Frank Beacham's Journal

Rosalinda, Iioilo City, Philippines

Photo by Manuel Librodo Jr.

The singer, actor, athlete and activist Paul Robeson died at the age of 79 on January 23, 1976 — 45 years ago today

The singer, actor, athlete and activist Paul Robeson died at the age of 79 on January 23, 1976 — 45 years ago today.

Robeson's physical strength, size and grace made him one of the elite sports figures of his generation, but his stature in other fields — music, theater, politics and human rights — eventually overshadowed his athletic greatness.

On stage and screen, his unique voice earned him universal artistic acclaim, but when he raised it in support of Civil Rights and social justice, his voice often aroused violent controversy.

Born in Princeton, New Jersey, on April 9, 1898, Paul LeRoy Bustill Robeson was the son of a father born into slavery and a mother raised as a vocal abolitionist. His academic and athletic achievements earned him a scholarship to Rutgers University in 1915, where he became not only a four-sport letterman and two-time All American football star, but a member of Phi Beta Kappa and class valedictorian — all of this while being only the third African-American student in school history.

Robeson moved to Harlem after graduation, where he worked his way through Columbia University Law School as an actor and professional football player.

By 1923, Robeson had passed the New York bar and earned critical raves on the London and Broadway stage. The lure of a promising career in law proved less compelling for Robeson than a career in the theater.

Over the next twenty years, Robeson established himself as one of the most important musical and dramatic performers of his day.

The role of Joe and the song "Ol' Man River" in Show Boat were written for Robeson's famous bass voice; Robeson originated the title role in Eugene O'Neill's The Emperor Jones and he became the first African American to play Othello on Broadway.

By the late 1940s, Robeson's international artistic reputation was well established, but it was rivaled by his reputation as a political activist.

Racism generally, and the horror of racial lynching particularly, were Robeson's greatest concerns. If his outspoken views on segregation didn't win him enough enemies in the United States, his openly leftist leanings certainly did.

In 1948, Robeson was preeminent in Henry A. Wallace's bid for the President of the United States, during which Robeson traveled to the Deep South, at risk to his own life, to campaign for him. In South Carolina, Robeson travelled alone, performing under the threat of death in small Southern towns.

Robeson traveled repeatedly to the Soviet Union beginning in the 1930s — a history that led to the unconstitutional seizure of his passport and to his blacklisting following an appearance before the Joseph McCarthy's House Un-American Activities Committee in 1950.

When asked during those hearings why he did not simply move to the USSR, Robeson offered a typically powerful response: "Because my father was a slave, and my people died to build this country, and I am going to stay right here and have a part of it just like you."

Thanks History.com

Here, Robeson performs “Joe Hill”

Paul Robeson with Henry Wallace, the presidential candidate in 1948

Paul Robeson was involved in the simmering racial politics that led to the Ku Klux Klan attack on Charlie’s Place in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina in the summer of 1950.

Charlie Fitzgerald’s coziness with whites was out of sync with the time and place. Racial tension in South Carolina began escalating after a federal judge opened the state’s Democratic primary to black voters in 1948. It was to the chagrin of many Southern whites that blacks began to assume a few positions of power.

The political awakening of the South’s black citizens was at the core of the racially charged 1950 Democratic U.S. Senate campaign in South Carolina.

The incumbent senator, Olin D. Johnston, entered the summer campaign bolstered by the successful attempt of Southern senators to block the establishment of a permanent Fair Employment Practices Commission (FEPC), a federal agency that would investigate racial discrimination in employment practices.

In bombastic Southern oratory, the earthy Johnston — his arms flailing wildly — railed in a speech on the floor of the U.S. Senate that it would be “a blow to Christianity” to require equal treatment of whites and blacks in hiring.

“A responsibility has been placed on mankind to keep his race pure,” argued Johnston. “Mongrelization of the races is the greatest destroyer of civilization and Christianity.”

In his deep baritone voice, Johnston decried “persistent agitation, designed to cause all colored people to have such a group consciousness as to carry continuously a chip on their shoulders,” and warned his fellow senators “not to mine the road ahead with dynamite that is certain to explode with great destruction when these opposite viewpoints collide.”

Back home in South Carolina, anxious to exploit the race issue to the maximum in his campaign for reelection, Johnston stumped the state’s forty-six counties in a series of verbal slugging matches with his opponent, incumbent Governor Strom Thurmond. It turned into quite a show.

In the towns along the campaign trail, the political rallies leading up to the July 11 Democratic primary were considered top-flight summer entertainment. Boisterous crowds of up to four thousand turned out for the carnival-like stump speeches, demanding that the candidates mix it up with an exchange of barbs and insults.

For the first time, newly empowered black voters joined the mostly white crowds. It didn’t matter to either candidate that the rising black constituency would witness the most openly racist political campaign in the state’s modern history.

The two candidates worked hard to outdo each other with caustic race-baiting rhetoric. Thurmond accused Johnston of being soft on racial segregation and promised if elected to the Senate that he “will not sit with folded arms and my tongue cleaved to the roof of my mouth” when a federal court makes a civil rights ruling that attacks the southern way of life.

“Any man that says I am for mixing of the races is a low-down, contemptible liar,” charged Johnston in a speech at Georgetown. In another appearance at Charleston, the senator—loudly booed by blacks in the crowd — shouted to his hosts, “Make those niggers quit!”

Johnston, who darkened his graying hair with black shoe polish, sometimes found moist black streaks running down his forehead in the humid evenings of summer. Thurmond, a health fanatic, became well known for standing on his head on the lawn of the governor’s mansion.

At two stops a day in the grueling campaign, the candidates hammered each other on race. Thurmond was accused by Johnston of inviting the governor of the Virgin Islands, a black man, to the South Carolina governor’s mansion. Thurmond was irate.

“No Negro will ever be a guest at the governor’s mansion so long as I am governor,” Thurmond shouted to a chorus of boos from blacks at a rally in Columbia.

At a rally in Spartanburg, Thurmond chided Johnston for his tenure on the Senate’s District of Columbia Committee. “If he’s got so much influence, why does he let the Negroes swim in the same pools with white people?” Thurmond barked.

When they weren’t berating each other on race, the candidates were using paid political ads to polarize South Carolina’s electorate.

In a newspaper ad for his candidacy, Thurmond urged President Truman to forget about “minority blocs” of voters and withdraw his program to break down segregation in the armed forces. He warned that Truman’s desegregation plan would “compel Southern white boys to serve, eat, and sleep together with Negro troops and also use the same recreational facilities.”

As one looks back on this dark chapter of South Carolina’s history, it is fascinating to note that beginning in 1941, nine years before the senate campaign, Strom Thurmond began providing financial support to a daughter he had fathered with a black woman in 1925.

The revelation that Thurmond had a daughter of mixed race came after his death at age 100 in June, 2003. Thurmond’s daughter, Essie Mae Washington-Williams, was born October 12, 1925 to a 16-year-old unmarried mother, Carrie Butler, who cleaned the Thurmond family home in Edgefield, South Carolina. At the time, Thurmond, 22, was living at the home while he worked as a school teacher and high school coach.

Thurmond first met his daughter around 1941, after he had been a state senator and circuit judge. From then on, the aspiring politician provided financial support for the woman, who remained a well-kept secret throughout his public career.

Knowing Thurmond’s personal history makes his political attack on Paul Robeson, the heroic black singer, actor and human rights advocate, even more remarkable.

Robeson, Thurmond charged, “has been going all over the country demanding that we abolish segregation, and to show his contempt for our way of life in the South, he married his son off to a white girl.”

Robeson, one of the era’s most talented, articulate, and politically active public figures, had risked his life to tour small towns throughout the South in 1948 on behalf of the progressive presidential candidate Henry Wallace.

Strom Thurmond, as that year’s presidential candidate of the segregationist Dixiecrat party, represented everything Robeson abhorred.

In retrospect, Thurmond’s family secret made his attack on Robeson and his son staggering in its sheer hypocrisy. But this cynical Southern politician was not about to lower the racial temperature.

Robeson, however, was a black man that Thurmond couldn’t intimidate, and the eloquent intellectual knew how to get under the governor’s skin. Cheerfully singing his way through the deep South, Robeson attacked the Thurmond-led Dixiecrats as “powerful reactionaries who hope to stamp out the militant struggle of the Negro for complete freedom, equality and civil rights [and who] hope to keep all the wealth for themselves.”

Framing the “black belt of the South” as the area that would decide whether the Negro people “survive or perish,” Robeson spoke with a level of public candor then unheard of in South Carolina.

“For as long as any boy or girl can be denied opportunity in Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina and Mississippi — so long as one can be lynched as he or she goes to vote — so long as the precious land does not belong to the people of that area (and with the land, the wealth that flows there from in agriculture and in industry) — so long as they do not have the full opportunity to develop and enrich their cultural heritage and their lives — so long are the whole Negro people not free.”

To the South’s white establishment, those were fighting words.

Robeson’s story is in my book, Whitewash: A Southern Journey through Music, Mayhem and Murder

Django Reinhardt, the pioneering French virtuoso jazz guitarist and composer, was born 111 years ago today

Django Reinhardt, the pioneering French virtuoso jazz guitarist and composer, was born 111 years ago today.

Reinhardt is often regarded as one of the greatest guitar players of all time and regarded as the first important European jazz musician who made major contributions to the development of the idiom.

Reinhardt invented an entirely new style of jazz guitar technique (sometimes called “hot jazz” guitar) that has since become a living musical tradition within French gypsy culture. With violinist Stéphane Grappelli, he co-founded the Quintette du Hot Club de France, described by critic Thom Jurek as "one of the most original bands in the history of recorded jazz."

