Rosemary Clooney sings the Dave Frishberg song "Sweet Kentucky Ham" live at a jazz festival held on the lawn of the White House, in the summer of 1993.
Know why Clooney was "the best friend a song ever had"? She knew what her strengths were.. Sinatra, Bennett, all the guys, were great, dramatic phrasers. They knew how to play around with a line, bending and stretching and vocally _acting_ it. It's brilliant, and great fun--but Rosie knew how to let a song sing itself, just following the flow of the words, phrasing simply and very subtly and letting the songwriter's "voice" and her own glorious vocal instrument carry it home. . Let an old singer of standards tell you, that kind of simplicity is the hardest thing in the world to do or to bring off--harder than more obvious phrasing, assuming you grew up on Sinatra. She's my vocal idol. The best of the best. . PS--I'm a vegetarian, but I'm still a Kentuckian, and I do fondly remember the ham. :)
This is a gorgeous track from one of my favourite Rosemary Clooney's album, "Girl Singer". Every song on this CD is a winner! Thank you so much for sharing. Her live version is just as beautiful as the recorded version. Rosemary was a consummate storyteller and she always sang with the best musicians and accompanists in her band.
My dad, long gone now, was a corporate road warrior, a man in a "grey flannel suit, who worked the same sales territory for a time as the protagonist in this song. He was gone all week, back on Friday or Saturday and then on the road again. Every time I hear this song, tears come to my eyes. Rosemary does a fine rendition. Frishberg really does it well, too. Try "Best of of Dave Frishberg" for this and other unique songs that her wrote and performs.
I've pulled up at the A&W drive-thru to pick up a “Teen Burger w. onion rings/root beer combo” and wondering, not for the first time, if Canadians alone have been enjoying A&W for the past 65 years. Then, as now, they sell the best root beer and onion rings that money can buy. And at the very moment I'm handed my meal, Rosemary Clooney is on 'Nancy For Frank' Siriusly Sinatra channel 71 -- singing a witty hymn to “'Sweet Kentucky Ham.'
Nancy reminds us that this one was written by Dave Frishberg (who turns 88 in March 2021)- written from the perspective of a musician “like my good friend Rosemary” out on tour and in some small diner where it's 'steak & eggs' instead of that sweet delicacy from back home. "And Rosemary was from Kentucky," says Nancy.
Like most every lyric that Dave Frishberg ever composed, this one is 'the soul of wit' as a great English playwright once said, in praise of “brevity.” Words like these:
It's ten p.m., they're rollin' up the sidewalks in Milwaukee And the only place to eat, is just across the street. So you sit there with a bowl of navy beans and you turn the pages of your magazine And you feel you wanna quit while you're behind. 'Cause you've got sweet Kentucky ham on your mind . . .
Please, be at UA-cam. Even better! a live television performance “at a jazz festival held on the lawn of the White House, the summer of 1993” - complete with intro by Rosie - whose rendition is so fine it transcends the limitations of that old VHS tape. Favorite comment below the video from MYRON EAST (6 years ago): "My dad, long gone now, was a corporate road warrior, a man in a 'grey flannel suit' who worked the same sales territory for a time like the protagonist in this song. He was gone all week, back on Friday or Saturday and then on the road again. Every time I hear this song, tears come to my eyes. Rosemary does a fine rendition. Frishberg really does it well, too. Try 'Best of of Dave Frishberg' for this and other unique songs that her wrote and performs." Thanks leoshephard for sharing this one. Celebrated this day at Sinatra Family - Forum - "Siriusly Sinatra" Nancy for Frank Show sinatrafamily.com/forum/showthread.php/51198-NFF-SHOW-525-Week-of-January-31-2021-nbsp?p=1302963#post1302963
Man. She’s the real thing, the genuine article… be sure to check out the album version you gotta hear the swell of the horns behind her! But this version!? Wow! Really highlights her command of the stage. She just pulls it off. I mean the song isn’t about ham (or any food for that matter) at all lol. They don’t make’em like this anymore. She was a super star in her day. You may have never heard of her (you’ve heard of her nephew, that’s for sure). Idk I’m all over the place, maybe I got sweet Kentucky ham on my mind lol. The lyrics are apropos for this election season… a song that encapsulates America back when it was “great”. The lyrics betray a crux or rub if you will. We’re always at our “best” as a nation; that is to say America has always been “greatest” in hindsight… as a throwback; a nostalgic memory of an earlier time that, I mean if we’re honest with ourselves, probably wasn’t very good at all except in hindsight of what we had to do to make those tough times tolerable. I guess hallmarks are always better than harbingers… but when faced with a plate of cold navy beans in a lonely motel room with nothing more than a magazine as company it’d be hard to blame anybody relishing a plate of sweet Kentucky ham. Maybe it’s just me.
