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November 29, 2022
John Mayall is 89 years old today
John Mayall, New York City, 2005
Photo by Frank Beacham
John Mayall is 89 years old today.
An English blues singer, guitarist, organist and songwriter, Mayall’s musical career spans over fifty years. In the 1960s, he was the founder of John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers, a band which has included some of the most famous blues and blues rock musicians.
They include Eric Clapton, Peter Green, Jack Bruce, John McVie, Mick Fleetwood, Mick Taylor, Don "Sugarcane" Harris, Harvey Mandel, Larry Taylor, Aynsley Dunbar, Hughie Flint, Jon Hiseman, Dick Heckstall-Smith, Andy Fraser, Johnny Almond, Walter Trout, Coco Montoya and Buddy Whittington.
Born in Macclesfield, Cheshire, Mayall's father was Murray Mayall, a guitarist and jazz music enthusiast. From an early age, John was drawn to the sounds of American blues players such as Lead Belly, Albert Ammons, Pinetop Smith and Eddie Lang, and taught himself to play the piano, guitars and harmonica.
Mayall spent three years in Korea for national service and, during a period of leave, he bought his first electric guitar. Back in Manchester, he enrolled at Manchester College of Art (now part of Manchester Metropolitan University) and started playing with semi-professional bands.
After graduation, he obtained a job as an art designer but continued to play with local musicians. In 1963, he opted for a full-time musical career and moved to London. His previous craft would be put to good use in the designing of covers for many of his coming albums.
Since the end of the 1960s, Mayall has lived in the United States. A brush fire destroyed his house in Laurel Canyon in 1979, seriously damaging his musical collections and archives.
Mayall has been married twice, and has six grandchildren. His second wife, Maggie Mayall is an American blues performer, and since the early 1980s took part in the management of her husband's career. The pair divorced in 2011.
In late 1963, with his band, the Bluesbreakers, Mayall started playing at the Marquee Club. The lineup was Mayall, Ward, John McVie on bass and guitarist Bernie Watson, formerly of Cyril Davies and the R&B All-Stars. The next spring Mayall, obtained his first recording date with producer Ian Samwell.
The band, with Martin Hart at the drums, recorded two tracks: "Crawling Up a Hill" and "Mr. James." Shortly after, Hughie Flint replaced Hart, and Roger Dean took the guitar from Bernie Watson. This lineup backed John Lee Hooker on his British tour in 1964.
Mayall was offered a recording contract by Decca in 1964, a live performance of the band was recorded at the Klooks Kleek. A single, "Crocodile Walk,” was recorded later in studio and released along with the album, but both failed to achieve any success and the contract was terminated.
In April 1965, former Yardbirds guitarist Eric Clapton replaced Roger Dean and John Mayall's career entered a decisive phase. The Bluesbreakers began attracting considerable attention.
To celebrate his 70th birthday, Mayall reunited with special guests Eric Clapton, Mick Taylor and Chris Barber during a fundraiser show. This "Unite for Unicef" concert took place in 2003 at the Kings Dock Arena in Liverpool and was captured on film for a DVD release.
In November, 2008, Mayall announced on his website he was disbanding the Bluesbreakers, to cut back on his heavy workload and give himself freedom to work with other musicians. Three months later, a solo world tour was announced, with Rocky Athas on guitar, Greg Rzab on bass and Jay Davenport on drums. Tom Canning, on organ, joined the band for the tour which started in March, 2009.
An album was released in September, 2009. Since then, Mayall has continued to tour with the same backing band, minus Canning, who left due to other priorities.
In 2018, Mayall made a new addition to his band; his first female lead guitarist, Carolyn Wonderland.
On June 25, 2019, The New York Times Magazine listed John Mayall among hundreds of artists whose material was reportedly destroyed in the 2008 Universal fire.
Mayall's autobiography, Blues From Laurel Canyon: My Life As A Bluesman, co-written with author Joel McIver, was published by Omnibus Press in August. 2019.
Here, Mayall performs in San Javier, Spain in 2007
John Mayall and The Bluesbreakers in concert at the Bottom Line in New York City
Felix Cavaliere, a member of the Young Rascals, is 80 years old today
Felix Cavaliere is 80 years old today.
A singer, songwriter, music producer and musician, Cavaliere was a member of the Young Rascals and the Peppermint Twist. The other members of The Rascals were Eddie Brigati, Dino Danelli and Gene Cornish. Cavaliere sang vocals on six of their successful singles in the 1960s.
At an early age, he joined The Stereos and moved on to form The Escorts. He later produced albums by other artists such as Laura Nyro and Jimmie Spheeris.
Cavaliere had a solo hit with "Only A Lonely Heart Sees" (1980), which made #36 in the Billboard Pop 100 chart and #2 on the Adult Contemporary chart.
During 1995, Cavaliere was a touring member of Ringo Starr's third All-Starr Band. In 2008, he recorded an album with Steve Cropper, Nudge it Up a Notch, which was released July 29, 2008.
He continues to tour as Felix Cavaliere's Rascals, and on June 18, 2009, Cavaliere, along with former writing partner, Eddie Brigati, was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.
On April 24, 2010, all four members of the Rascals reunited for the Kristen Ann Carr benefit, which was held at New York's Tribeca Grill. The reunited Rascals appeared at the Capital Theater in Port Chester, N.Y. for six shows in December, 2012 and for fifteen dates at the Richard Rogers Theatre on Broadway (April 15-May 5, 2013).
Their current production, entitled “Once Upon A Dream.” is currently touring North America (Toronto, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Chicago, Detroit, Rochester, and New York City). It is produced by long-time Rascals' fans, Steven Van Zandt and his wife, Maureen.
Cavaliere and his wife currently reside in Nashville.
Chuck Mangione is 82 years old today
Chuck Mangione is 82 years old today.
A flugelhorn player, trumpeter and composer, Mangione achieved international success in 1977 with his jazz-pop single, "Feels So Good." He has released more than thirty albums since 1960.
Born and raised in Rochester, New York, Mangione and his pianist brother, Gap, led the Jazz Brothers group which recorded three albums for Riverside Records. He attended the Eastman School of Music from 1958 to 1963, and afterwards joined Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, for which he filled the trumpet seat, previously held by greats such as Clifford Brown, Freddie Hubbard, Kenny Dorham, Bill Hardman and Lee Morgan.
In the late 1960s, Mangione was a member of the band, The National Gallery, which in 1968 released the album Performing Musical Interpretations of the Paintings of Paul Klee.
Mangione served as director of the Eastman jazz ensemble from 1968 to 1972, and in 1970, he returned to recording with the album Friends and Love, recorded in concert with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra and numerous guest performers.
Mangione's quartet with saxophonist Gerry Niewood was a popular concert and recording act throughout the 1970s. Niewood and bandmember Coleman Mellett were among those killed when Continental Airlines Flight 3407 crashed into a Buffalo, New York, area house on February 12, 2009.
Denny Doherty, founding member of The Mamas & the Papas, was born 82 years ago today
Denny Doherty, founding member of The Mamas & the Papas, was born 82 years ago today.
A Canadian singer and songwriter, Doherty was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia. He started his musical career in Halifax in 1956 with a band called the Hepsters. With friends Richard Sheehan, Eddie Thibodeau and Mike O'Connell, the Hepsters played at clubs in the Halifax area. The band was together for about two years.
In 1960, at the age of 19, Doherty, along with Pat LaCroix and Richard Byrne, co-founded a folk group, The Colonials, in Halifax, Nova Scotia. When they got a record deal with Columbia Records, they changed their name to The Halifax Three. The band recorded two LPs and had a minor hit, "The Man Who Wouldn't Sing Along With Mitch." They ultimately broke up in 1963.
Later that year, Doherty established a friendship with Cass Elliot when she was with a band called, "The Big Three." While on tour with "The Halifax III," Doherty met John Phillips and his new wife, model Michelle Gilliam.
A few months later, The Halifax III dissolved, and Doherty and their accompanist, Zal Yanovsky, were left broke in Hollywood. Elliot heard of their troubles and convinced her manager to hire them. Thus, Doherty and Yanovsky joined the Big Three (increasing the number of band members to four). Soon after adding even more band members, they changed their name to "The Mugwumps."
The Mugwumps soon broke up also due to insolvency. The Mamas & Papas song "Creeque Alley" briefly outlines this history. Yanovsky went on to join The Lovin' Spoonful with John Sebastian.
About this time, John Phillips' new band, "The New Journeymen," needed a replacement for tenor Marshall Brickman, who had left the folk trio to pursue a writing career. The group needed a quick replacement for their remaining tour dates.
Doherty, then unemployed, filled the opening. After the New Journeymen called it quits as a band in early 1965, Elliot was invited into the formation of a new band, which became "The Magic Cyrcle." Six months later in September,1965, the group signed a recording contract with Dunhill Records.
Changing their name to The Mamas & the Papas, the band soon began to record their debut album, If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears. In late 1965, Doherty and Michelle Phillips started an affair. They were able to keep it secret during the early days of the band's new-found success.
When the affair was discovered, John and Michelle moved to their own residence (they had been sharing a house with Doherty), and the band continued recording together.
Eventually the band signed a statement in June, 1966 with their record label's full support, firing Michelle from the band. She was quickly replaced by Jill Gibson, girlfriend of the band's producer, Lou Adler. Gibson's stint as a "Mama" lasted two and a half months.
Due to fan demand, Michelle was allowed to rejoin the band in August, 1966, while Gibson was given a lump sum for her efforts. The band completed their second album (titled simply, "The Mamas and the Papas") by re-recording, replacing or overlaying new vocal parts by Michelle Phillips over Jill Gibson's studio vocals.
After a continuing string of hit singles, many television appearances (including a notable and critically well-received TV special featuring the music of Rodgers and Hart), a successful third studio album ("The Mamas and the Papas Deliver" in March, 1967).
There was also the groundbreaking sociological impact of the Monterey International Pop Festival (which had been organized by John Phillips and Lou Adler) in June, 1967.
An ill-fated trip to England in October, 1967 fragmented the already damaged group dynamic. Cass Elliot quit, after a stinging insult from John Phillips, but returned to complete her parts for the group's overdue fourth album ("The Papas and the Mamas," which was finally released in May, 1968).
By then, Michelle had given birth to John's daughter, Chynna Phillips (in February, 1968) and a formal statement had been released, announcing the band's demise.
Elliot and Doherty remained friends. After the band's breakup, Elliot became a solo act. She eventually asked Doherty to marry her, but he declined.
Denny Doherty died on January 19, 2007 at his home in Mississauga, Ontario, from a second abdominal aortic aneurysm after going to get the first one repaired.
Merle Travis was born 105 years ago today
Merle Travis was born 105 years ago today.
Born in Rosewood, Kentucky, Travis was a country and Western singer, songwriter and musician. His lyrics often described the life and exploitation of coal miners. Among his many well-known songs are "Sixteen Tons," "Re-Enlistment Blues" and "Dark as a Dungeon."
However, it is his masterly guitar playing and his interpretations of the rich musical traditions of his native Muhlenberg County, Kentucky for which he is best known today. "Travis picking," a syncopated style of finger picking, is named after him.
Travis was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1970 and elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1977.
Travis became interested in the guitar early in life and originally played an instrument made by his brother. He reportedly saved his money to buy a guitar that he had window-shopped for some time. His guitar playing style was developed out of a native tradition of finger-picking in Western Kentucky. Among its early practitioners was the black country blues guitarist, Arnold Shultz.
Shultz taught his style to several local musicians, including Kennedy Jones, who passed it on to other guitarists, notably Mose Rager, a part-time barber and coal miner, and Ike Everly, the father of The Everly Brothers.
Their thumb and index finger picking method created a solo style that blended lead lines picked by the finger and rhythmic bass patterns picked or strummed by the thumbpick. This technique captivated many guitarists in the region and provided the main inspiration to the young Travis.
Travis acknowledged his debt to both Rager and Everly, and appears with Rager on the DVD Legends of Country Guitar (Vestapol, 2002).
At the age of 18, Travis performed "Tiger Rag" on a local radio amateur show in Evansville, Indiana, leading to offers of work with local bands. In 1937, Travis was hired by fiddler Clayton McMichen as guitarist in his Georgia Wildcats. He later joined the Drifting Pioneers, a Chicago-area gospel quartet that moved to WLW radio in Cincinnati, the major country music station north of Nashville.
