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Summer evening, 1947

Painting by Edward Hopper

On this day in 1962 — 60 years ago — Ringo Starr made his debut with The Beatles at a horticultural society dance in Birkenhead, England

On this day in 1962 — 60 years ago — Ringo Starr made his debut with The Beatles at a horticultural society dance in Birkenhead, England.

He had a two-hour rehearsal in preparation.

This was the first appearance of The Beatles as the world would come to know them: John, Paul, George and Ringo.

In the photo, George Harrison shows Ringo Starr the tricks backstage at the Big Beat, held at the Tower Ballroom in Brighton, 1961

On this day in 1958 — 64 years ago — Vladimir Nabokov's controversial novel, Lolita, was published in the United States

Sue Lyon, 1960

Photo by Bert Stern

On this day in 1958 — 64 years ago — Vladimir Nabokov's controversial novel, Lolita, was published in the United States.

The novel, about a man's obsession with a 12-year-old girl, had been rejected by four publishers before G.P. Putnam's Sons accepted it. The novel became a bestseller that allowed Nabokov to retire from his career as college professor.

Born in 1899 in St. Petersburg, Russia, into a wealthy and privileged family, Nabokov lived in a St. Petersburg townhouse and on a country estate. There he learned boxing, tennis and chess.

He grew up speaking both English and Russian, attended Cambridge and inherited $2 million from an uncle. However, his family lost much of their wealth when the Russian Revolution forced them to flee to Germany. Nabokov earned money by teaching boxing and tennis and creating Russian crossword puzzles.

He worked during the day and wrote at night, sometimes in the bathroom so the light wouldn't bother his family. He wrote many novels and short stories in Russian.

In 1939, the tall, athletic scholar was invited to Stanford to lecture on Slavic languages. He stayed in the U.S. for 20 years, teaching at Wellesley and Cornell, and pursuing an avid interest in butterflies. He became a research fellow at Harvard's Museum of Comparative Zoology and discovered several species and subspecies of butterflies.

He and his wife, Vera, spent summers driving around the U.S., staying in motels, and looking for butterflies. The motels, the American landscape and butterflies all figure prominently in various works.

Nabokov's first novel in English was, The Real Life of Sebastian Knight. His most successful books in the U.S. were, Lolita, and Ada (1969), a family chronicle about a childhood romance between two close relations, which becomes a lifelong obsession between the characters.

Nabokov and his wife returned to Europe in 1959. He died in Switzerland in 1977.

Thanks History.com

Roman Polanski is 89 years old today

Roman Polanski is 89 years old today.

A French-Polish film director, producer, writer and actor, Polanski has made films in Poland, Britain, France and the United States and is considered one of the few truly international filmmakers.

Polanski's films have inspired diverse directors, including the Coen brothers, Atom Egoyan, Darren Aronofsky, Park Chan-wook, Abel Ferrara and Wes Craven.

Born in Paris to Polish parents, Polanski moved with his family back to Poland in 1937, shortly before the outbreak of World War II. He survived the Holocaust and was educated in Poland and became a director of both art house and commercial films.

His first feature-length film, Knife in the Water (1962), made in Poland, was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film but was beaten by Federico Fellini's 8½. He has since received five more Oscar nominations, along with two Baftas, four Césars, a Golden Globe Award and the Palme d'Or of the Cannes Film Festival in France.

In the United Kingdom he directed three films, beginning with Repulsion (1965). In 1968, he moved to the United States, and cemented his status by directing the Oscar-winning horror film, Rosemary's Baby (1968).

In 1969, Polanski's pregnant wife, Sharon Tate, was murdered by members of the Manson Family while staying at Polanski's Benedict Canyon home above Los Angeles. Following Tate's death, Polanski returned to Europe and spent much of his time in Paris and Gstaad, but did not direct another film until Macbeth (1971) in England.

The following year he went to Italy to make What? (1973) and subsequently spent the next five years living near Rome. However, he traveled to Hollywood to direct Chinatown in 1974.

The film was nominated for eleven Academy Awards, and was a critical and box-office success. Polanski's next film, The Tenant (1976), was shot in France, and completed the "Apartment Trilogy,” following Repulsion and Rosemary's Baby.

In 1977, after a photo shoot in Los Angeles, Polanski was arrested for the statutory rape of a 13-year-old girl and pleaded guilty to the charge of unlawful sex with a minor. To avoid sentencing, Polanski fled to his home in London, eventually settling in France.

In September, 2009, he was arrested by Swiss police at the request of U.S. authorities, which also asked for his extradition. The Swiss rejected that request, and instead released him from custody, declaring him a "free man."

During an interview for a later film documentary, he offered his apology to the woman, and in a separate interview with Swiss TV he said that he regretted that episode.

