There’s the one where Abe died and all of his family and friends are gathered at the funeral. The Rabbi addresses the bereft group, “Is there someone here who would like to say a few last words about our dear departed Abe?”  

Paralyzed by grief, none can speak. Weeping and wailing rent the air.  

Finally, an outsider, a huge man with a 48 inch waist, who has been leaning against his Escalade, with Texas Long Horns mounted on its hood, ambles to the front, and lays his 10 gallon hat on Abe’s casket. He faces the stricken mourners for a moment then says, “Well, seein’ as how ain’t nobody gonna say nuthin ’bout ol’Abe here…. I’d like to say a few words about country music.” 

I’m an equal opportunity jock. I play every body just so long as they do the listener justice.  

I feel like Magellan. My new internet radio show has taken me into uncharted territory. 

In this new show, I’m  paying no heed to chronology and even throw in a little “country” if it makes sense at that moment. Before you give me a hard time about this, “Oh Brother Where Art Thou” was a top seller in times when it didn’t fit at all…and that was Blue Grass. 

The top albums domestically are country flavored music by the Eagles who are  #1 in Billboard this week. Also moseying  their way into the top three are Alison Kraus and Robert Plant in an album called “Raising Sand.” Josh Turner with “Everything is fine.” And Gary Allen’s CD “Living hard.”  

Have you heard LeAnn Rimes lately? She has blossomed. Are our listeners trying to tell us something? Carrie Underwood sings like she belongs, in a broad mix. 

Conclusion: It’s  okay  to “frame” a good country song and play it in a pop mix.. 

Fr’instance in last Wednesday’s 1p-3p  signonradio.com show,  I played a broad spectrum of music, mixed by sound and tempo, then abruptly “framed” a country song that seemingly was way off base…except it “worked.”   

People came from all corners of the Union-Tribune building to wave at me through the studio window, and mouth the words to the song I was playing, Hank William’s, “A Family Tradition.” 

Carol and I recently made a trip up Old Highway 1 from L.A. to San Francisco and took along a batch of our favorite CD’s.  They included a lot of Sinatra, Ella,  Etta James’ “At Last”, Eva Cassidy, Paul Simon, , Harry Nilsson, James Taylor, and selected classical music….. 

The second movement of the Bruch Violin Concerto played by the immortal Jascha Heifits, and his rendition of the Beethoven Concerto, the Robert Shaw Chorale performing Rachmaninov’s “Vespers,” and a Hank William’s CD, in which Hank sings “A Family Tradition.” 

We went through most of the ones I mentioned, putting us into a musical “zone.” .Then, because we had played all the other stuff, we put on Hank.  

We didn’t realize until the guitars began vamping and ol’ Hank launched into his vocal that it is a great sing-along song. You doubt me?  Play it and see if you don’t start feeling the song and singing….sangin’?….along with him.. 

Lordie! We joined in with Hank and sang that song over and over from Nepenthe to Carmel. We felt foolish, but what the hell!. 

Music: if we would just open up the floodgates of our souls and let it gush in.  

Sooner or later on the internet show, I will relate  the story of how Carol and I were tooling across the  New Mexico wild lands from  Taos to God Knows where. It was around 2am, and we had a country music station on, very appropriate for the early morning hours.  

In the distance, straight ahead, we made out the dim outline of a…yes, it was a coyote standing in the middle of the blacktop two lane road, not budging as we drew closer.

He was standing his ground and the more I think about it, he probably did regard it as “his ground.”. 

What was going on here ? Was he a Navajo ghost, an apparition? No…., he was the real thing and he wasn’t budging….. his legs planted stiffly on the road. 

Finally…we  gave in and stopped, just yards away.. He had won.. Okay, so what’s next? 

Telling him  to “shoo” didn’t make it. I did summon my rich bass baritone  pipes and order him out of the way “Beat it!. Scram”! Get outa here.!”…nothing. 