Travis's style amazed everyone at WLW and he became a popular member of their barn dance radio show the "Boone County Jamboree" when it began in 1938. He performed on various weekday programs, often working with other WLW acts including Louis Marshall "Grandpa" Jones and the Delmore Brothers.
In 1943, he and Grandpa Jones recorded for Cincinnati used-record dealer Syd Nathan, who had founded a new label, King Records. Because WLW barred their staff musicians from recording, Travis and Jones used the pseudonym, The Sheppard Brothers.
Their recording of "You'll Be Lonesome Too" was the first to be released by King Records, subsequently known for its country recordings by the Delmore Brothers and Stanley Brothers as well as R&B legends Hank Ballard, Wynonie Harris and most notably, James Brown.
Merle Travis is now acknowledged as one of the most influential American guitarists of the 20th century. His unique guitar style inspired many guitarists who followed, most notably Chet Atkins, who first heard Travis's radio broadcasts on Cincinnati's WLW Boone County Jamboree in 1939 while living with his father in rural Georgia.
Among the many other guitarists influenced by Travis are Scotty Moore, Earl Hooker and Marcel Dadi.
Today, his son, Thom Bresh, continues playing in Travis's style on a custom-made Langejans Dualette.
Louisa May Alcott, novelist and poet, was born 190 years ago today
Louisa May Alcott, novelist and poet, was born 190 years ago today.
Alcott is best known as the author of the novel, Little Women (1868), and its sequels Little Men (1871) and Jo's Boys (1886).
Raised by her transcendentalist parents, Abigail May and Amos Bronson Alcott in New England, she grew up among many of the well-known intellectuals of the day such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Henry David Thoreau.
Nevertheless, her family suffered severe financial difficulties and Alcott worked to help support the family from an early age. She began to receive critical success for her writing in the 1860s. Early in her career, she sometimes used the pen name A. M. Barnard, under which she wrote novels for young adults.
Published in 1868, Little Women is set in the Alcott family home, Hillside, later called the Wayside, in Concord, Massachusetts and is loosely based on Alcott's childhood experiences with her three sisters.
The novel was very well received and is still a popular children's novel today, filmed several times. Alcott was an abolitionist and a feminist and remained unmarried throughout her life. She died in Boston on March 6, 1888 of mercury poisoning at the age of 55.
November 28, 2022
Randy Newman is 79 years old today
Randy Newman is 79 years old today.
Newman is a singer-songwriter, arranger, composer and pianist who is known for his distinctive voice, mordant (and often satirical) pop songs and for film scores.
Since the 1980s, Newman has worked mostly as a film composer. His film scores include Ragtime, Awakenings, The Natural, Leatherheads, James and the Giant Peach, Meet the Parents, Cold Turkey, Seabiscuit and The Princess and the Frog.
He has scored seven Disney-Pixar films: Toy Story, A Bug's Life, Toy Story 2, Monsters, Inc., Cars, Toy Story 3 and Monsters University.
Newman has been nominated for 20 Academy Awards, winning twice. He has also won three Emmys, six Grammy Awards and the Governor's Award from the Recording Academy. He was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2002. In 2007, he was inducted as a Disney Legend.
Born in Los Angeles, Newman lived in New Orleans as a small child and spent summers there until he was 11 years old, his family having by then returned to Los Angeles. The paternal side of his family includes three uncles who were noted Hollywood film-score composers: Alfred Newman, Lionel Newman and Emil Newman. His cousins, Thomas and David, and nephew, Joey, are also composers for motion pictures.
Newman graduated from University High School in Los Angeles and attended the University of California in LA. His parents were both from Jewish families, but Newman's household was not observant. He has since become an atheist. Newman has been a professional songwriter since he was 17.
He cites Ray Charles as his greatest influence growing up, stating, "I loved Charles' music to excess." His first single as a performer was 1962's "Golden Gridiron Boy," released when he was eighteen. The single flopped and Newman chose to concentrate on songwriting and arranging for the next several years.
Newman has credited The Fleetwoods with giving him his first national break. The trio recorded his song, "They Tell Me It's Summer," as the “B” side of one of their hit singles, giving Newman great exposure and royalties.
Newman’s early songs were recorded by Gene Pitney, Jerry Butler, Petula Clark, Dusty Springfield, Jackie DeShannon, The O'Jays and Irma Thomas. His 1968 debut album, Randy Newman, was a critical success but never dented the Billboard Top 200.
Many artists, including Alan Price, Van Dyke Parks, Dave Van Ronk, Judy Collins, the Everly Brothers, Claudine Longet, Dusty Springfield, Nina Simone, Lynn Anderson, Wilson Pickett, Pat Boone and Peggy Lee, covered his songs and "I Think It's Going to Rain Today" became an early standard.
Newman’s 1974 release, Good Old Boys, was a set of songs about the American South. "Rednecks" began with a description of segregationist Lester Maddox pitted against a "smart-ass New York Jew" on a TV show, in a song that criticizes both southern racism and the complacent bigotry of Americans outside of the south who stereotype all southerners as racist yet ignore racism in northern and midwestern states and large cities.
This ambiguity was also apparent on "Kingfish" and "Every Man a King," the former a paean to Huey Long (the assassinated former Governor and United States Senator from Louisiana), the other a campaign song written by Long himself.
An album that received lavish critical praise, Good Old Boys, also became a commercial breakthrough for Newman, peaking at #36 on Billboard and spending 21 weeks in the Top 200.
In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Newman's "Louisiana 1927" became an anthem and was played heavily on a wide range of American radio and television stations, in both Newman's 1974 original and Aaron Neville's cover version of the song.
The song addresses the deceitful manner in which New Orleans's municipal government managed a flood in 1927, during which, as Newman asserts, "The guys who ran the Mardi Gras, the bosses in New Orleans decided the course of that flood. You know, they cut a hole in the levee and it flooded the cotton fields."
Here, Newman performs “Louisiana 1927”
Berry Gordy, Jr., founder of Motown, is 93 years old today
Berry Gordy, Jr., founder of Motown, is 93 years old today.
A record producer and songwriter in Detroit, Gordy developed his interest in music by writing songs and opening the 3-D Record Mart, a record store featuring jazz. The store was unsuccessful and Gordy sought work at the Lincoln-Mercury plant, but his family connections put him in touch with Al Green (not the singer), owner of the Flame Show Bar talent club, where he met the singer, Jackie Wilson.
In 1957, Wilson recorded "Reet Petite," a song Gordy had co-written with his sister Gwen and writer-producer, Billy Davis. It became a modest hit, but had more success internationally, especially in the UK where it reached the Top 10 and even later topped the chart on re-issue in 1986.
Wilson recorded six more songs co-written by Gordy over the next two years, including "Lonely Teardrops," which topped the R & B charts and got to #7 in the pop chart. Berry and Gwen Gordy also wrote "All I Could Do Was Cry" for the late Etta James at Chess Records.
Gordy reinvested the profits from his songwriting success into producing. In 1957, he discovered The Miracles (originally known as The Matadors) and began building a portfolio of successful artists. In 1959, with the encouragement of Miracles leader Smokey Robinson, Gordy borrowed $800 from his family to create R&B label, Tamla Records.
On January 21, 1959, "Come To Me" by Marv Johnson was issued as Tamla 101. United Artists Records picked up "Come To Me" for national distribution, as well as Johnson's more successful follow-up records (such as "You Got What It Takes," co-produced and co-written by Gordy).
Berry's next release was the only 45 ever issued on his Rayber label, and it featured Wade Jones with an unnamed female back-up group. The record did not sell well and is now one of the rarest issues from the Motown stable.
Berry's third release was "Bad Girl" by The Miracles, and was the first-ever release for the Motown record label. "Bad Girl" was a solid hit in 1959 after Chess Records picked it up. Barrett Strong's "Money (That's What I Want)" initially appearing on Tamla and then charted on Gordy's sister's label, Anna Records, in February, 1960.
The Miracles' hit, "Shop Around," peaked at #1 on the national R&B charts in late 1960 and at #2 on the Billboard pop charts on January 16, 1961. It established Motown as an independent company worthy of notice. Later in 1961, The Marvelettes' "Please Mr. Postman" made it to the top of both charts.
In 1960, Gordy signed an unknown named Mary Wells who became the fledgling label's first star, with Smokey Robinson penning her hits, "You Beat Me to the Punch," "Two Lovers" and "My Guy."
The Tamla and Motown labels were then merged into a new company, Motown Record Corporation, which was incorporated on April 14, 1959. The rest is music history.
Little Sammy Davis was born 94 years old today
Little Sammy Davis performs with the Levon Helm Band at the Beacon Theatre, New York City, March 17, 2007
Photo by Frank Beacham
Little Sammy Davis was born 94 years old today.
Davis was a blues musician based in New York's Hudson Valley. Although his musical career began in the 1940s, he was not widely known until the mid-1990s when he began working in radio, singing, playing live on tour and recording studio albums.
Born in Winona, Mississippi, and raised in a one-room shack, Davis learned to play the harmonica at the age of eight. He eventually left home and settled in Florida, where he continued to play the blues in the Miami area while working in orange groves and saw mills to make ends meet.
Throughout the 1940s and 1950s, Davis traveled with medicine shows and played with blues musicians like Pine Top Perkins and Ike Turner. He spent a total of nine years on the road with Earl Hooker, including with the short-lived band of Hooker, Ike Turner, Pine Top Perkins and Albert King, ending when the two titans of Blues Guitar came to blows, thus breaking up the band.
Sammy and Earl recorded four sides for Henry Stone's Rockin' label in 1952 and 1953 (as Little Sam Davis). In the late 1950s, Davis lived in Chicago, performing with Muddy Waters, Jimmy Reed and occasionally fronting Little Walter's Band, The Aces, when Walter didn’t show.
At some point, word had let out that "some guy looks and plays" just like Walter and people THINK he IS Little Walter." One night as Sammy performed on stage accompanied by Hooker, he spotted a policeman at the back of the club. Walter and the officer waited for Sammy to get through with his set and when Sammy got off of the stage, he was arrested on the spot.
To quote Sammy: "Walter was a good guy and told me that yes, you do indeed sound just like me, but you can't be going around letting people think you ARE me."
Sammy was locked up, spent a night in jail before Walter dropped the charges, leaving Davis and Walter friends for the rest of Walter's all too short and tragic life.
He later married and settled in Poughkeepsie, New York, where he was "discovered" by local musician Dan DelSanto of The Arm Brothers. Dan had been looking around locally for blues players for his friend, local folklorist Pete Lowry, during which time he recorded a session for Lowry's Trix Records at Sam's apartment in 1971 that resulted in one "45" single ("Someday Blues"/"Sam's Swing") being released.
Sam also played harp on some of the recordings for Trix by Eddie Kirkland in 1972 at a studio in Mink Hollow, NY. After the sudden death of his wife in 1972/73, Davis basically stopped playing and dropped out of the music scene for the next two decades in spite of efforts by Little Eliot Lloyd, Lowry, a.o. to keep him playing.
Eventually, no one knew if Sammy was alive or dead, or even where he was... some said back to Mississippi, maybe Florida. He had disappeared. In 1990, local DJ Doug Price was getting a haircut at a barber shop in Poughkeepsie, NY when he heard rumors that Davis was sitting in at a Blues Jam at the "Side Track Inn."
Price made mention of Davis's story and played some of his old recordings on WVKR. Then one night, Brad Scribner was hired to play drums at the Jam when Sammy got up to play and was amazed at what he saw and heard.
Brad immediately came home to tell his brother, Fred, who had been supplying Blues Instrumentals for the radio shock jock, Don Imus, and had been actively looking for a singer to progress from background instrumentals to being a featured guest on Imus' radio show, "Imus in the Morning."
Fred Scribner arranged to bring Davis and Midnight Slim into Tom Veneble's Recording Studio in Walden, NY to record a fresh batch of material, including the classic Howlin' Wolf/Mississippi Sheik's song, "Sitting on Top of the World."
Imus interviewed Sammy and Fred via telephone, live and they were an instant hit. Subsequently Imus invited Davis and Scribner to perform regularly on his show, live in the Studio at WFAN Radio in New York City.
