Maestro In Blue

Spotify playlist: https://spoti.fi/3MsWJrI

I'm not sure whether to recommend this Netflix show. There are nine episodes and I kept vacillating as to whether it was highbrow or lowbrow, fodder for the masses or something meatier.

Actually, there's one episode about relationships that is killer. It's episode 6, entitled "Musical Chairs." And you could watch just that one, you'd understand it, but I don't recommend it.

"Maestro in Blue" was shot in the Greek islands, mostly Paxos, I've never been, even though I listened to Joni Mitchell's "Blue," you know, with Carey on the Grecian isle, and now I'm eager to go. The water is so clear. And life is so slow. The only thing is I've lived in small communities and everybody is in everybody else's business and I love the anonymity of the city, but still... The Greek islands are now on my list.

But the reason I'm writing about "Maestro in Blue" is the soundtrack. Because either they had a huge budget or acts did them a big favor and...

There are three tracks I want to talk about. In a perfect world, I'd write three separate essays, but then people would sign off because of too much incoming, but now I run the risk of people not getting that far in my screed.

Anyway...

WHEN LOVE COMES TO TOWN

This was the radio track from "Rattle and Hum," when U2 overloaded us and people were pissed at the band because Bono thought he was God, or at least that was the public perception. And the funny thing is the band felt the slings and arrows, and licked its wounds and went to Berlin and ultimately came up with "Achtung Baby" two years later, which sounds nothing like what came before, which is my favorite LP of theirs. It was unclear how successful the project would be, I mean the first single was "The Fly," that's not playing to radio, and the band toured indoors, one of the three best shows I've ever seen, and then demand built and there was the Zoo TV stadium tour and then U2 followed it all up with "Pop" and the audience wasn't hip enough to get the joke and the band has been anxious about its public perception ever since. (Of course I'm ignoring "Zooropa," but that was seen as an adjunct to the Zoo TV tour, not its own separate album statement.)

And now... It's been misstep after misstep. "All That You Can't Leave Behind" contained the monstrous hit "Beautiful Day," but compare that to "Pride (In the Name of Love)," or "Sunday Bloody Sunday"...it shoots so much lower, it's ear candy, it's not meaningful. And then there was the Apple debacle. And ultimately the "Joshua Tree" tour and...how are we supposed to take your new work seriously when you're trading on nostalgia? Once you give the people what they want, once you play to the audience instead of yourself, you've lost your artistic meaning and are in the rearview mirror. As for the new "acoustic" album... I cherry-picked it, because it's endless, and I enjoyed what I heard, but I didn't need to hear it again. These should have been YouTube clips, even TikTok clips, not part of an official release.

So... At some point you've got to stop trying to top yourself. This is what got Michael Jackson in trouble, he could never equal the success of "Thriller." And Peter Frampton put a huge dent in his career by delivering "I'm In You" to satiate the boppers when musos were his core audience and... It's hard to give up the spotlight. But if you're going to make new records, play by your own rules. This is where Dylan is the beacon. In records and live gigs. I won't say I appreciate his new work to the degree I love the old, I think some of the hosannas are the emperor's new clothes, and I don't get it live, but at least Dylan is exploring. And he never got plastic surgery and never loosened up and at some point, you've got enough money. As far as being top of people's mind... That's a fool's errand. Because no one is that big anymore. No one reaches everybody like in the pre-internet days, no one.

So I was surprised how much I loved hearing "When Love Comes to Town." The show was relatively quiet, not cacophonic, like too many TV productions, and it was the perfect soundtrack, the music was primary as opposed to secondary, like too much stuff today, and with almost forty years of distance, sans the trappings, it had me smiling and enjoying it and...

SON OF A PREACHER MAN

She's English and she's dead.

I say this because I confuse her with other acts. It's so long ago. Dusty Springfield died in 1999, of breast cancer, it was seen as a tragedy, at this point it wasn't a badge of honor to come out of the woodwork and proclaim you had breast cancer and try to raise awareness like it actually became. We're still trying to have a similar movement in the men's world, about prostate cancer, but not only do too many men not want to go to the doctor, tons don't want to have a colonoscopy, and I don't get it, you can now take pills for prep and the procedure is painless, you get the Michael Jackson drug, propofol and...

All of this is to say by time Dusty Springfield died the focus was elsewhere. Her hits were behind her and the internet had not yet burgeoned, so...

To a great degree Dusty is lost to the sands of time.