Polanski continued to make films such as The Pianist (2002), a World War II true story drama about a Jewish-Polish musician. The film won three Academy Awards including Best Director, along with numerous international awards. He also directed other films, including Oliver Twist (2005), a story which parallels his own life as a "young boy attempting to triumph over adversity.

He made The Ghost Writer (2010), a thriller focusing on a ghostwriter working with a former British Prime Minister, and Carnage (2011), a comedy-drama starring Jodie Foster and Kate Winslet.

Polanski's French-language adaptation of the award-winning play Venus in Fur, stars his wife Emmanuelle Seigner and Mathieu Amalric. The film premiered in competition at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival.

Polanski's Based on a True Story, an adaptation of the French novel by bestselling author Delphine de Vignan, stars Eva Green and Emmanuelle Seigner and follows a writer (Seigner) struggling to complete a new novel, while followed by an obsessed fan (Green). It premiered in 2017.

Polanski is currently preparing to direct D, a film about the notorious Dreyfus affair in the 19th century, in which one of the few Jewish members of the French Army's general staff was wrongly convicted of passing military secrets to the German Empire and sent to Devil's Island, only to be acquitted 12 years later. The film is written by Robert Harris, who is working with Polanski for the third time.

Robert Redford is 86 years old today

Robert Redford is 86 years old today.

An actor, film director, producer, businessman, environmentalist, philanthropist, and founder of the Sundance Film Festival, Redford has received two Oscars: one in 1981 for directing Ordinary People and one for Lifetime Achievement in 2002. In 2010, he was awarded French Knighthood in the Legion d'Honneur.

At the height of his fame in the 1970s and 1980s, he was often described as one of the world's most attractive men and remains one of the most popular movie stars. Redford's career — like that of almost all major stars who emerged in the 1950s — began in New York, where an actor could find work both in television and on stage.

Starting in 1959, he appeared as a guest star on numerous programs, including The Untouchables, Whispering Smith, Perry Mason, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Route 66, Dr. Kildare, Playhouse 90, Tate and The Twilight Zone. He earned an Emmy nomination as Best Supporting Actor for his performance in The Voice of Charlie Pont (ABC, 1962).

One of his last television appearances was on October 7, 1963, on Breaking Point, an ABC medical drama about psychiatry.

Redford's Broadway debut was in a small role in Tall Story (1959), followed by parts in The Highest Tree (1959) and Sunday in New York (1961). His biggest Broadway success was as the stuffy newlywed husband of Elizabeth Ashley in Neil Simon's Barefoot in the Park (1963).

While still largely an unknown, Redford made his screen debut in War Hunt (1962), co-starring with John Saxon in a film set during the last days of the Korean War. This film also marked the debuts of director Sydney Pollack, with whom Redford would later collaborate, and actor Tom Skerritt.

After his Broadway success, he was cast in larger feature roles in movies. He was cast alongside screen legend Alec Guinness in the war comedy, Situation Hopeless ... But Not Serious, in which he played a soldier who has to spend years of his life hiding behind enemy lines.

In Inside Daisy Clover (1965), which won him a Golden Globe for best new star, he played a bisexual movie star who marries starlet Natalie Wood, and rejoined her along with Charles Bronson for Pollack's This Property Is Condemned (1966) — again as her lover, though this time in a film which achieved even greater success.

The same year saw his first teaming with Jane Fonda, in Arthur Penn's The Chase. This film marked the only time Redford would star with Marlon Brando.

Fonda and Redford were paired again in the popular big screen version of Barefoot in the Park (1967) and were again co-stars much later in Pollack's The Electric Horseman (1979).

After this initial success, Redford became concerned about his blond male stereotype image and turned down roles in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and The Graduate. Redford found the property he was looking for in George Roy Hill's Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), scripted by William Goldman, in which he was paired for the first time with Paul Newman.

The film was a huge success and made him a major bankable star, cementing his screen image as an intelligent, reliable and sometimes sardonic good guy.

His overall career flourished with the critical and box office hit Jeremiah Johnson (1972); the political satire, The Candidate (1972); the hugely popular period drama The Way We Were (1973); and the biggest hit of his career; the blockbuster crime caper, The Sting (1973), which became one of the top 20 highest grossing movies of all time when adjusted for inflation. It was also nominated for an Oscar.

Between 1974 and 1976, exhibitors voted Redford Hollywood's top box-office name. His hits included The Great Gatsby (1974), The Great Waldo Pepper (1975), and Three Days of the Condor (1975). The popular and acclaimed All the President's Men (1976), directed by Alan J. Pakula and scripted once again by Goldman, was a landmark film for Redford.

Not only was he the executive producer and co-star, but the film's serious subject matter — the Watergate scandal — and its attempt to create a realistic portrayal of journalism also reflected the actor's offscreen concerns for political causes.

