So why don't you know his name? Meet the mastermind partners working alongside star chefs.
The essence of Tom Jones might come down to one night in the mid-’90s on an episode of his show The Right Time. Each week was devoted to a specific musical genre. This night the focus was soul, and the guest was Stevie Wonder. It wasn’t the first time the two singers had worked together. Wonder had been one in an impressive array of guests (Janis Joplin, Ella Fitzgerald, Joe Cocker, and Ray Charles among them) who appeared on Jones’s late ’60s variety show. Here, Jones stood at a piano while Wonder played, the two of them dueting on soul numbers. And on almost every song, it was Jones who knew all the words. Time and again, Wonder would resort to la-la-la-ing while Jones was ready to sing straight through to the end. And time and again, Jones, not wanting to show up his guest, would conclude his vocal and the two of them would chat a little before moving on to another song. In the course of their talk, Jones brought up the subject of songwriting, admitting he was mystified by the process, and asked Wonder how he did it. Rather than answer, Wonder told his host that what every songwriter dreamed of was great singers to put their work across, and he made it clear that he believed he was in the presence of such a great singer. Jones, abashed and humble, quietly thanked him. But beneath that, you could sense Jones thinking, “Who am I to be getting a compliment from Stevie Wonder?”
For an influential group of writers, the purpose of novels is to bear witness to the spectacle of aloneness.
So what is the deal with the small number of people whom transportation researchers have found to be perfectly fine with their commutes, even—shockingly—enjoying them?