Reinhardt's most popular compositions have become jazz standards, including "Minor Swing," "Daphne," "Belleville," "Djangology," "Swing '42" and "Nuages."

While walking from the Avon railway station after playing in a Paris club in 1953, he collapsed outside his house from a brain hemorrhage. It was a Saturday and it took a full day for a doctor to arrive. Reinhardt was declared dead on arrival at the hospital in Fontainebleau at the age of 43.

For about a decade after Reinhardt's death, interest in his musical style was minimal. In the fifties, bebop superseded swing in jazz, rock and roll took off and electric instruments became dominant in popular music.

Since the mid-sixties, there has been a revival of interest in Reinhardt's music. Acoustic music was revived with the folk movement.

Several of Reinhardt's near-contemporaries, such as Paul "Tchan Tchou" Vidal, recorded for the first time in the sixties and seventies.

Here, Reinhardt performs with Stephane Grappelli in Jattendrai Swing, 1939

On this day — 91 years ago — poet and playwright Derek Walcott was born in St. Lucia, the Caribbean

On this day — 91 years ago — poet and playwright Derek Walcott was born in St. Lucia, the Caribbean.

Walcott won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1992 — the first Caribbean writer to do so.

Walcott's family descended from slaves in the West Indies, and the legacy of slavery is a common theme in his work. Both his parents were schoolteachers and encouraged a love of reading in their three children. When Walcott's father died, his mother raised the family on her own. Walcott knew early on he wanted to be a writer.

His first book of poems was published when he was only 18. He continued writing and began teaching as well. Deeply interested in theater as well as poetry, he received a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation in 1957, which allowed him to study with a prominent director in New York for two years. In New York, Walcott founded the Trinidad Theater Workshop.

A prolific poet, Walcott published In a Green Night: Poems 1948-1960 in 1962, Selected Poems in 1964, The Castaway in 1965 and The Gulf in 1969. His lush style explores multicultural tensions and questions of identity.

Meanwhile, he continued his work in the theater, with plays like Ti-Jean and His Brothers (produced in 1958), Dream on Monkey Mountain (produced 1967) and Pantomime (produced 1978).

He wrote more than 30 plays, while continuing to publish poetry collections regularly. His book-length poem, Omeros, published in 1990, evokes Homer's Odyssey in the environment of the Caribbean.

Thanks History.com

Ernie Kovacs was born 102 years ago today

Ernie Kovacs was born 102 years ago today.

A comedian, actor and writer, Kovacs' uninhibited, often ad-libbed, and visually experimental comedic style came to influence numerous television comedy programs for years after his death in an automobile accident.

Many iconic and diverse shows have been influenced by Kovacs, such as Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In, Saturday Night Live, The Uncle Floyd Show, Captain Kangaroo, Sesame Street, The Electric Company, and TV hosts such as David Letterman, Conan O'Brien and Craig Ferguson.

Chevy Chase acknowledged Kovacs' influence and thanked him during his acceptance speech for his Emmy award for Saturday Night Live. Chase appeared in the 1982 documentary, Ernie Kovacs: Television's Original Genius, speaking again of the impact Kovacs had on his work.

On or off screen, Kovacs could be counted on for the unexpected, from having marmosets as pets to wrestling a jaguar on his live Philadelphia television show.

When working at WABC (AM) as a morning-drive radio personality and doing a mid-morning television show for NBC, Kovacs disliked eating breakfast alone while his wife was sleeping in after her Broadway performances. His solution was to hire a taxi driver to come into their apartment with his own key and whose job was to make breakfast for them both, then take him to the WABC studios.

While Kovacs and his wife, Edie Adams, received Emmy nominations for best performances in a comedy series in 1957, his talent was not formally recognized until after his death.

The 1962 Emmy for outstanding electronic camera work and the Directors' Guild award came a short time after his fatal accident. A quarter century later, he was inducted into the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Hall of Fame.

Kovacs was more than another wide-eyed, self-ingratiating clown. He was television's first significant video artist. He was its first surrealist — its most daring and imaginative writer. And he was television's first and possibly only auteur. He caused his audience to look at the world in a new way.

Kovacs died in an auto accident on January 13, 1962 at age 42 in Los Angeles.

Here, Kovacs joins Bobby Lauher to do “Whom Dunnit,” a satire about 50s-era panel quiz shows

On this day in 1957 — 64 years ago — the Wham-O toy company rolled out the first batch of their aerodynamic plastic discs — now known to millions of fans all over the world as Frisbees

On this day in 1957 — 64 years ago — the Wham-O toy company rolled out the first batch of their aerodynamic plastic discs — now known to millions of fans all over the world as Frisbees.

The story of the Frisbee began in Bridgeport, Connecticut, where William Frisbie opened the Frisbie Pie Company in 1871. Students from nearby universities would throw the empty pie tins to each other, yelling “Frisbie!” as they let go.

In 1948, Walter Frederick Morrison and his partner, Warren Franscioni, invented a plastic version of the disc called the “Flying Saucer” that could fly further and more accurately than the tin pie plates.

After splitting with Franscioni, Morrison made an improved model in 1955 and sold it to the new toy company Wham-O as the “Pluto Platter” — an attempt to cash in on the public craze over space and Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs).

In 1958, a year after the toy’s first release, Wham-O — the company behind such top-sellers as the Hula-Hoop, the Super Ball and the Water Wiggle — changed its name to the Frisbee disc, misspelling the name of the historic pie company.

A company designer, Ed Headrick, patented the design for the modern Frisbee in December, 1967, adding a band of raised ridges on the disc’s surface — called the Rings — to stabilize flight. By aggressively marketing Frisbee-playing as a new sport, Wham-O sold over 100 million of its famous toys by 1977.

In 1967, high school students in Maplewood, New Jersey, invented Ultimate Frisbee, a cross between football, soccer and basketball. In the 1970s, Headrick himself invented Frisbee Golf, in which discs are tossed into metal baskets. There are now hundreds of courses in the U.S., with millions of devotees.

There is also Freestyle Frisbee, with choreographed routines set to music and multiple discs in play, and various Frisbee competitions for both humans and dogs — the best natural Frisbee players.

Today, at least 60 manufacturers produce the flying discs — generally made out of plastic and measuring roughly 8 to 10 inches in diameter with a curved lip.

The official Frisbee is owned by Mattel Toy Manufacturers, who bought the toy from Wham-O in 1994.

Jeanne Moreau was born 93 years ago today

Jeanne Moreau was born 93 years ago today.

A French actress, singer, screenwriter and director, Moreau was the recipient of a César Award for Best Actress, a BAFTA Award for Best Foreign Actress and a Cannes Film Festival Best Actress Award for individual performances, and several lifetime awards.

Moreau made her theatrical debut in 1947, and established herself as one of the leading actresses of the Comédie-Française. She began playing small roles in films in 1949 and eventually achieved prominence as the star of Lift to the Scaffold (UK)/Elevator to the Gallows (USA) (1958), directed by Louis Malle and Jules et Jim (1962), directed by François Truffaut.

Moreau was married to Jean-Louis Richard (1949–1964) and then to American film director, William Friedkin (1977–1979). Director Tony Richardson left his wife, Vanessa Redgrave, for her in 1967 but they never married.

She has also had affairs with directors Louis Malle and François Truffaut, fashion designer Pierre Cardin, jazz trumpeter Miles Davis and Theodoros Roubanis, the Greek actor/playboy.

Most prolific during the 1960s, Moreau continued to appear in films until her death. She was a close friend of Sharon Stone, who presented a 1998 American Academy of Motion Pictures life tribute to Moreau. Orson Welles called her "the greatest actress in the world."

Moreau died on July 31, 2017.

“Now we just need your John Hancock” — Where does it come from?

“Now we just need your John Hancock”

That phrase you often hear when you have to sign a document is a celebration of one of history’s most famous signatures.

And today, National Handwriting Day, commemorates the birthday of John Hancock (1737), the first signer of the Declaration of Independence. (As president of the Continental Congress, he got first dibs.)

With a blank space, he made sure to make his name large, legible and ornate. It stands out among the 56 signatures.

Hancock apparently did it as a defiant message to the British king, and so that British ministers could read his name “without spectacles.”

Jonatha Brooke is 57 years old today

Jonatha Brooke in concert at SubCulture in New York City, January 19, 2015

Photo by Frank Beacham

Jonatha Brooke is 57 years old today.

A folk rock singer-songwriter and guitarist from Massachusetts, Brooke’s music merges elements of folk, rock and pop, often with poignant lyrics and complex harmonies. She has been a performer, writer and artist since the late 1980s, and her songs have been used in television shows and movies.

Brooke and fellow Bostonian Jennifer Kimball began playing music together in the 1980s after having met at Amherst College. They performed regularly during their college years. Their folk songs were marked by "witty wordplay and sumptuous pop harmonies," according to one music critic.

Brooke was sometimes grouped with emerging 1990s talents such as the Indigo Girls, Sheryl Crow, Shawn Colvin and Mary Chapin Carpenter. She continued to write and perform although there was a brief hiatus in which she focused on ballet.

In 1989, the duo played the coffeehouse folk circuit and radio as The Story and were described as an example of the "folk-rock singer-songwriter aesthetic." That year they created a demo called Over Oceans. They were signed to the independent label Green Linnet which, in 1991, issued the duo's debut full-length album Grace in Gravity.

Later, Elektra Records signed The Story and re-issued their debut. Their second album, The Angel in the House, was released in 1993, highlighting their intricate and sometimes dissonant harmonies. One music critic described their approach as "levity" between heavy songs about "God, church, death, female oppression, self-suppression, mothers and daughters."