However, every seven to ten years there's another wave of nostalgia and writings, appreciation for her "Dusty In Memphis" album.

Now what I remember first about Dusty Springfield is "I Only Want to Be With You." That was 1963, before the Beatles broke over here, when we still had surf music and our transistors might be tuned to the ball game as much as music.

But then came "Wishin' and Hopin'," in 1964, after the Beatles arrived. The Liverpool lads dominated the radio, which we were all addicted to, but there was a hangover of the old stuff, there were still pop numbers, and this one...sounded nothing like the British Invasion. Dionne Warwick had recorded it previously, but Dusty Springfield had the hit. The recording might sound dated, out of time, but it still maintains its magic, which is hard to describe, but easy to feel.

So Dusty was cold, signed with Atlantic, got hooked up with the label's production team of Jerry Wexler, Arif Mardin and Tom Dowd and...made a stiff album. Sure, black soul was triumphant, but white soul lived in a no-man's land. But over time "Dusty in Memphis" has come to be considered one of the best albums ever.

And the funny thing is it contains versions of two songs the Al Kooper Blood, Sweat & Tears covered on that band's first LP, Goffin and King's "So Much Love" and Randy Newman's "Just One Smile."

And "Dusty in Memphis" didn't sound dark and English, but like something cut in the delta. And there was one huge hit..."Son of a Preacher Man."

It starts subtly, the antithesis of the guitar heroes coming out of the U.K., in Memphis you could underplay, and it felt so right.

And eventually there were horns.

But really it's Dusty's vocal that makes the record.

One of the through lines of "Maestro in Blue" is about a nineteen year old girl's infatuation with the fortysomething maestro, and normally when you heard singles like this it was on the AM radio, or with background music, not alone, in the quiet, but sans background noise "Son of a Preacher Man" reached me in a way it never did before. Like...

CAN'T HELP FALLING IN LOVE

Mariza Rizou makes it her own. To the point where I couldn't place the original. It sounds nothing like the Elvis Presley hit.

As a matter of fact, I forgot that Elvis did it, my mind was searching for the version I knew, which I ultimately realized was UB40's.

Now in truth Elvis Presley's take is pretty slow. But it's a period piece, with the production, it's a record, whereas Mariza Rizou's...

UB40's take is faster, and reggae-esque, and I dig it, but Mariza Rizou's version...

Not that I knew who Rizou was. I was searching and found a "Maestro in Blue" soundtrack on Spotify, not that it was an official release, the soundtrack album concept is dead, first and foremost there is no album, no souvenir, just tracks, which can be cherry-picked on a streaming service so...

I've got no idea who Mariza Rizou is, but I assumed she was Greek, with that name, and she turns out to be, and she doesn't have her own Wikipedia page, so she can't be that big, even in Athens. But this version of "Can't Stop Falling in Love"...

Love is slow, reflective. Oh, Cupid's arrow might pierce your heart and set it aflame, you might ultimately be in a passionate embrace, even intertwined sexually, but at first there's a lot of time apart, thinking about the other person, which is one of the features of "Maestro in Blue," and Mariza Rizou's version of "Can't Stop Falling in Love" is slow and contemplative just like that experience of nascent love in your head, whether you be walking down the street alone or lying on your bed or...

What I'm saying is this version of "Can't Stop Falling in Love" is so slow that the lyrics really stand out.

"Wise men say
Only fools, only fools rush in"

And that's true. Normally we know the lyrics, but we don't think about them, but in this take you can't help but be infected by them, as they slowly rattle around in your brain.

"Shall I stay
Would it be, would it be a sin
If I can't help falling in love with you"

Forbidden love. Do you fly straight, do what's right, or do you follow your passion...it's a hard choice. And an important choice, who you marry is the most critical decision you'll make in your life, choose wisely. And love is certainly the winding road they speak of, the infatuation wears off, and then the hard work begins. And if the person you're involved with isn't willing to do the hard work, you're gonna get divorced. Because relationships are hard, they demand commitment and trust, and sure, sometimes people get divorced and find someone better, but oftentimes they don't, or they're so shallow they jump from infatuation to infatuation, not learning about themselves, never mind their partner.

That's the power of music, to make you think about and feel all this.

And as slow and quiet as Mariza Rizou's version of "Can't Help Falling in Love" might be, it's just that powerful.

P.S. If you watch "Maestro in Blue," don't shut it off at the credits, let it run!


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