Tag Archives: Phoebe Snow

SNL Season 1 Episode 21 [1976)

Saturday Night Live was still a small show in 1976.

A growing concern, to be sure, but still a show with an off-the-cuff, communal vibe to it.

We feel this insular aspect most when hosts or musical guests are repeated.

For instance, Candice Bergen hosted episodes 4 and 8.

Phoebe Snow was a musical guest on episodes 2 and 18.

And finally, Buck Henry was the host of episode 10 and (voila!) episode 21.

Buck Henry is a hard guy to get excited about.

He comes out in a cardigan.  A sort of Bob Newhart look.

But the man was brilliant.

The two shows Henry hosted to this point, taken collectively, both show signs of superior comedic writing.

One gets the sense that Buck was allowed to contribute to the writing process (which only makes sense considering who he was).

However, this is still a rather mediocre installment of the show.

The big surprise is that Gordon Lightfoot is not, I repeat, not horrible.

I had heard a bit of Lightfoot previously.

In one sense, he is the prefect pairing for Buck Henry:

unassuming, understated, dullish…

Henry, at least, seems aware of his fatherly image and manages to make the presentation work for him.

Lightfoot, while not apparently a comedian, is a sort of breath of fresh air as far as musicians go.

He just gets on there and sings his songs.  Plain and simple.

And his band…whoa!

I thought the MC5 had cornered the market on denim, but Lightfoot’s group is like a Wrangler gang on the prowl.

Tamely…

Hell, Lightfoot’s young lead guitarist sits down for the performance.

This is some m e l l o w stuff.

But not in a druggy sense.

Lightfoot really has a sort of John Denver purity about him.

But really, nothing can compare to Garrett Morris singing Franz Schubert’s “An die Musik” on this show.

It is breathtaking.

It’s one of those special TV moments which catches one completely off-guard.

They just don’t make TV like this anymore.

 

-PD

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SNL Season 1 Episode 18 [1976)

When you set the time machine to 1976, it’s a pleasant buzz to come face to…face with Raquel Welch.

What…rather, who could sum up that time quite like her?

Her feathered hair.  Her overly-tanned (golden?) skin.  Her bellbottom jeans.

There’s something fizzy about the experience.

A starlet now faded.  A human sequin.

I previously wrote about Welch’s 1967 film Fathom.

Aside from base titillation, it’s a pretty lame affair.

But here on Saturday Night Live she gets to show a bit more of her talent.

Not much more.  A bit more.

For instance, Raquel sings on this episode.

The monologue-substitute with John Belushi as Joe Cocker is pretty fantastic.

It’s a comedy piece.

Later, Welch actually does share the rarefied air which Marilyn Monroe breathed when she sang “Happy Birthday” for JFK.

I’m speaking of Raquel’s rendition of the Gershwin tune “It Ain’t Necessarily So”.  Few microphone techniques can be said to carry such sexual import as Welch’s on this number.

And the subject matter…for God’s sake!

It ain’t Sportin’ Life from Porgy and Bess.

No.

It’s Raquel singing, “The things that you’re liable/to hear in the Bible”…[what a rhyme!]…”It ain’t necessarily so.”

So.  You get the picture.

Welch is steamy as a Manhattan manhole cover in winter.

One particularly great sequence involves Welch as Jane Russell on the set of The Outlaw (1943).  Dan Aykroyd plays Howard Hughes.  It is pretty priceless!

Aykroyd is also great in the sequence about applying the metric system to the English alphabet (the Decabet).

What’s bad about this great blast from the past?

Phoebe Snow.

I really don’t want to hate on this lady, but it’s a combination of snoozerville and overly-precious musicianship masquerading as talent.

Snow has that horribly indiscreet application of wide vibrato which always irks the bejesus out of me.

And the songs…for christsake!  “Two-Fisted Love”?!?  Are you fuckin’ kidding me?  How does an MOR artist do a song like “Two-Fisted Love” with a straight face.

