Remembering jazz singer Rebecca Kilgore

DAVE: [00:00:01] This is Fresh Air, I'm Dave Davey. [00:00:03][2.0]
Speaker 2: [00:00:04] Just keep truckin', got my chips cashed in Keep truckin' like we do the man together More or less in line Just keep chuggin' all night [00:00:18][14.3]
DAVE: [00:00:20] Bob Weir, the guitarist, singer, songwriter, and founding member of the Grateful Dead died recently at the age of 78. The Dead were a unique phenomenon of rock and roll. Spawned by a chance meeting between Weir and Jerry Garcia on New Year's Eve in 1963, the band did plenty of recording, but was probably best known for its long improvisational concerts attended by dedicated followers who traveled on the band's tour route and camped out at multiple shows. While Jerry Garcia was the band's lead guitarist and singer, Weir became known for his inventive rhythm guitar. Bob Perales of the New York Times wrote that Weir strummed his rhythm chords lightly, nimbly, and malleably, charting and shaping the ever-shifting undercurrents of the dead's songs and jams. While the band officially ended with Jerry Garcia's death in 1995, surviving members continued playing their songs in new groups, including Dead and Company. Weir and the other members of the Grateful Dead were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994, given a Lifetime Achievement Grammy Award in 2007, and named Kennedy Center Honorees in 2024. Bob Weir continued to play his own music and was on our show in 2016 when he'd released his first album of original songs in 30 years, titled Blue Mountain. Many of the songs were co-written with Josh Ritter. Weir said the album was inspired by the time when, as a teen, he ran away to work on a cattle ranch in Wyoming. The ranch was owned by the parents of John Perry Barlow, who later became Weir's songwriting partner. Weir spoke with Fresh Air's Sam Brigger, and they started with the opening track from the album, called Only a River. [00:02:04][103.8]
Speaker 3: [00:02:14] I was born up in the mountain Raised up in a desert town And I never saw the ocean Till I was close to your age now Oh Shenandoah, long to see you Hey, hey, hey You're rolling river Oh, Shenandoah, I long to see you Only you're ever gonna make things right [00:03:17][62.9]
Sam Briger: [00:03:32] You said that this album was inspired by a summer when you ran away to become a cowboy in Wyoming. How old were you? [00:03:38][5.7]
Bob Weir: [00:03:39] I was 15. [00:03:39][0.3]
Sam Briger: [00:03:40] So did you already know how to ride? Were you herding cattle? [00:03:42][2.1]
Bob Weir: [00:03:43] Yeah, when I was a little kid, my folks were sort of in the horsey community. And also, we used to vacation up in Squaw Valley, which in the wintertime was in California here. In the winter time, it was a ski resort. In the summertime, it a cattle ranch. And during the summers, when we were up there, there was a riding stable that we spent a lot of time at. And the old cow folks who ran the riding stable. Couple up and took a shine to me and sort of taught me how to ride and some of the basic skills of cowboying, you know, how to cut cattle and stuff like that. I never did really learn how to row very well. But by the time I was nine or ten, I had a pretty good grasp of the basics. [00:04:32][48.9]
Sam Briger: [00:04:33] So through your career, you've seemed to be drawn to cowboy and country songs. Some of them you've written, like Mexicali blues, and then you've also covered a lot of songs like Me and My Uncle, Marty Robbins' song El Paso. You've also done songs like Johnny Cash's Big River. Why do you think you're drawn to those tunes? [00:04:50][16.6]
Bob Weir: [00:04:52] You know, I've actually wondered that myself and, you know, it just, it occurs to me that I just, I lived that lifestyle for a little bit, not just that summer, but I'd go back out there and work with Barlow and, part of working with Barlo when I was doing that was we'd live on the ranch and we had the ranch to run, and if I helped out we'd have more time to ride, so. I spent a lot of time doing that kind of stuff, and I kind of got steeped in that tradition a little bit. And also, for what it's worth, when I was a kid living there in the bunkhouse, there were, you know, in the evening, the old boys would, they'd pop a cork and they'd tell stories and sing songs. And I was the kid with the guitar, so I was their accompaniment. And so I learned a bunch of that stuff and, as I say, got steep in that tradition. And, um, And I just sort of carried it around in my hip pocket for, you know, for the rest of my days. But it's not so much the songs that stuck with me as the delivery and particularly the story telling aspect of singing those songs or putting them across. [00:06:06][74.1]
