Not Named Sue
As I was rooting around with the remote control last night, I came upon a part of Ken Burn’s series on Country Music and was surprised to learn that Shel Silverstein, prolific author of children’s books, was also a songwriter. He wrote Johnny Cash’s biggest hit, A Boy Named Sue, which was recorded live at San Quentin Prison in 1969 and had a two-week stay at #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 behind The Rolling Stones’ Honky Tonk Woman. He also wrote Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show’s The Cover of Rolling Stone, which hit #6 on The US Billboard Hot 100 in ’72, and Sylvia’s Mother, #5 also in ’72; and Loretta Lynn’s One’s on the Way, #1 on Billboard’s Hot Country Singles in ’71 and Here I Am Again, #3 in ’72 and Hey Loretta, #3 in ’73; and Brenda Lee’s Wrong Ideas, #6 on the country chart in ’74 and Big Four Poster Bed, #2 the same year; and The Irish Rovers’ The Unicorn, #7 on the U.S. Hot 100 in ’68. His songs were recorded by luminaries such as Waylon Jennings, Bobby Bare, Marianne Faithful, Emmy Lou Harris, Belinda Carlisle, Judy Collins, Kris Kristofferson, Peter, Paul and Mary, and The New Christy Minstrels. They have been used in scores of films and TV shows. He also recorded an album himself, 1972’s Freakin’ at the Freakers Ball, and wrote the music and songs for the 1970 film Ned Kelly, which starred Mick Jagger as the famous Aussie outlaw. He played guitar, piano, saxophone and trombone. He won a Grammy for A Boy Named Sue and for Best Recording For Children, Where the Sidewalk Ends. He was nominated for an Oscar and a Golden Globe Award for the song I’m Checkin’ Out, featured in Postcards from the Edge (1990). He’s a member of the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. Oh — and his books sold more than 20 million copies, translated into 30 languages, earning him a place in the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame. Wow. He passed away at 69 in 1999. (Facts from Wiki)
I’m glad to see some folks have their priorities straight, as manifested by this nypost.com headline: “NYC plastic surgeons flooded with post-lockdown Botox requests.”
He’s been consistently wrong from the beginning, so let’s hope he is so again concerning this headline: “Dr. Fauci says George Floyd protests provide ‘perfect recipe’ for new coronavirus surges.”
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