In 1994, Brooke pursued a solo career. Her first solo effort, Plumb (1995), won mixed reviews, but the followup, 10 Cent Wings, was received more favorably and earned critical commentary such as "sly phrases and lush pop arrangements that made The Story so enjoyable."

Soon, with changes in the music business, she was dropped by MCA. While in her early 30s without backing from a major label, she became known as an industrious "cutting-edge world of do-it-yourself" marketer by using the internet creatively to reach out to fans.

She recorded "Jonatha Brooke Live" (1999) on her own label Bad Dog Records. At first she sold via the internet. She packaged and mailed about 2,500 copies and autographed each one for a personal touch.

In February, 2008, Brooke recorded The Works, which was her seventh solo release. This effort was inspired by the music of late folk legend Woody Guthrie. Brooke was invited by Guthrie's daughter, Nora, to sift through the private archives and hunt through Guthrie's unreleased material for possible adaptations.

Brooke said she was "smitten" with Guthrie's work and going through it was like "going to church." She liked his poetic love songs like "My Sweet and Bitter Bowl" and spiritual deeper tunes like "My Battle" and loved Guthrie's "full spectrum of craziness" as she described his writings.

Brooke's The Works featured talented musicians including keyboard player Joe Sample, bassist Christian McBride, drummer Steve Gadd and pedal steel guitarist Greg Leisz.

In 2014, Brooke performed in a musical play she wrote called “My Mother Has 4 Noses” in New York City. The play was described as an “end-of-life love story.”

In October 2016, she released the album Midnight. Hallelujah. Recorded at Sweetwater Studios in Fort Wayne, IN, and mixed by Bob Clearmountain, the collection features a broader mix of instruments than her previous two albums. Brooke supported the release of the album with tour dates across the United States.

Here, Brooke performs “Linger” in 2001 on David Letterman’s show

The final portrait of John and Yoko Lennon was on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine on this day in 1981 — 40 years ago

The final portrait of John and Yoko Lennon was on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine on this day in 1981 — 40 years ago.

After the assassination of Lennon the previous Dec. 8, thousands of mourners gathered spontaneously outside his and Yoko Ono's Central Park West apartment building, the Dakota. Tens of thousands more gathered six days later in New York, Liverpool and other world cities to honor Yoko's request for a silent, 10-minute vigil in John's memory.

Radio airwaves were saturated with Beatles' songs during the weeks that followed, as well as with John's most recent recordings, one of which — "(Just Like) Starting Over" — became a posthumous #1 hit in late December.

By late January, the inauguration of Ronald Reagan and the release of the American hostages in Iran had pushed accounts of Lennon's death and the massive public response to it from newspaper headlines.

Then, on January 22, 1981, Rolling Stone magazine's John Lennon tribute issue hit newsstands, featuring a cover photograph of a naked John Lennon curled up in a fetal embrace of a fully clothed Yoko Ono.

The iconic Annie Liebowitz portrait would become the definitive image of perhaps the most photographed married couple in music history. The now-famous photograph of John and Yoko is all the more poignant for having been taken on the morning of December 8, 1980, just twelve hours before Lennon's death.

Sent by Rolling Stone to capture an image of Lennon alone for a planned upcoming cover, Liebowitz had to negotiate the issue with John.

Liebowitz recalled years later that Rolling Stone editor Jann Wenner "never told me what to do, but this time he did. He told me, 'Please get me some pictures without [Yoko].' Then I walk in, and the first thing [Lennon] says to me is 'I want to be with her.'"

An angry Liebowitz reluctantly agreed to John's request, and the image she captured proved to be one of her most famous — one that Lennon told her on the spot had "captured [his] relationship with Yoko perfectly."

While the famous Rolling Stone image is sometimes called the final photograph of Lennon, it is in fact only the final portrait of him and Yoko together.

The final photo of John was taken a few hours after Liebowitz's, by a fan waiting outside the Dakota. That photo captured John immediately after signing an autograph for Mark David Chapman, the man who would shoot him dead some six hour later.

Thanks History.com

Sam Cooke was born 90 years ago today

Sam Cooke on the Ed Sullivan Show, Dec. 1, 1957

Sam Cooke was born 90 years ago today.

A gospel, R&B, soul and pop singer, songwriter and entrepreneur, Cooke was considered to be one of the pioneers and founders of soul music. He is commonly known as the “King of Soul” for his distinctive vocal abilities and influence on the modern world of music.

His contribution in pioneering soul music led to the rise of Aretha Franklin, Bobby Womack, Al Green, Curtis Mayfield, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, and popularized the likes of Otis Redding and James Brown.

Born Samuel Cook in Clarksdale, Mississippi, in 1931, he added an "e" at the end of his name in 1957. The reason for the change is disputed.

He was the fifth of eight children of the Rev. Charles Cook, a minister in the Church of Christ (Holiness), and his wife, Annie Mae. One of his younger brothers, L.C. (b. 1932), later became a member of the doo-wop band, Johnny Keyes and the Magnificents.

The family moved to Chicago in 1933. Cooke attended Doolittle Elementary and Wendell Phillips Academy High School in Chicago, the same school that Nat "King" Cole had attended a few years earlier.

Sam Cooke began his career with his siblings in a group called the Singing Children when he was six years old. He first became known as lead singer with the Highway QC's when he was a teenager, having joined the group at the age of 14.

During this time, Cooke befriended fellow gospel singer and neighbor, Lou Rawls, who sang in a rival gospel group.

In 1950, Cooke replaced gospel tenor, R. H. Harris, as lead singer of the gospel group the Soul Stirrers, founded by Harris, who had signed with Specialty Records on behalf of the group. Their first recording under Cooke's leadership was the song, "Jesus Gave Me Water," in 1951.

They also recorded the gospel songs "Peace in the Valley," "How Far Am I from Canaan?," "Jesus Paid the Debt" and "One More River."

Cooke was often credited for bringing gospel music to the attention of a younger crowd of listeners, mainly girls who would rush to the stage when the Soul Stirrers hit the stage just to get a glimpse of Cooke.

His first pop/soul single was "Lovable" (1956), a remake of the gospel song "Wonderful." It was released under the alias "Dale Cook" in order not to alienate his gospel fan base. There was a considerable stigma against gospel singers performing secular music. However, it fooled no one —Cooke's unique and distinctive vocals were easily recognized.

Art Rupe, head of Specialty Records, the label of the Soul Stirrers, gave his blessing for Cooke to record secular music under his real name, but he was unhappy about the type of music Cooke and producer Bumps Blackwell were making.

After an argument between Rupe and Blackwell, Cooke and Blackwell left the label. His first release, "You Send Me," spent six weeks at #1 on the Billboard R&B chart. The song also had mainstream success, spending three weeks at #1 on the Billboard pop chart.

Cooke’s career was launched. He had 30 U.S. Top 40 hits between 1957 and 1964, and another three after his death. Major hits like "You Send Me," "A Change Is Gonna Come," "Cupid," "Chain Gang," "Wonderful World" and "Twistin' the Night Away" are some of his most popular songs.

Cooke was also among the first modern black performers and composers to attend to the business side of his musical career. He founded both a record label and a publishing company as an extension of his careers as a singer and composer. He also took an active part in the American Civil Rights Movement.

On December 11, 1964, Cooke was fatally shot by the manager of the Hacienda Motel in Los Angeles at the age of 33. At the time, the courts ruled that Cooke was drunk and distressed, and that the manager had killed Cooke in what was later ruled a justifiable homicide.

Since that time, the circumstances of his death have been widely questioned and the manager’s account is highly suspect. There are many scenarios as to what actually happened

Here, Cooke sings “Twisting the Night Away,” 1963

Sam Cooke (right), who was active in the civil rights movement, is pictured here in a recording studio in the early 1960s with Muhammad Ali (center). Cooke produced an album with Ali.

Sam Cooke performs “A Change is Gonna Come”

August Strindberg, the Swedish playwright, novelist, poet, essayist and painter, was born 172 years ago today

August Strindberg, the Swedish playwright, novelist, poet, essayist and painter, was born 172 years ago today.

A prolific writer who often drew directly on his personal experience, Strindberg's career spanned four decades. During that time he wrote over 60 plays and more than 30 works of fiction, autobiography, history, cultural analysis and politics.

A bold experimenter and iconoclast throughout, he explored a wide range of dramatic methods and purposes, from naturalistic tragedy, monodrama and history plays, to his anticipations of expressionist and surrealist dramatic techniques.

From his earliest work, Strindberg developed forms of dramatic action, language, and visual composition so innovative that many were to become technically possible to stage only with the advent of film. He is considered the "father" of modern Swedish literature and his, The Red Room (1879), has frequently been described as the first modern Swedish novel.

During the 1890s, he spent significant time abroad engaged in scientific experiments and studies of the occult. A series of psychotic attacks between 1894 to 1896 (referred to as his "Inferno crisis") led to his hospitalization and return to Sweden. Under the influence of the ideas of Emanuel Swedenborg, he resolved after his recovery to become “the Zola of the Occult.”

In 1898, he returned to playwriting with To Damascus, which, like The Great Highway (1909), is a dream-play of spiritual pilgrimage.

His A Dream Play (1902) — with its radical attempt to dramatize the workings of the unconscious by means of an abolition of conventional dramatic time and space and the splitting, doubling, merging and multiplication of its characters — was an important precursor to both expressionism and surrealism.

D. W. Griffith, the film director, was born 146 years ago today

D. W. Griffith, the film director, was born 146 years ago today.

Griffith directed the 1915 film, The Birth of a Nation, and the subsequent film, Intolerance (1916). He is closely associated with his frequent leading lady, Lillian Gish.

