Alan Calls It A Day -- Vital Question Taken to his Grave

When an obit mentions someone you never heard of, but screams "FAMOUS," you must read on.

And so just as I did, you're first question is...

Who the FUCK is Alan O'Day?

When I saw "SINGER SONGWRITER ALAN O'DAY DEAD..." that was MY question, and I'm a bargain bin denizen from way back. How come that name only VAGUELY rang Quasimodo's bell of grotesqueness?

Turns out, Alan was one of those MOR saps from the mid-70's.

It was a shitty era (of which there have been many) in which various mediocre people who couldn't sing too well, somehow managed to have some kind of cloying annoying semi-hit "single." Name your asshole.

Remember Dean Friedman and his chipmunk-shit "Ariel?" Or that fucking Christopher Cross? Or Buzzy Linhart and "You Gotta Have Friends?"

If I had a barf bag handy, I'd make a more substantial list.

The bargain bins are bulging with SONGWRITER guys with indifferent voices who got to make one or two albums. Logic? "Uh, if he wrote some songs for others, maybe his fans will buy him singing his shit, even if he has no charisma."

That would explain those Barry Mann solo albums on Columbia and RCA Victor, or Philip Goodhand-Tait's stuff on Chrysalis, or the 1977 album from Alan O'Day with "Undercover Angel" on it. That song actually went to #1 without my ever hearing it. Lucky me.

But I had to listen when he died, because he died. And halfway through, my interest died.

Then I discovered that Alan was also notable for having written a (s)hit for Helen Reddy. That would be the God-awful "Angel Baby," which I also managed to avoid for over 30 years. I listened to a bit of that one. Let's just say "Angel Baby" as a worthy song was stillborn.

OK.

I am NOT kicking dirt on the man's grave. Not really. Too bad he died. That I didn't care for his shitty brand of music isn't really the point of this entry.

It's that once intrigued by finding out why there was even an obit for Alan O'Day when he called it a day, I looked at his website.

And now, he's taken...

a question I would have asked...

TO HIS GRAVE.

Take a look at him in the corner photo, age 70 or whatever. Now take a look at the digitized or re-issued 70's solo album he was hawking.

WHY does a guy who was comfortable with a bald-headed picture of himself on an album cover...NOW wear the most ridiculous and obvious wig of all time?

It's a question he's taken to his grave.

Although maybe the funeral home could tell us if he was actually buried in that thing!