Talk about unhip. Right now, I have a Boston Pops medley of old television western themes playing on my headphones — *Rawhide*, *Bonanza*, *Have Gun Will Travel*, *Maverick*, plus half a dozen others many of you have probably never heard of. I never really watched westerns as a kid; I found cowboys boring. I was always more interested in rocket ships and ray guns and guys with capes who could leap into the air and keep on going. But I always liked the theme songs.<\/p>\n
Especially *Bonanza*.<\/p>\n
The version recorded by David Rose’s orchestra for the television series is a 39-second revelation when you hear it in digital stereo. The guitar picking by Tommy Tedesco — who, incidentally, was also the guitarist on the the ’60s *Batman* theme — is extraordinary. And there are instruments in there no one could possibly have discerned through the crappy television speakers that piped this ditty into America’s homes in the late ’50s\/early ’60s: harmonica, Jew’s harp, even a few notes on a goddamn *flute*. (Or maybe it’s a fife. Or an ocarina. Whatever, it’s unexpected.)<\/p>\n
I know. I’m going on and on.<\/p>\n
I keep that theme on a very short Winamp playlist with a score of other songs I never tire of hearing. Stuff like Jackie Wilson’s “Higher and Higher”, Steve Allen playing “Gravy Waltz”, the Belle Stars’ version of “Iko Iko”, and “Cast Your Fate to the Wind” by Sounds Orchestral. That last one never fails to bring a tear to my eye. Really. It’s irrevocably linked in my mind with summer nights in 1965, and with friends and times that are gone forever.<\/p>\n
I know. I’m still going on and on. I’m working on it.<\/p>\n
I ain’t got no matches, but I sure got a long way to go.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Talk about unhip. Right now, I have a Boston Pops medley of old television western themes playing on my headphones — *Rawhide*, *Bonanza*, *Have Gun Will Travel*, *Maverick*, plus half a dozen others many of you have probably never heard of. I never really watched westerns as a kid; I found cowboys boring. I was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":41,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/stevegerber.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/stevegerber.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/stevegerber.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stevegerber.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/41"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stevegerber.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=114"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/stevegerber.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/stevegerber.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stevegerber.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stevegerber.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}