LUCY VODDEN, ‘LUCY IN THE SKY WITH DIAMONDS,’ DIES IN LONDON

LUCY VODDEN, a school friend of John Lennon’s son Julian who was immortalized in the Beatles' classic song "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds," died on September 22 in London’s St. Thomas Hospital, where she been treated for her chronic illness for the past five year. The senior Lennon wrote the song after the then-four-year-old Julian brought a drawing home from school and told his father it was “Lucy in the sky with diamonds.” After the was included on the Beatles’ groundbreaking 1967 album, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, reports circulated in the press that the title was an acronym for LSD and the song detailed a hallucinogenic experience; but Lennon asserted then, and repeatedly thereafter, that Julian was the source of the phrase and there was no more to it than that.

According to reports in the London papers, Julian had reconnected with Vodden in recent years and had sent her flowers and vouchers she could use at a local garden shop. "I wasn't sure at first how to approach her," Julian told the Associated Press in June. "I wanted at least to get a note to her. Then I heard she had a great love of gardening, and I thought I'd help with something she's passionate about, and I love gardening too. I wanted to do something to put a smile on her face."

Though amused by her proximity to Beatles’ lore, Vodden told the AP she had no great affection for the song bearing her name. "I don't relate to that type of song," said. "As a teenager, I made the mistake of telling a couple of friends at school that I was the Lucy in the song and they said, 'No, it's not you, my parents said it's about drugs.' And I didn't know what LSD was at the time, so I just kept it quiet, to myself."

The Beatles, ‘Lucy In the Sky With Diamonds’

COVER STORY: WPA: ‘There is Dignity in Work’ By David McGee

Despite star power in Sean and Sara Watkins and Glen Phillips, WPA makes the music its top priority. At the intersection of Nickel Creek and Toad the Wet Sprocket, something wonderful is happening with the mixed-breed confections WPA is introducing on its first album.

HONEY DON’T: When Something's Right, It's Flat Right By David McGee

From Sweet Sunny South to Duck Duck Grey Duck to Honey Don't, Bill Powers and Shelley Gray make sweet music together.

WILDE ONE By David McGee

Wiltshire lass Dani Wilde sees the bigger picture beyond her killer blues—as in establishing a foundation that has already helped improve the lives and furthered the education of children in Embu, Kenya. Plus she plays a mean guitar and writes memorable original songs.

NEW! BORDER CROSSINGS

In a new feature, TheBluegrassSpecial.com surveys the world of traditional music—literally, the world—and finds out what’s going on in other countries that speaks to us in America. This month’s lead report is on an amazing border crossing project uniting American-born blues/soul titan MIGHTY SAM MCCLAIN with one of Iran’s greatest traditional singers, MAHSA VAHDAT, who, under the guidance of songwriter/producer ERIK HILLESTAD of Norway, have produced one the most powerful recordings we have ever heard in “Silent Song,” from the forthcoming McClain-Vahdat album, Scent of Reunion: Love Songs Across Civilizatons. We spoke with all the principals to get the behind-the-scenes account of this amazing project came together. This is a worldwide exclusive to TheBluegrassSpecial.com!

Across another border, to ROMANIA, we received a heartfelt tribute from our new Romania correspondent MIRELA D., concering her country’s greatest living exponent of traditional music, GRIGORE LESE, whose philosophy is simple: "If man would not sing, his soul would die." Lese’s songs and unique voice, says Mirela, “make me proud to be Romanian.”

NEW!  COAL RIVER VALLEY JOURNAL

Starting this month, JEN OSHA, Director/Founder of the Aurora Lights non profit that has joined forces with other organizations to fight against mountaintop removal coal mining in southern West Virginia, will give us a view from the ground in the valley." Beyond politics, we’ve asked Osha to tell us how this devastating environmental disaster is affecting the people who have to live with mountains blowing up outside their front doors and in the shadow of earthen dams filled with billons of gallons of toxic sludge generated when coal is cleaned. “Clean coal” technology? As Osha says, “Clean coal is a dirty lie.”

