And So It Goes: The Extraordinary Billy Joel Documentary

My wife and I saw the second part of the extraordinary Billy Joel documentary last night, after seeing the first part last week.  I've been a big fan of Billy Joel since "Piano Man".  I thought and still think "Only the Good Die Young" was a masterpiece song, same for "Say Goodbye to Hollywood," and same for "Uptown Girl" which also has a masterpiece video.  In fact, I can't really think of any Billy Joel recording I don't like, and the same only applies only to a dozen or so other artists beginning with The Beatles.

But as to his life, the person who wrote and recorded all those great songs, I never knew too much.  I knew of course he'd been married to Christie Brinkley.  I knew he'd been touring for a while with Elton John -- another piano man -- but that ended on an acrimonious note (they later reconciled).  I heard him a few times on The Beatles Channel on Sirius/XM Radio -- talking about The Beatles and playing their records -- and I knew about his recent long run in Madison Square Garden.  My wife and I were going to a lot of concerts prior to COVID, and I had in my mind that we should go so see Billy Joel, but that didn't (yet) happen.

But I didn't know much about his personal life, and how that related to his music, and And So It Goes -- directed by Susan Lacy and Jessica Levin -- does a brilliant job of telling that true story.  Here are some of my takeaways (in no order of importance, because all are important):

• Billy Joel found writing lyrics somewhat of a burden.  Given that his lyrics were uniquely descriptive, setting scenes and telling stories that seemed to splash out as naturally as the rain, I (as a songwriter as well as a fan) found that especially interesting.
• Billy Joel's manager, his one-time brother-in-law, robbed him of millions of dollars.  As is clear in this documentary, Joel, in addition to being incredibly talented, is also highly intelligent, so I found that surprising as well.  It's well known that doo-wop groups were regularly robbed of their royalties by record companies in the 1950s, but Joel's misfortunates happened 50 years later.
• Billy Joel always loved classical music. (His father, who abandoned his family when Billy was a boy, was a classically trained pianist.)  I knew, of course, that Jeff Lynne and ELO did/do, but Billy Joel always seemed firmly rooted in rock 'n' roll.
• Billy Joel has always been quick to denounce his tone-deaf critics in the media.  Good for him.
• Billy Joel was spoken for in the documentary by a cavalcade of musical stars that lit up the screen:  Paul McCartney (who said Billy's "I Love You Just the Way You Are" was his answer when he was asked which song did he wish that he had written), Bruce Springsteen, Jackson Browne, Don Henley, Garth Brooks, Nas,  Sting, and Pink)
• Billy Joel has been beset by demons all of his life -- which makes his extraordinary accomplishments even more impressive.

All too often, these kinds of eye-opening, definitive documentaries happen after the subject is no longer with us.  Good for Billy Joel for giving that to us now.  His active participation in And So It Goes is itself a testament to what mind-blowing talent he has.

Creds to HBO for putting this on!  As I my wife mentioned, this is the second great documentary on HBO this summer, after My Mom Jayne.

The Greatest Night in Pop: The Making of 'We Are the World'

There's almost nothing as satisfying on the screen as seeing a documentary that shows you how something else you saw and on the screen and loved was put together.  The Greatest Night in Pop does that with the 1985 video and recording, "We Are the World".  In part because our family was just getting started, in part because we cared about feeding people in need of food, in part because we were fans of so many of the artists who made that music, the video has been among my wife's and my favorites since the day we first saw it in March 1985.  It still brings tears to our eyes.  As did The Greatest Night in Pop documentary, many times.

As we were watching it on Netflix the other night, I realized what an important kind of new video and recording the 1985 performance brought into being.  Not a concert of great artists, but a single song performed by great artists.  The performance of George Harrison's "As My Guitar Gently Weeps" in the 2004 Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame inductions with Tom Petty, Stevie Winwood, and Prince (who delivers the best guitar playing I've ever seen) is even better than the Beatles' original recording, and owes a debt of gratitude to the way "We Are the World" brought together more than two score of artists nearly two decades earlier to make such eternal music.

