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See the 10 questions used to diagnose Lewy body dementia

This is part of an occasional series of stories on Lewy body dementia, other dementias, and end of life issues, by a long-time writer who happens to  have LBD.

The chart is a 10-question check-up list to help doctors use symptoms and circumstances to more accurately diagnose the disease.. There is no known cause and no cure for this disease which shortens lifespans.

Here it is.

The Lewy Body Composite Risk Score

Rate the following symptoms as being present or absent for at least three times over the past six months. Does the patient: Yes No
1) Have slowness in initiating and maintaining movement or have frequent hesitations or pauses during movement?
2) Have rigidity (with or without cogwheeling) on passive range of motion in any of the four extremities?
3) Have a loss of postural stability with or without frequent falls?
4) Have a tremor at rest in any of the four extremities or head?
(5) Have excessive daytime sleepiness and/or seem drowsy and lethargic when awake?
6) Have episodes of illogical thinking or incoherent, random thoughts?
7) Have frequent staring spells or periods of blank looks?
8)Appear to act out his/her dreams (kick, punch, thrash, shout or scream) while still asleep?

9) Visual hallucinations (see things not really there)?

(10) Have orthostatic hypotension or other signs of autonomic insufficiency

 

© Copyright 2013 The Lewy Body Composite Risk Score James E. Galvin and New York University Langone Medical Center

NOTE from LBDA: Scores were significantly different in DLB patients compared to controls and those with Alzheimer’s. The Composite Risk Score discriminated between individuals likely to have underlying Lewy body disease from those who did not. Using a cut-off of 3, the Lewy Body Composite Risk Score had a sensitivity of 90%, meaning it identified 90% of those diagnosed with Lewy body dementia.

Follow Mike Oliver on AL.com and www.myvinylcountdown.com

See also: It’s not like we are forgetting Alzheimer Disease

 

 

 

 

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The Four Tops — 467

ALBUM: The Four Tops

For me with the Four Tops it starts with ‘Reach Out I’ll  Be There,’ which is one of the top soul/rock songs of the 1960’s,  and likely beyond. On top of that  they dish out such timeless Motown  winners as ‘Standing in the Shadows of Love.’

They had many many more charting songs which all but ignored the era’s trend toward the psychedelic sound in favor of straight rock ‘n soul.

The vocal group, spanning four decades, worked with the successful writing team Holland-Dozier-Holland in the early part of their career.

Singer Billy Bragg wrote a song about the baritone lead singer called  Levi Stubb’s Tears.

Fraternities and sororities across the nation applaud the Four Tops for providing their soundtrack to the big parties that comes with higher education (at least these were the songs popular at frats and sororities in my college-going day): Songs like “I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie Honey Bunch); ‘It’s the Same Old Song;’ and ‘Baby I Need Your Loving.” Be careful readers. Just reading the song titles out load will load that song on a loop in your brains.

Baby I need your loving, got …. to have all your loving .   

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John Fogerty — 468

ALBUM:  John Fogerty (1976) 

MVC Rating: 4.5/$$$$

This is Fogerty’s first album after splitting with the outrageously sucessful Creedence Clearwater Revival. The first tune,’Rocking All Over the World,’ is  a riff-laden  anthem that sounds like — hmm who could it be? — Oh yes:  Creedence.-

Much of the album, for that matters, sounds like CCR. Although I can’t  put my finger on it, there seems to be slightly less ‘choogling’ energy in the songs as I remember was in the CCR  recordings. It could be my imagination. I’m talking about some of that soulful oooomph that you hear in ‘Long as I See the Light or the forlorn traveling musician song, Lodi.

‘The Wall’ and ‘Traveling High’ are throwaway rockers — Fogerty does his vocal thing but the songs are just not too strong — relatively speaking.

Jackie Wilson’s ‘Lonely Teardrops’  sounds like it was more fun for Fogerty than the listener. It’s not a bad cover but this is one of those times where I say, let the 1959 version stand.  Fogerty does inject with some nice retro guitar sound.

‘Amost Saturday Night’ is the other rocking standout in this group.  Catchy, another CCR sounding song that you’d expect to hear on the radio.

And as much as I thought the ‘Teardrops’ cover was unnecessary, I really enjoyed the Sea Cruise cover.  Go figure.

