a month of Sundays meets Musical Mondays

Sigh. My “heart” and “mind” just isn’t into much; weeks drag yet Sunday is always yesterday. So, I scrambled yesterday to find a theme to my month of Sundays post other than born on. Now it’s Monday, with means music.

So, here is a very selective born on featuring musicians (and music artist) which fit into both “days”. Warning, not in chronological order!

October 10

David Lee Roth, American rock singer (Van Halen) born in Bloomington, Indiana, in 1954.

There is something about a rocker from Van Halen doing a stylized “Just a Gigolo” (along with “I Ain’t Got Nobody”) in a satirical music video which continues to appeal. Van Halen’s and Roth’s music videos are some of the earliest I remember watching. Can you catch all the other musicians videos being satirized?

(For a fun re-imagining of music videos, here is an example from the Frantics/Four on the Floor a comedy show from 1986 on CBC tv in Canada)

Added bonus: full 1st episode (Remember, it’s the mid-1980s, not every skit holds up . . )

Alan Cartwright, bass player, Procol Harum is born in London, England, in 1945.

“Whiter Shade of Pale” dates from 1969; it came on my radar much later (as book end to “Black Room with White Curtains, for reasons I don’t really remember). But it’s always shown up at a point in my life either when I’m contemplating a major change or the song augers one. My AI Youtube feed slipped it in the other day . . .

Jerry LaCroix (vocalists/saxophonist for Edgar Whiter’s White Trash) is born in Alexandria, Louisiana, in 1945.

I saw Edgar, Johnny Winter’s younger brother, in concert during my “hockey arena concert years” which means I remember very little of the show – just a couple of screenshot-stage images, snippets of crowd noise and music, some bizarre pre- and post-concert escapades. (A: you seem to remember these details better than I do, lol). But I do remember “rocking out” to the album, and in particular “Keep Playing that Rock and Roll”:

Bonus: Edgar, Johnny and Jerry live version of “Tobacco Road”

John Prine, American singer-songwriter, born in Maywood, Illinois (d. 2020) in 1946.

Hard to choose one Prine tune, but like all my musical musings, nostalgia wins out. When his first album was released in the early 1970s, my musical tastes were eclectic (Alice Cooper to T Bone Walker). I really didn’t “discover” songs like “Illegal Smile” until a little over ten years later. (A: or am I misremembering our “karoking illegal smile?”) Song track to one magical, mystical early 1980s summer . . .

“Hello in There” is even more relevant 40 years on from that summer this fall . .

Stanley Mouse (aka Stanley Miller aka Mouse),  a psychedelic artist who created many iconic images, including Grateful Dead album covers, in Fresno, California in 1940.

I was never really a Dead Head, but I am fond of “Touch of Grey:” I wonder why . . .