The New York Daily News proclaimed the very next day: "Little Sammy Davis and Fred Scribner score on the Imus Show." Sammy and Fred started to appear regularly, soon earning the title of "House Band" for the Imus in the Morning Show for years to come. Imus, in his trademark style, later quipped that Davis had "more harmonicas than teeth" and that Fred looked like a manager of an Ace Hardware Store.
Capitalizing on this Imus fame, Little Sammy Davis and Midnight Slim (Fred Scribner) toured, playing the best blues clubs, colleges and blues festivals on the East Coast and venturing out to the West Coast on occasion as radio and television stations (MSNBC) around the United States joined on.
In 1996, Davis released his first full-length album, I Ain't Lyin, with Fred Scribner producing, playing guitar and co-writing songs. Brad Scribner played drums, the late Brad Lee Sexton performed on bass and Tom Hunter was on piano for Delmark Records. The record was nominated for a W. C. Handy Award and earned Davis a "comeback artist of the year award" from Living Blues magazine.
Davis and Scribner released a second album, Ten Years and Forty Days, on their own label, Fat Fritz Records. As house band for the Imus Show, they were called in each fall for an annual radio/telethon for the "Tomorrows Children's Fund" benefiting children stricken with cancer.
As the years went by, other charitable organizations came on board such as the S.I.D.S Foundation and finally, the Imus Ranch for Children (with terminal illnesses) ending their run when the World Trade Center was destroyed on 9/11.
Around this time, a former guitar student of Scribner's, John Rocklin, brought Sammy up to see legendary drummer/vocalist Levon Helm. Levon, who had played with Sonny Boy Williamson II (Rice Miller), seemed to fall in love with Sammy immediately. Davis began performing with Levon for performances at Helm's home in Woodstock and on tour with Levon Helm and the Barn Burners.
In 2006, Sammy convinced Levon that his guitarist, Fred Scribne, would be the right choice on guitar. Fred joined on and the name of the band became the Levon Helm Band, and Levon started having concerts at his home in Woodstock, NY leading to the release of Midnight Ramble, Volume 1.
In 2002, Arlen Tarlofsky produced and directed a documentary entitled, "Little Sammy Davis." The movie is a musical documentary that looks into the life and music of Sammy Davis.
The documentary was the Jury Selection at the London Film Festival and the Woodstock International Film Festival, and it won the Audience Recognition Award at The AFI/SILVERDOCS Discovery Channel Documentary Film Festival.
In October, 2008, after recording his third album, Travelin' Man' with Scribner, Davis suffered a stroke. He recovered, and was able to resume performing the following Spring.
Since Sammy was no longer permitted to travel on the road anymore, Levon offered Sammy and Fred the opening slot every Saturday at the "Midnight Ramble," but Sammy suffered a second stroke within a year and was left partially paralyzed. He resided in a nursing home/rehab unit in Middletown, NY until his death on February 16, 2018, at the age of 89.
Paul Shaffer is 73 years old today
Paul Shaffer with Steve Cropper at the Triad, New York City, August 22, 2019
Photo by Frank Beacham
Paul Shaffer is 73 years old today.
Shaffer is a Canadian-American musician, actor, voice actor, author, comedian and composer who was David Letterman's musical director, band leader and sidekick since 1982.
Shaffer was born and raised in Fort William (now Thunder Bay), Ontario, Canada. By his teenage years, had moved on to playing the organ in a band called Fabulous Fugitives with his schoolmates in Thunder Bay. Later, he performed with the "Flash Landing Band" at different venues around Edmonton and the Interior of B.C.
Educated at the University of Toronto, he began playing with jazz guitarist Tisziji Muñoz, performing in bands around the bars there, where he found an interest in musicals. He completed his studies, with a B.A. degree in Sociology, in 1971.
Shaffer began his music career in 1972 when Stephen Schwartz invited him as the musical director for the Toronto production of Godspell, starring Victor Garber, Gilda Radner, Martin Short, Eugene Levy, Dave Thomas and Andrea Martin.
He went on to play piano for the Schwartz Broadway show The Magic Show in 1974, then became a member of the house band on NBC's popular Saturday Night Live (SNL) television program from 1975 to 1980 (except for a brief departure in 1977).
Though Shaffer was at the piano and appeared to be directing the band's actions, Howard Shore was credited as SNL's musical director, eventually turning the actual conducting of the band to sax player Howard Johnson.
Shaffer also regularly appeared in the show's sketches, notably as the pianist for Bill Murray's Nick the Lounge Singer character and as Don Kirshner. He occasionally teamed up with the Not Ready for Prime-Time Players off the show as well, including work on Gilda Radner's highly successful Broadway show and as the musical director for John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd whenever they recorded or performed as The Blues Brothers.
Shaffer was to appear in the duo's 1980 film, but, as he revealed in October, 2009 on CBS Sunday Morning, Belushi dropped him from the project. In a nasty memo to fellow SNL colleagues, Belushi said that he was unhappy that Shaffer was spending so much time on a studio record for Radner.
Belushi said that he had tried to talk Shaffer out of working on the album in the first place in order to avoid sharing Shaffer's talents with another SNL-related project. Shaffer later reported that he was in (unrequited) love with Gilda Radner. He would go on to appear in 1998's Blues Brothers 2000.
Since 1982, Shaffer has served as musical director for David Letterman's late night talk shows: as leader of "The World's Most Dangerous Band" for Late Night with David Letterman (1982–1993) on NBC, for which he also composed the theme song, and as leader of the CBS Orchestra for the Late Show with David Letterman (1993–2015) on CBS.
Letterman consistently maintains that the show's switch to CBS was because NBC "fired Paul for stealing pens" or some other facetious reason. Shaffer has also guest-hosted the show a few times when Letterman was unavailable, including during Letterman's January, 2000 medical leave for quintuple heart bypass surgery, and during the birth of Letterman's son, Harry, in November, 2003.
Shaffer has served as musical director and producer for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony since its inception in 1986 and filled the same role for the 1996 Olympic Games closing ceremonies from Atlanta, Georgia.
Shaffer also served as musical director for Fats Domino and Friends, a Cinemax special that included Ray Charles, Jerry Lee Lewis and Ron Wood.
It’s the 265th birthday today of William Blake, English poet, painter and printmaker
It’s the 265th birthday today of William Blake, English poet, painter and printmaker.
Largely unrecognized during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age. His prophetic poetry has been said to form "what is in proportion to its merits the least read body of poetry in the English language."
His visual artistry led one contemporary art critic to proclaim him "far and away the greatest artist Britain has ever produced."
In 2002, Blake was placed at #38 in the BBC's poll of the 100 Greatest Britons.
Although he lived in London his entire life (except for three years spent in Felpham), he produced a diverse and symbolically rich body of work, which embraced the imagination as "the body of God" or "human existence itself.”
Considered mad by contemporaries for his idiosyncratic views, Blake is held in high regard by later critics for his expressiveness and creativity, and for the philosophical and mystical undercurrents within his work. His paintings and poetry have been characterized as part of the Romantic movement.
Reverent of the Bible, but hostile to the Church of England (indeed, to all forms of organized religion), Blake was influenced by the ideals and ambitions of the French and American Revolutions.
Though later he rejected many of these beliefs he maintained an amiable relationship with Thomas Paine, he was also influenced by thinkers such as Emanuel Swedenborg.
Despite these known influences, the singularity of Blake's work makes him difficult to classify. The 19th-century scholar William Rossetti characterized him as a "glorious luminary," and "a man not forestalled by predecessors, nor to be classed with contemporaries, nor to be replaced by known or readily surmisable successors.”
Blake had an enormous influence on the beat poets of the 1950s and the counterculture of the 1960s, frequently being cited by such seminal figures as beat poet Allen Ginsberg, songwriters Bob Dylan, Jim Morrison, Van Morrison and the English writer, Aldous Huxley.
Below is Blake’s 1786 painting Oberon, Titania and Puck with Fairies Dancing. It’s from William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream
The Grand Ole Opry — one of the longest-lived and most popular showcases for country music — began broadcasting live from Nashville on this day in 1925 — 97 years ago
Grand Ole Opry in the Ryman Auditorium, 1969
The Grand Ole Opry — one of the longest-lived and most popular showcases for country music — began broadcasting live from Nashville on this day in 1925 — 97 years ago.
The showcase was originally named the Barn Dance, after a Chicago radio program called the National Barn Dance that had begun broadcasting the previous year.
Impressed by the popularity of the Chicago-based National Barn Dance, producers at WSM radio in Nashville decided to create their own version of the show to cater to southern audiences who could not receive the Chicago signal. Both the Grand Ole Opry and the National Barn Dance aired on Saturday nights and featured folk music, fiddling and the relatively new genre of country-western music.
Both shows created a growing audience for a uniquely American style of music and were launching grounds for many of America's most-loved musicians. The singing cowboy, Gene Autry, got his first big break on the National Barn Dance.
The WSM producers recognized that Americans were growing nostalgic for the rural past, so all live performers at the Grand Ole Opry were required to dress in hillbilly costumes and adopt old-time names.
The four-and-a-half-hour Grand Ole Opry program became one of the most popular broadcasts in the South, and like its Chicago cousin, helped make country-western an enduring part of the popular American musical landscape.
Thanks History.com
November 27, 2022
Jimi Hendrix was born 80 years ago today
Jimi Hendrix was born 80 years ago today.
Born Johnny Allen Hendrix, Hendrix was musician, singer and songwriter. Despite a relatively brief mainstream career spanning four years, he is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential electric guitarists in the history of popular music, and one of the most celebrated musicians of the 20th century.
Born in Seattle, Hendrix began playing guitar at the age of 15. In 1961, he enlisted in the U.S. Army and was granted an honorable discharge the following year.
Soon afterward, he moved to Clarksville, Tennessee, and began playing gigs on the Chitlin' Circuit, eventually earning a place in the Isley Brothers' backing band and later finding work with Little Richard, with whom he continued to play through mid-1965. He then joined Curtis Knight and the Squires before moving to England in late 1966 after having been discovered by bassist Chas Chandler of the Animals.
Within months, Hendrix had earned three UK top ten hits with the Jimi Hendrix Experience: "Hey Joe," "Purple Haze" and "The Wind Cries Mary." He achieved fame in the U.S. after his performance at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967, and in 1968 his third and final studio album, Electric Ladyland, reached #1 in the U.S.
The double LP was Hendrix's most commercially successful release and his first and only #1 album. He headlined the Woodstock Festival in 1969 and the Isle of Wight Festival in 1970 as the world's highest-paid performer before dying from barbiturate-related asphyxia on September 18, 1970 at the age of 27.
Hendrix was inspired musically by American rock and roll and electric blues. He favored overdriven amplifiers with high volume and gain, and was instrumental in developing the previously undesirable technique of guitar amplifier feedback. He helped to popularize the use of a wah-wah pedal in mainstream rock, and was the first artist to use stereophonic phasing effects in music recordings.
"Hendrix pioneered the use of the instrument as an electronic sound source. Players before him had experimented with feedback and distortion, but Hendrix turned those effects and others into a controlled, fluid vocabulary every bit as personal as the blues with which he began," wrote Holly George-Warren of Rolling Stone.
Here, Hendrix performs the “Star Spangled Banner” at Woodstock, 1969
Jimi Hendrix performs Bob Dylan’s "All Along the Watchtower,” Atlanta, 1970
Want to give your family one of the most enduring Christmas gifts of their life (and perhaps yours) for very little money?
Want to give your family one of the most enduring Christmas gifts of their life (and perhaps yours) for very little money?
Then do an oral audio or video “history” of the life of the oldest person in your family. I did an audio history with an elderly grandmother and discovered secrets I would never have known otherwise. Now, generations later, I am still asked for copies of the tape as new generations of the family want to learn of their past. It was one of the best ideas I ever had.
My grandmother lived a life that spanned the 20th Century. She was born in 1900 and died at the end of the century. To do the series of audio interviews, I used a published time line of the century I bought in a bookstore. It featured highlights from each year of dance, music, cooking, inventions — whatever was popular at the time.
