another unique voice is stilled

Like Rod McKuen, each one of us has the ability to make our voice
heard. Will it be a strong voice in the light of day, or a whimper in
the dark?
Carl Jarvis

*****

Rod McKuen dies.
By HILLEL ITALIE
AP National Writer

NEW YORK (AP) - Rod McKuen, the husky-voiced "King of Kitsch" whose
avalanche of music, verse and spoken-word recordings in the 1960s and
'70s overwhelmed
critical mockery and made him an Oscar-nominated songwriter and one of
the best-selling poets in history, has died. He was 81.

McKuen died Thursday morning at a rehabilitation center in Beverly
Hills, California, where he had been treated for pneumonia and had
been ill for several
weeks and was unable to digest food, his half-brother Edward McKuen Habib said.

Until his sabbatical in 1981, McKuen was an astonishingly successful
and prolific force in popular culture, turning out hundreds of songs,
poems and records.
Sentimental, earnest and unashamed, he conjured a New Age spirit world
that captivated those who didn't ordinarily like "poetry" and those
who craved relief
from the war, assassinations and riots of the time.

"I think it's a reaction people are having against so much insanity in
the world," he once said. "I mean, people are really all we've got.
You know it
sounds kind of corny, and I suppose it's a cliche, but it's really
true; that's just the way it is."

His best-known songs, some written with the Belgian composer Jacques
Brel, include "Birthday Boy," ''A Man Alone," ''If You Go Away" and
"Seasons In the
Sun," a chart-topper in 1974 for Terry Jacks. He was nominated for
Oscars for "Jean" from "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie" and for "A Boy
Named Charlie
Brown," the title track from the beloved Peanuts movie.

Frank Sinatra, Madonna, Dolly Parton and Chet Baker were among the
many artists who recorded his material, although McKuen often handled
the job himself,
in a hushed, throaty style he honed after an early life as a rock
singer cracked his natural tenor.

McKuen is credited with more than 200 albums - dozens of which went
gold or platinum - and more than 30 collections of poetry. Worldwide
sales for his
music top 100 million units while his book sales exceed 60 million copies.

He was especially productive from 1968 to 1969, releasing four poetry
collections, eight songbooks, the soundtracks to "Miss Jean Brodie"
and "A Boy Named
Charlie Brown" and at least 10 other albums. Around the same time, his
"Lonesome Cities" album won a Grammy for best spoken word recording
and Sinatra
commissioned him to write material for "A Man Alone: The Words and
Music of Rod McKuen."

With his sharply parted blond hair, sneakers and jeans, McKuen was
recognized worldwide and thrived in every medium: movies, music,
books, television,
stage. When not writing or recording, he appeared on "The Tonight
Show" with Johnny Carson and other talk show programs, formed a film
production company
with Rock Hudson and toured constantly until he took an extended break in 1981.

"I was tired. I peaked. I left when I was on top," McKuen told the
Chicago Tribune in 2001. "One year, I did 280 concerts."

He had no formal musical or literary training, but often turned out a
song or poem per day and prided himself on writing verse that anyone
could understand.
The work seemed to call for accompaniment by a single, sad guitar or a
sobbing chorus of strings. Among his most quoted phrases: "Listen to
the warm" and
"It doesn't matter who you love, or how you love, but that you love."

The words written about McKuen were as notable as his own. Often
compared to "Love Story" author Erich Segal, he was dubbed "The King
of Kitsch" by Newsweek,
while the magazine Mademoiselle preferred "Marshmallow Poet." A
National Lampoon parody interspaced mock verses with dollar signs.

The escapism of his work was contrasted by an early life well in need
of escaping. Born in Oakland in 1934, he hardly knew his father, who
left the family
when he was a baby, and McKuen recalled being terrified of his
alcoholic stepfather. By age 11, McKuen had run away and he would
spend his teens doing
everything from ranching to roping horses in a rodeo, while writing
poetry in his free time.

After serving as a propaganda writer in the Korean War, McKuen wound
up in San Francisco, where his friend Phyllis Diller helped him find
work in the growing
nightclub scene. He went on to sing with the Lionel Hampton band,
acted in a handful of movies and TV shows, read poetry on the same
bill as Jack Kerouac
and other Beat writers and had a minor hit single in the early 1960s
with the dance parody "Oliver Twist."

Without critical approval or a book or recording contract, McKuen
proved that an artist could thrive on word of mouth alone. He sang in
bowling alleys
to promote "Oliver Twist," and his self-published collection of poems
and lyrics, "Stanyan Street and Other Sorrows," sold tens of thousands
of copies
before Random House acquired it.

McKuen slowed down over the second half of his life, and many of his
books fell out of print. But he continued to publish poetry,
remastered old musical
recordings and gave occasional concerts. He provided voiceovers for
the Disney movie and TV series "The Little Mermaid" and appeared at
Carnegie Hall in
1995 for an 80th birthday tribute to Sinatra. Artists continued to
record his songs, including the former Gene Ween, Aaron Freeman, who
in 2012 released
an album of McKuen covers called "Marvelous Clouds."

McKuen did at times take on social and political issues. He opposed
the Vietnam War, wrote a poem about the Watergate scandal and
supported civil rights
and equal rights for gays. Often described as a loner, he was
reluctant to discuss his own romantic preferences beyond saying he did
have them.

"Cats have it all," he once wrote, "admiration, an endless sleep, and
company only when they want it."

___