Video of the Day: Orleans’ ‘Love Takes Time,’ Live, 2013

Others may prefer “Dance With Me” or “Still the One,” but my favorite among the pop band Orleans’ trio of mid-Seventies hits was "Love Takes Time." A fine concert 1991 version in Japan, with keyboardist Larry Hoppen on lead vocal, exists on YouTube. 

But I’ve come around to thinking that this 2013 performance by the group at the Perkins School for the Blind’s “Possibilities Gala” is particularly special. The suicide of Hoppen the year before had, by the time of this appearance, deprived the group of its soaring tenor voice. 

But John Castillo, a powerful sight-impaired alum from the Perkins School, who comes in toward the end of the first verse, fills in admirably; the Perkins Secondary Chorus blends their harmonies smoothly with the group; and the violinist supplies textures that even the original single did not possess. 

I do not know how long it took for Orleans and the Perkins School musicians to rehearse, but the final performance is one of wonder and exhilaration.

Video of the Day: Lombardi’s ‘Ice Bowl,’ on Its 50th Anniversary

I didn’t have the chance to see the TV documentary “Vince Lombardi: A Football Life” when it first aired—much to my regret, as I would have liked to see how it depicted the influence of my alma mater, St. Cecilia High School of Englewood, NJ, where he began his coaching career.

But, in researching the episode of his pro career that fascinates me the most—his leadership of the Green Bay Packers in its last NFL championship during his years there—I came across this vivid 10-minute YouTube segment from the documentary, on his “Ice Bowl” victory over the Dallas Cowboys, which occurred 50 years ago today. 

Interviews with son Vince Lombardi Jr., lineman Jerry Kramer and quarterback Bart Starr (the last two instrumental in the win) add personal behind-the-scene perspectives on this epic game. Game-day conditions (15 degrees below zero, (-35 degrees wind-chill factor) made a hash of the coach’s high-tech attempt to keep the turf easy to run upon, leading to something close to a fight for survival between the upstart, dynasty-in-the-making Cowboys and the aging but proud Packers.

On the coldest day to that point in NFL playoff history, the Pack launched its final drive with 4½ minutes to go. The winning play, on third down, with 16 seconds to go, represented “the culmination of everything Lombardi and his Packers had been preparing for for the last nine years,” according to Lombardi biographer David Maraniss.

I recommend Maraniss’ superb account of the coach’s life, WHEN PRIDE STILL MATTERED, for additional colorful details on this climax of Lombardi’s career. (For instance, Frank Gifford, broadcasting the game, told listeners: “I just took a bite out of my coffee.")

Video of the Day: Art Garfunkel, ‘All I Know’ Live—on the Sublime Singer’s 76th Birthday

CBS Sunday Morning featured a segment on Art Garfunkel today. The timing could hardly seem better: not only in support of his new memoir, What Is It All but Luminous: Notes from an Underground Man, but also right on his 76^th birthday. (He was born in Forest Hills, Queens, for those who don't know.)

As I listened to CBS’ Rita Braver interview the pop legend, I felt a vague sense of familiar unease when Garfunkel explained the motivation for his retrospective: “I suppose, if I examine my inner mind, I would say, 'Time to come out of the shadow of Paul Simon and establish yourself as a thinking artist who can sing.' I know myself to be a creative guy, and I think my profile out in show business is 'the guy over Paul Simon's right shoulder.'... I thought I was playing it too deferential to Paul."

My disquiet turned into an old sinking feeling as I heard Garfunkel acknowledge, late in the interview, that he and his onetime partner were at "one of their low points." (There goes any joint concert appearance for a while!)

As sensitive about the value of his solo career as he is articulate about his influences (“When in the temple, it's got a high ceiling, it's got wood walls—these are great for a singer, 'cause I thrive on the reverb”), Garfunkel craves affirmation of his work apart from What’s-His-Name. I, for one, don’t mind in the least providing that.

In mulling over which of his solo performances to highlight, I thought of a heart-rending mid-Seventies work, “Second Avenue.” I also carefully considered a comparative rarity, his theme sung over the opening credits to Gary David Goldberg’s gone-way-too-song comic valentine to his Fifties childhood, “Brooklyn Bridge.” (Oh, heck: just click on this YouTube link and see if you don’t get a lump in your throat as you listen to him warble the nostalgic lyrics by Alan and Marilyn Bergman about “that place just over the Brooklyn Bridge/It’ll always be home to me.”)

