I’ve googled and searched YouTube for a videio of Ben Venereen’s rendition of “Grandma’s Hands.” Other than that, I don’t know where else to look. Can anybody help me?
Well, it’s a Bill Withers song. Here he is performing it with an excellent spoken introduction.
I love that song and Bill Withers in general. Who is he and what is he to you?*
*actually that is the title of another song on the same album, dadgumit…
Thanks guys. And thanks for introducing me to Bill Withers. I’m going to enjoy becoming acquainted with his music.
Back in the mid '60s I saw Ben Vereen perform this, I think on the Mike Douglas show. (Way back, huh.) I never forgot it.
Over Christmas, a lot because of some threads posted, I was thinking about those I loved who are gone. Our grandmother held our family together. Everybody—including the neighborhood—called her Mom. She was everybody’s “secret” special person. We all thought we had the closest relationship with her. lol She was that kind of person and everything she touched was better.
Thanks again.
Don’t know the Ben Vereen version, but I doubt it could have been from the mid-'60s, as the song (written by Withers) appeared on his debut album, Just As I Am, in 1971.
(Scratching my head,) I don’t know what version it was I saw but I’m certain it was in the '60s because we were at the little farm, before moving to the big farm.
A pleasant puzzle to pick at…
Wait a minute! Bill Withers recorded Just As I Am? My favorite hymn. Going now to check this out.
Becky, my google fu is telling me that the only time Ben Vereen sang this on television was 8 December 1975 on Dinah Shore’s talk show Dinah. That was Season 2, Episode 60.
Since he was born in 1946, the year you think you recall seeing him he would have been only 19 years old. It’s unlikely you saw him that year, at least on television, as he had yet to star in anything and was working as a dancer in off-off Broadway theatre.
It wasn’t until 1968 that he landed the role of Claude in Hair (for which he won a Tony Award), and not until 1969 that he was in the film version of Sweet Charity, having performed for Bob Fosse in the stage production both on Broadway and in the touring company.
But it really wasn’t until his role as Bert Robbins in Barbara Steisand’s Funny Lady (1975) that he became a star in his own right, and began making regular TV appearances.
:smack: Wow. If all my memories are so screwed up my own personal truth is now suspect.
Need to go watch Inception or Memento or something.
I found a good version of the song by Brian Doerksen, tho.
(Wanders off confusedly…)
Ain’t no sunshine when she’s gone.
I wish you well.
Thank you bienville. I’m okay with it because there was no “unfinished business” between us. Just love, and like.
You’ll have to join those of us who characterize all events more than a month or two ago as “a while ago” because we don’t know when it really happened 