TO KNOW HIM IS TO LOVE HIM

It was 1958 and popular that year was To Know Him Is to Love Him, by the Teddy Bears. I bring this subject on this Sunday because my freshman college roommate said: This is all about God.

While that option was only a remote possibility to me at that time, I re-thought this potential when I woke up to view on Music Choice this song. So what are the alternatives?

Your father.
A pet.
God.
A dog.
Someone you like.

So I went to Wikipedia, and saw that the song was written by Phil Spector...THE infamous Phil Spector (left, also bottom left in above photo and playing guitar in the You Tube song), who I'll delve into a bit later. He said the words were on his father's tombstone: To have known him was to have loved him. Well, I guess that answers the question. Then again, maybe not.

Spector further said that, for the music, he slowed-down the 1926 When the Red, Red Robin (Comes Bob, Bobbin' Along), first made popular by Al Jolson. Written that year by Harry Woods, this became the signature song for singer/actress Lillian Roth. Big hit, for Whispering Jack Smith and Paul Whiteman also were recognized in 1926 for their releases.

The Teddy Bears were classmates at Fairfax High School in Los Angeles, and were mostly conformed of Spector (his only singing group), Marshall Leib and lead singer Annette Kleinbard. In 1958 at the cost of $75 they recorded and release the song in 1958, becoming a global hit, nationally occupying #1 for three weeks. Thus, at the age of 19, Spector had written, arranged, played, sung and produced the best-selling record in the country.

Kleinbard became songwriter Carol Connors, and among one of her hits was the Rocky theme, Gonna Fly Now. Leib joined the Hollywood Argyles, which had a 1960 hit Alley Oop, about a really cool dina-sawa.

Phil Spector had a tortured life. He created The Wall of Sound, worked with the Beatles, had two wives and five children, was convicted of murder and died in prison last year of COVID-19.

So returning to To Know Him is to Love Him, Spector named the group the Teddy Bears after an Elvis song. Took them 20 minutes on two takes to make the record. Said he, learned a lot about the industry from this song:

$3000.
The importance of payola.
A lot about the Mafia.

In 1987 Dolly Parton, Emmylou Harris and Linda Ronstadt, in a music video of To Know Him is to Love Him, directed by George Lucas (creator of Star Wars, who was at time dating Ronstadt) reached #1 on the Country chart. They won a Grammy for that song in 1988. This song (although it does have dog in the video) further confirmed that the popular meaning was not about God or a pet or your father, but a lover.

Remember Hurricane Agatha last week as the strongest May ocean storm ever in the East Pacific? Well, the eye kept tracking east across Mexico and is now Tropical Storm Alex in the Atlantic, and could well still become a hurricane.

A NEXT COVID SUBVARIANT?

By now most know that the Omicron BA.5 subvariant has become the dominant infectious agent, now accounting for more than 80% of all COVID-19 cases. Very few are aware that a new one, BA.4.6, is sneaking in and steadily rising, now accounting for 13% of sequenced samples . However, as BA.4.6 has emerged from BA.4, while there is uncertainty, the scientific sense is that the latest bivalent booster targeting BA.4 and BA.5 should also be effective for this next threat. One concern is that Evusheld--the only monoclonal antibody authorized for COVID prevention in immunocompromised individuals--is not effective against BA.4.6. Here is a reference as to what this means. A series of two injections is involved. Evusheld was developed by British-Swedish company AstraZeneca, and is a t ixagevimab co-packaged with cilgavimab . More recently, Los Angeles County reported on subvariant BA.2.75.2 . which Tony Fauci termed suspicious and troublesome. This strain has also been spreading in

Part 3: OUR NEXT AROUND THE WORLD ODYSSEY

Before I get into my third, and final, part of this cruise series, let me start with some more newsworthy topics. Thursday was my pandemic day for years. Thus, every so often I return to bring you up to date on the latest developments. All these subvariants derived from that Omicron variant, and each quickly became dominant, with slightly different symptoms. One of these will shock you. There has been a significant decline in the lost of taste and smell. From two-thirds of early patients to now only 10-20% show these symptoms. JN.1, now the dominant subvariant, results in mostly mild symptoms. However, once JN.1 infects some, there seem to be longer-lasting symptoms. Clearly, the latest booster helps prevent contracting Covid. A competing subvariant, BA.2.86, also known as Pirola , a month ago made a run, but JN.1 prevailed. No variant in particular, but research has shown that some of you will begin to lose hair for several months. This is caused by stress more than anythi

HONOLULU TO SEATTLE

The story of the day is Hurricane Milton, now a Category 4 at 145 MPH, with a track that has moved further south and the eye projected to make landfall just south of Sarasota. Good news for Tampa, which is 73 miles north. Milton will crash into Florida as a Category 4, and is huge, so a lot of problems can still be expected in Tampa Bay with storm surge. If the eye had crossed into the state just north of Tampa, the damage would have been catastrophic. Milton is a fast-moving storm, currently at 17 MPH, so as bad as the rainfall will be over Florida, again, a blessing. The eye will make landfall around 10PM EDT today, and will move into the Atlantic Ocean north of Palm Bay Thursday morning. My first trip to Seattle was in June of 1962 just after I graduated from Stanford University. Caught a bus. Was called the Century 21 Exposition . Also the Seattle World's Fair. 10 million joined me on a six-month run. My first. These are held every five years, and there have only been

Search This Blog