When I asked her what dance she did when she was 16, she answered the Cakewalk. “Honey, I was the Cakewalk champion,” she told me. “I ran off and got married after a cakewalk.”
This was news to everyone!
Al Jackson Jr., founding member of Booker T and the M.G’s, was born 86 years ago today
Al Jackson Jr., founding member of Booker T and the M.G’s, was born 86 years ago today.
Jackson was a drummer, producer and songwriter. He worked for Stax Records and produced many instrumentals for Booker T and band. He was called "The Human Timekeeper" for his drumming ability.
Jackson's father, Al Jackson Sr., led a jazz/swing dance band in Memphis. The young Jackson started drumming at an early age and began playing on stage with his father's band in 1940 at the age of five. He later played in producer/trumpeter Willie Mitchell's band and at the same time was holding down a chair in the popular Ben Branch Band.
Future band mates Steve Cropper and Donald "Duck" Dunn first saw Jackson playing in Mitchell's band at the all-white Manhattan Club.
In an interview with DRUM! Magazine, Mitchell said "Al Junior was about 14 years old then. I said to his father, 'Hey, let’s use your son!' He said, 'Oh, man, he can’t play this shit!' But he did make the gig. He set up his kit – a cymbal, a snare drum and a bass drum – and I kicked the thing off. And, man, that thing went off at 20 tempos!
That was around 7:00 o'clock. And by the time Al’s father came in an hour later, at 8:00 o'clock, Al Jackson Jr. “was swinging that damn band like a pro."
Jackson became one of the most important and influential drummers in the history of recorded music at Stax. He provided an instantly recognizable backbeat behind Rufus Thomas, Carla Thomas, Eddie Floyd, Sam & Dave, Otis Redding and blues guitarist, Albert King, who Jackson also produced.
In the 70s, Jackson co-wrote and played on several hits by Al Green, including "Let's Stay Together" and "I'm Still in Love with You." Four years after the last Booker T. & the MGs album, 1971's Melting Pot, the group got together and decided to wrap up all of their individual productions and devote three years to a reunion of the band.
On September 30, 1975, Al Jackson was scheduled to fly to Detroit to produce a Major Lance session, when he heard a reminder on the radio about the Joe Frazier–Muhammad Ali fight that night. Jackson called Detroit to delay and said he was going to watch "The Thrilla in Manila" on the big screen at the Mid-South Coliseum.
Though still legally married, Jackson was estranged from his wife. In July, 1975, his wife had shot him in the chest. He decided not to press charges, but was in the process of a divorce and was planning to move to Atlanta to begin working with Stax singer/songwriter, William Bell.
Jackson attended the screening with Eddie Floyd and Terry Manning, and after the boxing, he returned home to find intruders in his house. He was told to get down on his knees and then was shot fatally five times in the back. He was dead at 39.
Around 3:00 a.m. on October 1, Barbara Jackson ran out in the street, yelling for help. She told police that burglars had tied her up and then shot her husband when he returned home. Police found nothing in the house out of place and Al Jackson's wallet and jewelry were still on him.
The man believed to have pulled the trigger had reportedly known someone in Memphis and after robbing a bank in Florida, told them to meet him over at Al Jackson's house.
Tracked through Florida to Memphis and then to Seattle, Washington, the suspected triggerman, the boyfriend of Barbara Jackson's friend, Denise LaSalle, was killed by a police officer on July 15, 1976 after a gun battle.
Here, Booker T. and MG’s perform “Time is Tight.” Jackson plays drums.
Buffalo Bob Smith, host of the Howdy Doody Show, was born 105 years ago today
Buffalo Bob Smith checks his cue cards for the 40th anniversary Howdy Doody TV Special, LA, 1987
Photo by Frank Beacham
Buffalo Bob Smith, host of the Howdy Doody Show, was born 105 years ago today.
Born Robert Emil Schmidt, Smith was from Buffalo, New York. He attended Masten Park High School and got his start in late mornings at WBEN radio in Buffalo.
Smith's popularity in Buffalo won the attention of NBC, which brought him to New York after the war to host early mornings on flagship station WNBC, a post he held through the early 1950s before concentrating on television.
For a time between 1947 and 1953, he appeared mornings on WNBC even while hosting and producing the daily Howdy Doody children's show on the NBC television network in late afternoons.
Smith also was known as a singer and musician, appearing on many top shows of the time before and even after becoming nationally known for the Howdy Doody Show. At first it aired on Saturdays. Then on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and finally, five days a week.
Howdy Doody was successful from the beginning. It was so popular that people gathered in the streets before appliance store windows to watch it, as they did with baseball games and wrestling matches.
Howdy's popularity being what it was, it was announced in 1948 that he would run for president of all the boys and girls. Harry S. Truman also happened to be running that year, and he won the election over New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey. But Howdy Doody also got many votes.
In 1954, Smith suffered a heart attack and for a time, he did the show from a studio built in the basement of his home in Mount Vernon, N.Y. He returned to the NBC studio in 1955. The final NBC "Howdy Doody" episode aired in 1960.
Later, in 1976, Smith reunited with longtime show producer, Roger Muir, and several of the original cast to produce a new daily syndicated Howdy Doody show.
In 1970 and 1971, he embarked on a live tour of college campuses. The shows, organized by producer, Burt DuBrow, mixed nostalgia with more contemporary humor, such as Buffalo Bob finding a package of Zig Zags (rolling paper) allegedly belonging to Clarabelle.
One show, on April 4, 1971, was recorded and released as an LP, on the label "Project 3 Total Sound Stereo." It was titled, "Buffalo Bob Smith Live at Bill Graham's Fillmore East."
Smith had a summer residence in Grand Lake Stream, Maine, as well as owning radio station WQDY in Calais, Maine. He was well liked by locals, and occasionally hosted local events. He also owned WMKR (now WSYY) radio in Millinocket, Maine.
His other screen efforts include films, "Track Of Thunder" (1968), "Back To The Future III" (1990) and Problem Child 2" (1991), as Father Flanagan. He also made guest appearances on "Happy Days" and "What's My Line," as well as the television specials, "NBC's 60th Anniversary Celebration" (1986), and "It's Howdy Doody Time" (1987).
After his retirement, Smith moved to North Carolina, becoming a member of Pinecrest Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church (ARP) in Flat Rock. He made an infomercial appearance live to promote Howdy Doody Entertainment Memorabilia on July 3, 1998, on QVC. That was his last appearance.
Buffalo Bob Smith died a few weeks later on July 30, 1998, in Hendersonville, North Carolina, just three days before beloved puppeteer, Shari Lewis, whose show took over the time slot that Howdy Doody had died.
Buffalo Bob Smith: A Personal Remembrance
Laugh if you will, but you probably wouldn't be reading this column today had it not been for my childhood friends in Doodyville, USA.
I entered Howdy's television world daily and reveled in the antics of Clarabell, Phineas T. Bluster, Dilly Dally, The Flubadub, Chief Thunderthud and Corny Cobb. To me, Buffalo Bob Smith was a mentor and confidant.
And, to this day, I clearly remember those commercials: Wonder Bread, Hostess Twinkies and Cream-Filled Cupcakes, Welch's Grape Jelly and Ovaltine.
It was Howdy that drew me to work in television. One of his sponsors, Blue Bonnet Margarine, offered a paper cutout version of Howdy's characters and television studio. When assembled, one had a replica of Howdy's sets, cameras and even a boom microphone. I played with this toy for hours, "producing" make-believe Howdy shows. This led to construction of a bigger set from cardboard boxes.
My "studio" took up a whole room and was complete with a puppet stage and cardboard television cameras with lenses made from paper towel tubes. Neighborhood kids sat in the makeshift "Peanut Gallery" and we put on endless shows. From that time on, there was never any doubt that I would eventually work in film and television.
Howdy was just a warm childhood memory until November, 1983 when an article appeared in TV Guide titled, "Howdy Doody: the First Hippie." In a tongue in cheek way, the article suggested Howdy was responsible for the rebellious 1960s. Most thought it was just humor. But as happens, the story was picked up by other media and was taken seriously by many, causing an annoyed Buffalo Bob Smith to refute the "charges" on national television.
A Miami-based production company I owned at the time was summoned to Buffalo Bob's home in Ft. Lauderdale to record his response for TV's Entertainment Tonight. I've long forgotten Buffalo Bob's on-camera comments that day, but I could never forget meeting the man in person.
Buffalo Bob Smith was as charming as I remembered him from childhood. After the interview, he sat at his piano and played and sang from his Doodyville repertoire. Then, he took me into his small home office. There, in a glass box, hung the original Howdy Doody puppet. He allowed me to hold Howdy, work his strings and otherwise stand in awe of this tiny doll who so influenced my childhood.
It was pure magic. Something I will never forget.
I later moved to Los Angeles. In 1987, Fries Entertainment produced a television special there to celebrate Howdy's 40th anniversary. I was invited to be in the Peanut Gallery. This time the "Peanuts" ranged in age from two to 45. Many of the older participants brought Howdy dolls and memorabilia from their own childhood.
Buffalo Bob, who turned 70 about the time Howdy turned 40, seemed ageless as he warmed up the new Peanut Gallery. The original Howdy, Phineas T. Bluster and Dilly Dally puppets were operated from an industrial "cherrypicker" suspended high above the studio sets. The actors who originally played Clarabell, Corny Cobb and Chief Thunderthud were back in costume. As I watched these characters come back to life, it was like opening old attic trunk of toys undisturbed since childhood.
Growing up in a small South Carolina town, my first exposure to mass media was radio, magazines, phonograph records and Saturday movies. Television sets were seen only in store windows. In the late 1940's, when Buffalo Bob started his daily show, there were few television sets in the United States and no other programs for children.
On Dec. 31, 1953, the first NBC affiliate television station went on the air in my hometown. Shortly after that, my family bought its first black and white TV set.
The Howdy Doody Show began each weekday afternoon at 5:30. As a five-year-old, I was glued to the box waiting for the words: "Say Kids! What Time is It?"
Buffalo Bob on David Letterman’s Show, 1987
Buffalo Bob on What’s My Line, 1954
(Whole show — Buffalo Bob begins at 16:20 in)
Eddie Rabbitt was born 80 years ago today
Eddie Rabbitt was born 80 years ago today.
A singer-songwriter and musician, Rabbitt’s career began as a songwriter in the late 1960s, spring boarding to a recording career after composing hits such as "Kentucky Rain" for Elvis Presley in 1970 and "Pure Love" for Ronnie Milsap in 1974.
Later in the 1970s, Rabbitt helped to develop the crossover-influenced sound of country music prevalent in the 1980s with such hits as "Suspicions" and "Every Which Way but Loose." His duets, "Both to Each Other (Friends and Lovers)" and "You and I," with Juice Newton and Crystal Gayle respectively, later appeared on the soap operas Days of Our Lives and All My Children.
Rabbitt was born to Irish immigrants in Brooklyn and was raised in the nearby community of East Orange, New Jersey. His father was an oil-refinery refrigeration worker and a skilled fiddle and accordion player who often entertained local New York City dance halls.
By age twelve, Rabbitt was a proficient guitar player, having been taught by his scoutmaster, Bob Scwickrath. During his childhood, Rabbitt became a self-proclaimed "walking encyclopedia of country music."
After his parents divorced, he dropped out of school at age sixteen. His mother, Mae, explained this action by saying that Rabbitt "was never one for school [because] his head was too full of music." He later obtained a high school diploma after taking courses at night school.
Rabbitt was employed as a mental hospital attendant in the late 1950s but, like his father, he fulfilled his love of music by performing at the Six Steps Down club in his hometown. He later won a talent contest and was given an hour of Saturday night radio show time to broadcast a live performance from a bar in Paterson.
In 1964, he signed his first record deal with 20th Century Records and released the singles, "Next to the Note" and "Six Nights and Seven Days." Four years later, with $1,000 to his name, Rabbitt moved to Nashville where he began his career as a songwriter. During his first night in the town, Rabbitt wrote "Working My Way Up to the Bottom," which Roy Drusky recorded in 1968.
To support himself, Rabbitt worked as a truck driver, soda jerk and fruit picker while in Nashville. He was ultimately hired as a staff writer for the Hill & Range Publishing Company and received a salary of $37.50 per week. As a young songwriter, Rabbitt socialized with other aspiring writers at Wally's Clubhouse, a bar in Nashville. He said that he and the other patrons had "no place else to go."