Griffith began making short films in 1908, and released his first feature, Judith of Bethulia, in 1913. His film, The Birth of a Nation, made pioneering use of advanced camera and narrative techniques, and its immense popularity set the stage for the dominance of the feature-length film in the United States.

The film has been extremely controversial for its negative depiction of African-Americans, White Unionists, the Reconstruction and its positive portrayal of slavery and the Ku Klux Klan.

The film was widely criticized and subject to boycotts by the NAACP. Griffith responded to his critics with Intolerance, intended to show the history of prejudiced thought and behavior. The film was not a financial success, but was praised by critics.

Several of Griffith's later films, including Broken Blossoms (1919), Way Down East (1920) and Orphans of the Storm (1921) were also successful, but his high production, promotional and roadshow costs often made his ventures commercial failures.

By the time of his final feature, The Struggle (1931), he had made roughly 500 films. For his pioneering techniques and early understanding of cinema, Griffith is considered among the most important figures in the history of the medium.

He died in 1948 at age 73 in Hollywood.

Here is Episode # of D.W. Griffith’s “The Father of Film”

George Balanchine was born 116 years ago today

George Balanchine was born 116 years ago today.

Balanchine was one of the 20th century's most prolific and famous choreographers. Known as the father of American ballet, he co-founded the New York City Ballet and remained its balletmaster for more than 35 years.

Balanchine was a choreographer known for his musicality. He expressed music with dance and worked extensively with leading composers of his time like Igor Stravinsky.

After years of illness, Balanchine died on April 30, 1983 at age 79 in New York City from Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease, which was diagnosed only after his death.

He first showed symptoms during 1978 when he began losing his balance while dancing.

As the disease progressed, his equilibrium, eyesight and hearing deteriorated. By 1982, he was incapacitated.

The night of his death, the company went on with its scheduled performance, which included Divertimento No. 15 and Symphony in C at Lincoln Center.

In his last years, Balanchine suffered from angina and underwent heart bypass surgery.

Balanchine, 1941

Above photo by George Platt Lynes

Sergei Eisenstein was born 123 years ago today

Sergei Eisenstein was born 123 years ago today.

A Soviet Russian film director and film theorist, Eisenstein was a pioneer in the theory and practice of montage. He is noted in particular for his silent films, Strike (1925), Battleship Potemkin (1925) and October (1928), as well as the historical epics, Alexander Nevsky (1938) and Ivan the Terrible (1944, 1958).

Eisenstein was a pioneer in the use of montage, a specific use of film editing. He and his contemporary, Lev Kuleshov, two of the earliest film theorists, argued that montage was the essence of the cinema. His articles and books — particularly Film Form and The Film Sense — explain the significance of montage in detail.

His writings and films have continued to have a major impact on subsequent filmmakers. Eisenstein believed that editing could be used for more than just expounding a scene or moment, through a "linkage" of related images.

Eisenstein felt the "collision" of shots could be used to manipulate the emotions of the audience and create film metaphors. He believed that an idea should be derived from the juxtaposition of two independent shots, bringing an element of collage into film. He developed what he called "methods of montage.”

Einsenstein died of a heart attack in 1948 at age 50.

Here is a short film on the Soviet theory of montage

Richie Havens was born 80 years ago today

Photo by Brian Blauser

Richie Havens was born 80 years ago today.

A folk singer and guitarist, Havens was an intense, rhythmic guitar style (often in open tunings) when performing soulful covers of pop and folk songs. He opened the 1969 Woodstock Festival.

Born in Brooklyn, Havens was the eldest of nine children. At an early age, he began organizing his neighborhood friends into street corner doo-wop groups and was performing with The McCrea Gospel Singers at 16.

At 20, Havens left Brooklyn, seeking artistic stimulation in Greenwich Village. "I saw the Village as a place to escape to, in order to express yourself," he recalled. "I had first gone there during the Beatnik days of the 1950s to perform poetry, then I drew portraits for two years and stayed up all night listening to folk music in the clubs. It took a while before I thought of picking up a guitar."

Havens' reputation as a solo performer soon spread beyond the Village folk circles. After cutting two recordings for Douglas Records, Havens signed on with Bob Dylan's manager, Albert Grossman, and landed a record deal with the Verve Forecast label.

Verve released Mixed Bag in 1967, which featured tracks like "Handsome Johnny" (co-written by Havens and future Oscar-winning actor, Louis Gossett Jr.), "Follow" and a cover of Bob Dylan's "Just Like a Woman."

By 1969, he had released five more albums. Something Else Again (1968) became Havens' first album to hit the Billboard chart and also pulled Mixed Bag back onto the charts.

Havens' reputation as a live performer earned him widespread notice. His Woodstock appearance proved to be a major turning point in his career.

As the festival's first performer, he held the crowd for nearly three hours (in part because he was told to perform a lengthy set because many artists were delayed in reaching the festival location). He was called back for several encores.

Having run out of tunes, he improvised a song based on the old spiritual "Motherless Child" that became "Freedom."

The subsequent Woodstock movie release helped Havens reach a worldwide audience. He also appeared at the Isle of Wight Festival in late August, 1969. Following the success of his Woodstock performance, Richie started his own record label, Stormy Forest, and delivered Stonehenge in 1970.

Later that year came Alarm Clock, which yielded the George Harrison penned hit single, "Here Comes the Sun,” and became Havens' first album to reach Billboard’s Top 30 Chart.

Stormy Forest went on to release four more of his own albums: The Great Blind Degree (1971), Live On Stage (1972), Portfolio (1973) and Mixed Bag II (1974).

Memorable television appearances included performances on The Ed Sullivan Show and The Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson. On The Tonight Show, the audience reacted with such enthusiasm that when the applause continued even after the commercial break, Carson asked Havens to return the following night.

Havens also branched out into acting during the 1970s. He was featured in the original 1972 stage presentation of The Who's Tommy, and appeared as Othello in the 1974 film, Catch My Soul.

He also appeared in Greased Lightning alongside Richard Pryor in 1977. In 1987, he landed a role in the Bob Dylan vehicle, Hearts of Fire.

Increasingly, Havens devoted his energies to educating young people about ecological issues. In the mid-1970s, he co-founded the Northwind Undersea Institute, an oceanographic children’s museum on City Island in the Bronx.

That, in turn, led to the creation of The Natural Guard, an organization Richie describes as "a way of helping kids learn that they can have a hands-on role in affecting the environment. Children study the land, water and air in their own communities and see how they can make positive changes from something as simple as planting a garden in an abandoned lot."

During the 1980s and 1990s, Havens continued a world touring schedule and a steady release of albums.

In 2010, Havens had kidney surgery, but did not recover fully enough to perform as he had before. On March 20, 2012, he announced on his Facebook page that he would stop touring after 45 years due to health concerns. On April 22, 2013, Havens died of a heart attack at home in Jersey City, New Jersey.

Pursuant to Havens's request, his ashes were scattered from a plane over the site of the Woodstock festival, in a ceremony held on August 18, 2013, the 44th anniversary of the last day of the festival.

Here, Richie Havens performs “Here Comes the Sun”

Havens performs at Woodstock, 1969

Ever wondered about the origins of the word “Cocktail?”

Ever wondered about the origins of the word “Cocktail?”

Apparently prospective horse sellers in England would give old or droopy specimens a rectal dose of ginger to make them cock their tails for a younger, zippier appearance.

From there it was just a short jump to alcoholic drinks that made humans perk up. The name stuck.

Thanks Dave Wondrich, a drinks historian, from the second edition of his reconstruction of mixed drinks, “Imbibe!,” and the New York Times.

Plácido Domingo is 80 years old today

Plácido Domingo is 80 years old today.

A Spanish tenor, conductor and arts administrator, Domingo has sung 147 different roles. One of “The Three Tenors,” he has more recently taken on conducting opera and concert performances, and is also the general director of the Los Angeles Opera in California.

Born in the Retiro district of Madrid, Spain, he moved to Mexico in 1949 with his family, who ran a zarzuela company. He studied piano at first privately and later at the National Conservatory of Music in Mexico City.

In 1957, Domingo made his first professional appearance, performing with his mother in a concert at Mérida, Yucatán. He made his opera debut performing in Manuel Fernández Caballero's zarzuela, Gigantes y cabezudos, singing a baritone role.

At that time, he was working with his parents' zarzuela company, taking baritone roles and as an accompanist for other singers.

In 1959, Domingo auditioned for the Mexico National Opera as a baritone, but was then asked to sight-read some arias and lines in the tenor range. Finally, he was accepted in the National Opera as a tenor comprimario and as a tutor for other singers.

He provided backup vocals for Los Black Jeans in 1958, a rock-and-roll band led by César Costa. He studied piano and conducting, but made his stage debut acting in a minor role in 1959 at the Teatro Degollado in Guadalajara as Pascual in Marina.

In 1961, Domingo made his operatic debut in a leading role as Alfredo in La traviata at Monterrey (Maria Teresa Montoya theater) and, later in the same year, his debut in the United States with the Dallas Civic Opera, where he sang the role of Arturo in Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor opposite Joan Sutherland in the title role.

His official debut at the Metropolitan Opera in New York occurred on September 28, 1968, when he substituted for Franco Corelli, in Cilea's Adriana Lecouvreur singing with Renata Tebaldi.

Since then Domingo has continued performing, singing many of the same roles, but adding new roles — among them the title roles in Wagner's Parsifal and Mozart's Idomeneo; Rossini's Il barbiere di Siviglia as Figaro; Wagner's Die Walküre as Siegmund; Lehár's The Merry Widow as Danilo and Alfano's Cyrano de Bergerac as Cyrano.

