Tag Archives: Jim Motavalli

Roundup: Children’s Library, Woodstock, Loving …

Posted on July 24, 2024 | 5 comments

The Westport Library’s children’s section bursts with great materials.

Now it’s even fuller. They’ve added 379 new books and audiobooks to their digital collection.

Among the authors: Kwame Alexander, Dhonielle Clayton, Beverly Cleary, Suzanne Collins, Kate DiCamillo, Sarah J. Maas, Rick Riordan, Lemony Snicket, Jasmine Warga and Laura Ingalls Wilder.

Oh yeah: Westport’s own Tommy Greenwald is in there too.

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WPKN-FM (89.5 in Bridgeport) — called by the New Yorker “the greatest radio station in the world” — will air the complete original recording of the 1969 Woodstock festival next month.

Not the double album released as the “Woodstock” movie soundtrack.

Not some outtakes, added later.

The entire concert. Complete musical performances by every band — all 32 sets, from Richie Havens, Joan Baez, the Who, Sly & the Family Stone, Johnny Winter, Ten Years After, Blood, Sweat & Tears, Santana, Joe Cocker, Canned Heat, The Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin, The Band, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Jimi Hendrix and more.

Every stage announcement. The entire 4-day affair, 55 years after it happened.

The show runs August 15-18, from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily.

What makes this “06880”-worthy is the Jim Motavalli connection. WPKN’s publicity director — a 1970 Staples High School graduate — was at Woodstock.

He drove to Max Yasgur’s farm with his twin brother John (also a longtime WPKN DJ) in their first car, a 1962 Chevy Nova convertible.

Jim Motavalli recalls: “I had a wonderful time. I was 17. People always ask me about the music, but a big part of what made it special was the tribal gathering, Woodstock Nation if you will. Just being there was exciting, though the music wasn’t half bad.”

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The Westport Artists Collective’s opening reception at the Ethan Allen Design Center was packed, earlier this month.

There should be a great crowd too, at the closing party (August 1, 5 to 7 p.m., Fresh Market shopping plaza opposite Mitchells).

Ten members’ works are displayed through several room settings, on the walls and easels. The public is invited.

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Set your alarm. (Or program your device.)

“Loving” — the 1970 film about a successful illustrator, his mistress and alcohol — will air on TCM this Friday (July 26), at 12:15 a.m.

It’s of interested to “06880” readers for 3 reasons. The film was based on “Brooks Wilson Ltd.,” a novel by Westporter John McDermott.

It was filmed in part here, at the Saugatuck train station, Greens Farms Elementary School, Main Street, and a private home on 27 Long Lots Road.

And it starred George Segal and Eva Marie Saint (a Westport Country Playhouse regular). Local residents Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward appeared as extras. Westporter Diana Douglas also had a role.

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Westport resident Peggy Lovro — a native of China, and a Mandarin teacher at Brien McMahon High School’s Center for Global Studies in Norwalk — was the guest speaker at the Westport Rotary Club’s Tuesday meeting.

She discussed the benefits of international study tour programs for cross-cultural learning. CGS — a magnet school focused on languages — attracts students from throughout Fairfield County.

Peggy Lovro

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This may not be where you and I — or even many birds — would perch.

But there’s no place like home, for these Cockenoe Island residents.

Carl McNair snapped today’s “Westport … Naturally” image.

(Photo/Carl McNair)

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And finally … Abdul “Duke” Fakir, the last surviving member of the legendary Four Tops, died Monday in Detroit. He was 88, and suffered from heart failure.

The group — founded in the 1950s and active through the 2000s — achieved its greatest fame with a string of ’60s Motown hits. Fakir’s tenor blended well with lead singer Levi Stubbs’ baritone.

There are way too many great Four Tops songs to include here. These are just some of my favorites. (Click here for a full obituary.)

(I can’t help myself: I’ve got to ask readers to click here to support “06880.” Thank you, sugar pie honey bunch.)

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Posted in Arts, Children, Entertainment, Library, Local business, Media

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Tributes Pour In For Sally White

Posted on December 28, 2017 | 5 comments

Sally White was not an internet person. She much preferred interacting with people, face to face.

But when the longtime, much-loved owner of Sally’s Place — and before that, manager of Klein’s record department, and Melody House worker — died of cancer yesterday at 88, every online platform was filled with memories.

Generations of Fairfield County men and women (and teenagers) were Sally’s customers — and friends. She influenced literally tens of thousands of us. She opened our ears — and our minds and souls — to all kinds of music.

And she opened her heart to us.

Everyone has a Sally White story. Here are 2 of  my favorites. The first is from Drew McKeon. A Staples High School class of 2000 graduate, he’s spent the past several years touring the world with fellow Westporter Michael Bolton. Sally is a big reason why.

So sad to say goodbye to my old friend, Sally White. I’ll never forget the hours spent sitting one on one, listening to her stories of seeing the greats live (Sinatra, Hendrix, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Coltrane, Dylan, Buddy Rich, Miles), and how much our town had changed since she came to Main Street in 1954.

The wonderful Sally White

She sold me the first jazz albums I ever bought (“Kind of Blue”, “Speak No Evil,” “The Real McCoy,” Jarrett Trio “Live at the Blue Note”), and shook her head every time I came in for the latest Zorn Tzadik release.

I bought my first copy of “Purple Rain” there, and Tom Waits’ “Mule Variations,” and “Bright Size Life,” as well as every album Bill Frisell, Alison Krauss and Belá Fleck released from 1995-2014. I got Nirvana “Unplugged” there too.

She told me the same story about the guy offering to buy her Sinatra poster for $1000 (even though she had 2!) every time I came in, and regaled me with childhood tales about a shy and gentle Horace Silver.

