Brookswords

Say It Ain't So, NPR ?!?!

For years--decades, actually--I have relied on NPR is the coolly steady news source, giving me the  fleshed-out versions of stories that other media outlets skim over.  But now they do a report on something I already know something about--and they get it wrong! 

The field trip that the Phil Spector jury took to Spector's Alhambra mansion prompted an NPR report on the trial--the first I've heard from a source that usually avoids the tabloid side of the aisle.  Tabloid or not--ok, maybe because it's tabloid--I've been following this music/murder noir saga pretty closely.  One creepy high (low?) light was the blood spatter expert who described routinely cutting himself and putting his own blood in his mouth to conduct experiments.  And of course, there's Spector himself, glaring out from under wigs of various shades of blond and brown.

So I was surprised & disappointed this morning to hear a brief summary of the trial so far, one that totally bought into the defense vision of Lana Clarkson as a suicidal loser.  But that wasn't all.  As an example of Spector's musical gifts they pulled out two clunkers.  First, they played a bit of...'Leader of the Pack'!?!  Spector had nothing to do with that--it was produced by George 'Shadow' Morton!  Then they ended the piece by playing his string-drenched version of  the Beatles' 'The Long and Winding Road'.  Yet a few years back NPR itself celebrated the release of 'Let It Be--Naked', after that album was finally freed from Spector's over-production.  And Paul McCartney even cited Spector's botched job on 'Road' in court, as part of his argument to legally dissolve the Beatles!

Looks like I'll have to rethink the 10,000 or so stories I've heard on NPR...

Back to Black

Amy Winehouse has a strong bond to '60's  girl group music--after her boyfriend left her, she spent all her time drinking & listening to the Shangri-Las, finally stopping to make Back to Black.  Her fashion sense is also apparently strongly influenced by the beehive hairdos & ostentatious eye makeup of  The Ronettes (who I've written about  here).  As described in a recent article in the LA Times:

Though her lofty beehive and Cleopatra-style eyeliner seem lifted straight out of the booklet for a Ronettes boxed set, she doesn't relate to her favorite music as history. The songs on "Back to Black" emerged after her first serious love affair exploded, and she found only one soundtrack to get her through it.  "I know there are people in the world who have worse problems than falling in love and having it blow up in your face," she said. "But I didn't want to just wake up drinking, and crying, and listening to Shangri-Las, and go to sleep, and wake up drinking, and listening to the Shangri-Las. So I turned it into songs, and that's how I got through it."

Here's Amy singing the title song, followed by The Shangri-Las' equally ominous 'Remember (Walking in the Sand)'.