Sam Briger: [00:06:08] Well, I wanted to ask you about that, because I've noticed that it feels like you like songs that have a narrative to them. A lot of your songs, they tell us some kind of a story, which I think contrasts with the other main songwriting team of The Grateful Dead, Jerry Garcia and Robin Hunter. Their songs were often like impressionistic. They would generally like a vocal mood or something. Whereas when I listen to your songs. I find myself imagining a specific narrator character, do you think that's true? [00:06:38][30.1]
Bob Weir: [00:06:40] Well, that's kind of my approach. That's what I'm most comfortable with. For years, I've held forth with the opinion that every artist of any stripe is, first and foremost, a storyteller. And the story can be impressionistic, or it can be linear in nature. And I'm comfortable with either of them, though when I set pen to paper, more often than not, it comes out more or less linear. You know, I see songs as little movies. Short movies and I try to let the characters most fully, as fully as possible, express themselves and let the story develop so that there's intrigue and all that kind of stuff. [00:07:24][43.9]
Sam Briger: [00:07:26] So you have a song on the new album, Blue Mountain, that's called Kaibasi, which is about 12-step meetings and addiction. You know, The Grateful Dead had a long and intense history with drugs. Like, the band got its break as the house band for Ken Kesey's Acid Tests, and ever since then, The Dead had been linked to psychedelics. And you know, you've been forthright, saying that for a time, LSD was very informative to your way of thinking. But you know there's also, there was a lot of tragedy around drugs and alcohol in The Gratiful Dead. Band members either died from overdose, like Brent Midland, or from drug or alcohol related illnesses like pig pen, and of course, Jerry Garcia. And I'm not really sure what my question is, but I guess I was thinking about all that history when I listened to that song, and I was wondering how it might have informed the way you wrote it. [00:08:11][45.1]
Bob Weir: [00:08:14] Christ, I don't know how to address that. Well, I can't deny that I had a fair bit of, you know, either personal experience with drugs, alcohol or whatever, or close friends of mine had intense experiences with them. So I kind of, I guess I know what I'm talking about to some degree when I'm helping a character flesh himself out in that regard. [00:08:43][28.4]
Speaker 2: [00:09:00] Shouldn't make no yellow pasta Run by the river Who should have to come up to the bed? Sweet blossom, come on, under the willow We can have high times if you look back Wonders of nature, rolling in the rushes down by the riverside She's got everything we like for, she's got every thing I need Takes the wheel when I see her double, pays my ticket when I speak [00:09:42][42.8]
Sam Briger: [00:09:49] When The Grateful Dead started playing, you were 17 years old, and you lived on Ashbray Street at the height of the counterculture in San Francisco, and The Grateful Dead and its music was really at the heart of that movement in a lot of ways. You know, at 17, were you prepared for that? It seems like such a young age to have all that thrust upon you. [00:10:07][17.6]
Bob Weir: [00:10:08] I was ready for anything. Come on. I was 17, 18, and the Hay-Dashboro was popping. Now, this was the summer of 66, spring and summer of 96. That was the real summer of love, the 67. The media made it into something that we didn't recognize, called attention to it, and everything that had rattled loose in the rest of the country. Ended up in the Haight-Ashbury. Things went kind of sideways there by then. But in 66, the Haigh-Ashburys was a youth ghetto, but it was a joyful place. [00:10:50][42.4]
Sam Briger: [00:10:53] You were adopted when you were born, and you met your birth parents pretty late in life when you around 50 years old. And I guess you had a close relationship with your father until he died last year. What did you learn about yourself from finally getting to meet him? [00:11:08][15.6]
Bob Weir: [00:11:11] Well, for instance, little things like, I always go outdoors to clip my fingernails and toenails. [00:11:17][5.7]
