As the Vietnam War escalated in the mid-1960s and more young men were drafted into the military, protest songs became more mainstream. Once a staple of folk music, like Phil Ochs’ I Ain’t Marching Anymore, anti-war songs like Barry McGuire’s Eve of Destruction now hit number one on the Billboard charts. The 1970 film Woodstock […]
Thanksgiving is immediately followed by a brutal month of Christmas music overload. They’re inescapable; every radio station, department store, and building lobby pummels us with treacly tunes of the season. So when a great song rises above the holiday hype, it deserves recognition. Such is the Drifters version of the yuletide classic White Christmas. Bing […]
ARTICLE AND PHOTOGRAPHS BY FRANK MASTROPOLO Though it ran for only one season, 1955-56, The Honeymooners remains one of the pivotal sitcoms in television history. Jackie Gleason played his most famous character — bus driver Ralph Kramden — who torments his long-suffering wife Alice (Audrey Meadows) with get-rich-quick schemes that never succeed. The Kramdens […]
One Toke Over the Line by folk rock duo Brewer & Shipley was released in 1970 in an atmosphere of anti-war demonstrations and crackdowns on drug users. The song would become Michael Brewer and Tom Shipley’s biggest hit; so big that it caught the attention of Vice President Spiro Agnew, who termed the song – […]
In the wake of Hurricane Sandy, here are 10 tips to help you survive a natural disaster that you won’t hear from local officials. 1. At the first sign of trouble, get to the liquor store before it closes. Stock up. You’ll prefer sitting in the dark drunk. 2. Next, clean out the local bodega […]
New York City’s small neighborhood groceries of the 1950s, while run by friendly shopkeepers named “Pop,” were cramped affairs with wilted vegetables, bruised fruit and dusty, dented canned foods. Though he had a good run, Pop couldn’t compete with the arrival of supermarkets from the suburbs – their brightly lit, expansive aisles brimming with choices. […]
Bruce Springsteen surprised fans in 2010 when he joined local band Timepiece at a Farmingdale, New Jersey club for a rousing rendition of Wilson Pickett’s Mustang Sally. Not that Bruce covering that song should be any great surprise: In the history of music has there been another song played more often by more bands (at […]
Since 1894, when Madonna was just a toddler, the U.S. has celebrated Labor Day – …a yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country. — U.S. Dept. of Labor Whatever. For the rest of us whose work ethic was learned from Maynard G. Krebs, Homer […]
