Theme: Good 'ole homonyms. The first word of all the punnily(?) clued answers substitutes a word with changed spelling. Good theme strength, the first words all end with OLE, and are all pronounced the same way as the words they replace.
17. Money for the Warsaw government?: POLE TAXES. Warsaw, Poland. A poll tax was used in the south to try to circumvent the 14th amendment and prevent civil rights. It took the 24th amendment to make it illegal.
25. Foot-tapping songs?: SOLE MUSIC. Soul music is sort of Gospel blended with rhythm & blues.
35. Songwriting, to Porter?: COLE FIELD. Coal fields. Night and Day, Cole Porter's field of expertise.
49. Actor's messages from an agent?: ROLE CALLS. I'll bet Dennis still remembers roll call.
58. Grain for bagels?: HOLE WHEAT. I only eat the holes in bagels and donuts.
Hi all, Al again. Working with a dodgy loaner PC. Mine is in for repairs and the space bar isn't working very well on this one. Ah, well, enough excuses. Onward to the rest. A bit of nostalgia in several music references today, I thought. The tough part was narrowing down all the choices there are for each song to be able to choose only one and not get distracted by all the other music links.
ACROSS:
1. Lee followers: REBS. The South shall rise again.
5. Works in the Uffizi Gallery: ARTE. Italian art : Florence, Italy museum location.
9. Gets ready: PREPS.
14. "__ Rhythm": I GOT. Lena Horne doing a Gershwin classic.
15. Role for Carrie: LEIA. Carrie Fischer, Star Wars.
16. Singer Gorme: EYDIE. As Long as he needs me. A torch song from "Oliver!".
19. Letter alternative: LEGAL. Paper sizes.
20. They may be precious: STONES. They might also be a double-entendre. (and still be precious)
21. Divulge: TELL. Divulge, to make common property. Related to "vulgar", common, ordinary.
23. Hydrocarbon suffix: ENE. As usual, need perps for generic chemical ending clues. Could have been made into something helpful by adding "double-bond" in front of hydrocarbon.
24. Fluorescent bulb filler: ARGON. Also contains excited mercury vapor, dispose of these carefully.
27. "1984" protagonist __ Smith: WINSTON. A double-plus good novel by George Orwell.
29. Cut it out: DESIST. Latin sistere, to come to a stand. Related to assist, to stand by.
30. Place to be pampered: SPA.
31. French mystic Simone: WEIL. Unknown to me.
34. Maundy Thursday period: LENT. Holy Thursday, commemorates the Last Supper.
38. G-note: THOU. Grand, thousand.
40. Increase in intensity, with "up": RAMP.
41. Previously: AGO.
44. Weather map features: FRONTS. Where air masses of different density meet.
46. Ardor: PASSION. Latin ardorem: to burn. Passion originally meant suffering (the passion of the Christ), then evolved to strong emotions and desire.
52. __ asada (Mexican meat dish): CARNE. Roasted meat, barbecue.
53. TV's Alf and others: ETS. Alf was a puppet alien that liked to eat cats.
54. Skin-soothing stuff: ALOE.
55. Bouquets: POSIES. "line of verse engraved on the inner surface of a ring," from poesy, recorded in this sense from early 15th century. The meaning "flower, bouquet" first recorded 1570s, from notion of the language of flowers.
56. Rob of "90210": ESTES. Nope, still don't know who he is.
60. Sport with clay pigeons: SKEET. A name chosen as "a very old form of our present word 'shoot.' " Perhaps Old Norse skotja "to shoot" was intended.
61. Auth. of many quotes?: ANON. Can you spell anonymous without looking it up? I have early access to internet file servers and FTP to thank for that skill.
62. Old Boston Bruin nickname: ESPO. Phil Esposito, hockey.
63. Newbies: TYROS. Latin tiro, young soldier, recruit.
64. Following: NEXT.
65. Remarriage prefix: STEP. Step-brother, sister, son, daughter, etc.
DOWN:
1. With-the-grain cutters: RIPSAWS.
2. Vacation for the vain?: EGO TRIP. Punny.
3. Smoked deli meat: BOLOGNA. I would think it would be hard to light and harder to keep it going. You'd need a big ashtray, too.
4. Dictators' aides: STENOS. Greek stenos "narrow", graphy "writing": shorthand.
5. Wistful word: ALAS. Originally a word of weariness, related: lassitude.
6. "Wonder Dog" of comics: REX. Selected as a test subject for a super-soldier serum. After receiving an injection of the serum, Rex found himself endowed with great strength, speed, stamina, and intelligence. Dr. Anabolus was killed by a Nazi spy soon after, and as Anabolus left no records, this led to Rex being the only dog of his kind. Hmmm, I think they may have"borrowed" this story line from Captain America...
7. Relate with: TIE TO.
8. Drawing support: EASEL. Just a noun for a picture holder, not "attracting a crowd of protesters", as seems to be all over in the news lately.. And 39D. It can facilitate drawing: HOLSTER.Drawing a weapon, not a picture.
9. Willy-nilly: PELL-MELL. They seem unrelated when you investigate their origins. Contraction of "will I, nill I", with or without the will of the person concerned. And "confusedly" from Old French pesle mesle, apparently a rhyme on the second word, which is from the stem of the verb mesler "to mix, mingle."
10. 3-Down might be on it: RYE. Deli bread.
11. Enters carefully: EDGES IN.
12. Rachmaninoff, e.g.: PIANIST. Sort of like calling Woody Allen an actor.
13. Prime: SELECT. Choice. I think we had a meaty discussion about these words before.
18. Certain caterpillar's creation: TENT. Not a pleasant sight. Can do a lot of damage to a tree.
22. Was in front: LED.
25. Look from Snidely Whiplash: SNEER. Dudley Do-Right (cartoon) villain, always kidnapping Nell.
26. Broken in: USED.
28. Rice University mascot: OWL.
32. "__ picture paints ...": song lyric: IF A. Bread, soft rock from the 70's. The song "IF" was covered by such diverse artists as Petula Clark, Cleo Laine, Perry Como, Frank Sinatra, Jack Jones, Shirley Bassey, and ... Telly Savalas (yes, Kojak) who took it to the top of the UK singles chart for two weeks in 1975, the shortest song title to ever do so.
33. Walks with a cane, perhaps: LIMPS.
35. Road marker: CONE.
36. Shunned ones: OUTCASTS.
37. Clean air org.: EPA. Environmental Protection Agency
38. October Revolution leader: TROTSKY. This was a bunch of Bolsheviks.
41. With the most open windows: AIRIEST.
42. Flipped: GONE APE. This will be me if this*%$& spacebar doesn't start working correctly pretty soon.
43. Convenient, shoppingwise: ONE STOP. Plus a fitness workout to boot, from all the walking around in some of these "big box" retailers.
44. Least constrained: FREEST.
45. Erie Canal mule: SAL. Susanne Vega cover.
47. Flat-bottomed boat: SCOW. From Du. schouw "a ferry boat, punt," related to Old English. scaldan, "to push (a boat) from shore."
48. Ornamental bands: SASHES. No OBI clue?
50. Lindsay of "Labor Pains": LOHAN. The latest self-destructing Disney dropout. Lilo. More to follow by the look of it.
51. Sierra __: LEONE. Today's geography lesson.
55. Cooped (up): PENT. Variant of "penned" up.
57. Fair-hiring abbr.: EEO. Equal Employment Opportunity. Also seen as EOE.
59. Bagel topping: LOX. Smoked salmon.
Answer Grid
Al
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