He also starred in a segment of the war film, A Bridge Too Far (1977), the prison drama, Brubaker (1980), playing a prison warden attempting to reform the system, and the fantasy baseball drama, The Natural (1984).

Redford continued his involvement in mainstream Hollywood movies, though with a newfound focus on directing. The first film he directed, Ordinary People, which followed the disintegration of an upper class American family after the death of a son, was one of the most critically and publicly acclaimed films of the decade, winning a number of Oscars, including the Academy Award for best director for Redford himself.

His follow-up directorial project, The Milagro Beanfield War (1987), failed to generate the same level of attention.

Sydney Pollack's Out of Africa (1985), with Redford in the male lead role opposite Meryl Streep, became an enormous critical and box office success and won seven Oscars including Best Picture, proving to be Redford's biggest success of the decade and Redford and Pollack's most successful of their six movies together.

Redford continued as a major star throughout the 1990s and 2000s. With the financial proceeds of his acting success, starting with his salaries from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and Downhill Racer, Redford bought an entire ski area on the east side of Mount Timpanogos northeast of Provo, Utah, called "Timp Haven,” which was renamed "Sundance.”

He founded the Sundance Film Festival, Sundance Institute, Sundance Cinemas, Sundance Catalog and the Sundance Channel, all in and around Park City, Utah, 30 miles north of the Sundance ski area.

The Sundance Film Festival caters to independent filmmakers in the United States and has received recognition from the industry as a place to open films.

Maxine Brown, soul and R&B singer, is 83 years old today

Maxine Brown, soul and R&B singer, is 83 years old today.

Born in Kingstree, South Carolina, Brown began performing professionally in the 1960s. She began singing as a child, performing with two New York-based gospel groups called, the Angelairs, and, the Royaltones, when she was a teenager.

In 1960, she signed with the small Nomar record label, who released the smooth soul ballad "All in My Mind," which was written by Brown. The single became a hit, climbing to #2 on the U.S. R&B charts, and it was quickly followed by "Funny,” which peaked at #3.

Brown was poised to become a star and she moved to the bigger ABC-Paramount label in 1962, but left after an unsuccessful year and recording several non-chart singles for the label. She then signed in 1963 with the New York-based uptown soul label, Wand Records, a Scepter Records subsidiary.

Brown recorded a string of sizable hits for Wand over the next three years. Among these were the Carole King/Gerry Goffin songs "Oh No Not My Baby," which reached #24 on the pop charts in 1964 and "It's Gonna Be Alright," which peaked at #26 the following year.

She also recorded duets with label-mate, Chuck Jackson, including a reworked version of an Alvin Robinson hit, "Something You Got," which climbed to #10 on the R&B chart. However, the company turned its focus to other bigger-selling acts, especially Dionne Warwick.

All backing vocals for Maxine's records were performed by Cissy Houston and the Sweet Inspirations, the same group that backed Elvis Presley, plus emerging writer-producers, Nick Ashford and Valerie Simpson.

Hoping to increase the line of hits for Brown and her singing partner, Chuck Jackson, Ashford and Simpson took their song catalog to Scepter Records looking for a deal. When they were turned down, the couple approached Berry Gordy at Motown Records, who immediately hired them.

Songs that were penned for Brown and Chuck became blockbuster hits for Ray Charles, such as "Let's Go Get Stoned" (co-written by Jo Armstead), as well as Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell's "Ain't No Mountain High Enough."

In 1969, Brown left Wand for Commonwealth United, where she recorded two singles, the first "We'll Cry Together" reached #10 in the Billboard R&B chart and also made the lower reaches of the Hot 100.

Brown is acknowledged as one of the finer R&B vocalists of her time, able to handle soul, jazz, and pop with equal aplomb.

Here, Brown performs “On No Not My Baby”

On this day in 1969 — 53 years ago — the Woodstock Music Festival drew to a close after three days of peace, love and rock 'n' roll in upstate New York

Bobbi Kelly and Nick Ercoline greet the dawn on August, 17, 1969 at Woodstock

Photo by Burk Uzzle

On this day in 1969 — 53 years ago — the Woodstock Music Festival drew to a close after three days of peace, love and rock 'n' roll in upstate New York.

Conceived as "Three Days of Peace and Music," Woodstock was a product of a partnership between John Roberts, Joel Rosenman, Artie Kornfield and Michael Lang.

Their idea was to make enough money from the event to build a recording studio in Woodstock, New York.

When they couldn't find an appropriate venue in the town itself, the promoters decided to hold the festival on a 600-acre dairy farm in Bethel, New York — some 50 miles from Woodstock — owned by Max Yasgur.