Overall, great stuff, especially for CCR fanatics — of which I am — or used to be anyway. They were one of my first favorite bands. I was about 10. So I have just about run my time with them. But every now and then (on Halloween?)) I like to put out some CCR and cranik it up because Fogerty could sing it.

“I see a bad moon a-rising, I see trouble on the way.’

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Watch: Birmingham singer covers ‘next big song’ about Alabama

Janet Chitty plays The Bigger Moon in Alabama

This is an opinion column.,  

Bruce Rutherford, an Alabama lover who lives in Texas,  last week or so, sent me a YouTube video of himself performing a song he wrote about Alabama.  I dismissed the song called The Bigger Moon of Alabama, at first, but then the little tune kind of stuck in my head. My motto is you have to pay attention to ear worms.

What if a great singer and full band did this song. Well, haven’t heard from Jason Isbell or Wet Willie.

I wrote about it.

But Rutherford tipped me off that his Birmingham friend and colleague in the singer-songwriter world on YouTube, has already done a cover like in the last  48 hours  (video below).

The singer’s name is Janet Chitty and I think her version demonstrates what I’m talking about. And that is, this can be sung many ways. Her version is slowed down. Rutherford’s is faster. But at least one commenter said it should be faster than Rutherford’s version (a speed metal version?) Nevertheless, the song is versatile, catchy and as I said yesterday rhymes Montgomery with succumbing —  how can you not appreciate that?

So now we know at least two versions exist. Listen to them and see what you think. Newer  version first of The Bigger Moon in Alabama.

 

 

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Peter Frampton — 469

ALBUM: Frampton Comes Alive  (1976)

OK, those who were teens in the 1970s, get out of your La-Z-Boys and find the  vinyl collection (warped and mildewed) you have stashed in the garage or basement closet.

Pull out your ‘Frampton  Comes Alive.’  I’m talking mostly  to white boys here because High School musical tastes were as segregated  as church. Except for the back parking lot crowd, where integrated groups would be listening to  Rick James AND Led  Zeppelin. Or Emerson Lake and Palmer AND George Clinton. But it seemed every white kid 15 to 18 years-old had Frampton Comes Alive in 1976.   I’m basing my anecdotal recollections on my own high school in Athens, Ga.  And there is obvious hyperbole here, but do you know how many records he sold?

Image result for how many albums did frampton comes alive sell
Frampton Comes Alive! sold 11 million worldwide and was the best-selling album of 1976  in the US, with 8 million copies sold. It’s been called the biggest selling live album of all time.
Frampton wasn’t particularly innovative, But  he was  good at what he he was doing — playing rocking guitar and looking good in an unbuttoned shirt.

The former Humble Pie guitar player on this album shared to the wider world a vocorder which allows you to sing with the guitar. It sounded a little like a robot as Peter would sing: Do you feel like we do?

My theory on how Frampton  Comes Alive became one of the best selling albums of all  time is the tremendous crossover with females and males. Not sure how to explain that.

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New song about Alabama may be the next big song, or …

For my Sesame Street demographic:, sing now:

One of these things is not like the others. One of these things just doesn’t belong.

Or does it?

Take a look at the list of songs about Alabama and determine which doesn’t belong:

“Sweet Home Alabama”
“Stars Fell on Alabama”
“My Home’s in Alabama”
“Shout Bamalama”
“The Bigger Moon in Alabama””

You are correct if you picked “The Bigger Moon in Alabama.” The others on the list are all iconic songs about the state of Alabama.

“The Bigger Moon in Alabama””is a brand new song by a Texan who posted on YouTube.   I’ve listened to it about a dozen times now..  And  before I tell you what I think,  meet the author and watch the video . Bruce Rutherford calls himself an amateur songwriter and former book reviewer for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

To say the least Rutherford is low key on this demo.

But ladies and gentlemen I  believe you are watching the birth of a great song.  This song grows on you. In the right hands (voice) a great song, dare I say an Iconic song.

Close your eyes to Rutherford’s magical spark and imagine the great band  Alabama on stage singing; or Lynyrd Skynyrd; or Jason Isbell ; or Alabama Shakes.

.Or, Janet Chitty, who goes by OneWomanAndSomeSongs. on YouTube.

Chitty of Birmingham, is already preparing to cover the song by next week, Rutherford said.

“She’s a great singer,” he said.

