A few weeks back I wrote a blog entry about my decades-long fascination with Tony Powers’ great song and video ”Don’t’ Nobody Move (This is a Heist).” I should note that Tony’s latest album is a welcome return for this “mystery” figure whom I had thought of as a “character actor who occasionally makes music,” but is really a one-time million-selling pop tunesmith who has been doubling as both an actor and a singer-songwriter who’s equal parts bright and literate, and streetsmart wiseass.
The album, called Who Could Imagine, finds Powers working in a number of pop genres, from old-fashioned ballad (“Lorraine”) to proto-Calypso (“Goin’ into Space”). As such, the album functions almost like an actor’s “demo reel,” showing how Tony the songwriter can channel his talent to fit a number of different moods. In reading about Tony online, I found that some of the songs were in fact written a few years back (and, yes, the classic “Don’t Nobody Move” gets an ever-so-slight update here), but they fit right in with these ever-so-fucked-up times. In line with the current era, Powers aims for the jugular with a few socially-conscious songs, including “Sadly.” (lyrics here)
Powers is working in the same vein as Carole King, Leonard Cohen and (especially) Tom Waits throughout, but I have to aim my focus squarely one more time on his ability as an urban sketch artist. His “Cartoon” offers a very nice and quite accurate review of livin’ in this very burg (although I hear that now TP inhabits the car-choked climes of L.A.): “The train is late 'n the/air-conditioning’s broke./And I’m wedged between/these two fat fucks whose/clothes are soaked./Is this the life?/All the people in Commercials/have so much fun,/a bunch of happy baboons/Is this the life?/Or are we just in rehearsal?/Excuse me — is this the feature/or is this the cartoon?”
Powers is a cult figure and, from what I’ve been reading, a “musician’s musician.” As such, I guess Who Could Imagine confirms that he is indeed a very cool tree falling in a very hip forest. Yez all should give a listen — the lyrics are on Tony’s site, and you can hear the first 2 minutes or so of each song on via the CD Baby site.
And just because this is a visually-oriented blog, I’m happy to report that the other two music-vids that Powers made back in the Eighties are up on YouTube. The first is a whole ’nother slice of NYC location shooting: Tony in a romantic mood with actress Lois Chiles on the Staten Island Ferry for the song “Odyssey” — which was later covered by KISS!
“Midnite Trampoline” is a two-part gem (at least on YouTube) that finds Powers playing a gigolo who isn’t quite… up to the demands of his profession (check out his ginzo buds, one of whom is played by a very young and svelte John Goodman). The video may not be as much of a shock to the system as “Don’t Nobody Move,” but it’s a nice piece’a lightly comic filmmaking that harkens back to the time when videos could be unpredictable in wonderful ways:
Thursday, May 8, 2008
Forgotten '60s sitcom gem 2: He and She
Courtesy of the same poster who put up the item below, who calls himself “Mr. Retro” (thank you, Senor!) we have another lost Sixties sitcom gem, a one-season wonder called He and She starring the real-life married couple Richard Benjamin and Paula Prentiss. The show ran from ’67-68, and revolved around a cartoonist and his cute-as-hell wife who were young cosmopolitan folk along the lines of Rob and Laura Petrie, and Anne Marie and Don Hollinger.
Benjamin is an unusual performer who was very good as the filmic alter-ego of Philip Roth in two films (Portnoy’s Complaint must be seen, it is fucking amazing!), but he is better remembered by fans for his sci-fi turns in Westworld(1973) and the cult sitcom Quark (1977). I think he actually gave his best performance as the scumbag husband in Frank and Eleanor Perry’s Diary of a Mad Housewife (1970). He has worked as a director for the past quarter-century, but hasn't ever really lived up to the promise of his first two pics (My Favorite Year and Racing with the Moon). Prentiss made her debut as an attractive ingenue in Where the Boys Are but is best known for The Stepford Wives (1975).
The show features one of my all-time fave character guys, Kenneth Mars, who was the once and future Teuton from Mel Brooks’ classic Producers and Young Frankenstein, and the best-ever guest from the tip-top Fernwood 2-Night (the only guy who made the unflappable Martin Mull and Fred Willard start to break up on camera).
The whole damn thing is stolen, though, by Jack Cassidy as uber-ham Oscar North, a preening TV actor playing “Jet Man,” the character created by Benjamin. Cassidy was quite a show-biz pro, who is seen to best advantage in this clip from Dinah! doing a song used on SCTV as a theme for the Jackie Rogers Jr. character, “She Loves Me,” from the B’way play of the same name. It’s often been noted that Cassidy’s turn on He and She was the precursor to Ted Baxter on MTM.
Aaaaaaand, just in case you were wondering how was behind such the show, it’s the exact same team that did The Good Guys: producer/scripter Leonard Stern (also writer Arne Sultan, his cohort from Get Smart; Jerry Fielding did the music and Reza Badiyi put together the cute-as-hell opening and closing credit montages.
Benjamin is an unusual performer who was very good as the filmic alter-ego of Philip Roth in two films (Portnoy’s Complaint must be seen, it is fucking amazing!), but he is better remembered by fans for his sci-fi turns in Westworld(1973) and the cult sitcom Quark (1977). I think he actually gave his best performance as the scumbag husband in Frank and Eleanor Perry’s Diary of a Mad Housewife (1970). He has worked as a director for the past quarter-century, but hasn't ever really lived up to the promise of his first two pics (My Favorite Year and Racing with the Moon). Prentiss made her debut as an attractive ingenue in Where the Boys Are but is best known for The Stepford Wives (1975).
The show features one of my all-time fave character guys, Kenneth Mars, who was the once and future Teuton from Mel Brooks’ classic Producers and Young Frankenstein, and the best-ever guest from the tip-top Fernwood 2-Night (the only guy who made the unflappable Martin Mull and Fred Willard start to break up on camera).
The whole damn thing is stolen, though, by Jack Cassidy as uber-ham Oscar North, a preening TV actor playing “Jet Man,” the character created by Benjamin. Cassidy was quite a show-biz pro, who is seen to best advantage in this clip from Dinah! doing a song used on SCTV as a theme for the Jackie Rogers Jr. character, “She Loves Me,” from the B’way play of the same name. It’s often been noted that Cassidy’s turn on He and She was the precursor to Ted Baxter on MTM.
Aaaaaaand, just in case you were wondering how was behind such the show, it’s the exact same team that did The Good Guys: producer/scripter Leonard Stern (also writer Arne Sultan, his cohort from Get Smart; Jerry Fielding did the music and Reza Badiyi put together the cute-as-hell opening and closing credit montages.
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