Robert Baird

Blues movies, movies about the blues, continue to be a treacherous swamp for filmmakers; For some bizarre reason, they just can’t get it right.

I was saddened today to read about the December 22 passing of Ruth Wallis, a singer from the 40's through 60's who specialized in creative naughtiness. Born in Brooklyn (where else?), she sang with Benny Goodman and owned her own record label, but it was her risque tunes like, "The Dinghy Song" ("He had the cutest little dinghy in the Navy") that brought her the most fame and which became the basis for an unlikely 2003 Broadway hit, Boobs! The Musical: The World According to Ruth Wallis. Here are a few classic couplets from the Wallis-penned title tune:

"You've gotta be filled

Two fried eggs will never grab him like grapefruits will

(And they're both breakfast foods)

But listen girls, don't try to fool your lover

Remember, he can go to Good Year if he wants rubber"

"Just think if all us girls had boobies with fluorination

We could take the cavities out of the whole damn nation

A nibble a day keeps the dentist away"

"Some push 'em up

Some stick 'em out

And some keep 'em flappin' in the breeze

Some tie then down because if they don't

They would hang down to their knees

Just you tease"

Now that Christmas has come and gone, and my need to hear Bobby Helms' "Jingle Bells Rock" has subsided — I'm not sure but I think it has something to do with those electric guitar flourishes&#151, it's seems an appropriate time to say something about the continuing and astonishing turmoil in the record business which according to most sources experienced a nearly 20 percent decline in sales of physical product compared with last Christmas.

Needless to say, I'm not in London waiting in line at O2 arena but that doesn't mean my thoughts, like those of about every other music fan on the planet, aren't turned to what's going to happen this evening when Led Zeppelin ends two decades of silence and lets it rip in what's being billed as a one-off show for charity.

"For decades the pursuit of high–-quality sound on high-end systems drove the recording industry, especially the classical music branch."

The new Miles Davis On The Corner set, which Sony says is the last metal boxed chunk of Miles they're gonna release, ever, is also the most beautiful, ever. Like the LP which reached its finest, most completely perfected form just before CDs came in, the boxed set is reaching its zenith with this one. The funky characters from the original cover are now stamped into the metal casing into which the set, book and CDs combined slip into. It's the same setup that Sony’s been using since the beginning of what has proved to be colossal reissue program.

First the sad. An old friend, harp player and all around sweetheart, Gary Primich passed away, suddenly as they say, in Austin on Sunday night. He was only 49. Although he'd had a solo career for some time, Gary was once a member of a smokin' Austin bar band called The Mannish Boys.