From the middle 1990s to early in 2008 alone, he added about 40 new roles to his repertoire, covering opera in six different languages (English, Italian, French, German, Russian and Spanish).

In August 2019, Domingo was accused by multiple women of sexual harassment. Eight singers and a dancer said that Domingo sexually harassed them in incidents that spanned three decades from the late 1980s. The alleged harassment took place at venues including opera companies where the musician held top positions.

It was reported that Domingo's sexual advances towards younger women were an "open secret" in the opera world. Domingo issued a statement, stating "The allegations from these unnamed individuals dating back as many as 30 years are deeply troubling, and as presented, inaccurate," adding that "I recognize that the rules and standards by which we are—and should be—measured against today are very different than they were in the past.”

In September 2019, the Metropolitan Opera announced it would be ending its relationship with Domingo in light of the allegations of sexual harassment. In October 2019, Domingo resigned as general director of the Los Angeles Opera, and withdrew from all forthcoming performances with that company, stating that "recent accusations that have been made against me in the press have created an atmosphere in which my ability to serve this company that I so love has been compromised."

Jeff Koons is 66 years old today

Jeff Koons is 66 years old today.

Koons is an artist known for his reproductions of banal objects — such as balloon animals produced in stainless steel with mirror-finish surfaces. He lives and works in both New York City and his hometown of York, Pennsylvania.

His works have sold for substantial sums of money, including at least one world record auction price for a work by a living artist.

On November 12, 2013, Koons’s Balloon Dog (Orange) sold at Christie's Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Sale in New York City for $58.4 million, above its high $55 million estimate, becoming the most expensive work by a living artist sold at auction.

The price topped Koons’s previous record of $33.7 million and the record for the most expensive living artist, held by Gerhard Richter, whose 1968 painting, Domplatz, Mailand, sold for $37.1 million at Sotheby’s on May 14, 2013.

Balloon Dog (Orange) was one of the first of the Balloon Dogs to be fabricated, and had been acquired by Greenwich collector Peter Brant in the late 1990s.

In May 2019, another of his sculptures, Rabbit (1986), was auctioned for $91.1 million, again breaking the auction record for an artwork by a living artist.

Critics are sharply divided in their views of Koons. Some view his work as pioneering and of major art-historical importance. Others dismiss his work as kitsch — crass and based on cynical self-merchandising. Koons has said that there are no hidden meanings in his works, nor any critiques.

Patsy Cline, one of the most important figures in country music history, first gained national attention with her winning appearance on Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts on January 21, 1957 — 64 years ago today

Patsy Cline, one of the most important figures in country music history, first gained national attention with her winning appearance on Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts on January 21, 1957 — 64 years ago today.

Widely admired for her incredible voice, Cline also stood out for her trailblazing independence as a female star in an era very much dominated by men.

As many classic recordings as she left behind, her career was hampered for many years by a terrible recording contract and cut short by her tragic death in an airplane crash en route to Nashville from Kansas City in March, 1963.

Arthur Godfrey was a major figure in American radio and television in the 1940s and 1950s, presiding as host over a number of different programs in both mediums simultaneously.

From his morning news and chat show on CBS radio to his variety shows on CBS television, Godfrey was a popular and ubiquitous presence for the better part of two decades. His most popular program was Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts, a program featuring amateur entertainers making their national television debuts.

Among the future stars who got a critical early break by appearing on Talent Scouts were Tony Bennett, Lenny Bruce, Marilyn Horne and Pat Boone. A certain loose-hipped young singer from Memphis by the name of Presley failed to earn a spot on Talent Scouts in 1955, but otherwise the show's track record was admirable.

After several years of struggling for a breakthrough in small venues and on regional radio, Patsy Cline made the most of her invitation to Talent Scouts, wowing the studio audience with her performance of the now-classic, "Walkin' After Midnight."

"Walkin'" made it to #2 on the country music charts and #12 on the pop charts, strongly hinting at Cline's crossover potential.

But the strict terms of her recording contract with a small label called Four Star limited her to working with that label's stable of songwriters, who failed to write another hit for Patsy for the duration of her contract. It was not until 1960, when Cline signed on with Decca Records that her fortunes improved.

Under the direction of the legendary Nashville producer, Owen Bradley, Cline scored a #1 country hit with "I Fall to Pieces," another with "She's Got You," and then a Top 10 country and pop hit with the Willie Nelson-penned "Crazy," the classic recording for which Patsy Cline is perhaps best remembered.

Here, Cline performs “Walkin’ After Midnight”

Thanks History.com

On this day in 1968 — 53 years ago — Jimi Hendrix recorded his version of the Bob Dylan song “All Along the Watchtower” at Olympic Studios in London

On this day in 1968 — 53 years ago — Jimi Hendrix recorded his version of the Bob Dylan song “All Along the Watchtower” at Olympic Studios in London.

According to engineer Andy Johns, Hendrix had been given a tape of Dylan’s recording by publicist Michael Goldstein, who worked for Dylan’s manager, Albert Grossman.

"(Hendrix) came in with these Dylan tapes and we all heard them for the first time in the studio,” recalled Johns. According to Hendrix’s regular engineer, Eddie Kramer, Hendrix cut a large number of takes on the first day, shouting chord changes at Dave Mason who had appeared at the session and played guitar.

Halfway through the session, the bass player, Noel Redding, became dissatisfied with the proceedings and left. Mason then took over on bass. According to Kramer, the final bass part was played by Hendrix himself. Hendrix's friend and Rolling Stones multi-instrumentalist, Brian Jones, played the various percussion instruments on the track.

Kramer and Chas Chandler mixed the first version of "All Along the Watchtower" on January 26, but Hendrix was quickly dissatisfied with the result and went on re-recording and overdubbing guitar parts during June, July and August at the Record Plant studio in New York.

Engineer Tony Bongiovi has described Hendrix becoming increasingly dissatisfied as the song progressed, overdubbing more and more guitar parts, moving the master tape from a four-track to a twelve-track to a sixteen-track machine. The finished version was released on the album, Electric Ladyland, in September, 1968. The single reached #5 in the British charts and #20 on the Billboard chart, Hendrix's only Top 20 entry there.

Dylan had this reaction to hearing Hendrix's version: "It overwhelmed me, really. He had such talent, he could find things inside a song and vigorously develop them. He found things that other people wouldn't think of finding in there. He probably improved upon it by the spaces he was using. I took license with the song from his version, actually, and continue to do it to this day."

In the booklet accompanying his Biograph album, Dylan said: "I liked Jimi Hendrix's record of this and ever since he died I've been doing it that way... Strange how when I sing it, I always feel it's a tribute to him in some kind of way."

Hendrix performs "All Along the Watchtower."

Robert Weston Smith — better known as Wolfman Jack — was born 83 years ago today

Robert Weston Smith — better known as Wolfman Jack — was born 83 years ago today.

A gravelly-voiced disc jockey, Wolfman Jack was legendary in the 1960s and 1970s.

Born in Brooklyn, the younger of two children, Smith’s parents divorced while he was young. To help keep him out of trouble, his father bought him a large transoceanic radio, and Smith became an avid fan of R&B music and the disc jockeys who played it.

These included "Jocko" Henderson of Philadelphia, New York's "Dr. Jive" (Tommy Smalls), the "Moon Dog" from Cleveland, Alan Freed, and Nashville's "John R." Richbourg, who later became his mentor.

After selling encyclopedias and Fuller brushes door-to-door, Smith attended the National Academy of Broadcasting in Washington, DC. Upon graduation (1960), he began working as "Daddy Jules" at WYOU-AM in Newport News, Virginia.

When the station format changed to "beautiful music," Smith became known as "Roger Gordon and Music in Good Taste."

In 1962, he moved to country music station KCIJ-AM 1050 in Shreveport, Louisiana to be the station manager as well as the morning disc jockey, "Big Smith with the Records."

Disc jockey Alan Freed had played a role in the transformation of black rhythm and blues into rock and roll music, and originally called himself the "Moon Dog" after New York City street musician, Moondog. Freed both adopted this name and used a recorded howl to give his early broadcasts a unique character.

Smith's adaptation of the Moondog theme was to call himself Wolfman Jack and add his own sound effects. The character was based in part on the manner and style of the bluesman, Howlin' Wolf. It was at KCIJ that he first began to develop his famous alter ego, Wolfman Jack.

According to author Philip A. Lieberman, Smith's "Wolfman" persona "derived from Smith's love of horror flicks and his shenanigans as a 'wolfman' with his two young nephews. The 'Jack' was added as a part of the 'hipster' lingo of the 1950s, as in 'take a page from my book, Jack,' or the more popular, 'hit the road, Jack.'"

In 1963, Smith took his act to the border when the Inter-American Radio Advertising's Ramon Bosquez hired him and sent him to the studio and transmitter site of XERF-AM at Ciudad Acuña in Mexico, a station whose high-powered border blaster signal could be picked up across much of the United States.

In an interview with writer Tom Miller, Smith described the reach of the XERF signal: "We had the most powerful signal in North America. Birds dropped dead when they flew too close to the tower. A car driving from New York to L.A. would never lose the station."

Most of the border stations broadcast at 250,000 watts, five times the U.S. limit, meaning that their signals were picked up all over North America, and at night as far away as Europe and the Soviet Union. It was at XERF that Smith developed his signature style (with phrases like "Who's this on the Wolfman telephone?") and widespread fame.

The border stations made money by renting time to Pentecostal preachers and psychics, and by taking 50 percent of the profit from anything sold by mail order. The Wolfman did pitches for dog food, weight-loss pills, weight-gain pills, rose bushes and baby chicks.