Speaker 2: [00:11:18] And he did [00:11:18][0.7]
Bob Weir: [00:11:21] There are little mannerisms that you would think that would be, you'd pick up by watching, but they were there. We walked, we carried ourselves the same way. We had the same sort of sense of humor. That kind of thing. He was a gentleman. He was an innate gentleman. And I think of myself as such as well. And he had a quality leadership. He was basically born to it, and people always relied on him for it. And I've found that that's more or less come my way as well. It's a gig. Everybody has to have one. And people look to me for leadership a lot. It's just something that I can provide. It's not something that people left me alone in that regard. But someone's got to... [00:12:18][56.5]
Sam Briger: [00:12:19] So, over the years, you must have imagined... [00:12:20][1.5]
Speaker 6: [00:12:22] What your birth parents were like. How did that compare to actually meeting them? [00:12:25][3.1]
Bob Weir: [00:12:27] As it turns out, my dad, he had no idea I existed to begin with. He had had an affair with a girl in Tucson where they were going to school, and she got pregnant and very quietly slipped away and had me in San Francisco, the famous liberal city back then, and then came back and never let on that anything had happened. And so when we met, you know, It was a big surprise to both of them. Now, I found out about his existence. My birth mother, a number of years after my adopted parents had checked out, she contacted me because I'd tried to find her, and it was not possible. So she ended up contacting me, and she had 12 other kids. So I didn't feel like I needed to complicate her life all that much. But we kept in touch, and I'd call her on Mother's Day, and every now and again we'd see each other and stuff like that. I'd send her flowers, that kind of thing. But she gave me my birth father's information the last she knew of it, and he was a guy named Jack Parber, and you know, he had been a student at University of Arizona. And so I got a private eye within about ten minutes he turned up this is the information that he was the uh... Commanding officer at the uh.. Local uh... At our local air force base and uh... I sort of packed under my pillow for a few years because pathologically unauthoritarian and uh.. And i didn't figure that uh... And he did the rejection that i was sure to from this guy, uh... Who's probably some sort of military, authoritarian kind of guy. Then not long after Jerry checked out, my curiosity got to the point where I couldn't live with it anymore. And so, uh, I had to find, find that out. And, uh. So, you know, I, I figured I had three choices. I could drive up to his house in, in Nevada, up north of where I live, you know about, Oh, maybe. 10 miles as a crow flies from where I live. And I just knock on his door and I figured, okay, I don't want my first and last vision of my father watching him clutch his heart and fall over backwards. I figured I could write him a letter, but he might crumble that up and throw it away. So I figured okay, all I'll call him. And so I did. And he was on another line, you know. And it was disturbing him at the time. He said, listen, can you call back in 10 minutes? I told him, listen. My name is Robert Weir, and I live in Mill Valley. And I've been doing some research and turned up some information that might be of considerable interest to you. And he said, OK, well, I'm on another line right now. Can you call me back in ten minutes? And so that was a long 10 minutes I waited. [00:15:38][191.7]
Sam Briger: [00:15:38] That's all we're doing. Yeah. [00:15:39][0.8]
Bob Weir: [00:15:40] Called him back and said, can I ask you a question or two regarding certain events that took place in Tucson 50 years ago? And he got real quiet. And he said, well, okay. And I said, well, did you know and were you perhaps romantically involved with a young lady by the name of Phyllis back in that time? And I could kind of hear it over the phone. He said, Well... And I said, OK, well, sir, I don't know how many kids you have, but there is a strong likelihood that you have one more than you know. And he got real quiet. And then he said, the only Bob Worthen I know of is this guy who sings and plays with the Grateful Dead. Apparently his kids were. And I said, well, sir, that would be me. And then it got quiet again. And we talked for a little while, and then we met the next day for lunch at both of our favorite Mexican restaurant here in Marin County. And we got real tight, real fast. [00:16:51][70.9]
