Walsh And Waddell Family Blog: 05/13

Wednesday, May 29, 2013

Sunday, May 26, 2013

Thursday, May 23, 2013

Georges Moustaki 1934 - 2013

Saw him in the Olympia in Paris in the late '70's. Great artist. It was wonderful evening of music and conversation with the audience. A true artist who understood human nature. At the end of his set he wanted to to do more songs and poetry and he gave the audience the option of leaving or staying to enjoy his music. I was with someone very special and we stayed until the end. It was magic.....

This is an autographed photo of Frank Sinatra that I have had since the sixties. No big deal but there is an interesting story behind it.

Frank was playing the royal festival hall and he was in London for the performance. There is a DVD of this performance. It was wonderful. We didn’t see it of course. Gerard twyford and I lived in London at the time but we had very little money and we didn’t have the time to wait outside his place (wherever it was) to try to see him. At that time Sinatra was very, very big in Europe, he always has been. We wanted to meet him and get his autograph but we had more chance of seeing god in those days. We were Sinatra crazy the both of us. We went to Sinatra meetings where they played old recordings and had discussions about composers, interpretations of songs etc. We were crazy; we played his music all the time and would often stay in of an evening and listen to him, Tony Bennet and Ella Fitzgerald. We got to know a lot about who composed what and how many people had sung what, the year it was recorded and so on. One of our favorite LP was Tony Sings for the Jet Set; A great cd for those who care about music. Sinatra at the Sands was also played to death. We also read everything there was to read on these subjects. We ended up being amateur music experts with what we listened to.

Anyway, I digress, one day during frank’s stay in London there was a picture posted in the Standard of him coming out of what looked like and apartment building and on this building there was an address with a number. We put two and two together and wrote to him at said address asking for an autographed photo and hoped for the best but of course we didn’t really have that much ??? of ever getting a response.

But we did! At least Gerard Twyford did, complete with photo and cover letter. I got nothing and was very disappointed, the concert was over and he left London, I still did not have my photo.

Then I remembered the cover letter, got the address and wrote to him in California. You have to remember that this was the sixties and California was on another planet for us.

I sent him a letter and within few weeks I got my photo with a letter of apology. I don’t know where this letter is now but I know I have it somewhere. These were the days before automatic signature machines and as you can see by the smudge the writing seems to be authentic.

The world was a larger place then and the chances of seeing Sinatra ever was as remote as to be beyond imagination for us poor 20 something’s in the sixties.

Little did I know then that 20 years later as we were preparing a banquet in Palm Springs that the door would swing open and in would walked Frank Sinatra. He looked at me and our eyes met for a brief moment. They were piercing blue eyes and the aura around the man was almost visible. I cooked dinner for him at the Palm Springs hotel and saw him concert in Tacoma, Washington for my 40^th birthday. After the concert I went up to the stage before he got down and watched him come down the steps to go to his dressing room. This man floated on air and had a powerful presence. I reached out and touched him on the shoulder. People parted to let him through as if he were royalty.

The moral of this story, if there is one, is that we never know what tomorrow or next year will bring and things that seem out of reach are attainable.