Songs in the Key of Z by Irwin Chusid

Author:Irwin Chusid
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
Published: 2000-07-20T16:00:00+00:00

The radiant Miss Pamela, Queen of the Squeezebox

In a career that spans nine decades, she recalls her performances at concert halls throughout the United States and Europe. She’s taken the stage for kings and presidents, and at orphanages and senior citizen homes. Lucia was awarded a Medal of Honor by Congress for her wartime service with the USO for entertaining troops, and she personally knew fellow Missourian Harry Truman. She claims to have been honored in Ripley’s Believe It or Not for memorizing more songs than anyone in the world: 10,000.

Lucia reminisces about being a high-profile entertainer in Kansas City, St. Louis, and Fresno. Her all-girl Musical Pirates were the house band at St. Louis’s Odeon Theater, where the virtuoso Lucia played 15 instruments. She also enchanted Odeon patrons as “Venus in Spookyland.” Celebrants farther west may fondly recall her stint as Mother Goose at Fresno Storyland. She later teamed up with her daughter Georgia, with whom she performed duets as the “Pamela Sisters.”

Reaching further back in her memory, Lucia claims to have been “the first person ever on television,” though details are hazy. The multimedia star hosted such radio programs as The Encouragement Hour in Kansas City, and Gal about Town, where she extolled “when, where, and what to do in and about Fresno.”

Lucia remains a tremendous fan of the medium. “Radio is great,” she says, “for people who don’t have a television.”

She played concerts with the above-mentioned Charles Kunkel (“cousin of the great Beethoven”), and recalls one fateful incident when Kunkel slumped over at the piano in the middle of their duet.

Did he die?

“Well,” Lucia recalls, “no one knew at that particular time. They had a doctor check him to be sure he was gone.” Alas—poor Charles had expired! Nevertheless, Lucia resolutely completed the concert.

“Charles,” she affirms, “would have wanted it that way.”

Just to set history books straight, a few months before Neil Armstrong took his historic stroll on the moon, Lucia visited that celestial satellite. Any doubt that she did in fact travel far out of the earth’s atmosphere should be dispelled by her lyrics, which contain eyewitness accounts of lunar life.

WALKING ON THE MOON

Every time I take a trip

I’m sure to meet my friends

From the sky they fly high

this is hello from them

moo-moo-moo-moo moo-moo moo moo-moo-moo!!!!

As I was walking on the Moon

I met a little cow-ow-ow

And this is what she said to me

dah-dah dah-dah-dah-dah dah dah

Moo-moo-moo-moo moo-moo moo moo-moo-moo!!!!

And that’s what she said to me

Meow Meow Meow Meow-ow-ow!!!

As I was walking on the Moon

I met a little kitty cat

And this is what she said to me

dah-dah dah-dah-dah-dah dah dah

Meow Meow Meow Meow-ow-ow!!!

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.