Play the video below. If you like the music you hear, then we've got a great idea for you

 (NOTE: Hope you're having an enjoyable Labor Day. We're publishing this item today instead of waiting because, as you'll see, time is of the essence and we wanted you to know about this in case you wanted to go.)


Here's the thing. There is a whole lot happening at Eckerd College that might not otherwise be apparent unless you happen to be in the know. Case in point: Beginning Wednesday and for the next four Wednesdays there'll be a program that if you play the video above and it speaks to you then you ought to be attending this program. Do it now and you'll see what we mean.

Paul Robeson singing Ol' Man River in the 1936 film Showboat isn't for everyone but it sure is a favorite of a lot of people. If you're one of them (or if you just played this, never heard it before, and want more like it) then you're probably a Jerome Kern/Oscar Hammerstein II fan. This kind of music spans generations. It's classic.

The program we're talking about is Great Lyricists and Lyrics of 20th Century Popular Music. It's part of the Eckerd OLLI program. (That stands for Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, and it's a program designed for people over 50 who think there's more to life than binge watching The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt or The Carmichael Show; people who yearn for something intellectually stimulating.) There's a whole catalog of interesting OLLI programs and you can download a PDF version here.

This program is a tribute to the great lyricists in popular music and Oscar Hammerstein II was one of the greatest. Some think that lyricists are often forgotten, though it's hard to imagine Oscar being one of them. The story is told of Oscar's wife, Dorothy, upon overhearing a man praising Jerome Kern for writing Ol' Man River, remarked: "Jerome Kern wrote 'dum, dum dum-dum.' My husband wrote Ol' Man River.

Now this program is not only a lecture but it's also a concert. It'll be presented by Tampa Bay composer/lyricist Joy Katzen-Guthrie, a virtuoso performer who is guaranteed to delight. You can find out more about her here. Rest assured she'll play plenty of the items from her 4,000-song repertorie.

Of course, there are a lot of other programs (on into the end of September, October, November, and December -- plus more after the first of the year), and we're going to go on talking about some of them but if you're really interested we suggest you get a copy of the catalog and browse or go to the Eckerd OLLI website and take a look around.

That song's stuck in our head now. "But ol' man river, he just keeps rollin' along."

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