“I’m just an amateur folk singer/songwriter doing my thing on YouTube,’ Rutherford said. in an email. ” I was a book reviewer for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram in the 80s & 90s and enjoy writing. I’ve got 30 or so original songs up on my channel.  Otherwise I enjoy covering the Beatles and the Rolling Stones.”

If this leads to the next big thing for Alabama I want you to remember who discovered and tipped you all off. If it doesn’t go anywhere, well, dang, my home is still in Alabama.

And if nothing else, it commands some attention for being the only song, probably, to rhyme ‘succumbing’ with ‘Montgomery.’  I like that.

“The Bigger Moon in Alabama

I don’t know
why I can’t resist
Another taste
of your goodnight kiss
Or why it is
I’m mesmerized
when the moonlight
hits your eyes
I just swoon
I’m in a jam ah
It’s a bigger moon
in Alabama
My old friends
They can’t believe
I’m staying here
I’ll never leave
They just see
I am succumbing
to your charms
in old Montgomery
In Tuscaloosa
and Birmingham ah
It’s a bigger moon
in Alabama
On a starry night
it glows like coals
above the lake
at Muscle Shoals
I’m just glad
I can’t escape
from this moonlight
that captivates
We sing our tune
into a camera
‘Neath the bigger moon
in Alabama
It’s as though
I’m in a trance
when I hold you
when we dance
It’s just something
that I feel
like Carnival
down in Mobile
And coming soon
a wedding band ah
From the bigger moon

in Alabama

Updated to reflect correct name of song. Also published on AL.com.

 

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Focus — 470

ALBUM: Moving Waves (1971)

This was an album I purchased on the virtue of one song: Hocus Pocus, a much peculiar song that actually charted high in the early 1970s.

The six-minute ‘album’ version will be sure to get  you a speeding ticket if driving, as the crunchy riffs bang out a head bobbing heavy metal hook. Kind of like ‘Radar Love’ only harder.

And weirder. Almost weird enough to call it a novelty song.

Why? Because sprinkled in between the wall of metal come pit stops in which the instruments quiet down (except drums) and somebody yodels, I mean full out yodeling like Dutch mountain music, if there was such a thing. That yodeling rondo-ing back and  forth with the guitar riff happens a couple of pit stops. Then at the next (third?) pit stop there’s a Jethro Tull-like flute solo followed by scat singing, and finally what I can only describe as helium-laced nonsense vocals and blazing guitars. There you go.

If you don’t think  you know this song, give it a listen, you might have heard it. Since buying it in a bargain bin for the song, I almost never much listened to the entire album.

There is a shorter version radio single of Hocus Pocus, which besides being shorter, opens with a funky riff, turns into the guitar solo and then it’s yodel time again.)(

The rest of the album is sometimes good in a progressive rock sort of way (such as the obligatory 20-minute album side length song.) Kind of like ELP or Genesis. Not my particular cup of tea. But Hocus Pocus is pretty cool on a listen many years later.  That songs takes the ELP and puts a little Grand Funk Railroad and Beat Farmers silliness into it. (The Farmers’ semi-famously had a song, ‘Happy  Boy,’ featuring gargling, kazoos and ‘hubba hubba hubba’ in it.

Some critics liked it, others didn’t.

Benjamin Ray at Daily Vault Reviews  gave it a C- and said: You know how sometimes you hear a hit song and then pick up the album, hoping the rest of it is just as good? This is not one of the times where that happened.

Meanwhile, AllMusic gave ‘The Best of Focus’ four-and-a-half stars and said it could have used a little more “Moving Ways.”

Go figure, one person’s ‘more cowbell’ is another’s ‘less cowbell.’

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Meet the Brummies. New Birmingham, Alabama band startles — 471

ALBUM: Eternal Reach (2018)

Ladies and gentlemen: The  Brummiesl

I see what they are  doing.

Great harmonies good, tasteful but forceful guitar and just a pinch of psychedelia circa 1960s music. Throw that in the mix with a healthy slice of power pop and BAM Birmingham.

Brummies is slang for a Birmingham resident, that’s Birmingham, England. It’s a name  that reflects the bands British influence, especially the flood of music during Beatlemania and the British Invasion.

Eternal Reach is a great mix of genres  creating a  sweet sound full of harmonies and chorus. They cite the Beatles, Elton John, ELO,  Blitzen Trapper and My Morning Jacket as being among among their influences.