Rabbitt became successful as a songwriter in 1969 when Elvis Presley recorded his song, "Kentucky Rain." The song went gold and cast Rabbitt as one of Nashville's leading young songwriters. While eating Cap'n Crunch, he penned "Pure Love," which Ronnie Milsap rode to #1 in 1974. This song led to a contract offer from Elektra Records.
In 1977, the Academy of Country Music named Rabbitt "Top New Male Vocalist of the Year." By that time he had a good reputation in Nashville, and was being compared by critics to singer-songwriter, Kris Kristofferson.
Rabbitt used innovative techniques to tie country music themes with light rhythm and blues-influenced tempos. His songs often used echo, as Rabbitt routinely sang his own background vocals. In a process called the "Eddie Rabbitt Chorale," Rabbitt compensated for what Billboard Magazine described as a "somewhat thin and reedy voice" by recording songs in three-part harmonies. His music was compared to rockabilly, particularly the album, Horizon, which was noted as having an Elvis-like sound.
Rabbitt remarked that he liked "a lot of the old Memphis sounds that came out of Sun Records" during the 1950s, and that he "wanted to catch the magic of a live band." He credited such wide-ranging artists as Bob Dylan, Elton John, Steely Dan, Elvis Presley and Willie Nelson with influencing his works.
When putting together an album, Rabbitt tried to make sure he put in "ten potential singles...no fillers, no junk."
On May 7, 1998 in Nashville, Eddie Rabbitt died from lung cancer at the age of 56. He had been diagnosed with the disease in March, 1997 and had received radiation treatment and surgery to remove part of one lung.
November 26, 2022
On this day in 1942 — 80 years ago — Casablanca, a World War II-era drama starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman, premiered in New York City
On this day in 1942 — 80 years ago — Casablanca, a World War II-era drama starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman, premiered in New York City.
The film premiered at the New York’s Hollywood Theater to coincide with the Allied invasion of North Africa and the capture of Casablanca.
In the 1,500-seat theater, the film grossed $255,000 over ten weeks. It went into general release on January 23, 1943, to take advantage of the Casablanca Conference, a high-level meeting in the city between British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and American President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Casablanca went on to become one of the most beloved Hollywood movies in history. In the film, Bogart played Rick Blaine, a former freedom fighter and the owner of a North African nightclub, who is reunited with the beautiful, enigmatic Ilsa Lund (Bergman), the woman who loved and left him.
Directed by Michael Curtiz, Casablanca opened widely in theaters across America on January 23, 1943, and was nominated for eight Academy Awards, including Best Actor for Bogart. It took home three Oscars, for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay.
The film featured a number of now-iconic quotes, including Rick’s line to Ilsa: “Here’s looking at you, kid,” as well as “Round up the usual suspects,” “Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship” and “Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine.”
Bogart was born on December 25, 1899, in New York City, and during the 1930s established his movie career playing tough-guy roles. He gained fame as Detective Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon (1941), which marked John Huston’s directorial debut.
Bogart and Huston later collaborated on such films as The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) and The African Queen (1951) with Katharine Hepburn, which earned Bogart a Best Actor Oscar.
In 1945, Bogart married his fourth wife, the actress Lauren Bacall, with whom he co-starred for the first time in 1944’s To Have and Have Not. Bogey and Bacall became one of Hollywood’s legendary couples and went on to appear together in The Big Sleep (1946), Dark Passage (1947) and Key Largo (1948).
Among Bogart’s other film credits are The Barefoot Contessa (1954), with Ava Gardner; Sabrina (1954), with Audrey Hepburn, and The Caine Mutiny (1954), which earned him another Best Actor nomination. Bogart’s final film was The Harder They Fall (1956). He died on January 14, 1957.
Casablanca was also the movie for which the Swedish-born actress Ingrid Bergman is perhaps best remembered. Bergman, born August 29, 1915, received a Best Actress Academy Award nomination for 1943’s For Whom the Bell Tolls, which was followed by a win in the same category for 1944’s Gaslight.
She was nominated for the Best Actress Oscar again for 1945’s The Bells of St. Mary’s and 1948’s Joan of Arc. Bergman worked with the acclaimed director Alfred Hitchcock on Spellbound (1945), Notorious (1946) and Under Capricorn (1949).
In 1949, the then-married Bergman began a romance with director Roberto Rossellini that created a huge scandal after she became pregnant with his child. (Bergman and Rossellini, who later married, had three children together, including the noted actress, Isabella Rossellini.)
Although Bergman won another Best Actress Academy Award for 1956’s Anastasia, the actor Cary Grant accepted the award on her behalf, and Bergman did not return publicly to Hollywood until the 1958 Oscars, at which she was a presenter.
She won her third Academy Award, in the category of Best Supporting Actress, for 1974’s Murder on the Orient Express. Her final Oscar nomination, in the Best Actress category, was for 1978’s Autumn Sonata, which was helmed by famed Swedish director Ingmar Bergman (to whom she was not related). She died on August 29, 1982.
Thanks History.com
Here, Bergman asks Sam (Dooley Wilson) to play it again
Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman
“That, ladies and gentlemen, is a MOVIE STAR!”
Robert McKee, the screenwriting teacher, to his class when showing Ingrid Bergman’s screen entrance to Casablanca.
Tina Turner is 83 years old today
Anna Mae Bullock — known by her stage name Tina Turner — is 83 years old today.
Turner is a singer, dancer, actress and author, whose career has spanned more than half a century.
Born and raised in the American South, she is now a Swiss citizen. She began her musical career in the mid-1950s as a featured singer with Ike Turner's Kings of Rhythm, first recording in 1958 under the name, "Little Ann." Her introduction to the public as Tina Turner began in 1960 as a member of the Ike & Tina Turner Revue.
Success followed with a string of notable hits credited to the duo, including "River Deep – Mountain High" (1966), "Proud Mary" (1971) and "Nutbush City Limits" (1973), a song which she wrote.
In her autobiography, I, Tina, she revealed several instances of severe domestic abuse against her by Ike Turner prior to their 1976 split and subsequent 1978 divorce.
Raised as a Baptist, she melded her faith with Buddhism in 1974, crediting the religion and its spiritual chant of Nam Myoho Renge Kyo for helping her to endure during difficult times. After her divorce from Ike Turner, she rebuilt her career through performances, though she initially struggled to make an impact on the music charts as a solo artist.
In the early 1980s, she launched a comeback with another string of hits, starting in 1983 with the single "Let's Stay Together," followed by the 1984 release of her fifth solo album, Private Dancer, which became a worldwide success.
"What's Love Got to Do with It," the most successful single from the album, was later used as the title of a biographical film adapted from her autobiography.
In addition to her musical career, Turner has also experienced success in films, including a role in the 1975 rock musical, Tommy, and a starring role in the 1985 Mel Gibson blockbuster film, Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, as well as a cameo role in the 1993 film, Last Action Hero.
One of the world's most popular entertainers, she is often called "the queen of rock." Turner has been termed the most successful female rock artist, selling more concert tickets than any other solo performer in history. Her combined album and single sales total approximately 100 million copies worldwide. She is noted for her energetic stage presence, powerful vocals and career longevity.
In 2008, Turner returned from semi-retirement to embark on her Tina!: 50th Anniversary Tour. Turner's tour became one of the highest selling ticketed shows of 2008–2009.
The biographical musical, Tina, is now running on Broadway.
Fleetwood Mac's John McVie is 77 years old today
John McVie is 77 years old today.
A British bass guitarist best known as a member of rock groups John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers and Fleetwood Mac, McVie’s surname, combined with that of Mick Fleetwood, was the inspiration for the band's name. He joined Fleetwood Mac shortly after its formation by guitarist Peter Green in 1967, replacing temporary bassist, Bob Brunning.
In 1968, McView married blues pianist and singer Christine Perfect, who became a member of Fleetwood Mac two years later. John and Christine McVie divorced, however, in 1977. Around this time, the band recorded the album, Rumours, a major artistic and commercial success that borrowed its title from the turmoils in McVie's and other band members' marriages and relationships.
McVie was born in Ealing, west London, to Reg and Dorothy McVie and attended Walpole Grammar School. At 14, he began playing the guitar in local bands, covering songs by The Shadows. He soon realized that his friends were learning lead guitar so he decided to play the bass guitar instead.
Initially, he just removed the top two strings from his guitar to play the bass parts until his father bought him a pink Fender bass guitar, the same as that used by McVie's major early musical influence Jet Harris, The Shadows' bass player.
McVie was in class with Roger Warwick, a baritone sax player who had studied under Don Rendell and was to emerge in the London rock-jazz scene. Their teacher, Mr. Howell (a pianist), although not really appreciating this "funny" music, was intelligent and open-minded enough to give pupils space and time to use school facilities to practice and listen to the new wave.
McVie’s first experience making music with a group of like minds was in the back room of a house in Lammas Park Road. Although only possessing a Framus acoustic with top two strings removed, McVie showed a determination and ability that would take him to success as a professional musician.
McVie's first job as a bass player was in a band called the "Krewsaders," formed by boys living in the same street as McVie in Ealing, West London. The Krewsaders played mainly at weddings and parties.
Around this time, John Mayall began forming a Chicago-style Blues band, John Mayall's Bluesbreakers. Initially, Mayall wanted to recruit bass player Cliff Barton of the Cyril Davies All Stars for the rhythm section of his new band. Barton declined, however, but gave him John McVie's phone number, urging Mayall to give the talented young bass player a chance in the Bluesbreakers.
Mayall contacted McVie, and asked him to audition for his band. Soon after, McVie got an offer to play bass in the Bluesbreakers. He accepted while still holding down his daytime job as a tax inspector for a further nine months before becoming a musician full-time.
Under Mayall's tutelage, McVie, not having had any formal training in music, learned to play the blues mainly by listening to B. B. King and Willie Dixon records given to him by Mayall. In 1966, a young Peter Green was asked to join Mayall's Bluesbreakers as the band's new lead guitar player, after Eric Clapton, the third guitarist with the band, had left.
Some time later, after the recording of A Hard Road, drummer Aynsley Dunbar was replaced by Mick Fleetwood. Green, McVie and Fleetwood quickly forged a strong personal relationship, and when John Mayall gave Green some free studio time for his birthday, Green asked McVie and Fleetwood to join him for a recording session.
Produced by Mike Vernon, they recorded three tracks together, "Curly,” "Rubber Duck" and an instrumental, "Fleetwood Mac.” Later the same year, after having been replaced by Mick Taylor in the Bluesbreakers, Peter Green opted to form his own band, which he called "Fleetwood Mac," after his preferred rhythm section (Fleetwood and McVie).
Mick Fleetwood immediately joined Green's new band, having been dismissed earlier from the Bluesbreakers for drunkenness. However, McVie initially was reluctant to join Fleetwood Mac, not wanting to leave the security and well-paid job in the Bluesbreakers, forcing Green to temporarily hire a bassist named Bob Brunning.
A few weeks later McVie changed his mind, however, as he felt that The Bluesbreakers musical direction were shifting too much towards jazz, and he joined Fleetwood Mac on bass in December, 1967. With McVie now in Fleetwood Mac, the band recorded its first album, Fleetwood Mac. The album was released in February, 1968, and became an immediate national hit, establishing Fleetwood Mac as a major part in the English Blues movement.
While on tour, Fleetwood Mac would often share venues with fellow blues band, Chicken Shack. It was on one such occasion that McVie met his future wife, the lead singer and piano player of Chicken Shack, Christine Perfect. Following a brief romance of only two weeks, McVie and Perfect got married with Peter Green as best man.
With the couple being unable to spend much time together because of the constant touring with their bands, Christine (now McVie) quit Chicken Shack to become a housewife to spend more time with John. However, following the departure of Peter Green from Fleetwood Mac in 1970, McVie successfully persuaded Christine to join him in Fleetwood Mac.
On October 27, 2013, Fleetwood Mac announced on their Facebook Page that McVie had been diagnosed with colon cancer and would be undergoing treatment. He continued to play with the band during their 2014 On With The Show tour following an improvement in his condition.
