[msb-alumni] Rod McKuen, mega-selling poet and performer, dies at 81
- From: Steve <pipeguy920@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: <msb-alumni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2015 13:36:40 -0500
BlankHe's certainly got it right about cats--check out his quote at the end.
Rod McKuen, mega-selling poet and performer, dies at 81 NEW YORK Rod McKuen,
the husky-voiced "King of Kitsch" whose avalanche of music, verse and
spoken-word recordings in the 1960s and '70s overwhelmed critical mockery
and made him an Oscar-nominated songwriter and one of the best-selling poets
in history, has died. He was 81. McKuen died Thursday morning at a
rehabilitation center in Beverly Hills, Calif., where he had been treated
for pneumonia and had been ill for several weeks and was unable to digest
food, his half brother Edward McKuen Habib said. Until his sabbatical in
1981, McKuen was an astonishingly successful and prolific force in popular
culture, turning out hundreds of songs, poems and records. Sentimental,
earnest and unashamed, he conjured a New Age spirit world that captivated
those who didn't ordinarily like "poetry" and those who craved relief from
the war, assassinations and riots of the time. "I think it's a reaction
people are having against so much insanity in the world," he once said. "I
mean, people are really all we've got. You know it sounds kind of corny, and
I suppose it's a cliche, but it's really true; that's just the way it is.
His best-known songs, some written with the Belgian composer Jacques Brel,
include "Birthday Boy," 'A Man Alone," 'If You Go Away" and "Seasons In the
Sun," a chart-topper in 1974 for Terry Jacks. He was nominated for Oscars
for "Jean" from "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie" and for "A Boy Named Charlie
Brown," the title track from the beloved Peanuts movie. Frank Sinatra,
Madonna, Dolly Parton and Chet Baker were among the many artists who
recorded his material, although McKuen often handled the job himself, in a
hushed, throaty style he honed after an early life as a rock singer cracked
his natural tenor. McKuen is credited with more than 200 albums dozens of
which went gold or platinum and more than 30 collections of poetry.
Worldwide sales for his music top 100 million units while his book sales
exceed 60 million copies. He was especially productive from 1968 to 1969,
releasing four poetry collections, eight songbooks, the soundtracks to "Miss
Jean Brodie" and "A Boy Named Charlie Brown" and at least 10 other albums.
Around the same time, his "Lonesome Cities" album won a Grammy for best
spoken word recording and Sinatra commissioned him to write material for "A
Man Alone: The Words and Music of Rod McKuen. With his sharply parted blond
hair, sneakers and jeans, McKuen was recognized worldwide and thrived in
every medium: movies, music, books, television, stage. When not writing or
recording, he appeared on "The Tonight Show" with Johnny Carson and other
talk show programs, formed a film production company with Rock Hudson and
toured constantly until he took an extended break in 1981. "I was tired. I
peaked. I left when I was on top," McKuen told the Chicago Tribune in 2001.
"One year, I did 280 concerts. He had no formal musical or literary
training, but often turned out a song or poem per day and prided himself on
writing verse that anyone could understand. The work seemed to call for
accompaniment by a single, sad guitar or a sobbing chorus of strings. Among
his most quoted phrases: "Listen to the warm" and "It doesn't matter who you
love, or how you love, but that you love. The words written about McKuen
were as notable as his own. Often compared to "Love Story" author Erich
Segal, he was dubbed "The King of Kitsch" by Newsweek, while the magazine
Mademoiselle preferred "Marshmallow Poet. A National Lampoon parody
interspaced mock verses with dollar signs. The escapism of his work was
contrasted by an early life well in need of escaping. Born in Oakland in
1933, he hardly knew his father, who left the family when he was a baby, and
McKuen recalled being terrified of his alcoholic stepfather. By age 11,
McKuen had run away and he would spend his teens doing everything from
ranching to roping horses in a rodeo, while writing poetry in his free time.
After serving as a propaganda writer in the Korean War, McKuen wound up in
San Francisco, where his friend Phyllis Diller helped him find work in the
growing nightclub scene. He went on to sing with the Lionel Hampton band,
acted in a handful of movies and TV shows, read poetry on the same bill as
Jack Kerouac and other Beat writers and had a minor hit single in the early
1960s with the dance parody "Oliver Twist. Without critical approval or a
book or recording contract, McKuen proved that an artist could thrive on
word of mouth alone. He sang in bowling alleys to promote "Oliver Twist,"
and his self-published collection of poems and lyrics, "Stanyan Street and
Other Sorrows," sold tens of thousands of copies before Random House
acquired it. McKuen slowed down over the second half of his life, and many
of his books fell out of print. But he continued to publish poetry,
remastered old musical recordings and gave occasional concerts. He provided
voiceovers for the Disney movie and TV series "The Little Mermaid" and
appeared at Carnegie Hall in 1995 for an 80th birthday tribute to Sinatra.
Artists continued to record his songs, including the former Gene Ween, Aaron
Freeman, who in 2012 released an album of McKuen covers called "Marvelous
Clouds. McKuen did at times take on social and political issues. He opposed
the Vietnam War, wrote a poem about the Watergate scandal and supported
civil rights and equal rights for gays. Often described as a loner, he was
reluctant to discuss his own romantic preferences beyond saying he did have
them.
"Cats have it all," he once wrote, "admiration, an endless sleep, and
company only when they want it.
Associated Press writer Robert Jablon contributed to this report
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