this isn't because i remember jack sheldon

from school house rock (which i of course do as do ALL other americans who were once YOUNG)

it's because i remember jack sheldon from the merv griffin show. merv loved him (and so did i). not only could jack blow that horn, he sure was funny as all hell

Blossom Dearie’s “Conjunction Junction” Romance?

Did the woman who sang "Unpack Your Adjectives" ever get together with the guy who sang "I'm Just a Bill"?

It turns out the answer is yes! Sort of...

Blossom Dearie was an occasional singer on Schoolhouse Rock, and so was Jack Sheldon, who sang the gravelly-voiced conductor song Conjunction Junction. When Blossom came to Hollywood (for a big recording session at Capitol Records), Sheldon was her trumpeter. "I was madly in love with Blossom at the time," he remembered wistfully. "We were going everywhere and doing everything together..." reads his remembrance 34 years later from the liner notes of Blossom's re-issued album. "Blossom was marvelous."

(Click to hear Jack's love-struck trumpet
on the album's title track, "May I Come In?")
Blossom Dearie, the beguiling blonde jazz chanteuse, died Saturday at the age of 82. But when she'd met Sheldon in 1964, she was just 38, and had already lived in Paris for several years — even though she didn't speak French! Within a few years, Blossom had recorded several jazz albums and married a Belgian saxophone player named Bobby Jaspar, who had recorded with Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and Chet Baker. In 1963, Jaspar died of a heart attack at the age of 37 — but Blossom Dearie was about to earn her own fame in America.
..........

merv

i am of the age where i grew up watching the merv griffin show. merv and the staid arthur treacher. i thought that the oddest combination ever (even at a young age i thought that). yet, it WORKED. (at least for a while)

i saw everyone on merv. people i'd never heard of but fell in love with. jack douglas and meiko or keiko (i can't quite remember her name). politicians, actors, comedians.

totie fields, monte rock iii, mrs miller, jackie vernon, moms mabley and oh so many more!

the ONLY thing that pained me a GREAT deal was merv's singing. and sing he did. every show if i remember correctely. the WORST was when he'd attempt to interpret a rock n' roll song. TORTURE.

The Host Who Was Everyone's Guest


By Tom ShalesWashington Post Staff Writer

Merv Griffin had friends in the right places, and for the 20 years that "The Merv Griffin Show" aired on television, in one form or another, those places included millions of American homes.
He was fun to have around, and so the news of his death yesterday, at 82, was poignantly dispiriting. Especially considering he was that form of celebrity unique to television: a professional personality, someone whose singing (despite a big-band career in the '40s) was unexceptional, whose dancing was limited to ballrooms at haute blowouts, and whose major talent may have been his prowess at dealmaking behind the scenes.
Though members of post-boomer generations may seldom or never have seen Griffin perform -- impishly interrogating the famous and infamous who joined him on his talk show -- they may still be aware of his presence in pop culture. Nearly everyone knows he invented the game shows "Jeopardy!" and "Wheel of Fortune" and hugely profited from them, while continuing to gambol and scamper across the pop landscape as gadfly and entrepreneur.........

Merv Griffin, Television Innovator, Dies at 82

By RICHARD SEVERO and EDWARD WYATT

Merv Griffin, a big-band singer who became one of television’s longest-running talk-show hosts and formidable innovators, creating some of the medium’s most popular game shows before becoming a major figure in the hotel and gambling businesses, died yesterday in Los Angeles. He was 82.
His death, at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, was caused by prostate cancer, according to a family statement issued by Marcia Newberger, a spokeswoman for Mr. Griffin’s companies. Mr. Griffin had been treated for the disease more than 10 years ago but was recently hospitalized after a recurrence.
Mr. Griffin, as a singer with the Freddy Martin band, had a hit in 1950 with the recording, “I’ve Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts” but had traded in singing for acting in movies, served as game-show host and filled in for Jack Paar on late-night television. Then, in 1962, NBC gave him his own daytime show, “The Merv Griffin Show.” ..........