Prince didn't make it to that recording, though he was very much desired, and The Greatest Night in Pop tells us at least a part of that story.  It also shows how Dylan, not really getting how he fit in the recording, sung his part perfectly after Stevie Wonder did a good mimic of Dylan singing like Dylan had in his heyday in the 1960s.  Cyndi Lauper, understandably nervous in the company of such greats, belts out a great line and ends with a "yeah, yeah, yeah".  She wonders if that was ok and is assured by Quincy Jones that it was just right.  The key of the song was of course right for some of the singers but not for everyone.  Bruce Springsteen, coming to the recording session with a hoarse voice just after a tour, sounds like he has "broken glass" in his throat, as someone remarks.  But it's just right for the subject of the recording.  Michael Jackson, who co-wrote the song with Lionel Richie, wants to add a "sha-la-la" to the chorus.  Smokey Robinson tells us in current time, when the documentary was recorded, how he had lots of experience working with Michael Jackson at Motown, and we see him walk up to Jackson in the "We Are the World" recording studio and talk him out of the "sha-la-la".  Diana Ross says how much she loved Daryl Hall's singing.  Who knew?

The Greatest Night in Pop is a treasure-trove of such nuggets of musical history.  I expect my wife and I will be watching it a lot more than once.

The Good Wife 5.11: Bowling Balls and Bogdanovich

What do bowling balls and Bogdanovich have in common?  They provided punchlines to two Good Wife stories tonight in episode 5.11.

The bowling balls knock down all the pins in a brand new story about copyright - in this case, of a recording - continuing The Good Wife's droll and savvy treatment of all things on the front burner of our information age.   Copyright is notoriously difficult to enforce, especially when it comes to musical performances.   But in a case in which two different bands record a version of someone else's song - whose copyright is fully acknowledged - and the second band's arrangement is exactly the same as the first band's, which in turn is noticeably different from the original band's, how do the artists in first cover proves that the artists in the second cover stole their arrangement?

See, it's complicated even to explain the issue.  In The Good Wife, it becomes another occasion for Will and Alicia to go at  it - in the courtroom and in Will's recollection of their first actual intimate event - but the case is won by Alicia's side because the second cover group not only copied the first cover group's arrangement, but literally used their track, as the presence of bowling ball sounds in the exact same places of both tracks conclusively shows.   The easy availability of videos any time you want to hear them is often cited as a reason copyright no longer works for music in our digital age.  But in this episode of The Good Wife, it becomes the creative artist's best friend against theft of intellectual property.

Bogdanovich offers a completely different kind of unexpected ending - in fact, a nice twist - to a story that's been percolating all season on The Good Wife.  Poor Eli has been worrying all season that Marilyn (played by Melissa George) is sleeping with Peter, or the two want to, or, when Marilyn reveals her pregnancy, that Peter is the father.  Tonight Eli's fears reach their apex as Marilyn reveals she wants to name the baby Peter, but cannot reveal who the father is.  Peter Bogdonavich comes to the rescue - the real Peter Bogdanivich, the director of The Last Picture Show, who steps up and takes credit for the fatherhood.

Another intersection of The Good Wife with the real world, and there'll be more next week, when some brand new Springsteen tracks will be played on a show in which another kind of video threatens Peter's career in a completely different way.  From bowling balls to the boss - not bad!

See also The Good Wife 5.1: Capital Punishment and Politicians' Daughters ... The Good Wife 5.5: The Villain in this Story ... The Good Wife 5.9: Reddit, Crowd Sourcing, and the First Amendment on Trial ... I Dreamt I Called Will Gardner Last Night

And see also The Good Wife 4.1 Meets Occupy Wall Street ...  The Good Wife 4.2: Reunited ... The Good Wife 4.3: "Template-Based Link Analysis Algorithm" ... The Good Wife 4.5 Meets The Sopranos ... The Good Wife 4.20: Anonymous ... The Good Wife Season 4 Finale: Good Twist!

