Song of the Day

Forget "George & Tammy" on the TV, catch George & Emmylou instead, right here.

My posts here usually include at least one song/video and sometimes several or a full Profile in Music. After all, I was the executive editor of the legendary Crawdaddy for nearly a decade. Now, as I explained yesterday, I’d like to offer something different—which may not be a long player, depending on the response. On those many days when I don’t write a full piece (or collect recent political cartoons) I will send along exactly one song/video. On the one hand, it’s a slim offering—one tune—so why bother opening? On the other hand, amid the flood of newsletters showing up in many in-boxes, it may seem like a fast and easy breath of fresh air, especially if you find most of the songs to your liking or your taste is eclectic. So we’ll see how this goes. And note to those skating in for a try—you can still subscribe for free!

Before getting to today’s song, it was a hoot to see that one subscriber named Jonathan Arnold posted in yesterday ‘s comments section: a half-minute video of his dog utterly perplexed or captivated by our kickoff tune, Louis Armstrong’s “La Vie en Rose” from 1950. So I’m bumping it up here, below. And thanks for all the other great responses yesterday.

Now today’s pick. We watched the first couple of episodes of Showtime’s current series George & Tammy (not to be confused with the recent Pam & Tommy). While it has its moments, it is nearly torpedoed by the decision to have Michael Shannon sing for George Jones. Jessica Chastain comes closer to Tammy Wynette but Shannon can barely approximate George—considered by many the finest and most distinctive country singer ever. You’d never imagine from the series why anyone thought he was that great and would put up with his many faults. So to right the ship a bit, here is some prime “Possum” with our own fave, Emmylou Harris, in a rare duet, back when we all were so much younger (and in George’s case, still alive).

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Greg Mitchell is the author of a dozen books, including the bestseller The Tunnels (on escapes under the Berlin Wall), the current The Beginning or the End (on MGM’s wild atomic bomb movie), and The Campaign of the Century (on Upton Sinclair’s left-wing race for governor of California), which was recently picked by the Wall St. Journal as one of five greatest books ever about an election. His recent film, Atomic Cover-up, screened at twenty festivals and won several prizes, and his current film, The First Attack Ads: Hollywood vs. Upton Sinclair aired over hundreds of PBS stations in the fall of 2022. For nearly all of the 1970s he was the #2 editor at the legendary Crawdaddy. Later he served as longtime editor of Editor & Publisher magazine.