Had To Cry Today, Yep I Got the Faith!

Looking at that subject heading, you thought I cried today?  Had a g'shrai?

I'm talking Steve Winwood sang the life-changing "Had To Cry Today,"  the other night at The Greek.

It's already written that today will be one to remember
The feeling's the same as being outside of the law
Had to cry today
Well, I saw your sign and I missed you there

-Blind Faith

Many thanks to Mr. Bob Lefsetz who continually informs about the music industry.  He heard Steve belt this one out the other day.  About it, Bob says: 

"it connected in a way regular life never did...so as to believe that everything truly could be right with the world, that someone got it, and if we could just go on the road with the band our lives would be perfect."     -Bob Lefsetz

These are pretty powerful words.  Bob knew the scene back in '60s and, from my layperson's perspective, knows the commercialized music scene today.  Music wasn't just a magic carpet ride to an imaginary place, but the young music fans believed wholeheartedly that the music would transform their existence, their country, their planet.  The messages found in music like Winwood's are still fresh and powerful.  Maybe we're not roadies, but we can still apply these words to our daily lives.  Anyway, I like my flannel sheets from the Company Store.  They don't have those on tour.

Do you see or not see someone's sign and ever "miss you there"?

I wonder if Jason Flom, a music industry executive whose daughter I had the pleasure of teaching in the late '90s, respects Bob's insights.  I mean, I  think they're good.  I think historically Jason has been a successful outside-of-the-box thinker in the music biz.   

But, Jason was there, too, well, at least in the 70s. He gets the spirit of the '60s, for sure.  Just don't have peanuts on your breath if you ever have the chance to meet him because he's got a severe peanut allergy.  You'd know that, too, if you kept up with your New Yorker readings.

Here's an incredible preservation of Blind Faith's only live recording of "Had to Cry Today," and their first gig, to boot!

This is an important video for all peoples to view in its entirety.

 

Note Steve's purple shirt.
If you can groove along to this tune, we have stuff to talk about.

Purple is a True Color

My ideas and thoughts are numerous and the desire to connect all of the technicolor is often overwhelming.  Is life better in black and white?  I am not sure.  But sepia does have that nostalgic feeling that we all love.

Last weekend my new friend Holly, at our shabbes lunch table, shared her explanation as to why the color purple is so powerful:  It contains red and blue which is both hot and cold.  It is the perfect blend.  It is the perfect color.  The perfect stuff is my own addition.  Holly's simple and eloquent explanation resonated with me.

If only the daily grind of life could be that perfect blend of blue and red.

I was thinking of my childhood friend MiktheFish who loves purple.  And my friend the PurpleGirl who loves purple.  And Adam Purple, the famous squatter featured in a 1972 issue of National Geographic.  And of Prince and Purple Rain.  And of all the great people who are drawn to purple.    Of course the film The Color Purple and the book on which it was based  (oh, the Israel politics in that link...I am so saddened to learn that Alice Walker believes that Israel is an apartheid state and won't issue a copy of that book in Hebrew.  It goes so much deeper than that.  Zionism is not Racism, doesn't the world get that already?).  Yeah, I didn't forget the Purple People Eater.  What do you think I am, a bad egg?  Not me...I am neither the type to scream out "I want it now" (Veruca), nor am I the type to say, "can it, you nit!" but Violet was.  And Violet Beauregard also loved purple.

Thank God for trusty spin class, where I heard a souped-up spin-worthy version of the tune below.

Thanks, Cyndi.

Note that her hair has a purple sheen.