Sam Briger: [00:16:54] There's a touching story that one of his sons, I think, died of spinal cancer, but he was a musician, too. The family gave you that guitar and for a long time you would play that guitar on stage, right? [00:17:10][16.1]
Bob Weir: [00:17:12] It finally got stolen. [00:17:13][0.8]
Sam Briger: [00:17:14] Oh it did? Oh that's terrible. The son was a was a Grateful Dead fan, wasn't he? [00:17:20][5.7]
Bob Weir: [00:17:21] Well, all four of his sons were Grateful Dead fans, though the one who I never met was probably the least a Grateful dead fan. He was more on his own. He was kind of into that country-esque style of music that was real popular back in the 70s. He was a flashy but good telecaster player. [00:17:44][23.4]
Sam Briger: [00:17:46] You and Jerry Garcia were the two lead singers of The Grateful Dead, and he died in 1995. And you've said before that he was like an older brother to you. At some point, you started singing his songs in shows. Was that tough for you? Was that an easy decision to make? Or was it hard for you to sing those songs at first? [00:18:08][22.6]
Bob Weir: [00:18:10] No, actually, it was a while before I decided I was going to go ahead and do it, I just had to feel it out. I knew it was coming, but I didn't know when. You know, so I just waited until the time was right. You know early on with Ratdog, after Jerry checked out, I didn't do much Grateful Dead material at all. I did as little as I could to still keep people coming in the doors, but I wasn't quite ready to go back there and it's not an emotional sort of deal. I guess there was a little of that involved. I just wanted to take a pause. It just seemed like I oughta. And then when I started doing it again, slowly all the songs came, and one by one, they just sort of, they demanded that, OK, it's time. I got to breathe again, and you can help me do this. And so I went with it. [00:19:11][61.1]
Sam Briger: [00:19:13] Bobber, thanks so much for speaking with us. [00:19:15][1.5]
Bob Weir: [00:19:16] Well, thank you. [00:19:16][0.3]
DAVE: [00:19:17] Bob Weir of The Grateful Dead, speaking with Fresh Air's Sam Brigger, recorded in 2016. Weir died recently at the age of 78. Coming up, we remember singer Rebecca Kilgore, a talented interpreter of American popular song. I'm Dave Davies, and this is Fresh Air. [00:19:35][17.7]
Speaker 3: [00:19:36] Crazy rooster crowin' midnight Balls of Latin roll along Old men sing about their dreams Women laugh and children scream And the band keeps playing on [00:19:51][15.1]
Speaker 2: [00:19:56] Keep on dancin' till they light it up With the more than ever songs No one's noticed what the bands all packed and gone Was it ever here at all? But they kept on dancin' [00:20:13][17.1]
Speaker 3: [00:20:22] Come on children, come on children Come on, clap your hands [00:20:22][0.0]
[1109.1]

DAVE: [00:00:01] This is Fresh Air, I'm Dave Davies. Next, we're going to remember singer Rebecca Kilgore, a devoted interpreter of American popular song who died last week at the age of 76. You may have heard her in concert on the show, often with pianist Dave Frishberg. Terry's joined us to share some thoughts of her own about what makes Rebecca Kilgor special. Terry. [00:00:23][22.4]
TERRY: [00:00:24] Thanks, Dave. I think Becky did more concerts on her show than any other performer. Her repertoire was American popular song, dating as far back as the 1930s. She performed with songwriter, pianist, and singer Dave Frishberg in the 90s. At the Heathman Hotel in Portland, Oregon, they both lived there. And that enabled her to quit her job as a secretary at Reed College and have a real music career, recording many albums and performing around the world. It was great to record her for our show because She was always right on pitch, which meant we didn't need to do a lot of takes. It was her sense of rhythm that I loved most. She had such a natural sense of swing. I loved her for singing relatively obscure songs and reviving songs I'd never heard of. She struck me as kind of shy, but that may have contributed to another trait I loved. She called attention to the song and not herself. She didn't try to impress you with like high notes or dizzying scat singing. She knew how to bring a song to life and fill them with her delight in singing them. Becky died of Lewy body disease, and that has symptoms similar to Alzheimer's. And Dave Frishberg died of Alzheimer's in 2021. I always describe Becky as one of my favorite living singers, and I feel so lucky to have gotten the chance to work with her and to showcase her singing on our show. Rest in peace, Becky. [00:01:50][86.0]
