Great American Songbook
I celebrated my 75th birthday at Uptown Bill’s by playing music for two hours with friends. I had been playing a lot of blues and ragtime with one guy, and he was ill that night and couldn’t make it, so he sent his only begotten son, who had graduated from the conservatory at UM Kansas City. A couple weeks later he called me up and said, “Can I play music with you?” I said, you can play music with your dad—what’s wrong with that? He said, “All he does is play the blues. He never plays more than four chords at a time. You play songs with all kinds of chords in them.” So since then he’s been coming over, and we play for a couple hours until my fingers are sore. But boy, have I been learning chords. We’re just stuck in the Great American Songbook. We’re looking for the most honest love song that we can come up with. So far our choice is “Talk to me, baby” by Johnny Mercer: “Talk to me, baby; tell me lies; tell me lies sweet as apple pies. Swear that you’ll be mine forever; otherwise talk to me and tell me lies.”