On the album there are a number of standouts.  I like ‘Norway’  which starts with ‘I’m sorry I didn’t come home for your birthday.’ In a few words it sets the tone magnificently.

‘Set You Free’ opens with crunching guitar and is  like much of the album, multi-layered . ”Haunted” is possibly my favorite piece on the album, with wide dynamic range, shown off on the opening three or so lines. The radio-friendly, ‘Drive , Away’ includes titillating vocal help from recent Grammy winner, Kasey Musgrave, and is probably most likely a hit.

The whole album is seductive, atmospheric, with just enough lyrical intrigue and musical crunch to sweep you in. It sounds like a long-lost classic, with modern accents.

There seems to be a lot of songs on the album — almost like they had a ‘hidden’ song or something.

Nice work Brummies.

 

 

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Steve Forbert — 472

ALBUMS: ‘Alive on Arrival; (1978); Jackrabbit Slim (1979); Streets of this Town (1988);

MVC Ratings: Alive 4.0/$$$; Jackrabbit Slim 4.9/$$$; Streets 4.5/$$$$.

I blinked once and it was gone..

A poignant line in his 1988 album ‘Streets of this Town’ digs at the heart of Forbert’s pathos.

I used to to think this was guilty pleasure music.  But after re-listening to Forbert I can throw the guilty out. This is just a pleasure — and part of that is because of  his  pain.  Forbert suffered early from  Dylan comparisons like all those at that time with a guitar  and a catchy songs that paint a picture. He suffered because of the high expecations, early success and youth. Look at the cover of ‘Alive on Arrival.’ He’s a baby-faced kid, albeit with a 50-year-old Rod Stewart/ Dylan-esque voice.

Forbert isn’t Dylan. He’s a pop-folk singer who slung his guitar over  his  back and left his crappy-but-it’s-mine Mississippi town for  NewYork city. His first album ‘Alive on Arrival’ was, at least side one, a slam dunk. He opened the album shutting a door on his past by calling Laurel, Miss., a ‘dirty stinking town.’

Forbert was from Meridian, which was near Laurel (can you smell it from there?)

Steve Forbert

For an in-depth Rolling Stone piece at the height of his initial success, go here.

That debut set up the expectations. He came out next with an album that had a blockbuster single ‘Romeo’s Tune,’ a momentary brush in 1979 with the stratosphere. I saw him on the heels of that second album and remember a great show in Atlanta at a small venue.

But alas, like many, the follow-up pressure seemed to have gotten the better of him for a while and he made the scene in New York but  watched his creative space get smaller.

From ‘I Blinked Once,  10 years after Romeo:

The  nineteen seventies was ten long years,

was  ten long years to sing a song

It kicked off madly with a New Year’s cheer

I blinked once and it was gone

Gone, gone I blinked once and it was gone

Looking from present, he has a strong body of work and has had excellent musicians behind him on various albums including Wilco and Nils Lofgren. In addition to these vinyl records, I have about three other Forbert CD’s,each good in their own way.

Favorite line from a good song called, January 23 – 30, 1978: “Some say life is strange, but compared to what, yeah.”

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Peter Himmelman’s ‘Song for Catherine’

Song for Catherine aka Catherine Burns Willis Oliver.

Written  and recorded in 2004 by the great Peter Himmelman…I don’t know how or if this will work but surfing the web I have discovered to my surprise a link to a song by Himmelman about my wife, Catherine.

I helped arrange this with Himmelman years ago as a gift to Catherine upon her graduation at San Francisco Theological Seminary with a Master’s of Divinity degree. She’s a great pastor, my best friend and the words to this song still are true.

The song turned out beyond my wildest imagination, and has been a touchstone of peace for us. Thanks Peter.

I hate to make you work to hear this but I if you want to listen to the song, you need to copy and paste the link below this photo into your browser. Hope it works.

http://www.peterhimmelman.com/audio/catherineoliver.html

The reverends Cat Goodrich and Catherine Oliver on Palm Sunday at First Presbyterian Birmingham.

P.S.  Although it would be a slight detour from the stated mission of this blog,  I  would like to write up Himmelman for a post one day and probably will even though I don’t have any vinyl from him. Just about four or five CD’s — all excellent..