Musical Spheres of the Championship Years and 1991

Arguably the best overall team in the history of professional football in Washington, the 1991 Washington Redskins went 14-2 and won Super Bowl 26 beating Buffalo 37-24. 

The Year was a typical war and famine cavalcade. The Gulf War and the dissolution of the former Soviet Union were big headliners. 

The Mount Fuji Jazz Festival of 1991, the Frankfurt Jazz Festival, and the Bern Jazz Festival were among the year's Jazz Festivalia. Don't forget D.C.'s own Jazz Festival. When's the happening? August 28 thru September 1st. 

Here's Paul Carr and Sharon Clark two of the participants in this year's festival.

Some interesting hits from other genres:

Crazy by Seal

Urban Dance Squad --Deeper Shade of Soul

Silent Lucidity by Queensrÿche

Knockin on Heaven's Door by Guns N' Roses

Metallica Enter Sandman 

Some of the Flicks at the Movies then were:

The Doors

Silence of the Lambs 

Scenes from a Mall

La Femme Nikita 

Defending Your Life 

Truly Madly Deeply

City Slickers 

The Naked Gun 2.5: The Smell of Fear

Musical Spheres of the Championship Years and 1982

It is fitting the first real commentary from Joe Theismann on the 2024 Commanders came this week as we look at music from that incredible Super Bowl year of 1982. 

Game Highlights. Tale of Two Seasons.

Billie Jean.

Theismann said Jayden Daniels ought to skip the preseason, or so I heard. Some people revolted against the notion. But I hold Joey T to be a heckuva lot wiser than most of today's commentators. 

I mean, rookies struggle with the length of the NFL Season. It is such a malignant force, said length, that your best metric for who will win in the playoffs is who is the healthiest. The NFL has not tempered its greed by expanding rosters which would allow for mitigation of wear and tear. 

The Message

So much for the League's commitment to quality. Expanded rosters would allow for better performances as playing time gets more evenly distributed. Playing time makes players better. That's why they are called "players". If you don't play, you are not a player. If you don't play, how do you know where your game is at? If everybody plays, everybody is more likely to be happy and happy football teams make better decisions on field and off. 

It sounds like I'm making the argument against Theismann's position. But no. I'm saying I'd like Jayden to be available for the playoffs. I'll entertain any such notions as would incline fate to cheat in that direction. The most games he's ever played is 14. The late bye might give him and the other rooks a boost. If the Commanders get a playoff game, he's looking at, minimum, 21 games. With that much wear and tear, I don't think we make the Super Bowl. 

Tough

We'll be out of gas. I mean, vets will be OK. Rooks will have jet lag. Lightening the load would be good, as Joe Theismann as in Wise Man has pointed out. How to Be A Champion Every Day.

Led Zeppelin

Scorpions 

The North Sea Jazz Festival

Willie Nelson 

Bobby Sue

Dolly Parton 

Here are some of the flicks that year:

Blade Runner

Fast Times at Ridemont High. Rockin tune from that movie.

Creepshow

Eye of the Tiger Man 

Conan Da Bahbarian 

Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid

Khan 

Musical Spheres of the Championship Years and 1972

The year 1972 was a great year in music and a great year for Washington NFL Football. 

The Washington Redskins won the NFC Championship beating their arch nemesis the Dallas Cowboys 26-3 before losing the Super Bowl to the undefeated Miami Dolphins. 

Like people say, whenever the Skins beat the Cowboys in the NFC Championship game, the Super Bowl always seemed like an afterthought.

The Watergate Scandal was born in 1972. Only Nixon could go to China. Fischer defeats Spassky. Here's Nixon schmoozing with George Allen parts 1 and 2. This is the game Tricky Dickie and Coach were apparently talking about.

My favorite song from 1972 is Johnny Nash's I Can See Clearly Now. If you hadn't known the background of Nash, you'd swear you could hear a dash of Reggae in the tune. Good ear. The Covers out there unfortunately seem to subtract the Reggae elements. Jimmy Cliff did a great rendition. It is time for an Orchestral Reggae treatment. Maybe one's already been done.

Some all-time great records were getting airplay in 1972. The reissued Nights in White Satin and November of '71's Stairway to Heaven.

You probably don't remember Mouth and MacNeal. They made a catchy little tune called How Do You Do which made Number 8 on Billboard. 

Man of La Mancha, the film version, came out in 1972. Johnny Mathis did a wonderful medley from the musical.

Morning Has Broken charted in '72, making number one Easy Listening. It was not a Cat Stevens original. Here's more on that story.

If you went to the movies in 1972, you could see Jeremiah Johnson, Superfly, Boxcar Bertha, the Poseidon Adventure, and my personal favorite, The Legend of Boggy Creek, Rated G.

Musical Spheres of the Championship Years and 1942

December 14th, 1942.

With the memory of 73-0 deeply fixed in their minds, the Washington Redskins captured the 1942 NFL Title, defeating the Monsters of the Midway, 14-6.

Smash hits musically at the time:

Every Night About this Time by The Ink Spots

Travlin Light by Billie Holiday and Paul Whiteman

Tangerine by Jimmy Dorsey, Bob Eberly, Helen O'Connell

A glimpse of some '42 hits by Hot Sounds.

Forty-two was Ray Flaherty's last year in D.C. When you say Washington's Hall of Fame Coach, people think Joe Gibbs. No, we had another one. Ray Flaherty. He gave George Preston Marshall what for. It was the braggart Marshall who was responsible for lighting a fire under those "crybaby" 1940 Chicago Bears goading George Halas and the Bears into knocking hell out the Redskins. When Marshall poked his nose into team business, Flaherty would bust his chops. Threaten to walk.

One wonders what Flaherty would have done to Dan Snyder.

Some flicks people went to: The Black Swan, Pride of the Yankees, and something called Casablanca. See Operation Torch.

Yes, it seems Casablanca was a propaganda film. To drum up fervor for service. It is probably the best propaganda film. Though Mrs. Miniver would give it a run for the money. Mrs. Miniver was also 1942.

Nineteen Forty-Two was a time for choosing. A few months after the release of Casablanca and the detonation of Operation Torch, Ray Flaherty chose to leave the Washington Redskins for the war. 

Welcome back to the fight, Ray.

It was the first real punch America threw at the Bully, 1942 was.