DAVE: [00:01:51] Thanks, Terry. In 1995, Rebecca Kilgore first appeared on our show with Dave Frishberg at the piano. They opened their concert with a song from 1933 by Harold Arlen and Ted Kohler. [00:02:03][12.0]
Speaker 3: [00:02:09] I got my trousers pressed, shoes shined, I had my coat and vest relined Take a look at my lapel, see the flower, can't you tell? I'm happy as the day is long, haven't got a dime to lend I got a lot of time to spend, just a pocket full of air, feeling like a millionaire I'm Happy as the Day is Long, got a heavy affair, and I'm having my fun Am I walking on air? Gee, but I'm the lucky one I've got my peace of mind, knock wood, I hear that love is blind, that's good Cause the things I've never seen never seem to worry me, I'm I'm happy, happy, as happy as the day is long I'm happy, so happy, happy as the day is long Got a heavy affair and I'm having my fun Am I walking on air? Gee, but I'm the lucky one I've got my peace of mind, knock wood, I hear that love is blind That's good, cause the things I never see never seem to worry me I'm as happy as day is lo- I'm happy as the day is l- [00:03:24][74.3]
TERRY: [00:03:27] Wonderful, and that's Rebecca Kilgore singing with Dave Frischberg at the piano Becky welcome to fresh air This has been an ambition of mine for a long time to have you sing on the show And I'm delighted that we're actually doing it It's remarkable to me that you can sing as wonderfully as you do and yet having you started so late Professor [00:03:45][18.4]
Rebecca Kilgore: [00:03:45] to actually sing in front of people. That's right, but I was a closet singer before that, so I had lots of practice in my own living room. You gave up your day job, what, just a couple of years ago? That's correct. Actually, two and a half. Yep. What was the turning point to give it up? I was working full time, and it was getting to be too much with all the gigs I had at night, and it clear that I had to make a decision, and I had the support of my boss and my colleagues, and they said, yes, do it, so I quit my secretarial job. [00:04:13][27.7]
TERRY: [00:04:15] Equally remarkable to me is that you didn't even sing in front of people until what you were 30 31 That's right. Do you have a good musical memory when you're trying to learn a song? Do you get it first time or? [00:04:25][10.0]
Rebecca Kilgore: [00:04:25] No, I wish I did, and that's, boy, I wish I could just learn a song immediately, but I have to, painstakingly, play the melody on my guitar and sing along with it and read the notes and then read the lyrics and listen to it. So I absorb it both with sight, sound, and playing it physically on the guitar. It's a tedious procedure. Bye. [00:04:46][20.8]
TERRY: [00:04:47] Learning a melody that has like a difficult interval. What's your idea of a difficult melody to learn? [00:04:52][5.5]
Rebecca Kilgore: [00:04:54] Well, Lush Life comes to mind, although I've never sung it and I don't even have any aspirations of singing it. [00:04:59][5.3]
Speaker 5: [00:05:02] Ballerina [00:05:02][0.0]
Rebecca Kilgore: [00:05:04] Ballerina. Oh boy, that took me a long time to learn. [00:05:06][2.4]
Speaker 3: [00:05:11] Ballerina dance and do your pirouette in rhythm with your aching heart dance ballerino dance you mustn't once forget a dancer has to dance the part see what i mean [00:05:25][14.1]
TERRY: [00:05:26] No, what makes that tricky because there's a lot of odd intervals and quick notes and what's an accidental? [00:05:31][4.5]
Rebecca Kilgore: [00:05:31] Uh, it's not in the scale, it- it's, uh... [00:05:34][2.6]
Speaker 5: [00:05:35] It's not in the scale, yeah, but I think of this part. Those those all those non-cord tones land on s begin the accident beats near him and i was here and i don't know why did you sound uh... [00:05:53][17.8]
TERRY: [00:05:54] I'm interested in how you started performing together, which you do every week now in Portland. [00:06:00][5.6]
Speaker 5: [00:06:01] I came to Portland to do my act, you know, at a place called Fathers. And Becky was playing with this band, Holy Cats. This was about 81, I think, when I first met you, wasn't it? 82, something like that. So we've known each other quite a long time. I was knocked out with her then. She was the guitar player with the band, you know, but she was singing. She sounded great. [00:06:21][19.8]
