So as I was typing up my email to our governor, Comrade Cooper, begging official permission to be allowed to celebrate my “freedom” on the 4th, I was listening to the classical-music radio station as background, as is my usual wont. Amidst all the usual rah-rah 4th of July treacle and sludge, they aired a rendition of “Down In The Valley” for some reason—a lovely old tune, a real classic. And somehow, that in turn reminded me of an old Richard Pryor/Gene Wilder buddy flick called Stir Crazy, which at one point featured a beefy, intimidating cellmate of Our Heroes yclept Grossberger performing maybe the doggone prettiest version of the old chestnut I ever did hear:
Nice, eh? The guy who played Grossberger was a Dutch-American actor, wrestler, and opera singer who also held a BS in computer science named Erland Van Lindth De Jeude. He died, alas, in 1987 at a quite young age. Hats off to him for a real treat of a performance on this tune, anyway. Says something that it’s stuck with me all these years.
“I was listening to the classical-music radio station…”
Davidson? When my children were growing up it was the only station I allowed in the house. My attempt to have them learn something about music, which worked. Well, something did. I’m musically an illiterate but the children are not.
Yup, good ol’ WDAV it is. Since I can’t get my phone to Bluetooth-connect to my car stereo for some bizarre reason I haven’t been able to sort out yet, I’m stuck with three local rock stations, one rock station in Greenville SC, and DAV. Guess who almost always wins.
Not a really hard guess… Davidson is the only classical station we can get as far as I know.
Wow.
It’s been about 30 years since I saw any part of that movie.
I better buy it before they ban(ish) it.
My son’s friends watched The Good, The Bad and The Ugly this week. They loved it. RIP Enio. RIP Charlie Daniels.