It's 6:00 p.m., supper time in South Bend, Indiana And you figure what the hell you can eat in your motel So you order up room service on the phone And you watch the local news and eat alone You've gotta take what little pleasures you can find When you got sweet Kentucky ham on your mind, on your mind Nothing but sweet Kentucky ham on your mind It's 10:00 p.m., they're rolling up the sidewalk in Milwaukee And the only place to eat, is just across the street So you sit there with a bowl of navy beans And you turn the pages of your magazine And you feel you wanna quit while you're behind 'Cause you've got sweet Kentucky ham on your mind, on your mind Nothing but sweet Kentucky ham on your mind And you feel like you're forever on the phone Half past ten, let it ring Dial again, same damn thing And you're really getting hungry for some choc Grab a shower, take a walk It's 3:00 a.m., they're serving up last call in Cincinnati But it's still a nighttime town If you know your way around And despite yourself you find you're wide awake And you're staring at your scrambled eggs and steak And you must admit your heart's about to break When you think of what you left behind And you've got sweet Kentucky ham on your mind, on your mind Nothing but sweet Kentucky ham on your mind
John Oddo, I think, on piano; I believe that's Paul Langosch (who worked stints for both Mel Tormé and Tony Bennett) on bass; and, my best guess as there wasn't a clear view, is maybe the great Roy McCurdy on drums (especially if Nancy Wilson, his long-term employer) was also on the bill that night.
Thanks for the informed note. Is there anything better than people who know what they are talking about? In this case, that's YOU Redinho da Flauta. Thanks again for sharing.
She's just the greatest.. that's all.. I can never say enough what was always said of her: "She's the best friend a song ever had". ~ Thank you so for sharing this.
Rosie's correct. It is the theme song for musicians and other people who must travel to earn a living. I've heard some people say, What? A song about ham? Those people don't understand traveling to earn a living. Rosie's been gone a while and Dave Frishbert died just last month, November 2021. I wish I could have sat down with him and bought him a beer . . . but we all know people who are gone and we don't always get to say goodbye. If we just give them a "hello" or a smile while we're here maybe that's enough.