And see also The Good Wife 3.1: Recusal and Rosh Hashanah ... The Good Wife: 3.2: Periwigs and Skype ... The Good Wife 3.7: Peter v. Will ...  Dexter's Sister on The Good Wife 3.10  ... The Good Wife 3.12: Two Suits  ... The Good Wife 3.13 Meets Murder on the Orient Express ... The Good Wife 3.15: Will and Baseball

And see also  The Good Wife Starts Second Season on CBS ... The Good Wife 2.2: Lou Dobbs, Joe Trippi, and Obama Girl ... The Good Wife 2.4: Surprise Candidate, Intimate Interpsonal Distance ... The Good Wife 2.9 Takes on Capital Punishment ... The Good Wife 2.16: Information Wars 

#SFWApro

Best Grammys Ever

I don't remember any Grammy Award ceremony being better than last night's - and I've been watching every one of them since the 1960s.

Any one of the following would have been enough to make last night's Grammys extraordinary -

• Paul McCartney's ending medley, joined about halfway by friends (including Joe Walsh and Bruce Springsteen), in full and fabulous form, leading right up to a great rendition of "The End"
• The Beach Boys's "Good Vibrations" - with Brian Wilson, Mike Love, Al Jardine, Bruce Johnson, and friends.  Like McCartney's medley, this is an intricate, complex song and arrangement, to say the least, and the Beachboys and friends performed it just beautifully and memorably.
• Glenn Campbell, also with a friends, in a poignant rendition of "Rhinestone Cowboy" - heartbreaking, really, since he's suffering from Alzheimer's (Tina and I met him once years ago, after a performance he and Tanya Tucker gave in the Catskills)
• Jennifer Hudson's powerful performance of Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You" (written by Dolly Parton) - a wonderful, also heartbreaking tribute to Whitney Houston
• Paul McCartney's "Valentine" - which sounds like the best song of this kind he's written since "Yesterday"
• Bruce Springsteen's opening "We Take Care of Our Own" - with Stevie, Max, and the E-Street Band.  Another blockbuster, which I hear tell has some Occupy Wall Street inspiration.

LL Cool J was also great as the host (I've gotten to know him on NCIS-LA).  It's taken half a century, but the Grammys finally got it right.

Fringe 3.8: The Long Voyages Home

Whew,  Fringe 3.8 came through with all the goods tonight, in a superb episode that fired on all cylinders and was just brimming with great touches, large and small.

Great alternate universe strokes.  My favorite were Springsteen Station for our Penn Station, Newark - hey, we ought to change the name of ours to theirs - and, along with the music, a version of late Roy Orbison's "You Got It," sung by either a different Big O, or a different singer with a Big O-like voice.  Evocative to hear in either case.   There was also a picture of aged JFK on Walternate's desk - gives me chills every time I see it.

Last week, our Olivia got a message to Peter in our universe, in bed with their Olivia (but thinking she was ours) - "I'm trapped on the other side."  Peter acts on that message tonight, tracking their Olivia - who quickly realizes Peter is on to her - and she tries to make it back home, too.   Peter thinks she can help in getting our Olivia home.

But our Olivia, still trapped on the other side, and now on the verge of being sliced and diced for their science, cannot get back home without the help of someone on the other side.  That would be alt-Broyles, who in the most emotional moments of the show, decides to help Olivia (he's primed to do that Olivia' helping his son, last week).

It turns out, in the end, that only one Broyles will survive, and I'll miss alt-Broyles - he was a more appealing character than our Broyles in some ways.

But a scene takes place in the Bronx - yay! - in an old typewriter shop which the "quantum entangled telegraph" (as Walter calls it), that is, a typewriter that types between universe, and you can't get much better than that in cool retro-science fiction, too!