By the time the weekend of the festival arrived, the group had sold a total of 186,000 tickets and expected no more than 200,000 people to show up. By Friday night, however, thousands of eager early arrivals were pushing against the entrance gates.

Fearing they could not control the crowds, the promoters made the decision to open the concert to everyone, free of charge. Close to half a million people attended Woodstock — jamming the roads around Bethel with eight miles of traffic.

Soaked by rain and wallowing in the muddy mess of Yasgur's fields, young fans euphorically took in the performances of acts like Janis Joplin, Arlo Guthrie, Joe Cocker, Joan Baez, Creedence Clearwater Revival, The Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Sly and the Family Stone and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young.

The Who performed in the early morning hours of August 17, with Roger Daltrey belting out "See Me, Feel Me," from the now-classic album, Tommy, just as the sun began to rise.

The most memorable moment of the concert for many fans was the closing performance by Jimi Hendrix, who gave a rambling, rocking solo guitar performance of "The Star Spangled Banner."

With not enough bathroom facilities and first-aid tents to accommodate such a huge crowd, many described the atmosphere at the festival as chaotic. There were surprisingly few episodes of violence, though one teenager was accidentally run over and killed by a tractor and another died from a drug overdose.

A number of musicians performed songs expressing their opposition to the Vietnam War, a sentiment that was enthusiastically shared by the vast majority of the audience.

Later, the term "Woodstock Nation" would be used as a general term to describe the youth counterculture of the 1960s.

Here, Jimi Hendrix closes Woodstock, 1969, with his version of the “Star Spangled Banner”

Janis Joplin performs "Ball & Chain" at Woodstock, 1969

Davy Crockett, 19th century folk hero, frontiersman, soldier and politician, was born 236 years ago today

Fess Parker as the television version of Davy Crockett

Davy Crockett, 19th century folk hero, frontiersman, soldier and politician, was born 236 years ago today.

Crockett is commonly referred to as the "King of the Wild Frontier.” He grew up in East Tennessee, where he gained a reputation for hunting and storytelling. After being made a colonel in the militia of Lawrence County, Tennessee, he was elected to the Tennessee state legislature in 1821.

In 1825, Crockett was elected to the U.S. Congress, where he vehemently opposed many of the policies of President Andrew Jackson, most notably the Indian Removal Act. Crockett's opposition to Jackson's policies led to his defeat in the 1831 elections.

He won again in 1833, then narrowly lost in 1835, prompting his angry departure to Texas (then the Mexican state of Tejas) shortly thereafter. In early 1836, Crockett took part in the Texas Revolution and was killed at the Battle of the Alamo in March.

Crockett became famous in his own lifetime for larger-than-life exploits popularized by stage plays and almanacs. After his death, he continued to be credited with acts of mythical proportion.

These led in the 20th century to television and movie portrayals, and he became one of the best-known American folk heroes. Walt Disney reprised the legend in his 1950s TV, which also introduced his legendary coonskin cap. The show starred Fess Parker as Crockett.

"The Ballad of Davy Crockett" from the Disney TV show had four different versions of the song hit the Billboard Best Sellers pop chart in 1955. The versions by Bill Hayes, Fess Parker and Tennessee Ernie Ford charted in the Top 10 simultaneously, with Hayes' version hitting #1.

Crockett died fighting at the Alamo on the morning of March 6, 1836 at the age of 49.

Ed Sanders — poet, singer, social activist, environmentalist, author, publisher and longtime member of the band, The Fugs — is 83 years old today

Ed Sanders — poet, singer, social activist, environmentalist, author, publisher and longtime member of the band, The Fugs — is 83 years old today.

Born in Kansas City, Sanders dropped out of the University of Missouri in 1958 and hitchhiked to New York City's Greenwich Village to attend New York University. He graduated in 1964 with a degree in Greek.

Sanders wrote his first notable poem, "Poem from Jail," on toilet paper in his cell after being jailed for protesting the launch of nuclear submarines armed with nuclear missiles in 1961.

In 1962, he founded the avant-garde journal, Fuck You/A Magazine of the Arts.

Sanders opened the Peace Eye Bookstore at 383 East Tenth Street in what was then the Lower East Side. The store became a gathering place for bohemians, writers and radicals. On January 1, 1966, police raided Peace Eye Bookstore and charged Sanders with obscenity, charges he fended off with the aid of the ACLU.

Notoriety generated by the case led to his appearance on the February 17, 1967 cover of Life Magazine, which proclaimed him "a leader of New York's Other Culture.”

In late 1964, Sanders founded The Fugs with Tuli Kupferberg. The band broke up in 1969 and reformed in 1984. On October 21, 1967, Sanders helped The Fugs and the San Francisco Diggers in an attempt to "exorcise" the Pentagon.

