All posts filed under: Rest in Peace

R.I.P. The Earl of Baltimore and Stan the Man

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Baseball lost two members of the Hall of Fame this past weekend:  Earl Weaver and Stan Musial. There’s much that could – and has – been written about these two baseball greats.  I’ve linked to Joe Posnanski’s blogs above, but I could just as easily have sent you to read Tom Boswell’s column on The Earl of Baltimore or George Vecsey on Stan the Man. I won’t go on about Weaver’s baseball genius – decades before Moneyball made his theories all the rage – or Musial’s quiet consistency – to the point where he was widely considered to be the best ballplayer of the postwar decade. No, I’m going to focus on their nicknames. Baseball has the best nicknames. Period.  In Why Is Baseball So Much Better Than Football, Boswell touches on the topic in multiple ways, but he sums it up here: Reason #85:  Baseball nicknames go on forever – because we feel we know so many player intimately.  Football monikers run out fast.  We just don’t know that many of them as people. Then …

Doc Watson, R.I.P.

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Doc Watson, who passed away today at age 89, was among the most authentic, talented, and influential musicians to emerge from the 60s folk music revival. He was also the reason I play guitar, attempting to flatpick fiddle tunes or pick out a lead note or two on traditional bluegrass and country songs. Of course, I have to get in line behind tens of thousands — if not more — guitarists who would make the same claim. So read the New York Times story I’ve linked at the top of the post if you are looking for Doc’s history, background, and influence.  This is a personal post. I was in high school in the early 70s, learning to play guitar and noodling around with music by singer songwriters and their ilk.  Then one day I brought home this funny looking album — Will the Circle Be Unbroken — and my life was changed forever. Here’s how I described that moment in a More to Come… post in 2009: “In fact, I suspect that the first …

Earl Scruggs, R.I.P.

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Earl. That’s the only name you had to say in bluegrass circles and everyone immediately knew the subject.  Jimmy Martin could open the seminal Will the Circle Be Unbroken album by saying “Earl never did do that,” and you knew exactly what he meant. Few people define an instrument and a musical style so completely as Earl Scruggs, who passed away today at age 88, did for bluegrass banjo.  Bill Monroe will forever be known as the Father of Bluegrass, but it wasn’t until he brought a young Earl Scruggs on the stage of the Ryman Auditorium for a Grand Ole Opry show in 1945 that the full sound of bluegrass was realized.  I’ll let Richard Smith, author of Can’t You Hear Me Calling:  The Life of Bill Monroe, pick up the story from here. “For Earl’s first night on the Opry, Monroe picked out a fast number that would show off the newcomer’s dazzling style — “White House Blues,” an old song recounting the 1901 William McKinley assassination.  It was a perfect selection.  Scruggs …

Lena Horne, RIP

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One of my father’s favorite singers, Lena Horne, passed away yesterday at age 92.  My father can’t carry a tune in a bucket and he can play only two songs on the piano – St. Louis Blues and Teddy Wilson’s Body and Soul – but my father had a great collection of 78s from the pre-war era and he knows his jazz singers.  TB was so right about Lena Horne. As the web site The Music’s Over but the Songs Live On noted, Lena Horne was a popular and influential jazz vocalist and actress who broke many color barriers over a career that spanned nearly seven decades, and her 1943 recording of “Stormy Weather” is arguably the most recognized song of its era.  Horne was not only a multi-Grammy award-winning singer, she was also an award-winning star of stage, screen and television. She was also an activist during the Civil Rights era, which is where I encountered her after the introduction by my father.  The New York Times obituary recalled the difficulties she faced as …

