A Half Trip Down Memory Lane With Johnny Mathis

When I saw that Johnny Mathis would be playing at my university this spring an involuntary and tender "Aw-w-w" escaped from my lips and I immediately marked the date in my calendar. How many nights in my adolescent years did I listen to his LPs while lying on my bed daydreaming about one boy or another?? Johnny Mathis!! King of the romantic, old school ballad. So many great songs! I couldn't wait.

The sold-out concert was Sunday night. Johnny still looks good, still has that silky smooth voice and I could mouth every lyric of songs I had not heard in decades: Chances Are, Embraceable You, Its Not For Me to Say, Misty, Almost Like Being in Love.... Sadly Mother Nature did not cooperate. The previous Friday I had come down with a nasty flu-like bug and had been miserable sneezing, coughing and feeling feverish. My fever broke on Sunday and I felt slightly better, so I drugged up on cold meds and hoped for the best. But as the show went on I could feel a coughing jag about to come on as my breath rasped in my congested lungs. I was mid-row so wouldn't be able to dash out if I started to disrupt a sentimental song. So at intermission I had to leave even though I knew there were great songs yet to come. Although my voice was barely a croak, as I was leaving I was singing in my head "Look at me, I'm as helpless as a kitten up a tree....". To bad it was due to the flu rather than falling in love.

Last weekend my university hosted a Bob Dylan concert as part of Homecoming Weekend. It was held in our fairly new basketball arena - a nice smaller venue seating about 5000 with much better acoustics than the football dome. The concert looked to be almost a sell-out with just a few upper bleacher seats empty.

There was no opening act for this show - Dylan and his band simply strolled out at the appointed time and went right into Rainy Day Women followed by one of my favorites, Don't Think Twice and Just Like a Woman. Bob's voice as he sings (or should it be as he speaks) his lyrics as only gotten more "Bob" over the years! He is sounding a bit like Jimmy Durante! Between my older ears and his older voice, sometimes it was hard to tell which song was being performed until I caught a bit of lyric. I'm afraid for this reason some of his new numbers were lost on me - maybe the folks in the front rows could understand him, but I needed subtitles!

But it was great to re-experience the songs of my youth and look around at all the others likewise re-living earlier days! 

Bob wore a rather formal long-jacketed suit (maybe a tux since the pants had a satin stripe down the legs) and wide-brim white hat. I was pleased that Dylan moved around more than the last time I saw him perform. In Omaha he stayed behind his keyboard almost the entire night and never looked at or said a word to the audience. Here in Iowa he regularly moved between the keyboard and playing his guitar or his harmonica. He interacted with his lead guitarist and did actually look out at and gesture to the audience - about as expressive as he seems to get!  Don't think twice - it was alright Bob!

Unfortunately Columbia Records sent out their "Web Sheriff" and asked (very nicely) that I remove my YouTube videos from the show. Gosh, that is just not the Bob Dylan we used to know, is it?? The clips are too long to post here so I just have to settle for a couple quick ones.

Had a Blast With a Blast From the Past: The Temptations and Four Tops

This week  the Temptations and the Four Tops put on a show at the performing arts center on my campus. I had bought tickets as soon as they were available because their music brings on such nostalgia for me. I thought hubby would be able to go, but once again he was off on a business trip, so my BFF Joan joined me for a fun Motown evening.

I played Temptations and Four Tops music before all of my classes this week. Many of these 'youngsters' were not familiar with these classic songs from my youth (big sigh). It was a sold-out show at the Gallagher-Bluedorn PAC, but not too many in the crowd were college students.

Only a couple original members of these groups are still alive and performing, but the replacement members, including a "son of a Top", stay true to the music and style of the originals and recognize the departed members during the show. Both groups kept us rocking, singing and laughing, so if you have such an opportunity, be sure to say "I'll be there!"

Temptations - Papa Was a Rolling Stone

Temptations - My Girl

Four Tops - Reach Out

Four Tops - Baby I Need Your Lovin

Blown Away

I did start typing an Omaha review in the car on the way home, but this is what we found when we arrived back in Cedar Falls. Huge oak trees had been ripped right out of the ground on either side of our driveway, one crushing my daughter's car and completely blocking the drive. Many many other trees and limbs down throughout our neighborhood - they had to bulldoze through some streets to clear them of branchs. They are not calling the storm a tornado but the winds tore a 30 foot swath through the woods in back of our house so it looks almost like that strip was clear cut. Our grass is all blown flat and shredded leaves are plastered to all the white woodwork and garage doors of our house. So it is quite a mess, but luckily no one was hurt and the house was not damaged. It will be weeks before all the trees will be cut up and removed, I'm sure.