In 1968, he signed the "Writers and Editors War Tax Protest" pledge, vowing to refuse tax payments in protest against the Vietnam War.

In 1971, Sanders wrote The Family, a profile of the events leading up to the Tate-LaBianca murders. He attended the Manson group's murder trial, and spent time at their residence at the Spahn Movie Ranch. There have been two updated editions of The Family, the most recent in 2002.

The Process Church of the Final Judgement sued Sanders's U.S. publisher for defamation over a chapter linking them with Manson's activities. The case was settled by the publisher, who removed the disputed chapter from future editions.

The Process Church then sued Sanders's British publisher, but lost the suit and were forced to pay the defendant's legal fees. Sanders is the founder of the Investigative Poetry movement.

His 1976 manifesto, Investigative Poetry, published by Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s City Lights Books, had an impact on investigative writing and poetry during the ensuing decades. In the 1990s, Sanders began utilizing the principles of Investigative Poetry to create a series of book-length poems on literary figures and American History.

Among these works are Chekhov, 1968: A History in Verse and The Poetry and Life of Allen Ginsberg. In 1998, Sanders began work on a nine-volume America, A History in Verse. The first five volumes, tracing the history of the 20th Century, were published in a CD format with over 2,000 pages in length.

Sanders received a Guggenheim Fellowship in poetry in 1983, and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in poetry in 1987. His, Thirsting for Peace in a Raging Century, Selected Poems 1961–1985, won an American Book Award in 1988.

In 1997, he received a Writers Community residency sponsored by the YMCA National Writer's Voice through the Lila Wallace Readers Digest Fund. The same year he was also awarded a grant from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists Award. In 2000 and 2003, he was Writer-in-Residence at the New York State Writers Institute in Albany, New York.

Sanders lives in Woodstock, New York, with his wife of over 50 years, Miriam R. Sanders, the writer and painter. He publishes the online Woodstock Journal.

He also invents musical instruments, including the Talking Tie, the microtonal Microlyre and the Lisa Lyre, a musical contraption involving light-activated switches and a reproduction of Da Vinci's Mona Lisa.

Here is Sanders in a reading for his book, “Fug You”

Miles Davis’s masterpiece — Kind of Blue — was released 63 years ago today

Miles Davis’s masterpiece — Kind of Blue — was released 63 years ago today.

Recording sessions for the album took place at Columbia’s 30th Street Studio in New York City. Production was handled by Teo Macero, who had produced Davis's previous two LPs, and Irving Townsend.

The sessions featured Davis’s ensemble sextet, which consisted of pianist Bill Evans (Wynton Kelly on one track), drummer Jimmy Cobb, bassist Paul Chambers and saxophonists John Coltrane and Julian “Cannonball” Adderley.

Kind of Blue was one of fifty recordings chosen in 2002 by the Library of Congress to be added to the National Recording Registry.

Robert De Niro is 79 years old today

Robert De Niro is 79 years old today.

An actor, director and producer, De Niro’s first major film roles were in Bang the Drum Slowly and Mean Streets, both in 1973. In 1974, he played the young Vito Corleone in The Godfather Part II, a role that won him the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.

His critically acclaimed, longtime collaborations with Martin Scorsese began with 1973's Mean Streets, and earned De Niro an Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of Jake LaMotta in the 1980 film, Raging Bull. He was also nominated for an Academy Award for his roles in Scorsese's Taxi Driver (1976) and Cape Fear (1991).

In addition, he received nominations for his acting in Michael Cimino's The Deer Hunter (1978) and Penny Marshall's Awakenings (1990). Also in 1990, his portrayal as Jimmy Conway in Martin Scorsese's Goodfellas earned him a BAFTA nomination. His other films include New York, New York (1977), Midnight Run (1988), Analyze This (1999) and Meet the Parents (2000).

De Niro directed A Bronx Tale (1993) and The Good Shepherd (2006).

De Niro received an Italian passport in 2006. His Italian citizenship was granted by the Prime Minister despite strong opposition by the Sons of Italy, who believed that De Niro damaged the public image of Italians by portraying criminals.

De Niro, who has long resided in New York City, has been investing in Manhattan's Tribeca neighborhood since 1989. He has residences on the east and west sides of Manhattan. He also has a 78-acre estate in Gardiner, New York, which serves as his primary residence.

During the 2016 presidential campaign, De Niro was an outspoken critic of candidate Donald Trump, calling him "so blatantly stupid" and stating "I'd like to punch him in the face" in reference to the similar desire Trump expressed towards the DNC speakers at one of his rallies.

On June 10, 2018, while introducing a performance by Bruce Springsteen of his song "My Hometown" at the 72nd Tony Awards, De Niro brought the audience to a standing ovation with this denunciation of President Trump:

I'm gonna say one thing. Fuck Trump. It's no longer "down with Trump." It's "fuck Trump."