You know, we all have sources of isolation or loneliness. Like I’m sure idk, real tall mofos feel somewhat out of place, or short people… maybe if you had some handicap it would be isolating. My isolating trait is frustrating af, because it doesn’t come from a glaring social or physical malady. It’s not “loneliness” from a lack of friends or love in my life, I’m thankfully lucky to have the largest, greatest, most supportive, and loving troop a guy could ask for, and my dance card is usually full lol… there’s no sympathy - rightfully so - for a guy who has “it all” in the popularity department when so many have so few friends and so little love. But when I come across stuff like this from my childhood, or from my travels in this crazy life I’ve lived, my isolating features are highlighted like a zit popping up on a awkward kids face on the bus ride to school. My feelings of loneliness stem from a lack of intellectual and cultural connection due to a lack of peers with the cultural and social understanding, experience, education, & knowledge to idk keep up. Not to say I don’t have cohorts that can run with me, but there a big difference between running and flying, and I just don’t get a chance very often to spread my wings… most of the people who have the refined artistic acumen that I do are Lightyears older than me and lack a connection to current cultural development, and the bright kids that did ok on the English section of the SAT’s can’t have a conversation about anything that happened before 1990 (and can’t have a salient conversation about anything that happened before 2000). And it’s not even worth trying to have a conversation about anything dealing with artistic expression… and worse yet finding people who are in touch with robust introspective examinations of their emotional experiences who can expound, emote, convey those feelings… nonexistent… idk I could complain forever lol. So it’s back to droll, jocular humor to mask the obtuseness of our collective consciousness. As if to say supplanting the rigor of wrestling out a feeling supplanted by the ease of a anti-intellectual gutless quip helps to ease the time of this empty emotionless life Americans have been relegated to to by the almost national pastime of gutting intellectualism until we d!e… so our attitude towards life becomes: let’s replace life with… angst? Compassion with quips? (Not even whitty quips)… Idk man, let’s just sling these stupid jokes and get it over with 🤷🏾♂️.
Know why Clooney was "the best friend a song ever had"? She knew what her strengths were.. Sinatra, Bennett, all the guys, were great, dramatic phrasers. They knew how to play around with a line, bending and stretching and vocally _acting_ it. It's brilliant, and great fun--but Rosie knew how to let a song sing itself, just following the flow of the words, phrasing simply and very subtly and letting the songwriter's "voice" and her own glorious vocal instrument carry it home.
.
Let an old singer of standards tell you, that kind of simplicity is the hardest thing in the world to do or to bring off--harder than more obvious phrasing, assuming you grew up on Sinatra. She's my vocal idol. The best of the best.
.
PS--I'm a vegetarian, but I'm still a Kentuckian, and I do fondly remember the ham. :)
You put your finger on it. You singled out her greatest strength and expressed it in so few words. Thanks for sharing, Rain Adkins.
Very well said.
I had never seen this...Truly one of my favorite tunes that she recorded!!
What a singer ! What a song !
This is a gorgeous track from one of my favourite Rosemary Clooney's album, "Girl Singer". Every song on this CD is a winner! Thank you so much for sharing. Her live version is just as beautiful as the recorded version. Rosemary was a consummate storyteller and she always sang with the best musicians and accompanists in her band.
Pure class this lady. Pure class.
I still miss Rosemary
My dad, long gone now, was a corporate road warrior, a man in a "grey flannel suit, who worked the same sales territory for a time as the protagonist in this song. He was gone all week, back on Friday or Saturday and then on the road again. Every time I hear this song, tears come to my eyes. Rosemary does a fine rendition. Frishberg really does it well, too. Try "Best of of Dave Frishberg" for this and other unique songs that her wrote and performs.
You may like Frishberg's "Blizzard of Lies."
perfect Saloon Song
I've pulled up at the A&W drive-thru to pick up a “Teen Burger w. onion rings/root beer combo” and wondering, not for the first time, if Canadians alone have been enjoying A&W for the past 65 years. Then, as now, they sell the best root beer and onion rings that money can buy. And at the very moment I'm handed my meal, Rosemary Clooney is on 'Nancy For Frank' Siriusly Sinatra channel 71 -- singing a witty hymn to “'Sweet Kentucky Ham.'
Nancy reminds us that this one was written by Dave Frishberg (who turns 88 in March 2021)- written from the perspective of a musician “like my good friend Rosemary” out on tour and in some small diner where it's 'steak & eggs' instead of that sweet delicacy from back home. "And Rosemary was from Kentucky," says Nancy.
Like most every lyric that Dave Frishberg ever composed, this one is 'the soul of wit' as a great English playwright once said, in praise of “brevity.”
Words like these:
It's ten p.m., they're rollin' up the sidewalks in Milwaukee
And the only place to eat, is just across the street.
So you sit there with a bowl of navy beans
and you turn the pages of your magazine
And you feel you wanna quit while you're behind.