Those staring yellow eyes made him look like the toll road keeper from Hell, but what was the toll?  

Long moments passed, then Carol exultantly broke the mystical spell.  “The poor darling is probably hungry.“ She reached back to  the rear seat, and rattling through a paper lunch bag, took out a leftover chicken sandwich.  

She was jubilant, …..and, so was the coyote.. He had sniffed it through the closed paper bag, and in anticipation of the coming feast, he made yipping sounds, jumping up and down in the universal sign of joy..    

Carol  tossed the sandwich some 20 feet away and high, to make sure he had a bead on it. He leaped and nailed it like a whippet on a Frisbee. 

Our encounter went from being a collision between species to an honest game between spirited players, each side a winner. 

I drove ahead a little, ready to gun it if he decided he needed more “toll.”  

There we were with the radio playing, Ferlin Husky’s “On the Wings of a Snow White Dove,” somehow the musical background to this rustic scenario. 

The coyote finished chomping  his sandwich and, while It seemed he realized the larder was empty, he sat on the side of the road, watching us with his yellow unblinking eyes. I think, maybe, I even detected a little warmth there. 

Then, the Ferlin Husky song finished and the station hit a discordant jingle and the jock launched into some sort of nasal rant and the magic spell was broken. The coyote  scampered off into the dark. 

I would pay the story off with…..”Here’s that song we and the coyote liked, and then I would play…..“On the Wings of a Snow White Dove.” 

Consider that country song “framed.” 

That may have been a tad over the top for “framing,” but if I can get away with it, so can anyone who likes to paint word pictures. Randy Michaels calls it, “three dimensional radio.” 

Even the immortal Chuck Blore recently told me, “Harry, you can talk as long as you like as long as you are interesting.” 

Last Wednesday, Ken Kramer became  a captive show guest because he was taping me for a feature on the Channel 7/39 news. Ken is an insightful interviewer and the piece  that aired was terrific. He spent a half hour interviewing me in order to edit it down to 2 or 3 minutes on the highly rated 11 o’clock news.  

During the interview, I told him about the Cupeno Indian Rain Dance, in which I had been entrapped in some kind of  magical “zone” and prophesied rain 18 times in a row.  

He was receptive to that and other original shtick, but the one he came prepared to talk to me about on the TV news broadcast was the year in which I had playfully announced that I was running for mayor. 

This was when I held sway over 40% of the audience and could do no wrong, unless you count the mayoralty announcement. To me it was a throw away adlib, but to several major power brokers who were listening, it was a formal announcement of my candidacy. 

The phone calls came flooding in from the media, the San Diego Union-Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, and other suburban print media in addition to all of the television stations. 

Lee Bartell, my big boss, summoned me into his office and handed me the phone. He had been talking to one of the most powerful men in town who now wanted to talk to me. I managed to blurt out a hello and he launched in.  

He got right down to the point that he and his cabal wanted me to run, and would back me with whatever money I would need to make the run. Scarily. he assured me that I would win. 

Fast forward: Ken Kramer, my television interviewer, was echoing the power broker’s prophecy.  

On camera, he was saying “Hare, you could have won. Why did you back out ?”   

He had done his homework and knew what my answer would be, but let me pay it off.

“Ken,” I said.” I didn’t really mean it. It was a joke that backfired. But I milked it for a few days, then said to my listeners, I know you want me to run and I appreciate it, but the truth is that I am a non-smoker and allergic to smoke, and I couldn’t stand all of those talks in those smoke filled rooms.”

The audience “got” that it was a shtick, and gave me a pass. 

This instant forgiveness by my listeners reminds me of when I lured 12,000 San Diego listeners to the Harbor to visit Dominican playboy Rafael Trujillo Jr’s yacht without first consulting Trujillo, but that is another story for another time. 

Next week:   Three dimensional radio?  It’s all relative….Einstein

                       E=MC2   Entertainment = Music + Communication 2