Above, De Niro, 2010

Photo by Hedi Slimane

Mae West was born 129 years ago today

Mae West was born 129 years ago today.

West was an actress, singer, playwright, screenwriter and sex symbol whose entertainment career spanned seven decades. Known for her bawdy double entendres, West made a name for herself in vaudeville and on the stage in New York before moving to Hollywood to become a comedienne, actress and writer in the motion picture industry.

In consideration of her contributions to American cinema, the American Film Institute named West 15th among the greatest female stars of all time. One of the more controversial movie stars of her day, West encountered many problems, including censorship.

When her cinematic career ended, she continued to perform on stage in Las Vegas and in the United Kingdom, on radio and television and she recorded rock and roll albums. Asked about the various efforts to impede her career, West said, "I believe in censorship. I made a fortune out of it."

During World War II, allied aircrew called their yellow inflatable, vest-like life preserver jackets "Mae Wests" partly from rhyming slang for "breasts"and "life vest" and partly because of the resemblance to her torso.

A "Mae West" is also a type of round parachute malfunction (partial inversion) which contorts the shape of the canopy into the appearance of an extraordinarily large brassiere.

West has been the subject of songs, such as in the title song of Cole Porter's Broadway musical, Anything Goes, and in "You're the Top," from the same show.

One of the most popular objects of the surrealist movement was the Mae West Lips Sofa, which was completed by artist Salvador Dalí in 1938 for Edward James.

The graph depicting the probability of uranium or other fissionable materials producing specific fission products has two peaks with a "valley" in the middle, and is known as the Mae West curve.

When approached for permission to allow her likeness on the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album cover, West initially refused stating that she would never be in a "Lonely Heart's Club."

The Beatles wrote her a personal letter declaring themselves great admirers of the star and persuaded her to change her mind.

Rod MacDonald is 74 years old today

Rod MacDonald, the Gaslight, New York City, 2012

Photo by Frank Beacham

Rod MacDonald is 74 years old today.

A singer-songwriter, MacDonald was a major part of the 1980s folk revival in Greenwich Village clubs, performing at Gerde’s Folk City, the Speakeasy, The Bottom Line and the Songwriter's Exchange at the Cornelia Street Cafe for many years.

Co-founder of the Greenwich Village Folk Festival, MacDonald is best known for his songs "American Jerusalem," about the "contrast between the rich and the poor in Manhattan" (Sing Out!), "A Sailor's Prayer," "Coming of the Snow," "Every Living Thing" and "My Neighbors In Delray," a description of the 9/11 hijackers' last days in Delray Beach, Florida, where MacDonald has lived since 1995.

His songs have been covered by Dave Van Ronk, Shawn Colvin, Four Bitchin' Babes, Jonathan Edwards and Garnet Rogers.

A self-proclaimed non-commercial artist, MacDonald has released ten solo recordings on several record labels in the U.S., eight in Europe on the Swiss label Brambus and 21 songs with Smithsonian Folkways (through the Fast Folk Musical Magazine). As with many independent artists, his recordings are often sold directly at concerts, with no definitive sales figures.

He has appeared on stage with fellow artists, including Pete Seeger, Peter Yarrow, Odetta, Tom Paxton, the Violent Femmes, Suzanne Vega, Shawn Colvin, Dave Van Ronk, Emmylou Harris, Richie Havens, Ani DiFranco, Tom Chapin, Jack Hardy and David Massengill.

He has performed at the Philadelphia, Winnipeg, Florida, Riverhawk, Boston, Kerrville, Greenwich Village, Falcon Ridge, New Bedford Summerfest, Port Fairy (Australia) and Trowbridge (UK) festivals, and on the radio program, Mountain Stage.

MacDonald was the first American singer to tour the newly-liberated Czech Republic in 1991, and has made 35 tours in Europe since 1985, nearly all of them with Mark Dan, a bassist from New York City.

Here, MacDonald performs Dylan’s “Masters of War” at WLRN Radio, 2011

Couple on Ku’damm in Berlin, November, 2010

Photo by Knut Skjærven

Photographer’s Notes:

Late at night. I was hungry and on my way to Zoologischer Garden Station to have something to eat. I was staying at Motel One in Kantstrasse. Done that a couple of times.

Turning the corner towards the station and in front of the soft sex shop they were. Relaxing and in a good mood. Beers on the table. I passed them but had to turn back. They were posing like this. As if waiting for a photographer to drop by.

Clothes were expensive. I could see that at once. I needed to ask them for permission to take a few pictures. I was that close. No problem, they said. I stayed for a minute. We had a brief chat. I showed them the pictures and got their addresses. I sent the photographs.