And so Phoebe Snow is godawful here.  It bears mentioning because (for some [un]mysterious reason) she was back on the show for a second time [here] in season one.

But let’s dish some more.  John Sebastian also sucks on this episode.  Trying to cash in on his Welcome Back, Kotter theme song.

Likewise, somebody in charge of sound for this episode adds to the lameness of Sebastian’s performance.  Or, from another perspective, the only good thing about John Sebastian’s performance here is his microphone feeding back during his aborted intro.

Ok, there.  I’ve let them both have it.  Snow and Sebastian.

What else is good about this episode?

Let’s end on a high note.

Lorne Michaels’ solicitation of The Beatles (for a whopping $3000) is goddamned brilliant.

Ok.  So there you have it.  Oh…and Belushi as the high-strung meteorologist during Weekend Update is damned good as well.

Cheerio!

 

-PD

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SNL Season 1 Episode 2 [1975)

Leave it to the wacky crew of fledgling SNL to throw a curveball on pitch two.

No.  That’s not a good enough metaphor.

Rather.

It’s like a hard rock band which decides to “break it down” two songs into their set.

Yeah.  That’s a little better.

This one.

Really has an off-the-cuff feel of experimentation.

Like, “Hey…Garfunkel is in!  Garfunkel is in!”

Yes, this is really a musical special rather than a true Saturday Night Live episode.

I must be honest.

Paul Simon starts out pretty bland.

I was skeptical.

I mean, I like the guy, but the first couple of songs are a little clunky–a little underwhelming.

But then things pick up.  Big time!

I’ve always heard “Bridge Over Troubled Waters” as a magical song.  It is other.  And though the mellow duo of Simon & Garfunkel don’t play that particular tune on this show, they go to that magical other place for a string of songs.  “The Boxer”…”Scarborough Fair”…it is bloody jawdropping.

Just these two dudes.  No band.  Nothing to cover for flubs.  Paul with his fingerpicks on.  Never misses a note.  And Art with his delicate voice…as poised as his Bob Ross hair.

And the songs!  My God, the songs!  The lyrics about “the boxer”…this passage in particular:

And he carries the reminders
Of ev’ry glove that laid him down
And cut him till he cried out
In his anger and his shame,
“I am leaving, I am leaving.”
But the fighter still remains.

Goddamn.  Those last two lines.  I’m leaving, but the fighter still remains.

And then those opening fingerpicked notes of “Scarborough Fair” with the capo midway up the neck.  So delicate.  So many blurred harmonies.  Like a clavichord.

But hold your horses!

Randy Newman is here too.  At the piano.  Doing “Sail Away”…and those lazy, studied dissonances reminiscent of Charles Ives.  And the words…as delicate a political statement as Chuck Berry’s “Back in the USA”…

To break things up, Paul plays Connie Hawkins in a game of one-on-one basketball with Marv Albert getting the sideline interview.  What a bizarre and hilarious bit!!!

But the song that really got me was “Marie” by Paul Simon (actually a Randy Newman composition).  I’ve loved you since the moment I first saw you (or something like that).  Man…  This guy!  And that song…

I will admit that I never really “got” Simon & Garfunkel till I saw this episode.  And Paul Simon I knew mainly from the later stuff…the great albums like Graceland and Rhythm of the Saints.  Like I said:  some of Paul’s solo stuff falls flat, but on the whole the guy is one hell of a talent!!!

Phoebe Snow didn’t do as much for me here as Janis Ian did in the first episode, but hey:  the lady was seven-months pregnant.  There’s no doubt Snow had a truckload of talent.  The repertoire was a bit questionable, but that might not have been her fault.

Also, before I forget:  Art’s solo rendition here of “I Only Have Eyes for You” is otherworldly.  Nobody does it like that anymore!  Truly a fount of inspiration!!

And so there’s very little Chevy Chase, no Aykroyd, no Belushi…but it was kinda worth it for the musical happening which transpired.

A nice curveball 🙂

 

-PD

 

 

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