Here, McVie with Fleetwood Mac perform on Midnight Special in 1973
Garnet Mimms is 89 years old today
Garnet Mimms is 89 years old today.
A singer influential in soul music and rhythm and blues, Mimms first achieved success as the lead singer of Garnet Mimms & The Enchanters, and is best known for the 1963 hit, "Cry Baby," later recorded by Janis Joplin.
According to Steve Huey at Allmusic, his "pleading, gospel-derived intensity made him one of the earliest true soul singers [and] his legacy remains criminally underappreciated."
Born in Ashland, West Virginia, Mimms grew up in Philadelphia, where he sang in church choirs and in gospel groups such as the Evening Stars and the Harmonizing Four. He first recorded as a member of the Norfolk Four for Savoy Records in 1953.
He returned to Philadelphia after serving in the military and, after a spell in a doo-wop group, the Deltones, formed another group, the Gainors, in 1958, with Sam Bell, Willie Combo, John Jefferson and Howard Tate. The Gainors recorded several singles over the next few years for the Red Top, Mercury and Talley Ho labels, but failed to have any chart success.
Mimms and Bell left the group in 1961, and joined with Charles Boyer and Zola Pearnell to form Garnet Mimms and the Enchanters. The group moved from Philadelphia to New York in 1963, and began to work with the songwriter and record producer, Bert Berns, who signed them to the United Artists label and teamed them with fellow songwriter and producer, Jerry Ragovoy.
Dominic Turner wrote that "the partnership between the Enchanters on the one hand and Ragovoy and Berns on the other was very much an experiment in applying Mimms' gospel and deep soul roots to the new uptown soul in vogue in New York."
The new team had an immediate hit with, "Cry Baby," written by Berns and Ragovoy, and with uncredited vocal backing by the Gospelaires, featuring Dionne Warwick, Dee Dee Warwick and Estelle Brown. The song topped the R&B chart and went to #4 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1963. It sold over a million copies.
The group followed it up with "For Your Precious Love," a cover of Jerry Butler and the Impressions' original, which hit the Billboard Top 30 later that year, as did the flip side, "Baby Don't You Weep." Another hit recording with the Enchanters, "A Quiet Place," became a popular song among the Carolina beach music community.
In 1964, Mimms left the Enchanters for a solo career; with Sam Bell as lead vocalist, the group went on to have a minor hit with "I Wanna Thank You," Mimms continued to record for United Artists, and had several minor R&B hits over the next two years, including "One Girl" and a cover of the Jarmels' "A Little Bit of Soap."
In 1977, Mimms gave up his music career. He became a born-again Christian, and in the 1980s found his calling ministering to lost souls as part of the New Jerusalem Prison Ministry. He later established the Bottom Line Revival Ministries, again ministering to prisoners.
In 2007, he returned to recording, and a year later released a new gospel album, Is Anybody Out There?, on the Evidence label. The album was produced and (primarily) written by Jon Tiven.
Mimms was given a Pioneer Award in 1999 by the Rhythm and Blues Foundation.
Here, Mimms and the Enchanters perform “A Quiet Place”
On this day in 1832 — 190 years ago — the first streetcar in America made its maiden voyage in New York City. It ran from Prince Street to 14th Street — along the Bowery
On this day in 1832 — 190 years ago — the first streetcar in America made its maiden voyage in New York City. It ran from Prince Street to 14th Street — along the Bowery.
The streetcar’s inventor, a young Irish immigrant, John Stephenson, traveled the new route with the New York City mayor. The first streetcar was drawn by horses, but glided on steel rails. It provided a smoother ride than the horse-drawn omnibuses of the time, which bumped over cobblestones.
By the 1860s, Manhattan had 14 horse-streetcar lines. Streetcars wouldn’t fall out of fashion for a very long time — though horses would. By 1917, only one horse-streetcar line operated in the city, and it reportedly collected just 30 cents a day in fares.
Thanks New York Times
November 25, 2022
The Last Waltz, The Band’s motion picture concert, was held 46 years ago today
The Band, with Bob Dylan, at The Last Waltz
The Last Waltz, The Band’s motion picture concert, was held 46 years ago today.
Performed on Thanksgiving Day, November 25, 1976, at the Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco, The Last Waltz was advertised as the end of The Band’s illustrious touring career.
The concert saw The Band joined by more than a dozen special guests, including Paul Butterfield, Eric Clapton, Neil Diamond, Bob Dylan, Emmylou Harris, Ronnie Hawkins, Dr. John, Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison, Ringo Starr, Muddy Waters, Ronnie Wood, Bobby Charles and Neil Young.
The event was filmed by director Martin Scorsese and made into a documentary of the same name, released in 1978. The film features concert performances, scenes shot on a studio soundstage and interviews by Scorsese with members of The Band.
A triple-LP soundtrack recording, produced by Rob Fraboni, was issued in 1978. The film was released on DVD in 2002 as was a four-CD box set of the concert and related studio recordings. The Last Waltz has been widely hailed as one of the greatest concert films ever made, although it has been criticized for its focus on Robbie Robertson.
Levon Helm, in his 1993 autobiography, “This Wheel's on Fire,” expressed serious reservations about Scorsese's handling of the film, claiming that Scorsese and Robertson (who produced the film) conspired to make The Band look like Robbie Robertson's sidemen.
He said that Robertson, who is depicted singing powerful backing vocals, was actually singing into a microphone that was turned off throughout most of the concert (a typical practice during their live performances).
Helm also discusses Manuel's and Hudson's minimal screen time, such as when Manuel sings during the closing number "I Shall Be Released," but Manuel is hidden behind the phalanx of guest performers. There are several shots catching Ronnie Hawkins looking around but not singing, yet Manuel remains invisible.
Helm went so far as to say that Last Waltz was "the biggest fuckin' rip-off that ever happened to The Band," citing that he, Manuel, Danko and Hudson never received any money for the various home videos, DVDs and soundtracks released by Warner Bros. after the project.
In the book, the producer John Simon also states that, except for Levon's drums and vocals, all of the soundtrack was overdubbed.
Here is the trailer for “The Last Waltz,” released in 1978
Thanksgiving dinner for 5,000 at the Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco before the Last Walt concert
Photo by Gary Fong
The Band performs “The Weight” at the Last Waltz with the Staples Singers
Percy Sledge, R&B and soul performer who recorded the hit "When a Man Loves a Woman" in 1966, was born 81 years ago today
Photo by Mark McNulty
Percy Sledge, R&B and soul performer who recorded the hit "When a Man Loves a Woman" in 1966, was born 81 years ago today.
Sledge worked in a series of blue-collar jobs in the fields in Leighton, Alabama before taking a job as an orderly at Colbert County Hospital in Sheffield, Alabama. Through the mid-1960s, he toured the Southeast with the Esquires Combo on weekends, while working at the hospital during the week. A former patient introduced Sledge to record producer Quin Ivy. An audition followed, and Sledge was signed to a recording contract.
Sledge's soulful voice was perfect for the series of soul ballads produced by Ivy and Marlin Greene, which rock critic Dave Marsh called "emotional classics for romantics of all ages." Sledge’s first recorded song was "When a Man Loves a Woman." It was released in March, 1966.
The song's inspiration came when Sledge's girlfriend left him for a modeling career after he was laid off from a construction job in late 1965. Because bassist Calvin Lewis and organist Andrew Wright helped him with the song, he gave all the songwriting credits to them. It reached #1 in the U.S. and went on to become an international hit.
"When A Man Loves A Woman" was a hit twice in the UK, reaching #6 in 1966 and, on reissue, peaked at #2 in 1987. The song was also the first gold record released by Atlantic Records.
The soul anthem became the cornerstone of Sledge's career, and was followed by "Warm and Tender Love" (Covered by UK songstress Elkie Brooks in 1981), "It Tears Me Up" and "Take Time to Know Her" (his second biggest U.S. hit, reaching #11.
Sledge charted with "I'll Be Your Everything" and "Ain't No Sunshine" during the 1970s, and became an international concert favorite throughout the world, especially in the Netherlands, Germany and on the African continent — South Africa in particular.
Sledge's career enjoyed a renaissance in the 1980s once "When a Man Loves a Woman" re-entered the Top 10 in the UK Singles Chart, peaking at #2, behind the reissued Ben E King classic "Stand By Me," after being used in a Levi's commercial.
In 1994, Saul Davis and Barry Goldberg produced Sledge’s new album, Blue Night, for Philippe Le Bras' Sky Ranch label and Virgin Records. It featured Bobby Womack, Steve Cropper and Mick Taylor among others.
In 2004, Davis and Goldberg also produced the Shining Through the Rain album. Songs on the CD were written by Mikael Rickfors, Steve Earle, the Bee Gees, Carla Olson, Denny Freeman, Allan Clarke and Jackie Lomax.
Sledge was an inaugural Rhythm and Blues Foundation Pioneer Award honoree in 1989. In 2005, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Sledge died of liver cancer at his home in Baton Rouge on April 14, 2015 at the age of 74.
Jimmy Johnson, blues guitarist and singer, was born 79 years ago today
Jimmy Johnson, blues guitarist and singer, was born 79 years ago today.
Born in Holly Springs, Mississippi, several of Johnson's brothers had careers in music. Among them are soul musician, Syl Johnson, and Magic Sam bassist Mack Thompson.
In his younger years, Johnson played piano and sang in gospel groups. He and his family moved to Chicago in 1950, where he worked as a welder and played guitar in his spare time.
He began playing professionally with Slim Willis in 1959, changing his last name to Johnson like his brother, Syl.
As a guitarist, he was influenced by both Buddy Guy and Otis Rush and played with Freddy King, Albert King, Magic Sam, Otis Rush and Eddy Clearwater.
In the 1960s, he played R&B music, working with Otis Clay, Denise LaSalle and Garland Green. By the late 1960s, he had released his first single.
By 1974, he performed the blues, working with Jimmy Dawkins and touring Japan with Otis Rush in 1975.
Johnson’s first solo material appeared on Alligator Records and Delmark Records in 1978-79, when he was fifty years old.
He was an award-winner at the first Blues Music Awards held in Memphis in November, 1980.
His career continued to pick up until December 2, 1988, when his touring van crashed in Indiana, killing his keyboardist, St. James Bryant, and bassist Larry Exum.
Johnson was injured and took an extended hiatus from the music industry, but returned to record for Verve Records in 1994.
In 2002, he recorded with his brother, Syl. He remained active and among other things toured Europe in 2009, playing both the UK as well as Copenhagen Blues Festival in Denmark.
On June 7, 2019, while performing at the 36th annual Chicago Blues Festival, Chicago Major Laurie Lightfoot officially declared it to be Jimmy Johnson Day. He died from kidney failure in 2019 at the age of 76.
Here, Johnson performs “Jockey” and “In the Midnight Hour” in 1994
Virgil Thomson, composer and critic, was born 126 years ago today
Virgil Thomson in a 1947 photograph by Carl Van Vechten
Virgil Thomson, composer and critic, was born 126 years ago today.
Thomson was instrumental in the development of the "American Sound" in classical music. He has been described as a modernist, a neoclassicist, a composer of "an Olympian blend of humanity and detachment" whose "expressive voice was always carefully muted" until his late opera Lord Byron which, in contrast to all his previous work, exhibited an emotional content that rises to "moments of real passion.”
Born in Kansas City, as a child Thompson befriended Alice Smith, great-granddaughter of Joseph Smith, founder of the Mormon faith. After World War I, he entered Harvard University thanks to a loan from Dr. Fred M. Smith, the president of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and father of Alice Smith.
His tours of Europe with the Harvard Glee Club helped nurture his desire to return there. At Harvard, Thomson focused his studies on the piano work of Erik Satie. He studied in Paris on fellowship for a year, and after graduating, lived in Paris from 1925–1940.
In Paris, he forged relationships with such prominent cultural figures as James Joyce, Ernest Hemingway, e.e. Cummings, Aaron Copland, Ezra Pound, Igor Stravinsky, Pablo Picasso, Orson Welles, Jean Cocteau and Gertrude Stein. He eventually studied with Nadia Boulanger and became a fixture of "Paris in the twenties." His most important friend from this period was Gertrude Stein, who was an artistic collaborator and mentor to him.