'Cause you've got sweet Kentucky ham on your mind . . .
Please, be at UA-cam. Even better! a live television performance “at a jazz festival held on the lawn of the White House, the summer of 1993” - complete with intro by Rosie - whose rendition is so fine it transcends the limitations of that old VHS tape.
Favorite comment below the video from MYRON EAST (6 years ago):
"My dad, long gone now, was a corporate road warrior, a man in a 'grey flannel suit' who worked the same sales territory for a time like the protagonist in this song. He was gone all week, back on Friday or Saturday and then on the road again. Every time I hear this song, tears come to my eyes. Rosemary does a fine rendition. Frishberg really does it well, too. Try 'Best of of Dave Frishberg' for this and other unique songs that her wrote and performs."
Thanks leoshephard for sharing this one. Celebrated this day at Sinatra Family - Forum - "Siriusly Sinatra" Nancy for Frank Show sinatrafamily.com/forum/showthread.php/51198-NFF-SHOW-525-Week-of-January-31-2021-nbsp?p=1302963#post1302963
If this doesn't draw a tear, you have no heart.
She's the freaking best. And the way she reminds the crowd that Dave Frishberg wrote it at the end, what class. Please let me meet her when I die.
Man. She’s the real thing, the genuine article… be sure to check out the album version you gotta hear the swell of the horns behind her! But this version!? Wow! Really highlights her command of the stage. She just pulls it off. I mean the song isn’t about ham (or any food for that matter) at all lol. They don’t make’em like this anymore. She was a super star in her day. You may have never heard of her (you’ve heard of her nephew, that’s for sure). Idk I’m all over the place, maybe I got sweet Kentucky ham on my mind lol. The lyrics are apropos for this election season… a song that encapsulates America back when it was “great”. The lyrics betray a crux or rub if you will. We’re always at our “best” as a nation; that is to say America has always been “greatest” in hindsight… as a throwback; a nostalgic memory of an earlier time that, I mean if we’re honest with ourselves, probably wasn’t very good at all except in hindsight of what we had to do to make those tough times tolerable. I guess hallmarks are always better than harbingers… but when faced with a plate of cold navy beans in a lonely motel room with nothing more than a magazine as company it’d be hard to blame anybody relishing a plate of sweet Kentucky ham.
Maybe it’s just me.
Such a wacky yet beautiful song!
To avoid any misunderstandings: *Kentucky Ham* is not a reference to her nephew.
Henri de Lagardère I'm shaking with laughs now lol
Rosemary And Hillary. Wow! Two greats in one room.
Three--Bill was there too.
It's 6:00 p.m., supper time in South Bend, Indiana
And you figure what the hell you can eat in your motel
So you order up room service on the phone
And you watch the local news and eat alone
You've gotta take what little pleasures you can find
When you got sweet Kentucky ham on your mind, on your mind
Nothing but sweet Kentucky ham on your mind
It's 10:00 p.m., they're rolling up the sidewalk in Milwaukee
And the only place to eat, is just across the street
So you sit there with a bowl of navy beans
And you turn the pages of your magazine
And you feel you wanna quit while you're behind
'Cause you've got sweet Kentucky ham on your mind, on your mind
Nothing but sweet Kentucky ham on your mind
And you feel like you're forever on the phone
Half past ten, let it ring
Dial again, same damn thing
And you're really getting hungry for some choc
Grab a shower, take a walk
It's 3:00 a.m., they're serving up last call in Cincinnati
But it's still a nighttime town
If you know your way around
And despite yourself you find you're wide awake
And you're staring at your scrambled eggs and steak
And you must admit your heart's about to break
When you think of what you left behind
And you've got sweet Kentucky ham on your mind, on your mind
Nothing but sweet Kentucky ham on your mind
John Oddo, I think, on piano; I believe that's Paul Langosch (who worked stints for both Mel Tormé and Tony Bennett) on bass; and, my best guess as there wasn't a clear view, is maybe the great Roy McCurdy on drums (especially if Nancy Wilson, his long-term employer) was also on the bill that night.