TERRY: [00:06:22] And so you asked her to sing with you? I mean, how did you start performing? Well, later. [00:06:25][3.4]
Speaker 5: [00:06:25] Well, later on when I moved to Portland, I was offered this job at the Heathman and they said they wanted a singer and I thought of Becky. [00:06:33][8.3]
TERRY: [00:06:34] And Becky did a change or singing at all to have Dave playing. I mean, I think he's just a fantastic pianist. And I wonder if you think that that affected you. [00:06:44][9.7]
Rebecca Kilgore: [00:06:44] It's been the gig of my life. It's the greatest gig, and I have the most sympathetic accompanist I could imagine with Dave. It is just wonderful to have him as an accompanist. And the other reason is that I get to bring in new songs every week and just put them in front of him and he plays them. So I get increase my repertoire by leaps and bounds. [00:07:07][22.8]
Speaker 5: [00:07:08] Becky's a good arranger and a good guitar player, and she knows how to write a good lead sheet, and it's increased my repertoire. It's enriched my repertoire quite a bit, too. [00:07:18][10.5]
TERRY: [00:07:19] On your album, I Saw Stars, you do a lot of songs that I love, and I love the way you do the songs. So I'm going to request a song from that CD, and this is No Love, No Nothin'. [00:07:29][10.0]
Speaker 3: [00:07:37] No love, no nothing Until my baby comes home No sir, no nothin' As long as baby must roam I promised him I'd wait for him Till even Hades froze I'm lonesome But what I... No no nothing and that's a promise i'll keep no fun with no one i'm getting plenty of sleep my heart's striking though it's like an empty honeycomb no love no sir No, nothing till my baby comes home What No love, no nothing And that's a promise I'll keep No fun with no one I'm getting plenty of sleep My heart's on strike And though it's like an empty honeycomb No l- No nothing till my baby comes home No love, no sir, no nothing till my baby comes home [00:09:54][136.2]
TERRY: [00:10:00] Well, Dave, Becky, why don't you do one of Dorothy Field's, actually her first hit, it was her first, I Can't Give You Anything But Love, which like the sunny side of the street has music by Jimmy McHugh. This song caught on after it was featured in the review Lou Leslie's Blackbirds of 1928. Maybe you can do the verse for us also. [00:10:16][16.0]
Speaker 3: [00:10:23] Gee, but it's tough to be broke, kid. It's not a joke, kid, it's a curse. My luck is changing its garden from simply ridin' to something worse. Who knows some day I will win, too? I'll begin to reach my prime. Now though I see what our end is, all I can spend is Just my time Oh, I can't give you anything but love, baby That's the only thing I've plenty of, baby Dream a while, scheme a while We're sure to find happiness and I guess Of those things that you've always find for G I'd love to see you looking swell Baby, diamond bracelets' worth doesn't sell Baby, till that lucky day you know darn well Baby, I can't give you Anything but love To see you lookin' swell, mm, baby Diamond bracelet, what worth doesn't sell, baby Till that lucky day, you know darn well, baby I can't give you anything but love I can give you, anything but lo- [00:12:56][153.1]
TERRY: [00:13:01] And that song was written, I think, about a year before the Depression, and obviously had particular resonance when the Depression hit shortly after. Becky, do you find Dorothy Field's lyrics particularly singable because they're so colloquial? Take a line like, Gee, I'd like to see you looking swell. See, I can get in. [00:13:17][16.1]
Rebecca Kilgore: [00:13:17] To a lyric like that. I love that. And I'm not embarrassed to say that. Some corny lyrics I am, but this, it just sounds like you say, colloquial, and it's fun to say. [00:13:28][10.1]
TERRY: [00:13:29] Dorothy field's trademark as a lyricist is her cleverness, but she could also write really tender lyrics And I think this song really proves that this is the way you look tonight about that She wrote with Jerome Kern. It won an Academy Award it was written for the Fred Astaire Ginger Rogers film swing time and You know Dorothy field said that the first time Jerome Kern played her the melody When right before she wrote the lyric for it She thought it was so beautiful that she started to cry and she had to leave the room Would you do the song for us? [00:13:57][28.7]
Speaker 3: [00:14:09] Sun When I'm awfully low When the world is cold [00:14:20][11.2]