There was even a pill called Florex, which was supposed to enhance one's sex drive. "Some zing for your ling nuts," the Wolfman would say.

That sales pitch was typical of Wolfman Jack's growling, exuberant on-air style. In the spirit of his character name, he would punctuate his banter with howls, while urging his listeners to "get naked" or "lay your hands on the radio and squeeze my knobs."

Part of the persona was his nocturnal anonymity. Listeners from coast to coast had no idea how to recognize the face behind the voice that said things like "Wolfman plays the best records in the business, and then he eats 'em!"

Wolfman Jack died of a heart attack in Belvidere, North Carolina on July 1, 1995.

Here, Wolfman Jack performs in the film, American Graffiti, in 1973

Arc de Triomphe, Paris (1940)

Photo by Robert Doisneau

Lead Belly was born 133 years ago today

Huddie William Ledbetter, better known as Lead Belly, was born 133 years ago today.

An iconic folk and blues musician, and multi-instrumentalist, Lead Belly was noted for his strong vocals, his virtuosity on the twelve-string guitar and the songbook of folk standards he introduced.

Though many releases list him as "Leadbelly," he spelled it "Lead Belly." This is also the usage on his tombstone, as well as of the Lead Belly Foundation.

In 1994, the Lead Belly Foundation contacted an authority on the history of popular music, Colin Larkin, editor of the Encyclopedia of Popular Music, to ask if the name "Leadbelly" could be altered to "Lead Belly" in the hope that other authors would follow suit and use the artist's correct appellation.

Although Lead Belly most commonly played the twelve-string, he could also play the piano, mandolin, harmonica, violin and accordion. In some of his recordings, such as in one of his versions of the folk ballad "John Hardy," he performs on the accordion instead of the guitar. In other recordings he just sings while clapping his hands or stomping his foot.

The topics of Lead Belly's music covered a wide range of subjects, including gospel songs; blues songs about women, liquor, prison life and racism; and folk songs about cowboys, prison, work, sailors, cattle herding and dancing.

He also wrote songs concerning the newsmakers of the day, such as Franklin D. Roosevelt, Adolf Hitler, Jean Harlow, the Scottsboro Boys and Howard Hughes.

In 1930, Ledbetter was in a Louisiana prison for knifing a white man in a fight.

It was there, three years later (1933), that he was "discovered" by folklorists John Lomax and his then 18-year-old son, Alan Lomax, during a visit to the Angola Prison Farm. Deeply impressed by his vibrant tenor voice and huge repertoire, they recorded him on portable aluminum disc recording equipment for the Library of Congress.

They returned to record with new and better equipment in July of the following year (1934), all in all recording hundreds of his songs.

On August 1, Lead Belly was released (again having served almost all of his minimum sentence), this time after the Lomaxes had taken a petition to Louisiana Governor Oscar K. Allen at Ledbetter's urgent request.

The petition was on the other side of a recording of his signature song, "Goodnight Irene."

Bob Dylan once remarked, on his XM radio show, that Lead Belly was "one of the few ex-cons who recorded a popular children’s album.”

In 1949, Lead Belly was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), or Lou Gehrig's disease. His final concert was at the University of Texas in a tribute to his former mentor, John A. Lomax, who had died the previous year.

Lead Belly died later that year in New York City at age 61.

Here, Lead Belly performs “House of the Rising Son”

“Lead Belly was not an influence, he was the influence. If it wasn’t for him, I may never have been here. I don’t think he’s really dead. A lot of people’s bodies die but I don’t think their spirits die with them.”


                                                                        —Van Morrison

Bob Dylan released Blood on the Tracks, his 15th studio album, on this day in 1975 — 46 years ago

Bob Dylan released Blood on the Tracks, his 15th studio album, on this day in 1975 — 46 years ago.

The album marked Dylan's return to Columbia Records after a two-album stint with Asylum Records. Dylan commenced recording the album in New York City in September, 1974. In December, shortly before Columbia was due to release the record, Dylan abruptly re-recorded much of the material in a studio in Minneapolis.

The final album contained five tracks from New York and five tracks from Minneapolis.

Blood on the Tracks was initially received with mixed reviews, but has subsequently been acclaimed as one of Dylan's greatest albums. The songs have been linked to tensions in Dylan's personal life, including estrangement from his then-wife, Sara. One of their children, Jakob Dylan, has described the songs as "my parents talking."

The album has been viewed as an outstanding example of the confessional singer-songwriter's craft, and it has been called "the truest, most honest account of a love affair from tip to stern ever put down on magnetic tape." In interviews, Dylan has denied that the songs on the album are autobiographical.

The album reached #1 on the Billboard 200 charts and #4 on the UK Albums Chart. The single "Tangled Up in Blue" peaked at #31 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart. The album remains one of Dylan's best-selling studio releases.

Here, from Blood on the Tracks, is “Tangled Up In Blue”

Edwin Eugene "Buzz" Aldrin, Jr., the second man to walk on the Moon, is 91 years old today

Buzz Aldren heading to the launchpad for Apollo 11, 1969

Photo by Frank Beacham

Edwin Eugene "Buzz" Aldrin, Jr., the second man to walk on the Moon, is 91 years old today.

Aldrin was the lunar module pilot on Apollo 11, the first manned lunar landing in history.

On July 20, 1969, he set foot on the Moon, following mission commander Neil Armstrong. He is also a retired United States Air Force pilot.

David Lynch is 75 years old today

David Lynch is 75 years old today.

A film and television director, visual artist, musician, actor and author, Lynch is known for his surrealist films and unique cinematic style. The surreal and, in many cases, violent elements contained within his films have been known to "disturb, offend or mystify" audiences.

Born to a middle-class family in Missoula, Montana, Lynch spent his childhood traveling around the United States, before going on to study painting at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia. It was there he made the transition to producing short films.

Deciding to devote himself more fully to the film medium, he moved to Los Angeles, where he produced his first motion picture, the surrealist horror film, Eraserhead, in 1977. After Eraserhead became a cult classic on the midnight movie circuit, Lynch was employed to direct a biographical film about a deformed man, Joseph Merrick. It was The Elephant Man (1980). With this film, he gained mainstream success.

Then being employed by the De Laurentiis Entertainment Group, he proceeded to make two films: the science-fiction epic, Dune (1984), which proved to be a critical and commercial failure, and then a neo-noir crime film, Blue Velvet (1986), which was critically acclaimed.

Next, Lynch created his own television series with Mark Frost, the popular murder mystery, Twin Peaks (1990–1991; 2016). He also created a cinematic prequel, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992), a road movie, Wild at Heart (1990) and a family film, The Straight Story (1999), in the same period.

Turning further towards surrealist filmmaking, three of his subsequent films operated on "dream logic." Using non-linear narrative structures, he made the psychological thriller, Lost Highway (1997), the neo-noir mystery film, Mulholland Drive (2001) and the mystery film, Inland Empire (2006).

Meanwhile, Lynch embraced the Internet as a medium, producing several web-based shows, such as the animated short, Dumbland (2002), and the surreal sitcom, Rabbits (2002).

Over his career, Lynch has received three Academy Award nominations for Best Director and a nomination for best screenplay. Lynch has won France's César Award for Best Foreign Film twice, as well as the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival and a Golden Lion award for lifetime achievement at the Venice Film Festival.

The French government awarded him the Legion of Honor, the country's top civilian honor, as a Chevalier in 2002 and then an Officier in 2007, while that same year, The Guardian described Lynch as "the most important director of this era."

Allmovie called Lynch "the Renaissance man of modern American film making," while the success of his films has led to him being labelled "the first popular Surrealist."

Federico Fellini was born 101 years ago today

Federico Fellini was born 101 years ago today.

An Italian film director and scriptwriter, Fellini was known for his distinct style that blends fantasy and baroque images. He is considered one of the most influential filmmakers of the 20th century and his work is widely revered.

Among his films are Nights of Cabria (1956), La Dolce Vita (1960), 8½ (1963), Juliet of the Spirits (1965), Fellini Satyricon (1969), Casanova (1976) and City of Women (1980).

Key influences on his work include Luis Buñuel, Charlie Chaplin, Sergei Eisenstein, Buster Keaton, Laurel and Hardy, the Marx Brothers and Roberto Rossellini.

Personal and highly idiosyncratic visions of society, Fellini's films are a unique combination of memory, dreams, fantasy and desire. The adjectives "Fellinian" and "Felliniesque" are "synonymous with any kind of extravagant, fanciful, even baroque image in the cinema and in art in general."

La Dolce Vita contributed the term paparazzi to the English language, derived from Paparazzo, the photographer friend of journalist Marcello Rubini (Marcello Mastroianni).

Fellini won five Academy Awards including the most number of Oscars in history for Best Foreign Language Film. He died in 1993 at age 73.

Federico Fellini auditioning in Paris, 1975, for the film, Casanova

Photo by Michelangelo Durazzo

George Burns was born 125 years ago today

George Burns and Gracie Allen

George Burns was born 125 years ago today.

Born Nathan Birnbaum, Burns was a comedian, actor and writer. He was one of the few entertainers whose career successfully spanned vaudeville, film, radio and television. His arched eyebrow and cigar smoke punctuation became familiar trademarks for over three-quarters of a century.

Burns met Gracie Allen, who began in vaudeville around 1909 and teamed as an Irish-dance act, "The Four Colleens," with her sisters, Bessie, Hazel and Pearl. They launched a new partnership, with Gracie playing the role of the "straight man" and George delivering the punchlines as the comedian.

