First time! Bobby Darin - Me and Mr Hohner (live, 1969)

Описание: This stunning - and very groovy - live version of Me & Mr. Hohner comes from Bobby's 1969 engagement at The Troubadour. Fours songs from this week of shows have been released officially - Questions, Long Line Rider, Simple Song of Freedom, and Distractions. A couple of other tracks (Leaving Trunk and Come-a-rum-rum) have circulated among fans for quite a while now. However, this is believed to be the first time that the live version of Me & Mr. Hohner has been uploaded to YouTube for fans to enjoy!
The lyrics of the song might seem somewhat cryptic to modern listeners, but this is Bobby's take on Frank Rizzo, a notorious and controversial police commissioner in Philadelphia, known for his bigotry and violence towards both the African-American and gay communities. Various charges of assault towards suspects were made against Rizzo, but all were ultimately dropped. The New York Times said in their obituary of Rizzo: "[he was a] barely educated former police officer who used a hard line and tactics bordering on dictatorial to suppress opposition and keep blacks out of middle-class neighborhoods...Mr. Rizzo personally led Saturday-night round-ups of homosexuals and staged a series of raids on coffee houses and cafes – saying they were drug dens.” Bobby paints a vivid picture of the fear of the police in Philadelphia at that time, with the young man and his harmonica (“not doing nothing to no-one/When a squad car stops and out jumps cops/‘You’re one of them if I ever saw one’”), and the fear at the end of each verse of getting a beating. It's one of Bobby's finest compositions and, arguably, this live version is even better than the studio version that appeared on the "Commitment" LP.