Thanks for the informed note. Is there anything better than people who know what they are talking about? In this case, that's YOU Redinho da Flauta. Thanks again for sharing.
@@MarkBlackburnWPG You're very kind indeed! 🙏
777
I love Rosemary!!! But I'm curious..is that Hilary Clinton at 1:41?
troy haley It's GOTTA be!!!!! Wow....
Yes. If I remember correctly, it was a performance at the White House.
Yep, and Bill's there too. Gods, how young they were then!
aa
She's just the greatest.. that's all.. I can never say enough what was always said of her: "She's the best friend a song ever had". ~ Thank you so for sharing this.
I remember seeing this when it was first broadcast. She was always beautiful, and OMG could she sing!
Well put! And in so few words: "She was always beautiful and OMG could she sing!"
She was the greatest!
What a great song. I can relate to the lyrics so well. Rosemary Clooney does it, as usual, just great here.
Happy Birthday Rosemary! You are so missed! Nice song! Terrific Singer!
I was there and this song blew me away!
This song always makes me smile!
Rosie's correct. It is the theme song for musicians and other people who must travel to earn a living. I've heard some people say, What? A song about ham? Those people don't understand traveling to earn a living. Rosie's been gone a while and Dave Frishbert died just last month, November 2021. I wish I could have sat down with him and bought him a beer . . . but we all know people who are gone and we don't always get to say goodbye. If we just give them a "hello" or a smile while we're here maybe that's enough.
Beautiful. She will be forever one of my favorites
She's great, but this doesn't hold a candle to the way Frishberg does it.
You know, we all have sources of isolation or loneliness. Like I’m sure idk, real tall mofos feel somewhat out of place, or short people… maybe if you had some handicap it would be isolating.
My isolating trait is frustrating af, because it doesn’t come from a glaring social or physical malady. It’s not “loneliness” from a lack of friends or love in my life, I’m thankfully lucky to have the largest, greatest, most supportive, and loving troop a guy could ask for, and my dance card is usually full lol… there’s no sympathy - rightfully so - for a guy who has “it all” in the popularity department when so many have so few friends and so little love.
But when I come across stuff like this from my childhood, or from my travels in this crazy life I’ve lived, my isolating features are highlighted like a zit popping up on a awkward kids face on the bus ride to school. My feelings of loneliness stem from a lack of intellectual and cultural connection due to a lack of peers with the cultural and social understanding, experience, education, & knowledge to idk keep up. Not to say I don’t have cohorts that can run with me, but there a big difference between running and flying, and I just don’t get a chance very often to spread my wings… most of the people who have the refined artistic acumen that I do are Lightyears older than me and lack a connection to current cultural development, and the bright kids that did ok on the English section of the SAT’s can’t have a conversation about anything that happened before 1990 (and can’t have a salient conversation about anything that happened before 2000). And it’s not even worth trying to have a conversation about anything dealing with artistic expression… and worse yet finding people who are in touch with robust introspective examinations of their emotional experiences who can expound, emote, convey those feelings… nonexistent… idk I could complain forever lol. So it’s back to droll, jocular humor to mask the obtuseness of our collective consciousness. As if to say supplanting the rigor of wrestling out a feeling supplanted by the ease of a anti-intellectual gutless quip helps to ease the time of this empty emotionless life Americans have been relegated to to by the almost national pastime of gutting intellectualism until we d!e… so our attitude towards life becomes: let’s replace life with… angst? Compassion with quips? (Not even whitty quips)… Idk man, let’s just sling these stupid jokes and get it over with 🤷🏾♂️.
some reason I keep thinking this is a Frishberg and Tom Waits collaboration.
Dave Frishberg, composer (1933-2021)
Excellent food song.
Best ever, actually.
RUM HAMMMM!!!!!!