Burns knew something was wrong when the audience ignored his jokes but snickered at Gracie's questions. He cannily flipped the act around. After a Hoboken, New Jersey performance in which they tested the new style for the first time, Burns' hunch proved right.

Gracie was the better "laugh-getter," especially with the "illogical logic" that formed her responses to Burns' prompting comments or questions.

At the age of 79, Burns' career was resurrected as an amiable, beloved and unusually active old comedian in the 1975 film, The Sunshine Boys, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.

He continued to work until shortly before his death, in 1996, at the age of 100.

Here, Burns and Allen do their “Uncle Otis” comedy routine

Slim Whitman was born 98 years ago today

Slim Whitman was born 98 years ago today.

Whitman was a country music and western music singer, songwriter and instrumentalist known for his yodeling abilities and his smooth high three octave range falsetto. He sold in excess of 120 million records, and in the 1950s toured with Elvis Presley.

Although once known as America’s Favorite Folk Singer, he was consistently more popular throughout Europe, and in particular the United Kingdom than in his native United States. He performed covers of pop standards, film, love and folk songs and gospel hymns.

His 1955 hit single, "Rose Marie," held the Guinness World Record for the longest time at #1 on the UK Singles Chart for 36 years until Bryan Adams broke the record in 1991 and was listed in British Hit Singles & Albums.

In the U.S. his "Indian Love Call" (1952) and "Secret Love" (1953) both reached #2 on the country chart. Whitman had a string of hits from the mid-1960s and into the 1970s and became known to a new generation of fans through television direct marketing in the 1980s.

Throughout the 1990s and into the 21st century, he continued to tour extensively around the world and release new material. Whitman got a new generation of fans when his music was featured in the 1996 film, Mars Attacks!

In the film, every time an old lady (played by Sylvia Sidney) and her resourceful grandson (Lukas Haas) plays Whitman’s music, the heads of the invading aliens explode.

His last album, Twilight on the Trail, produced by his son, Byron Whitman, was a cover of western standards including the Gene Autry single, Back in the Saddle Again. It was released in 2010.

Whitman died on June 19, 2013 in Orange Park, Florida.

Here, Whitman performs “Indian Love Call”

Dolly Parton is 75 years old today

Dolly Parton is 75 years old today.

A singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, actress, author and philanthropist, Parton is best known for her work in country music. Beginning her career as a child performer, she issued a few modestly successful singles from 1959 through the mid-1960s, showcasing her distinctive soprano voice.

Pardon came to greater prominence in 1967 as a featured performer on singer Porter Wagoner's weekly television program. Their first duet single, a cover of Tom Paxton's "The Last Thing on My Mind," was a Top 10 hit on the country singles charts, and led to several successful albums before they ended their partnership in 1974.

Moving to mainstream pop music, Parton's 1977 single "Here You Come Again" was a success on both the country and pop charts.

A string of pop-country hits followed into the mid-1980s, the most successful being her 1981 hit, "9 to 5" (from the film of the same name), and her 1983 duet with Kenny Rogers, "Islands in the Stream," both of which topped the U.S. pop and country singles charts.

A pair of albums recorded with Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris were among her later successes. In the late 1990s, Parton returned to classic country/bluegrass with a series of acclaimed recordings.

Parton is the most honored female country performer of all time. Achieving 25 gold, platinum and multi-platinum awards, she has had 25 songs reach #1, a record for a female artist. She has 41 career Top 10 country albums, a record for any artist and she has 110 career charted singles over the past 40 years.

As an actress, she starred in the movies 9 to 5, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, Rhinestone, A Smoky Mountain Christmas, Steel Magnolias, Wild Texas Wind, Gnomeo & Juliet, Straight Talk, Unlikely Angel, Blue Valley Songbird and Joyful Noise.

Here, Parton and Miley Cyrus perform “Jolene”

Janis Joplin was born 78 years ago today

Janis Joplin was born 78 years ago today.

A singer-songwriter, Joplin first rose to prominence in the late 1960s as the lead singer of the psychedelic-acid rock band, Big Brother and the Holding Company, and later as a solo artist with her more soulful and bluesy backing groups, The Kozmic Blues Band and The Full Tilt Boogie Band.

She was one of the more popular acts at the Monterey Pop Festival and later became one of the major attractions to the Woodstock Festival and the Festival Express train tour.

Joplin charted five singles, and other popular songs from her four-year career. They include "Down on Me," "Summertime," "Piece of My Heart," "Ball 'n' Chain," "Maybe," "To Love Somebody," "Kozmic Blues," "Work Me, Lord," "Cry Baby," "Mercedes Benz," and her only #1 hit, "Me and Bobby McGee."

Joplin was well known for her performing abilities, and her fans referred to her stage presence as "electric." At the height of her career, she was known as "The Queen of Rock and Roll" as well as "The Queen of Psychedelic Soul," and became known as Pearl amongst her friends.

She was also a painter, dancer and music arranger.

On October 4, 1970, her producer, Paul Rothchild, became concerned when Joplin failed to show up at Sunset Sound Recorders for a recording session.

Full Tilt Boogie's road manager, John Cooke, drove to the Landmark Hotel in Hollywood where she was staying. He saw Joplin's psychedelically painted Porsche 356C Cabriolet in the parking lot.

Upon entering Joplin's room, he found her dead on the floor beside her bed. The official cause of death was an overdose of heroin, possibly combined with the effects of alcohol. She was 27 years old.

Cooke believes that Joplin had accidentally been given heroin that was much more potent than normal, as several of her dealer's other customers also overdosed that week.

Joplin's death stunned her fans and shocked the music world, especially when coupled with the death just sixteen days earlier of another rock icon, Jimi Hendrix, also at age 27.

Music historian Tom Moon wrote that Joplin had "a devastatingly original voice." Music columnist Jon Pareles of the New York Times wrote that Joplin as an artist was "overpowering and deeply vulnerable." Author Megan Terry claimed that Joplin was the female version of Elvis Presley in her ability to captivate an audience.

Here, Joplin performs “Little Girl Blue” on Tom Jones’s TV show, 1969

Alexander Woollcott was born 134 years ago today

Alexander Woollcott was born 134 years ago today.

A critic and commentator for The New Yorker magazine and a member of the Algonquin Round Table, Woollcott was the inspiration for Sheridan Whiteside, the main character in the play, The Man Who Came to Dinner (1939), by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart, and for the far less likable character, Waldo Lydecker, in the film, Laura (1944).

Woollcott was convinced he was the inspiration for Rex Stout's brilliant detective, Nero Wolfe, but Stout, although he was friendly to Woollcott, said there was nothing to that idea.

Born in an 85-room house, a vast ramshackle building in Colts Neck Township, New Jersey known as "the North American Phalanx," Woollcott’s birthplace had once been a commune where many social experiments were carried on in the mid-19th century — some more successful than others.

When the Phalanx fell apart after a fire in 1854, it was taken over by the Bucklin family, Woollcott's maternal grandparents. Woollcott spent large portions of his childhood there among his extended family. His father was a ne'er-do-well Cockney who drifted through various jobs, sometimes spending long periods away from his wife and children. Poverty was always close at hand.

Woollcott joined the staff of The New York Times as a cub reporter in 1909. In 1914, he was named drama critic and held the post until 1922, with a break for service during World War I. In April, 1917, the day after war was declared, Woollcott volunteered as a private in the medical corps.

Posted overseas, Woollcott was a sergeant when the intelligence section of the American Expeditionary Forces selected him and a half-dozen other newspaper men to create the Stars and Stripes, an official newspaper to bolster troop morale.

As chief reporter for the Stars and Stripes, Woollcott was a member of the amazingly talented team that formed its editorial board. These included Harold Ross, founding genius of The New Yorker Magazine, Cyrus Baldridge, multifaceted illustrator, author and writer, and the future columnist and radio personality, Franklin P. Adams.

Going beyond simple propaganda, Woollcott and his colleagues reported the horrors of the Great War from the point of view of the common soldier. After the war, he returned to The New York Times. He then transferred to the New York Herald in 1922 and to The World in 1923. He remained there until 1928.

One of New York's most prolific drama critics, he was banned for a time from reviewing certain Broadway theater shows due to his florid and often vitriolic prose. He sued the Shubert theater organization for violation of the New York Civil Rights Act, but lost in the state's highest court in 1916 on the grounds that only discrimination on the basis of race, creed or color was unlawful.

From 1929 to 1934, he wrote a column called "Shouts and Murmurs" for The New Yorker. His book, While Rome Burns, published by Grosset & Dunlap in 1934, was named twenty years later by critic Vincent Starrett as one of the 52 "Best Loved Books of the Twentieth Century."

Woollcott's review of the Marx Brothers' Broadway debut, I'll Say She Is, helped the group's career from mere success to superstardom and started a life-long friendship with Harpo Marx. Harpo's two adopted sons, Alexander Marx and William (Bill) Woollcott Marx, were named after Woollcott and his brother, Billy Woollcott.

Billed as The Early Bookworm, Woollcott was first heard on CBS Radio in October 1929, reviewing books in various timeslots until 1933. His CBS show, The Town Crier, which began July 21, 1933, opened with the ringing of a bell and the cry, "Hear ye, hear ye!," followed by Woollcott's literary observations punctuated with acidic anecdotes.

Woollcott was one of the most quoted men of his generation. Among Woollcott's classics is his description of the Los Angeles area as "Seven suburbs in search of a city" – a quip often attributed to his friend, Dorothy Parker.

Describing The New Yorker editor, Harold Ross, he said: "He looks like a dishonest Abe Lincoln." He claimed the Brandy Alexander cocktail was named for him.