Following the publication of his book, The State of Music, he established himself in New York City as a peer of Aaron Copland and was also a music critic for the New York Herald-Tribune from 1940 through 1954. His writings on music, and his reviews of performances in particular, are noted for their wit and their independent judgments.
His definition of music was famously "that which musicians do," and his views on music are radical in their insistence on reducing the rarefied aesthetics of music to market activity. He even went so far as to claim that the style a piece was written in could be most effectively understood as a consequence of its income source.
In the 1930s, he worked as a theater and film composer. His most famous works for theater are two operas with libretti by Gertrude Stein. They are Four Saints in Three Acts, especially famous for its use of an all-black cast, and The Mother of Us All. He also did incidental music for Orson Welles' Depression-era production of Macbeth, set in the Caribbean, known as the “Voodoo Macbeth.”
Thomson was famous for his revival of the rare technique of composing "musical portraits" of living subjects, often spending hours in a room with them before rushing off to finish the piece on his own. Many subjects reported feeling that the pieces did capture something unique about their identities even though nearly all of the portraits were absent of any clearly representational content.
Later in life, Thomson became a sort of mentor and father figure to a new generation of American tonal composers such as Ned Rorem, Paul Bowles and Leonard Bernstein, a circle united as much by their shared homosexuality as by their similar compositional sensibilities. Women composers were not part of that circle, and some have suggested that, as a critic, he pointedly ignored their works or adopted a patronizing tone.
Thomason died on September 30, 1989 in his suite at the Chelsea Hotel in Manhattan.
On this day in 1952 — 70 years ago — The Mousetrap, a murder-mystery play by Agatha Christie, opened in London’s West End
On this day in 1952 — 70 years ago — The Mousetrap, a murder-mystery play by Agatha Christie, opened in London’s West End.
It would go on to have the longest initial run of any play in history, with more than 23,000 performances to date. In addition to The Mousetrap, the highly prolific Christie penned dozens of other plays, novels and stories, a number of which were adapted for television, film and radio.
Christie was born Agatha Miller on September 15, 1890, in Torquay, England. Her first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, was published in 1920 and introduced Detective Hercule Poirot.
The mustachioed Belgian sleuth would appear in some 30 novels, including 1926’s The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, 1934’s Murder on the Orient Express, 1937’s Death on the Nile and 1942’s Five Little Pigs. The final Poirot novel was 1975’s Curtain. On screen, a string of actors portrayed Poirot, starting with Austin Trevor in the 1931 film, Alibi.
Albert Finney earned a Best Actor Oscar nomination for his portrayal of Poirot in 1974’s Murder on the Orient Express. The film, which was directed by Sidney Lumet, earned a total of six Academy Award nominations and featured an all-star cast that included Lauren Bacall, Ingrid Bergman and Sean Connery.
Peter Ustinov played Poirot in a half-dozen movies, including 1978’s Death on the Nile and 1988’s Appointment with Death. Since 1989, the English actor David Suchet has portrayed Christie’s fictional detective on the British TV series, Poirot.
Another famous Christie creation, spinster and amateur sleuth Jane Marple, appeared in some earlier short stories but made her novel debut in The Murder at the Vicarage, first published in 1930. The tweedy Miss Marple, featured in a dozen books, first appeared on the big screen in 1962’s Murder, She Said, starring the Academy Award-winning English actress Margaret Rutherford.
Angela Lansbury took on the roll of Miss Marple in 1980’s The Mirror Crack’d, which co-starred Elizabeth Taylor and Rock Hudson. Lansbury went on to star as the crime-solving mystery writer Jessica Fletcher, a character reportedly inspired in part by Miss Marple, in the popular TV series Murder, She Wrote, which originally aired from 1984 to 1996.
Helen Hayes and Joan Hickson are among the other actresses to play Miss Marple.
The acclaimed big-screen adaptations of Christie’s work that featured characters other than Poirot and Marple include 1957’s suspenseful courtroom drama Witness for the Prosecution, directed by Billy Wilder (Double Indemnity, Sunset Boulevard) and starring Tyrone Power, Marlene Dietrich and Charles Laughton. The film received six Oscar nominations, including Best Picture.
Dubbed the “Queen of Crime,” Agatha Christie was one of the top-selling writers in history. She died at the age of 85 on January 12, 1976.
Eddie Boyd, blues piano player, was born 108 years ago today
Eddie Boyd, blues piano player, was born 108 years ago today.
Born on Stovall's Plantation near Clarksdale, Mississippi, Boyd moved to the Beale Street district of Memphis in 1936 where he played piano and guitar with his group, the Dixie Rhythm Boys. He followed the great migration northward to the factories of Chicago in 1941.
Boyd wrote and recorded the hit songs "Five Long Years" (1952), "24 Hours" (1953) and the "Third Degree" (co-written by Willie Dixon, also 1953). He toured Europe with Buddy Guy's band in 1965 as part of the American Folk Blues Festival. He later toured and recorded with Fleetwood Mac and John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers.
Tired of the racial discrimination he experienced in the United States, Boyd first moved to Belgium where he recorded with the Dutch band, Cuby and the Blizzards. He settled in Helsinki, Finland in 1970, where he recorded ten blues records, the first being Praise to Helsinki (1970). He married in 1977.
Boyd died in 1994 in Helsinki just a few months before Eric Clapton released the chart-topping blues album, From the Cradle, that included Boyd's "Five Long Years" and "Third Degree."
This week in 2010, a restaurant in Amherst, Massachusetts fell victim to a prankster who had them make 178 pizzas by claiming they were for singer Bob Dylan and his crew
This week in 2010, a restaurant in Amherst, Massachusetts fell victim to a prankster who had them make 178 pizzas by claiming they were for singer Bob Dylan and his crew.
An imposter, carrying backstage credentials, walked into Antonio's Pizza restaurant and placed the huge order worth more than $3,900. He told the owner the pizzas were for Dylan and his crew who had appeared in concert in Amherst, Massachusetts.
The staff at Antonios worked until 5.30 am to make the pizzas — but were left stunned when no one collected the order.
Though the culprit got away with the prank, he later felt bad about it, got a lawyer and settled the bill with the restaurant.
November 24, 2022
Donald "Duck" Dunn was born 81 years ago today
Photo by Rick Diamond
Donald "Duck" Dunn was born 81 years ago today.
Dunn was a bass guitarist, session musician, record producer and songwriter. He was notable for his 1960s recordings with Booker T. & the M.G.'s and as a session bassist for Stax Records.
At Stax, Dunn played on thousands of records including hits by Otis Redding, Sam & Dave, Rufus Thomas, Carla Thomas, William Bell, Eddie Floyd, Johnnie Taylor and Albert King.
Born in Memphis, Dunn’s father nicknamed him, "Duck," while watching Disney cartoons with him one day. He grew up playing sports and riding his bike with fellow future professional musician, Steve Cropper. After Cropper began playing guitar with mutual friend, Charlie Freeman, Dunn decided to pick up the bass guitar. Eventually, along with drummer Terry Johnson, the four became "The Royal Spades."
The Messick High School group picked up keyboardist Jerry "Smoochy" Smith, singer Ronnie Angel (also known as Stoots) and a budding young horn section in baritone saxophone player, Don Nix, tenor saxophone player Charles "Packy" Axton (future co-founder of The Memphis Horns)
Cropper explained how the self-taught Dunn started out playing along with records, filling in what he thought should be there. "That's why Duck Dunn's bass lines are very unique," Cropper said. "They're not locked into somebody's schoolbook somewhere."
Satellite Records signed the band, who had a national hit with "Last Night" in 1961 under their new name,"The Mar-Keys." The bassist on "Last Night" was Donald "Duck" Dunn, but he left the Mar-Keys in 1962 to join Ben Branch's big band.
Booker T and the M.G.s was founded by Steve Cropper and Booker T. Jones in 1962. Al Jackson, Jr. served as the band's drummer. The original bassist, on early hits such as "Green Onions," was Lewie Steinberg. Dunn replaced him in 1964.
Stax became known for Jackson's drum sound, the sound of The Memphis Horns, and Duck Dunn's grooves.
The MGs and Dunn's bass lines on songs like Otis Redding's "Respect" and "I Can't Turn You Loose," Sam & Dave's "Hold On, I'm Comin'" and Albert King's "Born Under a Bad Sign" influenced musicians everywhere.
As an instrumental group, they continued to experiment with McLemore Avenue (their reworking of The Beatles' Abbey Road) and on their final outing, 1971's Melting Pot, which featured basslines that to this day serve as a source of inspiration for hip-hop artists.
In the 1970s, Jones and Cropper left Stax, but Dunn and Jackson stayed with the label. He worked with Elvis Presley on his 1973 RCA album, Raised On Rock. Dunn went on to play for Muddy Waters, Freddie King and Jerry Lee Lewis, as well as Eric Clapton and Rod Stewart. He was the featured bass player for Stevie Nicks and Tom Petty's "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around" single from Nicks' 1981 debut solo album, Bella Donna.
Dunn reunited with Cropper as a member of Levon Helm's RCO All Stars and also displayed his quirky Southern humor making two movies with Cropper, former Stax drummer Willie Hall and Dan Aykroyd, as a member of The Blues Brothers band. Dunn was the bassist in Eric Clapton's band for Clapton's appearance at Live Aid in 1985.
Dunn played himself in the 1980 feature, The Blues Brothers, where he famously uttered the line, "We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline!" and was frequently shown smoking a pipe whilst playing. He appeared in the 1998 sequel, Blues Brothers 2000, once again playing himself.
Dunn & the MGs were the house band for Bob Dylan's 30th anniversary concert at Madison Square Garden playing behind Dylan, George Harrison, Eric Clapton, Tom Petty, Stevie Wonder, Sinéad O'Connor, Eddie Vedder and Neil Young. Young later recruited the MGs to tour with him and recorded with Dunn several times.
In the 2000s, Dunn was in semi-retirement, although he still performed occasionally with Booker T & the MGs at clubs and music festivals.
On the morning of May 13, 2012, Dunn died in his sleep after finishing his fifth double show at the Blue Note night club in Tokyo with Steve Cropper the night before. He had been in the country as part of an ongoing tour with Cropper and Eddie Floyd.
Lee Michaels, virtuoso of the Hammond organ, is 77 years old today
Lee Michaels, virtuoso of the Hammond organ, is 77 years old today.
Born Michael Olsen, Michaels is a rock musician who performs vocals and accompanies himself on organ, piano or guitar. He is best known for his energetic virtuosity on the Hammond organ, peaking in 1971 with his Top 10 pop hit single, "Do You Know What I Mean."
Michaels began his career with The Sentinals, a San Luis Obispo, California-based surf group that included drummer Johny Barbata (later of The Turtles, Jefferson Airplane and Jefferson Starship).
Michaels joined Barbata in the Strangers, a group led by guitarist Joel Scott Hill. Michaels later moved to San Francisco, where he joined an early version of The Family Tree, a band led by Bob Segarini.
In 1967, he signed a contract with A&M Records, releasing his debut album, Carnival of Life, later that year. As a session musician, he played with Jimi Hendrix. Michaels' choice of the Hammond organ as his primary instrument was unusual for the time, as was his bare-bones stage and studio accompaniment.
This unorthodox approach attracted a following in San Francisco, and some critical notice. Sounds reported that he had been called "the ultimate power organist,” but Michaels did not achieve real commercial success until the release of his fifth album.
Album Fifth (1971) produced a surprise U.S. Top 10 hit (#6 in the fall of 1971), "Do You Know What I Mean," an autobiographical homage to the loss of a girlfriend, and a Top 40 follow-up, a cover version of the Motown standard, "Can I Get a Witness" (#39).
Michaels recorded two more albums for A&M before signing a recording contract with Columbia Records in 1973. His Columbia recordings failed to generate much interest, and Michaels went into semi-retirement from the music industry by the end of the decade.
On this day in 1947 — 75 years ago — the U.S. House of Representatives voted 346 to 17 to approve citations of contempt against ten Hollywood writers, directors and producers
On this day in 1947 — 75 years ago — the U.S. House of Representatives voted 346 to 17 to approve citations of contempt against ten Hollywood writers, directors and producers.
These men had refused to cooperate at hearings dealing with communism in the movie industry held by the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). The "Hollywood 10," as the men were known, were sentenced to one year in jail. The Supreme Court later upheld the contempt charges.
