![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
CLASSICAL GAS
Jul. 12th, 2008 12:16 amIt appears as if on Monday, I'll be interviewing Mason Williams. A Rochester folk-music group is bringing him in next week, and apparently it's just coming together at the last minute -- hence, they just contacted me today about it and asked if I could do a phone interview Mr. Williams this afternoon, since he's traveling this weekend. I ended up arranging through what I presume was his personal assistant -- as I could hear him talking to him in the background -- to do the interview Monday morning when he's in Toronto, so I can ask an at least halfway intelligent question or two ... since before tonight, all I really knew was "Classical Gas." Which I at least have always found pleasant and soothing.
Thanks to the Blessed Internet -- without which this A&E job would be 50 times harder -- I learned that he was a writer for The Smothers Brothers Show, Glen Campbell's variety program and the early-1980s iteration of Saturday Night Live -- and, while he's probably always going to be known chiefly for "Classical Gas," he's done quite a bit of country- (and more recently bluegrass-) tinged writing and performing over the years. As in this YouTube clip from back in the day. (And yup, that's the unmistakable Johnny Cash with him at the beginning.) As a public service announcement for any Williams fans among the Torontonians on my friends-list: He's playing the Beach United Church in Toronto Beach on Wednesday.
That's all I've got tonight. I expect to see at least a few of all y'all at the Nappe-Bellavia nuptials tomorrow.
EDIT: Wow -- just found a clip of Williams and Ken Kesey(!) doing a rendition of the classic hymn "Shall We Gather at the River"
Sounds & Images: Various Mason Williams clips (and a few covers of "Classical Gas" from various performers, including Roy Clark. I don't think I really appreciated YouTube until I took on this gig.
State O'Mind: Soothed
Thanks to the Blessed Internet -- without which this A&E job would be 50 times harder -- I learned that he was a writer for The Smothers Brothers Show, Glen Campbell's variety program and the early-1980s iteration of Saturday Night Live -- and, while he's probably always going to be known chiefly for "Classical Gas," he's done quite a bit of country- (and more recently bluegrass-) tinged writing and performing over the years. As in this YouTube clip from back in the day. (And yup, that's the unmistakable Johnny Cash with him at the beginning.) As a public service announcement for any Williams fans among the Torontonians on my friends-list: He's playing the Beach United Church in Toronto Beach on Wednesday.
That's all I've got tonight. I expect to see at least a few of all y'all at the Nappe-Bellavia nuptials tomorrow.
EDIT: Wow -- just found a clip of Williams and Ken Kesey(!) doing a rendition of the classic hymn "Shall We Gather at the River"
Sounds & Images: Various Mason Williams clips (and a few covers of "Classical Gas" from various performers, including Roy Clark. I don't think I really appreciated YouTube until I took on this gig.
State O'Mind: Soothed
