{"id":10283,"date":"2011-11-18T09:45:11","date_gmt":"2011-11-18T14:45:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/?p=10283"},"modified":"2011-11-18T09:43:34","modified_gmt":"2011-11-18T14:43:34","slug":"josh-grobans-representatives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/josh-grobans-representatives\/","title":{"rendered":"Josh Groban\u2019s Representatives Ask Mr. Moderator, \u201cWhat\u2019s Your Beef With Our Client?\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/a9TOitV21XE?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><p>Representatives for <strong>Josh Groban<\/strong> contacted Rock Town Hall&#8217;s Back Office last night to complain about the unfair treatment they felt their client received in a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/index.php\/modern-day-jim-nabors-sings-neil-young\/\" target=\"_blank\">recent post<\/a> we ran on a performance by Groban from a tribute concert to <strong>Neil Young<\/strong>. In part, their note read:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Why Josh&#8217;s heartfelt tribute to one of his musical heroes, Neil Young, a close personal friend of the artist, we might add, with whom Groban has performed at the artist&#8217;s fundraiser for The Bridge school, was posted for your community&#8217;s mockery is beyond us. And what does Josh Groban have to do with <strong>Jim Nabors<\/strong>, who surely was or maybe <a href=\"http:\/\/www.deadoraliveinfo.com\/dead.nsf\/nnames-nf\/Nabors+Jim\" target=\"_blank\">still is<\/a> a great man? What&#8217;s the Moderator&#8217;s beef with our client?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Fair enough. Let me explain. One evening in the mid-1980s, while my bandmates and I were grabbing a bite between soundcheck and showtime a black guy stopped me on the street and asked the following question\u2014and I only specify the man&#8217;s race in hopes that the hurtful thing he had to say was a matter of a possible &#8220;All white people look alike&#8221; mentality:<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Has anyone ever told you you look like Jim Nabors?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>No one had <em>ever<\/em> suggested this before or since! I had no problems with comparisons to Andy Kaufman or even, as was published in\u00a0a <em>Philadelphia Inquirer<\/em> story on our band for the tri-state area to see, a &#8220;cross between Barney Rubble and a young Gene Wilder.&#8221; I get my share of Gerard Depardieu comparisons, which is fine by me, even as he balloons at a more rapid pace than I can manage, threatening to sink the island of Elba, because the ladies dig Depardieu. But Jim Nabors? Never! Growing up I couldn&#8217;t bear to watch <em>Gomer Pyle<\/em>, and Nabors&#8217; serious singing gigs on variety shows were an early education in <strong>SUCK<\/strong>. To think, I&#8217;d spent the first part of the &#8217;80s culturing a modicum of <em>cool<\/em>. This complete stranger&#8217;s comment brought the entire facade tumbling down.<\/p>\n<p>Fast-forward 20-some years, to a lunchtime chat with coworkers. Somehow Josh Groban came up; he&#8217;d probably appeared on an awards show. I bit my tongue, thinking that an innocent lunch with my great coworkers was no place for me to go on my &#8220;Modern-Day Jim Nabors&#8221; tirade. Beside, at best only 2 or 3 people in my office would have been old enough to have a clue about what I was getting at.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;He&#8217;s got great hair,&#8221; my delightful, white (I should mention)\u00a0colleague said about Groban, looking my way in anticipation of tossing me a compliment. &#8220;He reminds me of you!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>So there, Concerned Representatives of Mr. Groban, is the complicated story behind my beef with your client.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Representatives for Josh Groban contacted Rock Town Hall&#8217;s Back Office last night to complain about the unfair treatment they felt their client received in a recent post we ran on a performance by Groban from a tribute concert to Neil Young. In part, their note read: Why Josh&#8217;s heartfelt tribute to one of his musical <a href='https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/josh-grobans-representatives\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[342],"tags":[536,535,127],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10283"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10283"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10283\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}