Usually we spread our towels on Sheep Meadow, among our fellow Manhattan sun worshippers, who were not sheep, at least not genealogically.

    One time Sheep Meadow was closed off, so we went to a nearby field to lay out. It was a smaller area, with only a handful of folks taking in the rays. Shortly after we covered ourselves in suntan oil, Kathy and I independently simultaneously peripherally noticed some motion nearby. A gender-discordant couple was enjoying each other’s company. Not in the same way Kathy and I were enjoying each other’s company. Their way was under a thin ratty blanket and involved thrusting. Looking around we saw that our fellow tanners saw what was happening and looked around at all the tanners to confirm their eyes were not deceiving them. It being New York City, nobody bothered them. Not the people there to tan, not the parents walking with their children along the path a few feet from the fornicators, not the NYPD. Live and let live. That’s how we did it in New York.

    They finished their activity and cleaned themselves up with the paper towels they had the foresight to bring with them. These were not amateurs. They were prepared. He probably was a boy scout many many years earlier.

    That was all well and good. However, a half hour later they started at it again. One time, no problem, but a second time? Now that’s rude! Nobody likes a show-off.

    “I’m near the meadow watching you boink her, oh ooh oh.” I didn’t write a song with that lyric that day, but let’s pretend I did, if only to make this segue less awkward.

    In 2010, Swedish singer Robyn released “Dancing on My Own,” which included the lyric “I’m in the corner watching you kiss her, oh ooh oh.” Her song was not about coitus in a Manhattan park. In the song she is stalking her ex, something I don’t recommend doing unless it’s on-line.

    Today Robyn turns 36 years old. As Friday is dance day at Tunes du Jour, we’ll pepper our playlist with some of Robyn’s best, starting with “Dancing on My Own.” Everybody get down (though if you’re in a public park, get down only once per 24-hour period)!


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