REVIEW POTPOURRI – Novelist: Gerard Robichaud; Singer: Tony Williams; Movie: White Heat; Violinist: Fritz Kreisler

by Peter Cates

Gerard Robichaud

Gerard Robicaud

Novelist Gerard Robichaud (1908-2008) was born in Québec, moved with his parents to Lewiston as a child, returned to Québec at 18 to study for the priesthood and practice writing stories during his spare time, but then left the priesthood to return to Lewiston in 1928 and over the next twenty years began developing further as a writer .

Maine Speaks contains a chapter, The Bad One, from Robichaud’s 1961 novel Papa Martel which easily stands on its own as a short story. The setting is a 1920s mill town, Groveton (strongly resembling Lewiston) and depicts a French Canadian family living in a very crowded apartment.

A local priest talks the parents into taking in a 17-year-old orphaned girl who’s been very difficult to manage. What gives this story a special quality is how the situation unfolds in a most unusual manner; how again people are so seldom what they seem; and how clouds have surprising silver linings.

The orphan Bad One Sophia ends up engaging the family and community in a most endearing manner while there are the elements of sly humor, local color, snappy dialog and unspoken attitudes that are the meat and potatoes of any good story.

In an interview, Robichaud summed up his own approach as a writer- “I wanted people to be better than they were after they read the story.”

A choice four lines of dialog between the family patriarch Louis and the priest Father Lebois before the parents make any decision:

“And this little girl?” Louis asked. “How old is she?”

“Just seventeen,” said Father Lebois sadly, “and already the boys chase her. It’s a pity, but she’s also very beautiful. “

“At seventeen,” Louis murmured, “everybody is beautiful.”

Tony Williams

Tony Williams

Tony Williams (1928-1992) was lead singer for the Platters from 1953 to 1959 and contributed to the group’s extraordinary success with such hits as The Great Pretender and Jerome Kern’s Smoke Gets In Your Eyes.

In 1957 as a solo singer, he recorded a seven-inch 45 (Mercury 71158) of two selections – Let’s Start All Over Again; and When You Return, its melody being that of Danny Boy/Londonderry Air. And they were vocally top notch doo wop style arrangements.

White Heat

James Cagney

White Heat is a 1949 film noir classic starring James Cagney (1899-1986) as the psychopathic gangster Cody Jarrett, Margaret Wycherly (1881-1956) as the equally formi­dable Ma Jarrett and a superb supporting cast that included Virginia Mayo, Steve Cochrane, Edmund O’Brien, Fred Clark etcs. and astutely directed by Raoul Walsh.

Fritz Kreisler

Fritz Kreisler

Two acoustically recorded 12-inch shellacs present two violinists who shared the same birthday of February 2 and ex­changed greeting cards.

Fritz Kreisler (1875-1963) recorded Dvorak’s Humoresque (Victor Red Seal 74180) in 1919 and played with his justly famed unique delicacy and exquisite lyricism. In 1947, he closed his violin case for good.

Jascha Heifetz

Jascha Heifetz (1901-1987) recorded Sarasate’s splendid virtuoso piece Introduction and Tarentelle (Victrola Red Seal 74626) the previous year at the age of 17 and even then displayed the total technical and musical supremacy as possibly the greatest violinist who ever lived. Itzhak Perlman once commented that Heifetz again and again could do bowings and phrasing that he and other violinists could never do.