But ultimately, I selected the biggest hit from his first post-Simon release, Angel Clare (1972), a cover of Jimmy Webb’s “All I Know.” Recorded live in 1996, this performance on YouTube is not only one of the best renditions of a seminal tune by one of my favorite pop singer-songwriters, but also gains vibrancy from its setting: Ellis Island, as special to Garfunkel as to those of us who grew up loving his angelic voice, a sacred place not unlike the temple where he first became aware of his God-given vocal gifts.

Video of the Day: George Harrison, ‘Absolutely Sweet Marie,’ From the ‘Bobfest’

At Madison Square Garden 25 years ago today, a galaxy of rock ‘n’ roll, rhythm and blues, country, and folk music stars gathered for what one of them, Neil Young, termed “The Bobfest”—a tribute to Bob Dylan on the 30^th anniversary of his recording career.

While the most unusual performers might have been The Clancy Brothers, Tommy Makem, and Robbie O'Connell on  "When the Ship Comes In" (“Hello, you never thought you'd hear Dylan with an Irish accent, did you?” they joked) and the most ferocious one Neil Young on "All Along the Watchtower," my favorite was George Harrison, on “Absolutely Sweet Marie.” 

Sadly, this YouTube clip does not feature Chrissie Hynde’s ecstatic introduction of the “guitar hero” (“Let me give you a little clue: hallelujah, hare Krishna, yeah yeah yeah!”), because that was on his prior song at the show, “If Not for You.”

The ex-Beatle’s aversion to live performing had kept him off the stage for most of the last 18 years, and he had given what turned out to be his last full-length concert in the U.K. the prior spring, so it was natural that, even for a song he had recorded successfully yours ago like “If Not for You,” he might have played a big tentatively.

But “Absolutely Sweet Marie,” one of Dylan’s most humorous songs (“Well, anybody can be just like me, obviously/But then, now again, not too many can be like you, fortunately”), loosened Harrison up considerably, and I can swear he’s having fun with Dylan’s—how shall I say it?—distinctive emphases of words (“all these promises you left for me”). (Harrison, reputedly “the quiet Beatle,” may also have been the one with the slyest sense of humor.)

It’s easy to overlook “Absolutely Sweet Marie” on the teeming double-album Dylan masterpiece Blonde on Blonde, which made all the more welcome Harrison’s spotlight on the tune. It’s impossible not to get caught up in Harrison’s infectious appreciation of the tune. Certainly G.E. Smith, the musical director of the show, did, as he unleashed a fun guitar solo, trading licks with one of the rock ‘n’ roll masters of the instrument.

I’m not sure why Harrison wore this violet jacket during his appearance. If it was meant to attract attention, it was unnecessary. His terrific performance took care of that, with no other visual aids needed.

Video of the Day: David Bowie, ‘Wild Is The Wind’ (Live)

For the longest time, I had never even heard of this song, in any of its incarnations. I was led to it by a newspaper feature I try never to miss: The Financial Times’ “The Life of a Song” column in its weekend edition, which, several months ago, told of the tune’s prosaic genesis—the theme of a 1950s Western starring Anthony Quinn.

Johnny Mathis’ 1957 version did little to make listeners think of “Wild is the Wind” as much more than rather soporific film music. It was Nina Simone’s 1964 cover, complete with thunderous piano and lengthened to an electrifying seven minutes at Carnegie Hall, that turned the song inside out. It was this latter version that fired the imagination of David Bowie and lured him to follow its lead.

The British rocker first tried his hand at the Dimitri Tiomkin-Ned Washington song on his 1976 LP, Station to Station. It had, he told Rolling Stone interviewer (and future filmmaker) Cameron Crowe, “a good European feel.” But its appreciation by an unlikely visitor to his recording session, Frank Sinatra, surely didn’t hurt its final inclusion on the album.

Thirty years later, Bowie was still at it, in this YouTube clip. His rendition of the song’s life-on-the-line lyrics (“With your kiss my life begins”) gains even more in poignancy when it’s recalled that he performed it last at a private AIDS benefit in New York in November 2006—hauntingly, his final public performance. It was so appropriate: In this impassioned rendition, he holds nothing back.