As I write, Bad Meets Evil is playing in the background. Since Royce Da 5'9" is sharing lead with Eminem, it is a sound thatos making it difficult for me to concentrate on writing. "The Reunion" has Royce leading the rap, but Eminem taking over the chorus and Eminem is such a distinctive rapper, your ears are attuned to his voice: when you hear him, you stop in your tracks. And so much of this is nursery rhymes. It's like a secret, the secret of this nasty piece work is they are still adolescents; I don't dislike it but I don't hate it. It's better than "Lighters"
There is something faintly ridiculous about writing about music. Music may matter or it may not, but writing about music is meaningless as such. It is one of the best things about working rock nyc, it is fun to consider what you do irrelevant, which kinda makes sense, but also unread, so you can write anything. For example: "There once was a boy, a very strange enchanted boy…" Now then, what reason is there to quote Eden Ahbez?
A few: 1) You're not reading so who cares about the segue? 2) I loved Nat King Cole and 2) Eden Ahbez? What a scary bloke he was? He used to travel the countryside at one with nature. This was pre-hippies but Eden was an absolute beginner with all that.
Eden was living under the "L" of the HOLLYWOOD sign when Nat King Cole tracked him down and got him to sign a release. NKG had a huge hit with "Nature Boy" -#1 in 1948. Cole had received the sheet music from his manager who got from Ahbez who was sicced on him by a local DJ.
I would have loved to have been at that meeting and anyway, when you hear "Nature Boy" you can't help but think only a very strange andenchanted boy wrote it. I thought the song referred to Jesus, of course. But maybe Eden was referring to himself.
NKG was a strange and enchanted guy himself. He was so schizophrenic. On the TV show, he was the gentle face of black America. Even Sam Cooke was rough around the edges in comparison. A couple of months ago I compared the president to Sam Cooke. And maybe so. But with more then a passing expression of NKG.
NKG looked like he was a threat to know one so in the deeply segregated in racist US of the mid 20th century, he was allowed to sleep through the servants entrance.
But if you ever listen to the Nat King Cole Trio, you quickly realize that the jazz great was not simply a pop singer, a pop performer, he was also a serious artist. He invented the jazz trio -piano, guitar, and bass -as opposed to drums, as we know it.
Why am I telling you this…I'm not… you're not here.