Friends and Neighbors

It's night time in the Big City
a light drizzle starts to fall
an anxious lover waits by the phone
They say that good fences make good neighbors (Frost)
and good friends make good music

The Singers and Songs

  • Howdy Neighbor
  • Don't Take Everybody to Be Your Friend
    "A powerful force of nature, a guitar playin', singin' evangelist...Anything but ordinary and plain. She was a big, good lookin' woman, and divine. Not to mention sublime and splendid, always dressed like she was on her way to church, with that electric guitar strung across her shoulder. Matter of fact I saw her a few times myself, at the National Guard Armory."
  • Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend
    "Long and tall and on the ball"
  • Doc Guidry
    La Valse D'Amitie (The Friendship Waltz)
  • Make Friends
  • My Next Door Neighbor
    "He once heard Little Walter play, and it changed his life forever. Music used to do that."
  • George Jones and Melba Montgomery
    Let's Invite Them Over
    "I played this record for some of the guys here in the Abernathy building, and they couldn't believe their ears. This is country music at its best, friends. Give a listen! Now I love country music, but I say, 'What happened to it?' You hear a song like this and it's obvious it's about real people, and real emotions, and real problems, that's all, that's the country music we learned to love. Now days they want to sweep all the problems under the rug and pretend they don't exist. Well guess what folks, they do exist! And if you try and sweep em under the rug, they're just gonna pop up somewhere else. So we might as well all just face it and listen to the old style country music, the real country music. You know, about drinking and sleeping around. That's my kind a country music, and I hope yours! But I digress."
  • My Friends
    "This next song is entirely without flaw and meets all the supreme standards of excellence."
  • Last Night
  • Carole King
    You've Got A Friend
    "I could be here all day just sayin' songs Carole King wrote. I'd rather listen to her sing one."
  • Bad Neighborhood
    "Another true zombie tale from the swamps of New Orleans."
  • Rolling Stones
    Neighbors
    "Here's my old pals the Rolling Stones. And I guess you heard about Keith and everybody's glad he's feeling better now. Here he is with Charlie, Mick, Woody, and a bass player."
  • Too Many Parties and Too Many Pals
    "One of the greatest songwriters who ever lived was Hank Williams, of course. Hank could be headstrong and willful, a backslider and a reprobate, no stranger to bad deeds. However, underneath all of that, he was compassionate and moralistic."
  • Why Can't We Be Friends
    "We don't need any border patrols, or people trying to pigeon hole music. We just need more records like this."

The Other People and Players

  • Deacon Jones
  • Night Shift
  • The Animals
  • Eric Burdon
  • Pete Townsend
  • Paul Harvey
  • The Prime Ministers
  • Mac Rebennack
  • The Charelles
  • Fats Waller
  • Jerry Lee Lewis
  • Lorelei Lee
  • Howard Hawks
  • Carol Channing
  • Leo Robbin
  • Jules Styne
  • Muddy Waters
  • Tammy Wynette
    “You know, it’s funny, I got an email recently from a listener, and they said they’d been listening to a lot of Tammy Wynette, and they thought that she sounded a lot like Little Richard. Well I thought they were crazy, but hearin that song I got an idea what they were talking about!”
  • Willie Dixon

The Other Songs and Albums

  • (Bob's personal favorite song by War)
  • The World Is A Ghetto
  • Slippin' Into Darkness
  • Spill the Wine
  • Take a Giant Step
  • One Fine Day
  • Locomotion
  • I Feel the Earth Move
  • You Make Me Feel (Like A Natural Woman)
  • Will You Love Me Tomorrow
  • Oh, Carol
  • Clip from Sister Rosetta Tharpe's wedding at Griffith Stadium in Washington, DC
    "I didn't know you could charge admission to your wedding... I wish I'd a known that."

The Movies and TV Shows

  • Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
    Clip played of Marilyn Monroe singing "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend."
  • The Sopranos

The Places

  • Dallas, TX
  • Fort Worth, TX
  • St. Louis, MO
  • National Guard Armory
  • Jackson, MS
  • England
  • Los Angeles

Record Labels

Quotes About Friends

  • Frederick Nietze
    Go up close to your friend, but do not go over to him. We should respect the enemy that is in our friend.
  • Oscar Wilde
    A true friend will stab you in the front. "Well said, Oscar!"
  • Muhammad Ali
    Friendship is the hardest thing in the world to explain. It's not something you learn in school, but if you haven't learned the meaning of friendship you really haven't learned anything at all. "Moon Mulligan, Muhammad Ali... two ways of sayin' the same thing."
  • Thomas Jefferson
    It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are 20 gods, or no God. It neither picks my pocket, nor breaks my leg. "Thomas Jefferson, reminding us about the separation of church and state."
  • Aristotle
    In poverty and other misfortunes of life, true friends are a sure refuge. The young they keep out of mischief; to the old they are a comfort and aid in their weakness, and those in the prime of life they incite to noble deeds.
  • He who has a thousand friends has not a friend to spare, while he who has one enemy will meet him everywhere.
  • Bread for myself is a material question; bread for my neighbor is a spiritual one.