Songs for lovers and songs for mothers
⏩ A few years after the unveiling of the Tony Bennett statue in front of the Fairmont Hotel, the block of Mason Street just outside the Fairmont is getting a new “honorary” renaming: Tony Bennett Way. The block remains, formally, Mason Street; its honorary designation coexists with its familiar address.
The singer, so honored for his iconic recording of “I Left My Heart in San Francisco,” will be on hand to celebrate the renaming, on Saturday, June 2, from noon to 3 p.m.
The public is invited, ice cream will be served, and, at 1:15 p.m., everyone will be asked to honor Bennett by making a heart-shaped hand gesture. (This choreographed action is being billed as a “social media moment,” a phrase that, compared to “halfway to the stars” and all those poetic lyrics, honestly doesn’t sound all that romantic.) ⏩ There’s always a local ... blah blah blah. But Kenny Wardell has found a royal wedding link to the Bay Area. According to a story in the British newspaper the Daily Mail, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle may dance their first dance as a married couple to Whitney Houston’s version of “I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me).” That recording was produced by Narada Michael Walden, who lives in the North Bay. (I’m citing the Mail’s report, but it seems to this fan of live music that the royals could afford to have a couple of wedding musicians rather than a DJ.)
The reasoning behind this guess of music choice may be somewhat shaky. Markle had said, in a magazine interview, that this is her “happy song,” and the royal couple has said they want to keep the playlist for their wedding music “fun and bouncy.”
⏩ Nine Inch Nails will be at Bill Graham Civic Auditorium on Dec. 3, as part of the band’s “Cold and Black and Infinite North America 2018” tour. In a break with most current rock concert procedures, tickets are to be sold first in person, on Saturday, May 19, at the venue.
The explanation — touching on areas much broader than ticket sales — was on the band’s website: “The promise of a world made better by computers and online connectivity has failed us in many ways, particularly when it comes to ticketing. Everything about the process sucks and everyone loses except the reseller. We’ve decided to try something different ...
“You (an actual human being) show up at the box office, interact with the ticket seller (another actual human being) and purchase up to four tickets that will actually be handed to you on the spot. The tickets will not be available online or anywhere else before or during that day . ... You may actually encounter other actual human beings with similar interests likely wearing black clothing during the process and potentially interact with them. The experience has the potential to be enjoyable.”
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A fifth anniversary celebration for Feinstein’s at the Nikko, on Monday, May 13, featured Michael Feinstein performing a mini-concert for some of his fans. Talking to the audience between songs, Feinstein also paid tribute to the San Francisco media, particularly to the late Gerald Nachman and David Wiegand, who had written about Feinstein and the club for years. Wiegand will be remembered at 7 p.m. June 4 at the Great American Music Hall.
It seems we have lost many in the past few months. The Chronicle family is also diminished by the death of alum Shirley-Anne Owden, a copy editor with a passion for squirrels who, before being taken to the hospital for her final days, left the word “Joy” on a note stuck to her refrigerator.
And a nod to Bruce Bellingham, who was a fixture in Herb Caen’s column, was sidekick to P.J. Corkery at the Examiner, and wrote his own column for the Marina Times. A look at The Chronicle’s library of clips, electronic since 1985 or so, turned up this typical Bellingham observation that year (yes, this is a nostalgia quiz): “Bruce Bellingham and Sedge Thomson signed off their weekend show on KQED-FM with, ‘Our special guests next week will be Jim and Tammy Bakker singing “Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte Observer”!’ ”
“He has terrible taste in everything, except for maybe men and underwear.”
Woman overheard at the San Diego airport by The Chronicle’s Heather Knight