Modern Family Rocks! Or Is That Soft Rocks?
Haley has been ripped off—her dad gets ready to confront the perpetrator. Phil: “Yeah I got a plan. Either he gives us the money or he gets a private performance from (holds up left fist) England Dan and (right fist) John Ford Coley.” Later, he amends this to “Crosby (left fist), Stills (right fist), Nash (knee), and Young (kicks out his foot).” Baby Boomer scripting par excellence— and Ty Burrell as Phil just gets better and better.

I Missed The Radio Doc About The Missing Bobbie Gentry
Yes, I conspired to miss something I know I’d have loved. I only found out after it broadcast and then—just as my finger was hovering over the play triangle on iPlayer—it disappeared. I can only hope it featured the wonderful Jill Sobule song, Where Is Bobbie Gentry? Set to a clever melody closely modelled on Ode To Billie Jo it tells of a fan’s devotion…

“Out in the desert where the skin slowly cures deep brown
She’s got a little shack, a pickup truck, parked out on the edge of town
It’s just what I imagined, no one knows where’d she be
Maybe she’s in heaven passing black-eyed peas
Where is Bobbie Gentry?

Up in Alaska hauling wood or maybe in Japan
I bet that she’s still beautiful, goes barefoot everywhere she can
Does she still play guitar or write a song or two?
Maybe that was over; she’s got better things to do
Where is Bobbie Gentry?

If I could just find you
Say I love you and then leave you alone
If I could just find you
Say I love you and then leave you alone

1967, Bobbie made it on the Billboard charts
Ten years later, disappeared and broke everybody’s heart
Does she ever go to Chickasaw? Ever go back on that bridge?
Well, I was the baby thrown off the Tallahatchie Bridge
Yeah, I was the baby thrown off the Tallahatchie Bridge…”

Love that middle eight…

That “Bird On A Wire” Was A Real Cracker Of A Movie, Wasn’t It?
Someone has made a a psychological thriller, due out in a couple of weeks, titled after Leonard Cohen’s A Thousand Kisses Deep, from Ten New Songs. It stars Emilia Fox and Dougray Scott (in a pork pie hat, playing jazz trumpet in the bath). Snap judgment from the trailer? Absolutely preposterous.

Niles ’n’ Miles
Fascinating piece hidden away in the Money section of The Guardian, by the always interesting Nile Rogers, in a regular column called My Greatest Mistake. He tells of the many occasions on which Miles Davis would ask Rodgers to write him a song. Nile: “This is a great man who changed my life—and he wanted me to help change his. I believe he kept asking me for about two years, and all that time I couldn’t believe he was serious… he had a funny coding system for when we spoke on the phone at night, like I was calling the president of the US: I had to ring three times and ask for so-and-so and then he would know it was me. I kept doing jazz fusion demos and whenever Miles heard them he’d say to me: “I can do that myself. I want a motherfucking Good Times.” Miles Davis was 100% clear but I didn’t hear him. He was completely sincere and had opened himself up by asking for my help. If I wasn’t so stupid I might have done it.”

Bob. Dylan. Boot. Leg.
From Bobby Keys’ autobiography Every Night’s a Saturday Night we learn that the feet poking out from the Rolls Royce on Delaney & Bonnie & Friends are Bob’s. And the Rolls? Albert Grossman’s.