The contempt charges stemmed from the refusal of the ten men to answer questions posed by HUAC as to whether they were or had ever been members of the Communist Party. In hearings that often exploded with rancor, the men denounced the questions as violations of their First Amendment rights.
Albert Maltz, Dalton Trumbo, John Howard Lawson, Samuel Ornitz, Ring Lardner, Jr., Lester Cole, Alvah Bessie, Herbert Biberman, Edward Dmytryk and Robert Adrian Scott were charged with contempt of Congress.
The chairman of HUAC, J. Parnell Thomas, dismissed the arguments raised by the men, claiming that Congress had every right to ask people what their political affiliations were. "The Constitution," he declared, "was never intended to cloak or shield those who would destroy it."
The Hollywood 10 responded with a joint statement in which they argued that HUAC had succeeded in having the Congress cite the Bill of Rights for contempt. "The United States," the statement concluded, "can keep its constitutional liberties or it can keep the Thomas committee. It can't keep both."
The impact of the charges against the Hollywood 10 was immediate and long-lasting. Hollywood quickly established the so-called "blacklist," a collection of names of Hollywood personalities suspected of having communist ties. Those on the list rarely found work in the movies.
The contempt charges also created a chilling effect on the Hollywood film industry, and producers, directors and writers shied away from subject matter that might be considered the least bit controversial or open them up to charges of being soft on communism.
The blacklist was not completely broken until the 1960s.
Thanks History.com
Geraldine Fitzgerald, an Irish-American actress, was born 109 years ago today
In the photos, Geraldine Fitzgerald; Fitzgerald with Orson Welles in the Mercury Theatre production of Heartbreak House, 1938; Michael Lindsay-Hogg; and Orson Welles
Geraldine Fitzgerald, an Irish-American actress, was born 109 years ago today.
Fitzgerald was born in Greystones, County Wicklow, south of Dublin, the daughter of Edith and Edward Fitzgerald, who was an attorney. She studied painting at the Dublin School of Art. Inspired by her aunt, the actress/director Shelah Richards, Fitzgerald began her acting career in 1932 in theatre in her native Dublin before moving to London.
She quickly came to be regarded as one of the British film industry's most promising young performers and her most successful film of this period was The Mill on the Floss (1937).
Her success led her to America and Broadway in 1938, and while appearing opposite Orson Welles in the Mercury Theatre production of Heartbreak House, she was seen by the film producer, Hal B. Wallis, who signed her to a seven-year film contract.
She achieved two significant successes in 1939: a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Isabella Linton in Wuthering Heights and an important role in Dark Victory. Both films achieved great box office success.
She appeared in Shining Victory (1941), The Gay Sisters (1942) and Watch on the Rhine (1943) for Warner Bros., and Wilson (1944) for Fox. But her career was hampered by her frequent clashes with the management of the studio.
Fitzgerald was the mother of the TV, film and theater director Michael Lindsay-Hogg (Let It Be and Brideshead Revisited). Her son's resemblance to Orson Welles, with whom she had worked and been linked with romantically in the late 1930s, led to rumors Welles was the boy's father.
In the late 1980s, I interviewed Fitzgerald at her east side apartment in New York City about Welles and her remembrances of acting with him. I asked her about the rumors that Welles was the real father of Michael Lindsey-Hogg. She denied it.
But in his 2011 autobiography — Luck and Circumstance: A Coming of Age in Hollywood, New York, and Points Beyond — Lindsay-Hogg reported that his mother's friend, Gloria Vanderbilt, had revealed that Welles was his natural father. However, Lindsay-Hogg’s failure to promote the book led to doubts about how solid the story is.
Lindsay-Hogg became a pioneer in music video production, directing promotional films and music videos for the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. He conceived The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus, featuring the Stones and other musicians playing in a circus atmosphere.
Following his work with these bands, he branched out into film and theater, while still maintaining successful careers in television and music video production.
During the 1980s, he returned to directing concert films, including Simon and Garfunkel's The Concert in Central Park, Neil Young's Neil Young in Berlin and Paul Simon, Graceland: The African Concert.
Fitzgerald died at age 91 in New York City following a long battle with Alzheimer's Disease.
On this day in 1963 — 59 years ago — at 12:20 p.m. in the basement of the Dallas police station, Lee Harvey Oswald, the alleged assassin of President John F. Kennedy, was shot to death by Jack Ruby, a Dallas nightclub owner
On this day in 1963 — 59 years ago — at 12:20 p.m. in the basement of the Dallas police station, Lee Harvey Oswald, the alleged assassin of President John F. Kennedy, was shot to death by Jack Ruby, a Dallas nightclub owner.
Two days earlier, on Nov. 22, President Kennedy was fatally shot while riding in an open-car motorcade through the streets of downtown Dallas. Less than an hour after the shooting, Lee Harvey Oswald killed a policeman who questioned him on the street.
On November 24, Oswald was brought to the basement of the Dallas police headquarters on his way to a more secure county jail. A crowd of police and press with live television cameras rolling gathered to witness his departure. As Oswald came into the room, Jack Ruby emerged from the crowd and fatally wounded him with a single shot from a concealed .38 revolver.
Ruby, who was immediately detained, claimed that rage at Kennedy's murder was the motive for his action. A Dallas jury found Ruby guilty of murdering Oswald, and Ruby later received the death penalty. Later, Ruby appealed his conviction, had it overturned and was granted a new trial.
On January 3, 1967, as the date for his new trial was being set, Ruby became ill in his prison cell and died of a pulmonary embolism from lung cancer. It has been hypothesized that Ruby was part of a conspiracy.
G. Robert Blakey, chief counsel for the House Select Committee on Assassinations from 1977 to 1979, said “the most plausible explanation for the murder of Oswald by Jack Ruby was that Ruby had stalked him on behalf of organized crime, trying to reach him on at least three occasions in the forty-eight hours before he silenced him forever."
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Paul Metsa, Minnesota-based singer-songwriter, revived his song "Jack Ruby" eight years ago for the 50th anniversary of the Kennedy assassination.
Metsa first wrote the song in 1991 about Jack Ruby, the Dallas nightclub owner who shot and killed Lee Harvey Osward, Kennedy's assassin.
Metsa's video includes archival television footage of Ruby shooting Oswald. The song questions whether Oswald and Ruby were hired guns.
It is featured on Metsa's compilation CD, "Blues, Ballads and Broadsides — Songs from the Blue Guitar Highway."
Here is Metsa performing “Jack Ruby”
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Jack Ruby — A Personal Remembrance
On Sunday, Nov. 24, 1963, at 12:20 p.m., I was lying on a sofa in my home watching the televised coverage of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. I was 15-years-old, but it seemed I had grown a couple of years in the two days since the president was shot.
Watching on live television, I was tuned to the basement of the Dallas police station where Lee Harvey Oswald, the accused assassin of the president, was to be paraded before television cameras. Moments after Oswald came into view, Jack Ruby, a Dallas nightclub owner, shot him on live national television.
I must have jumped three-feet off that sofa. I called my mother from the kitchen. I couldn’t believe what I had just seen. Two days earlier, President Kennedy was fatally shot while riding in an open-car motorcade through the streets of downtown Dallas.
Less than an hour after the shooting, Lee Harvey Oswald supposedly killed a policeman who questioned him on the street. Thirty minutes after that, he was arrested in a movie theater by police. The Dallas police were taking Oswald to what they said was a more secure county jail.
But the security state — as is today — didn’t really exist back then. It was all theatre for the masses. Ruby just emerged from the crowd and fatally wounded Oswald with a single shot from a concealed .38 revolver.
Ruby, who was immediately detained, claimed that rage at Kennedy's murder was the motive for his action. Some called him a hero, but he was nonetheless charged with first-degree murder.
Ruby, originally known as Jacob Rubenstein, operated strip joints and dance halls in Dallas and had minor connections to organized crime. He also had a relationship with a number of Dallas policemen, which amounted to various favors in exchange for leniency in their monitoring of his establishments.
Ruby has been prominent in Kennedy-assassination theories for more than 50 years, and many believe he killed Oswald to keep him from revealing a larger conspiracy. The public still does not know the truth.
Regardless, the Kennedy and Oswald assassinations were the end of innocence for me. Most of the 1960s were still ahead and it would become the most extraordinary decade of my life.
Me, at 15
Ringo Starr became the third former Beatle to earn a solo #1 hit when "Photograph" topped the Billboard Hot 100 on November 24, 1973 — 49 years ago today
Ringo Starr became the third former Beatle to earn a solo #1 hit when "Photograph" topped the Billboard Hot 100 on November 24, 1973 — 49 years ago today.
Starr — the man who replaced Pete Best on drums in the Beatles in 1962 — once famously proclaimed of his role in the group that he was "joost happy to be here."
But just because he was willing to act the part of the blindly lucky tagalong on the Beatles' gravy train doesn't mean that it was true. Starr's quietly spectacular drumming laid a foundation for the Beatles' revolutionary sound, and his self-effacing charm became a key component of the Fab Four's popular identity. But Starr's likability was no creation of the media.
Indeed, even if fans could never agree on who their favorite Beatle was, there can be no question who was the Beatles' own favorite: It was Ringo — the one and only member of the Fab Four who maintained a solid friendship with each of his former bandmates even after their acrimonious breakup.
Proof of Ringo Starr's special place within the Beatles can be found in his beautiful 2004 book “Postcards from the Boys,” a collection of sweet, funny and heartfelt cards sent to Starr by his famous former bandmates both during and after their years together as Beatles.
It is no accident that the former Mr. Richard Starkey was the only former Beatle to have such a collection gathering dust in a drawer at home, just as it is no accident that the only musical project to which all four Beatles ever contributed after their 1970 breakup was his 1973 album, Ringo.
Ringo yielded two #1 hits for Starr: "Photograph," which topped the Billboard pop chart on this day in 1973; and "You're Sixteen," which did the same just two months later. "Photograph" was co-written by George Harrison, who also contributed backing vocals and a 12-string guitar solo to the track.
Harrison had been the first solo Beatle to top the pop charts back in December, 1970 with "My Sweet Lord," followed shortly thereafter by Paul McCartney with his two-sided 1971 hit, "Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey."
McCartney contributed the song "Six O'Clock" to Ringo as well as backing vocals on "You're Sixteen." John Lennon, who became the final former Beatle to top the pop charts when "Whatever Gets You Thru The Night" hit #1 in November, 1974, wrote the opening track of Ringo — "I'm The Greatest" — on which he also played piano and sang backup.
Pete Best, original regular drummer in the Beatles, is 81 years old today
The Beatles with Pete Best
Pete Best, original regular drummer in the Beatles, is 81 years old today.
Best was born in the city of Madras, then part of British India. After Best's mother, Mona Best (1924–1988), moved to Liverpool in 1945, she opened The Casbah Coffee Club in the cellar of the Bests' large house in Liverpool. It became very popular with British youths, having a membership of over 1,000.
The Beatles (at the time known as the Quarrymen) played some of their first concerts at the club. Best played there with the Beatles as well as his first band, the Black Jacks. The Beatles invited Best to join on August 12, 1960, on the eve of the group's first Hamburg season of club dates.
He was eventually replaced by Ringo Starr on August 16, 1962, when the group's manager, Brian Epstein, dismissed Best under the direction of John Lennon, Paul McCartney and George Harrison, following their first recording session at Abbey Road Studios.
After working in a number of commercially unsuccessful groups, Best gave up the music industry to work as a civil servant for 20 years, before starting the Pete Best Band. He has been married for over 50 years to Kathy Best. They have two daughters and four grandchildren.
Charlie's Place: Photo Essay
- The true story of the Ku Klux Klan’s violent attempt in South Carolina in the post World War II years to stop dirty dancing and kill the emerging black music behind it—rhythm & blues. E-book in all platforms.
Mill Town Murder: Photo Essay
- On the morning of Sept. 6, 1934, in the tiny town of Honea Path, S.C., friends and neighbors came to blows in a labor dispute. When it was over, seven people were dead and 30 others wounded. The bloody riot at the town’s cotton mill shaped the lives of two generations to follow—not because of the shock of what was known, but by what was unknown. E-book available on all platforms.
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