Speaker 6: [00:14:21] Oh [00:14:21][0.0]
Speaker 3: [00:14:22] I will feel a glow, just thinkin' of And the way you look tonight Oh, but your love With your smile so warm And your cheeks so soft There is nothing for me but to love Just the way you look tonight With each word, your tenderness grows Tearing my fear apart And that laugh, that wrinkles your nose, touches my foolish heart. Lovely Never never change Keep that breathless charm, won't you please arrange it, cause I love- Just the way you look tonight Just the way [00:16:16][113.7]
TERRY: [00:16:27] Well, early on Hoagy Carmichael's Hollywood career, when he was a staff songwriter at Paramount Pictures, the studio teamed him up with Frank Lesser. And Lesser, as a composer and lyricist, is probably best known for writing the songs for Guys and Dolls. But at the time, he was just getting started as a lyricist. And so with Hoagie Carmichel, he wrote Small Fry, Heart and Soul, and Two Sleepy People. I'm gonna ask you to do Two Sleeply People. It was sung by Bob Hope and Shirley Ross in the 1938 movie, Thanks for the Memory. It's a wonderful song. Would you do it for us? Yeah. [00:16:57][29.5]
Speaker 5: [00:17:04] Here we are, out of cigarettes, holding hands and yawning. Look how late it gets. Two sleepy people by dawn's early light, and too much in love to say good night. [00:17:19][15.0]
Speaker 3: [00:17:21] Here we are, in the cozy chair Picking on a wishbone from the Frigidaire Two sleepy people with nothing to say And too much in love to break away [00:17:36][15.2]
Speaker 5: [00:17:38] Remember the nights we used to linger in the hall [00:17:42][3.9]
Speaker 3: [00:17:43] Your father didn't like you at all [00:17:45][2.2]
Speaker 5: [00:17:47] Do you remember the reason why we married in the fall? [00:17:51][3.9]
Speaker 3: [00:17:53] Little nest and get a bit of rest. Well, here we are. [00:17:57][4.9]
Speaker 5: [00:17:59] Just about the same Foggy little fella Drowsy little dame Two sleepy people by dawn's early light And too much in love to say goodnight [00:18:12][13.2]
Speaker 3: [00:18:14] Well here we are, don't we look a mess? Lipstick on your collar, wrinkles in my dress Two sleepy people who know very well They're too much in love to break the spell [00:18:30][15.6]
Speaker 5: [00:18:32] Here we are, crazy in the head Gee, your eyes are gorgeous, even when they're red Two sleepy people, by dawn's early light And too much in love to say goodnight Do you remember when we went dancing at the Palomar? [00:18:53][21.4]
Speaker 3: [00:18:58] When it was over, why naturally we cuddled in the car [00:19:02][3.8]
Speaker 5: [00:19:02] That's when I ran out of gas. [00:19:04][1.4]
Speaker 3: [00:19:04] And I was green as grass [00:19:06][2.0]
Speaker 5: [00:19:07] Well, here we are, keeping up the pace Letting each tomorrow slap us in the face Two sleepy people by dawn's early light And too much in love to say goodnight [00:19:25][17.9]
TERRY: [00:19:31] I think that's one of the most successfully conversational songs I know, both in the lyric and in the music. Well, it makes it really easy to sing as a duet that way. [00:19:38][7.2]
Speaker 5: [00:19:39] Oh yeah, it's real. It's two real people. [00:19:41][2.1]
TERRY: [00:19:42] Well, the next Hoagy Carmichael song I'd like you to do for us is called The Nearness of You. And although it's one of his most recorded songs, I don't think it's nearly as well known as his other famous songs like Skylark and Stardust and Rock and Share in Georgia. The lyric is by Ned Washington, who was given Hoagie's melody by the Paramount Studio, and the song was used for the 1938 movie Romance in the Dark. Would you do The Neerness of You? [00:20:05][22.9]
Speaker 3: [00:20:12] It's not the pale moon that excites me That thrills and delights me Oh no It's just the nearness of you It isn't your sweet conversation that brings this sensation, oh no. It's just the nearness of you When you're in my arms And I feel you so close to me All my wildest dreams come true I need no soft lights to enchant me If you only grant me the right To hold you ever so tight And to feel in the night the nearness of you. [00:21:49][96.5]
TERRY: [00:21:59] That was lovely. [00:21:59][0.3]
DAVE: [00:22:01] Singer Rebecca Kilgore with pianist Dave Frishberg recorded in 1999. Rebecca died last week at the age of 76. We send our condolences to her family, her friends, and her fans. [00:22:14][12.3]
[1189.8]

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