I don’t know why but I had the feeling they were Swedish. Models perhaps. The young lady looked straight into the camera. As if she new the routine well.

Charles Bukowski, poet, was born 102 years ago today

Charles Bukowski was born 102 years ago today.

A German-born American poet, novelist and short story writer, Bukowski’s writing was influenced by the social, cultural and economic ambience of his home city of Los Angeles.

It is marked by an emphasis on the ordinary lives of poor Americans, the act of writing, alcohol, relationships with women and the drudgery of work. Bukowski wrote thousands of poems, hundreds of short stories and six novels, eventually publishing over sixty books. In 1986, Time Magazine called Bukowski a "laureate of American lowlife.”

Regarding Bukowski's enduring popular appeal, Adam Kirsch of The New Yorker wrote, "the secret of Bukowski’s appeal. . . [is that] he combines the confessional poet’s promise of intimacy with the larger-than-life aplomb of a pulp-fiction hero."

Bukowski’s family settled in South Central Los Angeles in 1930, the city where Charles Bukowski's father and grandfather had previously worked and lived. In the '30s, the poet's father was often unemployed. In his early teens, young Charles had an epiphany when he was introduced to alcohol by a friend.

"This [alcohol] is going to help me for a very long time," he later wrote, describing the genesis of his chronic alcoholism. As he saw it, alcohol was a method he could utilize to come to more amicable terms with his own life.

Bukowski died of leukemia on March 9, 1994, in San Pedro, California at age 73, shortly after completing his last novel, Pulp. His gravestone reads: "Don't Try,” a phrase which Bukowski uses in one of his poems, advising aspiring writers and poets about inspiration and creativity.

Bukowski explained the phrase in a 1963 letter to John William Corrington:

"Somebody at one of these places [...] asked me: 'What do you do? How do you write, create?' You don't, I told them. You don't try. That's very important: 'not' to try, either for Cadillacs, creation or immortality. You wait, and if nothing happens, you wait some more. It's like a bug high on the wall. You wait for it to come to you. When it gets close enough you reach out, slap out and kill it. Or if you like its looks you make a pet out of it."

Here is “Charles Bukowski: The Wicked Life of America's Most Infamous Poet”

Billy Joe Shaver was born 83 years ago today

Billy Jo Shaver with Willie Nelson

Billy Joe Shaver was born 83 years ago today.

A Texas country music singer and songwriter, Shaver's 1973 album, Old Five and Dimers Like Me, is a classic in the outlaw country genre.

Shaver was raised by his mother, Victory Watson Shaver, after his father Virgil left the family before he was born. Until he was 12, he spent a great deal of time with his grandmother in Corsicana, Texas so that his mother could work in Waco. He sometimes accompanied his mother to her job at a local nightclub, where he began to be exposed to country music.

Shaver joined the U.S. Navy on his 17th birthday. Upon his discharge, he worked a series of dead-end jobs, including trying to be a rodeo cowboy. About this time, Shaver met and married, Brenda Joyce Tindell. They had one son, John Edwin, known as Eddy, who was born in 1962. The two divorced.

Shaver took a job at a lumber mill to make ends meet. One day his right hand (his dominant hand) became caught in the machinery, and he lost the better part of two fingers and contracted a serious infection. He eventually recovered, and taught himself to play the guitar without those missing fingers.

Shaver decided that life was too short to do something he didn't enjoy, so he set out one day to hitchhike to L.A. He couldn't get a ride west, and ended up accompanying a man who dropped him off just outside of Memphis.

The next ride brought him to Nashville, where he found a job as a songwriter for $50/week. His work came to the attention of Waylon Jennings, who filled most of his album, Honky Tonk Heroes, with Shaver's songs.

Other artists, including Elvis Presley and Kris Kristofferson, began to record Shaver's music. This led to his own record deal.

Unfortunately for Shaver, the first few recording companies he signed with soon folded. He was never able to gain widespread recognition as a singer, although he didn’t stop recording his own music.

On his records, he has been accompanied by other major rock and country music musicians like Willie Nelson, Nanci Griffith, Chuck Leavell and Dickey Betts (of the Allman Brothers), Charlie Daniels, Flaco Jiménez and Al Kooper.

After losing his wife, Brenda, and his mother to cancer in 1999, Shaver lost his son and longtime guitarist, Eddy, who died at age 38 of a heroin overdose on December 31, 2000. Shaver nearly died himself the following year when he had a heart attack on stage during an Independence Day show at Gruene Hall in New Braunfels, Texas.

After successful heart surgery, Billy Joe came back to release a new album entitled Freedom's Child in 2002. In 1999, Shaver was invited to perform at the Grand Ole Opry. In November 2005, he performed on the CMT Outlaws 2005.

