Music is medicine

Sunday morning comin' down, Sinatra, Sid Mark, newspapers, nice.

I've got a scratchy throat. But I think (hope) it's just drainage. That time of year, you know.

Four days migraine free. I am happily, cautiously, feeling human.  It's humane, sane, no longer profane.

Tax Day cometh. Sigh. I'm going to see the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra's production of Verdi's "Requiem" on Thursday. Seems appropriate.

Speaking of the KSO, Doc Severinsen conducted the KSO Pops last night. No big band. Italian style. It was a nice way to detox.

Doc played the trumpet he co-created with Steve Shires. Kathy Duggan, whom Jenn and I saw after the show, says that was the best part. I agree.

Never thought I'd ever get to see Doc in person. Thought I'd missed the boat. He's 85! Who knew he'd move to East Tennessee.

And, yeah, I dreamt about the days when he and Tommy and Ed (Shaughnessy) played on Carson's "Tonight Show." Someday I may write a book arguing that the pop culture, in the way I define it, gasped its last breaths in late May 1992.

Doc wore orange pants and joked he bought them at "a yard sale at Derek Dooley's house." He wore pink during the second set. (See Cynthia Moxley's photo above.) You know Doc. Remember those '70s suits?

He and the Pops (one of my UT instructors, Keith Brown, played drums) took us on a tour of Italy. Caruso and "Caruso." Look up that second one. Pavarotti made it a hit. Tenor Joseph Wolverton supplied the showstoppers.

Friday night, I caught Josh Groban from Lincoln Center on PBS. And, after that, Michael Feinstein on the early days of radio.

Music is medicine.