And here's a little taste of Roy Orbison's You Got It ...

See also Fringe 3.1: The Other Olivia ... Fringe 3.2: Bad Olivia and Peter ... Fringe 3.3: Our/Their Olivia on the Other Side ... Fringe 3.5: Back from Hiatus, Back from the Amber ... Fringe 3.7: Two Universes Still Nearing Collision

See also reviews of Season 2: Top Notch Return of Fringe Second Season ... Fringe 2.2 and The Mole People ... Fringe 2.3 and the Human Body as Bomb ... Fringe 2.4 Unfolds and Takes Wing ... Fringe 2.5: Peter in Alternate Reality and Wi-Fi for the Mind ... A Different Stripe of Fringe in 2.6 ... The Kid Who Changed Minds in Fringe 2.7 ... Fringe 2.8: The Eternal Bald Observers ... Fringe 2.9: Walter's Journey ... Fringe 2.10: Walter's Brain, Harry Potter, and Flowers for Algernon ...  New Fringe on Monday Night: In Alternate Universe? ... Fringe 2.12: Classic Science Fiction Chiante ... Fringe 2.13: "I Can't Let Peter Die Again" ... Fringe 2.14: Walter's Health, Books, and Father ... Fringe 2.15: I'll Take 'Manhatan' ... Fringe 2.16: Peter's Story ... Fringe 2.17: Will Olivia Tell Peter? ... Fringe 2.18: Strangeness on a Train ... Fringe 2.19: Two Plus Infinity ... Fringe the Noir Musical ... Fringe 2.21: Bring on the Alternates ... Fringe 2.22:  Tin Soldiers and Nixon Coming ... Fringe Season 2 Finale: The Switch

See also reviews of Season One Fringe Begins ... Fringe 2 and 3: The Anthology Tightrope ... 4: The Eternal Bald Observer ... 7: A Bullet Can Scramble a Dead Brain's Transmission ... 8. Heroic Walter and Apple Through Steel ... 9. Razor-Tipped Butterflies of the Mind ... 10. Shattered Pieces Come Together Through Space and Times ... 11. A Traitor, a Crimimal, and a Lunatic ... 12, 13, 14: Fringe and Teleportation ... 15: Fringe is Back with Feral Child, Pheromones, and Bald Men ... 17. Fringe in New York, with Oliva as Her Suspect ... 18. Heroes and Villains across Fringe ... Stephen King, Arthur C. Clarke, and Star Trek in Penultimate Fringe ... Fringe Alternate Reality Finale: Science Fiction At Its Best

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The Plot to Save Socrates


"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book

Concert for Obama at Lincoln Memorial: Highlights

As good as Obama's speech was at the Lincoln Memorial Concert for him this afternoon, for once it was perhaps not the most inspiring part of the event.

Here are some contenders -

.Pete Seeger, 89, leading a performance of "This Land is Your Land," belted out by his grandson Tao (powerful voice, sounding just like Seeger in his prime), and Bruce Springsteen.

.The Boss's "The Rising," which started the concert, was also exceptional.

.There were some great clips from the past - FDR and JFK's inaugurals were inspiring to see. But most inspiring of all was Marian Anderson's 1939 performance at the Lincoln Memorial, after being banned from another Washington concert by the racist, regressive Daughters of the American Revolution. Eleanor Roosevelt, First Lady, arranged for Anderson's performance.

.James Taylor's "Shower the People" with John Legend and Jennifer Nettles was just outstanding.

.So was John Mellencammp's "Pink Houses".

.And Beyonce's "America the Beautiful".

.And Herbie Hancock, Will.i.am, and Sheryl Crow's "One Love" would have made Bob Marley proud.

It was hard not to have a lump in your throat and a tear in your eye during this extraordinary event, and I did. We're close to completing what Abraham Lincoln started and Martin Luther King, Jr. furthered, and that feels good and right indeed.