A SALUTE TO: THE WIZARD OF OZ @70

Saluting The Wizard of Oz on the 70^th anniversary of the 1939 film’s release, we survey this iconic American story from several angles with respect to what author L. Frank Baum wrought.

THE LAKEVIEW LIGHTS by David McGee

THE THEOSOPHICAL FOUNDATIONS OF OZ by Wayne Purdin

SETTING OZ TO MUSIC: THE ART OF HAROLD ARLEN & YIP HARBURG by Aljean Harmetz

OZ AS A PARABLE ON POPULISM by Henry M. Littlefield

POPULISM? POPPYCOCK! By David B. Parker

INDIAN HATING IN OZ by Thomas St. Johns

L. FRANK BAUM’S ANTI-INDIAN EDITORIALS

FEATHERTOP by Nathaniel Hawthorne

L. FRANK BAUM SPEAKS; A 1913 Interview

NEWS & NOTES

*CHARLIE DANIELS is revving up for his annual Christmas For Kids concert in November; details here.

*BARBARA MANDRELL, who is still cool especially now that country is cool, is inducted in the Steel Guitar Hall of Fame.

*THE HAHAVISHNU ORCHESTRA wowed the crowd at its Sept. 12 one-night-only special engagement in Atlanta, and it felt so good to group founder DARRYL RHOADES that he’s thinking of doing it again, and again, and again. Rhoades gives us the inside, exclusive account of what went down and rounds up all the usual suspects for the credit they deserve.

*We note, too, with sadness, the passing of Pulitzer Prize winning publisher/editor WALTER HORACE CARTER, who stood up against the Ku Klux Klan in print in the early ‘50s and made the world a better place. Less than a week following Carter’s death, we lost WILMA COZART FINE, one of the pioneering female record producers, whose work on Mercury’s “Living Presence” series in the ‘50s and ‘60s set a standard for excellence and innovation in audio recording technology that has accrued to the great benefit of music fans everywhere. Like Walter Horace Carter, she too, in her own way, made the world a better place by refusing to let great music be heard in the home with any less grandeur than it was heard in the concert hall.

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS By Laura Fissinger

This month our columnist turns her attention to the television set, and specifically to the new ABC series, Cougar Town, a show right on time to take advantage of the current buzz about older women pursuing younger men. Is turnabout fair play, given all the talk about younger women and older men in recent years? Fissinger seems to think the older women might have a little bit more going for them. Says she: “I'd bet the farm that most females who understand the value of laughing in bed are over forty. It's one of those things about which cougar-age women tend to be wise.” Read on.

Beyond The Blue

ALBUM SPOTLIGHT: FRANK SINATRA LIVE AT THE MEADOWLANDS By David McGee

It was a rainy night in March, 1986, when 70-year-old Frank Sinatra, his band and orchestra, led by pianist Bill Miller, settled into the Meadowlands Arena in New Jersey-"my home territory," as Sinatra would later refer to in front a rapturous sellout crowd-for a one-night stand that would become the stuff of legend, still a hot topic among Sinatra-philes who debate the high points of his later years but mostly agree that this particular performance in the Garden State was nigh on to incomparable.

SEAN COSTELLO—Sean’s Blues: A Memorial Retrospective
Apart from the overwhelming personal tragedy of Sean Costello’s death last year from a drug overdose a day shy of his 29th birthday is the evidence on this smart overview of his career trajectory: at the time his life ended, he sounded like an artist on the verge of much bigger things even than what he had already achieved in his short time in the professional world.

Reviews

THE GIVING TREE BAND, Great Possessions

CLAIRE LYNCH, Whatcha Gonna Do

MAC MCANALLY, Down By the River

MONROE CROSSING, Heartache & Stone

BRYAN SUTTON, Almost Live

VIDEO FILE

This month we welcome to our pages one of the outstanding folk music critics in the country in IRA MAYER. He’s here this month to remember the great MARY TRAVERS, from the perspective of one who knew her.

Contributing Editor BILLY ALTMAN checks in this month with a tribute to another giant of the folk music world, MIKE SEEGER, who passed away in August.