Paul Simon & Sting? How about Ella Fitzgerald and Spike Jones?

Hope and Crosby, Bartles and James, Currier and Ives, Smith and Jones, - these I get.  They are combinations that make sense like the yellow and red plastic squeeze bottles on the tables where we hoi polloi grab a meal. Two bald guys - one with a hat!


Paul Simon? Meh. He lost me in the 1960's when he was duet-ted with the guy in the Jew-fro whose nuts had yet to drop.  If I wanted male falsetto, Lou Christie and Roy Orbison had it in spades. The Pop equivalent of choral castrati was never big with me.

Sting? Meh. Is Der Stingle a rock icon, movie star, fashion plate, or aging horn-dog? Back in the 80's when everything hip was all about being East German Stasi, Sting and The Police nailed the moment.  Big Hair went away. Sting stuck around, like Rudy Valle on a Bing Crosby Special in the 1960's.

Now, it's Simon and Sting - two bald guys and one wearing a hat, or one guy with two names and the other with but one.  What are we getting for our package?

I went to the official website to get a prospective - a sense of why.  All I got were opportunities to purchase ticket packages in each host city and learned that the PS & S Store would soon be open on the very same website.

Choose between three exclusive VIP packages to create your ultimate "On Stage Together" experience! Exciting package elements may include Front Row Seats, Pre-show Hospitality, Exclusive Merchandise and More! For details, click here

Did. Nothing.  ObamaCare is really having some effect, there, kids! Get a load of the Packages available! Now one ticket, at full price, best available will run this Old Dog who prefers the Kinks to Pink Floyd and Wilson Pickett to Paul Simon, $ 265.75 before all the County and Rahm taxes and sans the VIP ups and extras.   I'd feel about as happy and healthy as some poor slob who blew the mortgage and an additional $ 2,500 on VISA at Horseshoe Casino, after that purchase.

Maybe if I really, really, really like Simon and Sting, or at least one of the aging pop stars I'd toss away at least $ 400 on a stage visit to the front rows of United Center.

Having tucked away my pop-up road rage with disappearance of the Mormon Mockery on every news web page, I am now afflicted with waves of Simon /Sting Missives. I have yet to understand the musical mission?

What do Sting and Simon have that really demands a concert tour together? Imagine Ella Fitzgerald



With Spike Jones and his City Slickers



I imagine Luciano Pavaratti touring with Jigger Johnny and the Polka Fatboys, Ella Fitzgerald and Spike Jones, Carmel Quinn and Pogues, or how about Tom Jones and the Indigo Girls?


THAT I would pay to see.

Something We All Need in a Big Way: American Exceptionalism - Miss Ella Fitzgerald, John Singer Sargent, Lionel Hampton, Sonny Burke Johnny Mercer and Nelson Riddle

, John Singer Sargent's American eye takes in a Street in Venice.



Lionel Hampton and Sonny Burke wrote an exquistite instrumentalwaterfall  in 1947.   One of America's greatest lyricists was driving along the California coast and heard this melody.  Johnny Mercer wrote these beautiful lyrics.

Your lips were like a red and ruby chalice
Warmer than the summer night
The clouds were like an alabaster palace
Rising to a snowy height
Each star its own Aurora Borealis
Suddenly you held me tight
I could see the midnight sun

I can't explain The silver rain that found me
Or was that a moonlit veil
The music of the Universe
Around me
Or was that a nightingale
And then your arms miraculously found me
Suddenly the sky turned pale
and I saw the midnight sun

Was there ever such a night
It's a thrill
I still don't quite believe
But after you were gone
There was still some
Stardust on my sleeve

The flame of it may dwindle
To an ember
And the stars forget to shine
And we may see the meadow in December
Icy white and crystaline
But oh my darling always I'll remember
When your lips were close to mine
And we saw the Midnight Sun
The Midnight Sun

In 1957, America's greatest voice, Miss Ella Fitzgerald, sang to Nelson Riddles charts with his orchestra.  This is what Americans do.

This Song Has a Singer - All The Things You Are

This Jerome Kern/Oscar Hammerstein tune is brutal -beautiful lyrics and musical path that requires real talent.

Here is the great Tony Martin



Then Jo Stafford -



Francis Albert of Course -



Now get a load of Miss Ella



Translated musically by Charlie Parker Sax



and Joe Pass Guit-box

Happy Birthday America - Give Me the Simple Life by Ella Fitzgerald The Statue of Liberty of Song