Open thread: Tell us your 6 degrees to Kevin BaconThe Bacon Brothers - actor/rocker Kevin and lifelong musician Michael - last night announced a Dec. 5 benefit concert to save the cash-strapped Mummers Parade.
The Electric Factory concert will include their Kevin-written single, "New Year's Day," featuring Springsteen-like blue-collar lyrics and the totally Two-Street hook, "I was born the son of a Mummer."
The song's new mix features Mummers' playing banjos, saxes and accordions, and the vocal harmonies of Grammy-nominated Bunny Sigler - a soul singer from the "Sound of Philadelphia" '70s of Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff.
Wearing a dazzling silver suit at a news conference last night at Paradiso Restaurant and Wine Bar, in South Philly, Sigler said that he was happy to be part of the benefit because "I love to strut. And if you can't strut to this music, I mean . . ." He shook his head in mock sadness.
"You remember Palumbo's?" Sigler asked, referring to the late, great South Philly veal-parm palace. "How could you be down with Palumbo's and not be down with the Mummers?"
Asked if his "son of a Mummer" song was autobiographical, Kevin smiled and admitted, "My father was never a Mummer."
The brothers' dad, the late Edmund Bacon, was a beloved Philadelphia city planner whose profound civic pride seems to be coming out in his sons these days.
"This city was his entire life," Kevin said. "It was his blood. So, yes, I guess [the benefit concert] is a piece of the old man."
"If he was alive, he'd be here tonight," Michael said.
"We are so grateful to the Bacon Brothers," said George J. Badey III, the lawyer who chairs SaveTheMummers.com.
"The city pulled out of its $336,000 commitment to the Mummers last year," Badey said. "This year, it does not want to pay for city employees to work the parade."
Badey said that the Nutter administration hasn't been clear on what the parade costs above what the city pays its employees who normally work on New Year's Day.
"The city first told us the parade cost $760,000," Badey said. "Then they said $500,000, then $483,000, then $387,000, then $308,000.
"They included 15 police captains in their original numbers. But those 15 police captains are working anyway. So, what is the parade's real cost to the city?"
The Bacon Brothers benefit concert will be broadcast live on Channel 17.
For tickets and information: SaveTheMummers.com.
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