She felt so guilty about declining invites to my high school shows that she gave me a gig playing standards with a quartet outside the shop during the Memorial Day parade.

I cringed every time she cut open a CD so haphazardly, the X-acto knife lunging in towards her abdomen. I’d tell her not to rip the cellophane just so I could obsess over the Winter&Winter packaging. “Hey, they don’t call it Sally’s for nothing — my store, my rules!”

Sally doing what she loves most: interacting with one customer. Another browses behind her.

She sold me “Innervisions” and Maceo’s “Life on Planet Groove” and “Babylon By Bus,” and gave me “Appalachia Waltz” for my 15th birthday. She stuffed 2 copies of Downbeat in my bag with every purchase, and tuned in to every episode of the WWPT radio show I hosted with Ted Thompson. My obsessive love for Joni and Edgar Meyer was born and fostered at 190 Main Street.

I, like so many other local musicians, am so thankful to have had Sally recognize and encourage my unquenchable thirst for music of all styles at a young age. I always thought it was so cool that I got my first Miles record from the same badass lady that a young Scofield did, a couple decades before. (I got a shitload of Sco records from her, too.)

Perhaps more than anything, I’ll always remember skimming through her prized postcard collection from the great Adam Nussbaum. He, years prior, was one of “Sally’s Kids” too.

At the time, I couldn’t fathom ever actually going to places like Malta, Cairo or Shanghai — let alone, getting paid to play drums there. But I knew I wanted to more than anything, and she assured me I would “be out there soon enough.”

I hope Blue Eyes is singing one for my gal Sal tonight!

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And this, from Jim Motavalli. He graduated from Staples in 1970 — 30 years before Drew McKeon — but he too will remember Sally White forever.

With 2partners, I started a record store in Fairfield, circa 1975. It was called Trident, because there were 3 partners — one of whom was my twin brother. The 2 of us had just graduated from the University of Connecticut, where we took not one business course.

We had a plan — we would pioneer the sale of used records in Connecticut — but beyond that we didn’t have a clue how to set up and stock a store. Fortunately, we had a friend, Sally White, then running the record haven at the downtown Westport department store Klein’s. Far from stocking just the hits, Sally made sure that the store was bulging with jazz — including albums from players who lived in the area: Dave Brubeck, Gerry Mulligan (and, later, McCoy Tyner and Max Roach).

We called her, and she came over to talk business. Despite the fact we were planning to compete with her, Sally held forth all evening on all aspects of dealing with suppliers, getting credit, buying a cash register, handling returns, and was endlessly helpful.

I was thought of this episode on learning that Sally White died this week. She had closed her store, Sally’s Place (which succeeded her long stint at Klein’s) in 2013 — a victim of the digital revolution. I’m sure not being able to greet her many friends took something out of her — she’d sold records for 57 years!

After describing the recent revival of vinyl, Jim concludes:

Goodbye Sam Goody’s, Goodbye Tower Records. It’s not likely I’ll mourn the passing of these corporate superstores.

But I will shed a tear not so much for Sally’s Place, but for Sally herself. A real mensch.

(Click here to read Jim Motavalli’s full story, on his music blog Territorial Imperatives.)

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Posted in Arts, Downtown, Entertainment, Local business, Looking back, People, Staples HS

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Holy Batmobile!

Posted on April 21, 2012 | 5 comments

If you were like most of Westport yesterday — out of town, on spring break — you missed two things:

  • The 7th straight day of fantastic, June-like weather, and
  • The Batmobile.

I’m not sure whether Batman or Robin was behind the wheel, but somehow it landed at Dragone Classic Motorcars. The showrooom is located in the old Saab dealership on Post Road West. You can find it by GPS, though the Batmobile is way more high-tech than that.

Jim Motavalli — the Staples grad who writes about cars for the New York Times — blogged about the vehicle:

(The) driver’s seat is cozy, with everything from the missile launchers to the Detect-o-Scope within easy reach. Everything has a little red sign, including the squarish “Bat Moniter.” Yes, it’s spelled that way. The Batmobile introduced some technology that actually happened eventually, including a FAX-like machine that could transmit photos.

Among other features: a Bat Turbine Switch (the car was supposedly turbine powered, explaining that macho flaming exhaust), the push-button Bat Phone (30 years before cars actually had phones), the Bat Compass, and bat insignias everywhere—on the wheels, the floor mats, the doors, even the seat belts.

The “Emergency Bat Turn Lever” was for turning the car around in emergencies; it deployed the parachutes, which this car indeed has. Completing the period look is a non-working Pioneer eight-track player.

The Batmobile -- rear view. (Photos/Roger Wolfe)

Gotham City being Hollywood, this Batmobile was actually a stunt double. According to Jim, the Dragone car — with a General Motors chassis and a 327 V-8 — is “said to be Batmobile #5, used for stunt driving and chase scenes.” A 1966 letter that comes with the car said it is serial number #00005, and was “the main stunt car for the Batman TV show.”

Jim said that owner George Dragone estimates the Batmobile will sell for between $500,000 and $750,000.

Holy 1 percent, Batman!

(Bonus “Batman” fun fact:  Frank Gorshin — the Riddler on the TV show — lived in Westport for many years. In fact, his house was just few hundred yards from Dragone, where the Batmobile landed today.)

(The Dragone collectibles auction is set for Saturday, May 19, 10 a.m. If the Batmobile is not your style, check out the Duesenberg Model J — it could sell for up to $2 million. Among the more than 50 other vehicles: a Ferrari 250 GT Lusso, and a 1911 Stanley Steamer. Click here for details.)

Click below for Jim Motavalli’s YouTube video of the Batmobile:

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Posted in Entertainment, Local business, technology

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