Woollcott was renowned for his savage tongue. He dismissed the notable wit and pianist, Oscar Levant. "There is absolutely nothing wrong with Oscar Levant that a miracle can't fix." He greeted friends: "Hello, Repulsive." When a waiter asked him to repeat his order, he demanded, "muffins filled with pus."

His judgments were frequently eccentric. Dorothy Parker once said: "I remember hearing Woollcott say reading Proust is like lying in someone else's dirty bath water. And then he'd go into ecstasy about something called, Valiant Is the Word for Carrie, and I knew I had enough of the Round Table."

After being kicked out of the apartment he shared with The New Yorker founders, Harold Ross and his wife, Jane Grant, Woollcott moved first into the Hotel des Artistes on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. He then moved to an apartment at the far end of East 52nd Street.

The members of the Algonquin Round Table had a debate as to what to call his new home. Franklin P. Adams suggested that he name it after the Indian word "Ocowoica," meaning "The-Little-Apartment-On-The-East-River-That-It-Is-Difficult-To-Find-A-Taxicab-Near." But Dorothy Parker came up with the definitive name, Wit's End.

Woollcott’s last broadcast was on January 23, 1943 as a participant in a Writers' War Board panel discussion on the CBS Radio program, The People's Platform. Marking the tenth anniversary of Adolf Hitler's rise to power, the topic was "Is Germany Incurable?" Panelists included Woollcott, Hunter College president, George Shuster, Brooklyn College president, Henry Gideonse, and novelists Rex Stout and Marcia Davenport.

The program's format began as a dinner party in the studio's private dining room, with the microphones in place. Table talk would lead into a live network radio broadcast, and each panelist would begin with a provocative response to the topic. "The German people are just as responsible for Hitler as the people of Chicago are for the Chicago Tribune," Woollcott stated emphatically, and the panelists noted Woollcott's physical distress.

Ten minutes into the broadcast, Woollcott commented that he was feeling ill, but continued his remarks. "It's a fallacy to think that Hitler was the cause of the world's present woes," he said. Woollcott continued, adding "Germany was the cause of Hitler." He said nothing further.

The radio audience was unaware that Woollcott had suffered a heart attack. He died at New York's Roosevelt Hospital a few hours later at age 56 of a cerebral hemorrhage.

Algonquin Round Table surrounded by Dorothy Parker (lower left), Robert Benchley, Alfred Lunt and Lyn Fontanne, Frank Crowninshield, Alexander Woolcott, Heywood Broun, Marc Connelly, Frank Case, Franklin P. Adams, Edna Ferber, George S. Kaufman and Robert E. Sherwood.

Drawing by Al Hirschfield

On this day in 1809 — 212 years ago — poet, author and literary critic Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston

On this day in 1809 — 212 years ago — poet, author and literary critic Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston.

By the time he was three years old, both of Poe's parents had died, leaving him in the care of his godfather, John Allan, a wealthy tobacco merchant.

After attending school in England, Poe entered the University of Virginia (UVA) in 1826. Fighting with Allan over his heavy gambling debts, he was forced to leave UVA after only eight months. Poe then served two years in the U.S. Army and won an appointment to West Point.

After another falling-out, Allan cut him off completely and he got himself dismissed from the academy for rules infractions.

Dark, handsome and brooding, Poe had published three works of poetry by that time, none of which had received much attention. In 1836, while working as an editor at the Southern Literary Messenger in Richmond, Virginia, Poe married his 13-year-old cousin, Virginia Clemm. He also completed his first full-length work of fiction, Arthur Gordon Pym, published in 1838.

Poe lost his job at the Messenger due to his heavy drinking, and the couple moved to Philadelphia, where Poe worked as an editor at Burton's Gentleman's Magazine and Graham's Magazine. He became known for his direct and incisive criticism, as well as for dark horror stories like "The Fall of the House of Usher" and "The Tell-Tale Heart."

Also around this time, Poe began writing mystery stories, including "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" and "The Purloined Letter" — works that would earn him a reputation as the father of the modern detective story.  
 
In 1844, the Poes moved to New York City. He scored a spectacular success the following year with his poem, "The Raven."

While Poe was working to launch The Broadway Journal — which soon failed — his wife Virginia fell ill and died of tuberculosis in early 1847. His wife's death drove Poe even deeper into alcoholism and drug abuse.

After becoming involved with several women, Poe returned to Richmond in 1849 and got engaged to an old flame. Before the wedding, however, Poe died suddenly. Though circumstances are somewhat unclear, it appeared he began drinking at a party in Baltimore and disappeared, only to be found incoherent in a gutter three days later.

Taken to the hospital, he died on October 7, 1849 at age 40.

Thanks History.com

In the above illustration, Poe and the Raven by PakstraX

Today is the 108th birthday of Minnesota Fats

Today is the 108th birthday of Minnesota Fats.

But — you guessed it — there is a story behind this legendary name.

George Hegerman is a fictional pool hustler, better known by the nickname "Minnesota Fats," and featured as a prominent character in Walter Tevis's novels, The Hustler and The Color of Money.

Actor Jackie Gleason played this part in the 1961 film version of The Hustler, based upon the novel. Gleason was nominated for an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor, and was honored as Best Supporting Actor by the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures.

The Minnesota Fats character did not appear in the 1986 film version of The Color of Money, which had an entirely different storyline from the novel.

Real-life professional pool player and entertainer Rudolf Wanderone Jr. was known as "New York Fats" (among other nicknames) when the book was published. He initially wanted to sue but, realizing that there was more money to be made from the success of the book and subsequent movie, changed his nickname to match the fiction. It’s Wonderone’s 104th birthday today.

Wanderone claimed that the author had based the character upon himself and that a financial settlement had been made to avoid a lawsuit. Walter Tevis consistently denied this.

Wanderone then went on to play himself under the name "Minnesota Fats" in the 1971 movie, The Player. There is also a character by the name of Fats Brown (James Howard Brown) based on Minnesota Fats in the Twilight Zone episode, "A Game of Pool," played by Jonathan Winters.

Wanderone died on January, 1996 at age 82.

Wanderone had no known children. Singer Etta James said she believed that he was her biological father, having reportedly been told this by her mother, as well as by others who knew her mother and whom James describes as "people who were there and should know."

The epitaph on Wanderone’s tombstone reads: "Beat every living creature on Earth. 'St. Peter, rack 'em up. – Fats'."

So there you have it.

In the above photo is the real Rudolf Wanderone Jr.

Owsley Stanley was born 86 years ago today

Owsley Stanley was born 86 years ago today.

Stanley played a pivotal role in the San Francisco counterculture of the 1960s. As a crafts-person, he became best known simply as “Owsley” – the LSD "cook" (underground chemist).

Under the professional name of "Bear," he worked with the Grateful Dead's international fan "family."

Bear was an early soundman for The Grateful Dead, a band he met when Ken Kesey invited them to an Owsley Acid test party. As their sound engineer, Bear frequently recorded live tapes behind his mixing board and helped "The Dead" become the first performers since Les Paul to custom-develop high-fidelity audio components and sound systems.

Stanley was the first private individual to manufacture mass quantities of LSD. Between 1965 and 1967, Stanley produced more than 1.25 million doses of LSD.

Stanley died in an automobile accident in Australia on March 12, 2011 at age 76.

Paul Cézanne, the French painter, was born a 182 years ago today

Paul Cézanne, the French painter, was born a 182 years ago today.

Cézanne was a Post-Impressionist painter whose work laid the foundations of the transition from the conception of artistic endeavor to a new and radically different world of art.

He formed the bridge between late 19th century Impressionism and the early 20th century's new line of artistic enquiry, Cubism.

The line attributed to both Matisse and Picasso that Cézanne "is the father of us all" cannot be easily dismissed.

Above, Cézanne in a self portrait

Pyramid of Skulls, 1901

Painting by Paul Cézanne

Phil Everly of the Everly Brothers was born 82 years old today

Phil Everly of the Everly Brothers was born 82 years old today.

With brother, Don Everly, the duo is known as the Everly Brothers — country-influenced rock and roll performers — known for steel-string guitar playing and close harmony singing. Their father was the musician, Ike Everly.

Don and Phil Everly both played guitar and used vocal harmony mostly based on parallel thirds. With this, each line can often stand on its own as a melody line. This was in contrast to classic harmony lines which, while working well alongside the melody, were not as melodic by themselves.

For most of their recordings, Don sang the baritone part and Phil the tenor part. One exception was on "Devoted To You." Although Don was low and Phil was high, they switched lead and harmony back and forth.

Don almost always performed lines that were sung solo (for example, the verses of "Bye Bye Love"). Among the exceptions to this rule was the 1965 single, "It's All Over," where Phil sang the song's solo lines.

In the late 1950s, the Everly Brothers were the rock 'n' roll youth movement's addition to close harmony vocal groups of which many were family bands. Among the Everly's famous counterparts in country music were The Delmore Brothers, The Louvin Brothers, Jim & Jesse (McReynolds) and The Osborne Brothers.

The duo's harmony singing had a strong influence on rock groups of the 1960s. The Beatles, The Beach Boys and Simon & Garfunkel developed their early singing styles by performing Everly covers.

The Everly Brothers had 35 Billboard Top 100 singles — 26 in the Top 40. They hold the record for the most Top 100 singles by any duo, and trail only Hall & Oates for the most Top 40 singles by a duo.

Phil Everly died on January 3, 2014. The cause of his death was complications attributed to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (a combination of emphysema and bronchitis), brought on by a lifetime of smoking.

Don is now 81 years old.

Here, the Everly Brothers perform their first hit, “Bye Bye Love,” in 1985

Girl and elephant

Photograph by John Drysdale