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Thursday, September 11, 2014

Artists Still Entertaining, Teaching from the Grave - Steve Allen, Frank Zappa

 


It's not really fair to save 'from the Grave' as many artists who have 'passed over' are stilll quite vibrant and we haven't seen much of their production... and probably could never watch and hear all of it...

Take Steve Allen and Frank Zappa, for example. Two rather disparate artists, yet with music in common. Zappa gets a full 16 minutes on Allen's  show in this March, 1963 episode.  It comes to life as much or more than anything today, much like Letterman's old 'tiicks' only Allen is much better as straight man and the subjects more interesting... as you will see here... We get to see a bit of  a budding genius of then 'songwriter' Frank Zappa, fresh off  his writing of the great doowop song, Memories of ElMonte, and, of course, Steve Allen, many of many talents, who would write over 1,000 songs, himself. Enjoy as the past is alive today!





















Frank Zappa was still a teenager when he wrote this truly great doowop 'memory' song
recalling 'those old dances' at El Monte legion Stadium from  the doo wop era.  Zappa was barely old enough to remember 'those 'the old dances' yet his sensitivity and superior writing produced this early
Zappa songwriting gem, a far cry from the Mothers of Invention.

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