Good Friday 2010

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One of the treasures of Washington is the National Cathedral.  Earlier this evening Candice, Andrew, Claire and I gathered together in the Cathedral’s St. Joseph of Arimathea Chapel for the moving and beautiful Good Friday meditation. There is no more appropriate place to spend Good Friday than the vault-like chapel deep in the heart of the Cathedral named for Joseph of Arimathea, the rich man who went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus in order to provide a proper burial in his own new tomb.  The stone and wood space is made for the chants, solo cello, and Taize music of this service.  The sounds have a special resonance that envelops the soul. Cathedral Musical Director Michael McCarthy has structured a beautifully meditative service for this evening, beginning with Gita Ladd playing the groaning Sonata for Cello solo, Op. 28 by Eugene Ysaye.   The plainsong chant of Psalm 40 by the gentlemen of the Cathedral Singers begins in the traditional fashion, yet two-thirds of the way through McCarthy underpins the plainsong with …

A Derby Winner in Life

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Editor’s Note:  My wife Candice wrote and delivered the following eulogy for her father at his funeral at the Church of the Resurrection of Our Lord in Dania Beach, Florida on December 30, 2008. My father – Andrew Charles Colando, Sr. – was born in 1922 in Lodi, NJ to Joseph and Esther Colando.  Pop was the middle son, with Steve his older brother and Joe his younger one.  He was named Andrew after his maternal grandfather as was customary for a second son in an Italian family.  His parents were hard working and he carried with him a love and respect for them throughout his life. While in high school Pop began to race trotters at Yonker’s Raceway in New York on the weekends and his love affair with horseracing began.  He moved on to thoroughbred racing when his father bought some race horses. In 1950 he married Irene Holsey and his 58-year love affair with my mother began.  A few years later they moved their young family to Florida seeking a warmer climate, …

A full life

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My father-in-law, Dr. Andrew Colando, passed away last evening.  All members of his immediate family were with him on the day he died, and he went peacefully after a short illness. His obituary details the key milestones of his life:  a proud graduate of the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine; a founding board member of the American Association of Equine Practitioners; a 71-year association with the horse racing business as veterinarian, breeder, trainer, and owner.  He began racing trotters at Yonkers Raceway on the weekends while still in high school and trained Uncle Miltie among other horses in his father’s stable before beginning his equine veterinary practice. I first met Dr. Colando after he retired from his practice and had returned to the training he loved with his own stable of horses.  Being the first in-law in a New Jersey Italian-Irish family was full of new experiences for a Southern-bred fellow.   I didn’t have the years of experience with family banter that made the dinner table discussions so exciting.  The closest I’d been …

For Mom, on what would have been her 78th birthday

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Mother was born on December 9, 1930.  Today would have been her 78th birthday, had cancer not claimed her on New Year’s Day 1998.  For the past ten years there’s seldom a day that passes without something happening that reminds me of her.  She was a remarkable woman with a large circle of friends and an even larger capacity for love and service. After I graduated from college and left home, Mother and I maintained a weekly correspondence for many years.  She was a “newsy” letter writer, with information about the family mixed in with items from town, updates on old friends, tidbits about both our careers, and extensive sports news.  (Mother was my loyal co-spectator for games on television.) Several years after she died, I published a collection of her letters from 1980 – 1997 entitled Rich in Love.  Over the course of those 17 years she wrote about love, death, babies, pets, advice, and family.  Her letters included a four-page typewritten description of our wedding she prepared for family members who couldn’t attend.  She wrote one of …

Skip Carey – RIP – A Follow-up

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A friend of mine, John Lane, sent an email after the post I made last week on the death of long-time Braves announcer Skip Carey.  It included a great story that I just had to share.  After noting that he appreciated baseball and was headed to Fenway next month for a game, John turned to basketball announcers when he wrote: “That brings to mind Johnny Most, who was for many years the radio voice of the Boston Celtics (1953-1990), one whose allegiance was never in doubt.  Catch him on YouTube. On one occasion the game had gotten very exciting.  Most was screaming into the microphone when suddenly his voice was lost, though the crowd noise in the background continued at a roar. After nearly two minutes of no play-by-play, Most’s voice resumed:  ‘Sorry about that Celtics fans.  I got so excited I fell out of the press box.’” If you have stories to tell on your favorite sportscaster, please feel free to write a comment to this post. Off to hike the Grand Canyon.  More to come… DJB