In 2006, Shaver was inducted in the Texas Country Music Hall of Fame. The Americana Music Convention awarded him their Lifetime Achievement Award in Songwriting.

Shaver died on October 28, 2020 from a massive stroke at the age of 81.

Here, Shaver performs “Georgia on a Fast Train” at the Farm Aid concert in Indianapolis, 1990

On this night in 1968 — 54 years ago — the Beatles recorded 14 takes of the new George Harrison song, “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” at Abbey Road studios

On this night in 1968 — 54 years ago — the Beatles recorded 14 takes of the new George Harrison song, “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” at Abbey Road studios.

They ended up using the song from its early acoustic version, recorded on Harrison’s Gibson J-200 guitar.

On September 6, during a ride from Surrey into London, Harrison asked friend, Eric Clapton, to contribute lead guitar to the song. Clapton was reluctant, saying later, "Nobody ever plays on the Beatles' records."

But Harrison convinced him, and Clapton's guitar parts, using Harrison's Gibson Les Paul electric guitar "Lucy" (a recent gift from Clapton), were recorded that evening. Harrison later said that in addition to his contribution, Clapton's presence had another effect on the band: "It made them all try a bit harder; they were all on their best behavior."

Clapton wanted a more "Beatley" sound, so the sound was run through an ADT circuit with "varispeed," with engineer Chris Thomas manually “waggling” the oscillator.

Apparently, Clapton didn't want it to sound like him. “So I was just sitting there wobbling the thing, they wanted it really extreme, so that's what I did," Thomas recalled.

Eddie Kirkland, electric blues guitarist, was born 99 years ago today

Eddie Kirkland, electric blues guitarist, was born 99 years ago today.

Kirkland was also a singer, songwriter and harmonica player. He was known as the "Gypsy of the Blues" for his rigorous touring schedules. He played and toured with John Lee Hooker from 1949 to 1962.

After his period of working in tandem with Hooker, he pursued a successful solo career, recording for RPM Records, Fortune Records, Volt Records and King Records, sometimes under the stage name, Eddie Kirk. Kirkland continued to tour, write and record albums until his death in February, 2011.

Born in Jamaica to a mother, age 11, Kirkland first heard the blues from "field hollers.” He was raised in Dothan, Alabama. In 1935, he stowed away in the Sugar Girls Medicine Show tent truck and left town. Blind Blake was the one who influenced him the most in those early days.

He was placed on the chorus line with "Diamond Tooth Mary" McLean. When the show closed a year later, he was in Dunkirk, Indiana where he briefly returned to school. Kirkland joined the Army during World War II. Racism in the military, he said, led him to seek out the devil.

After his discharge, Kirkland traveled to Detroit where his mother had relocated. After a days work at the Ford Rouge Plant, Kirkland played his guitar at house parties. It was there he met John Lee Hooker.

Kirkland fashioned his own style of playing open chords, and transformed the rough, porch-style delta blues into the electric age by using his thumb, rather than a guitar pick. He secured his own series of recordings with Sid Nathan of King Records in 1953, at Fortune Records in 1958 and, by 1961, on his own album, It's the Blues Man, with the King Curtis Band.

Kirkland became Hooker's road manager and the two traveled from Detroit to the Deep South on many tours, the last being in 1962 when Hooker abandoned Kirkland to go overseas. Kirkland then found his way to Macon, Georgia and began performing with Otis Redding as his guitarist and band leader.

As Eddie Kirk, he released "The Hawg" as a single on Volt Records in 1963. The record was overshadowed by Rufus Thomas's recordings.

Kirkland, discouraged by the music industry and his own lack of education to change the situation, turned to his other skill and sought work as an auto mechanic to earn a living for his growing family.

In 1970, one of the revivals of the blues was taking place. Peter B. Lowry found Kirkland in Macon and convinced him to record again. His first sessions were done in a motel room, resulting in the acoustic, solo LP Front and Center. His second was a studio-recorded band album, the funky The Devil... and other blues demons. Both were released on Lowry's Trix Records label.

It was during the mid 1970s that Kirkland befriended the British blues-rock band, Foghat. Kirkland remained with Trix and was based in the Hudson Valley for twelve years. It was during this period that Kirkland appeared on Don Kirshner's Rock Concert with Muddy Waters, Honeyboy Edwards and Foghat.

By 2000, Kirkland was on his own again, always doing his own driving to concerts in his Ford County Squires, crossing the country several times a year. Well into his eighties, Kirkland continued to drive himself to gigs along the coast and in Europe.

Kirkland died in an automobile accident on the morning of February 27, 2011 in Crystal River, Florida.

Here, Kirkland, age 85, performs with the Wentus Bluesband

Bill Evans, jazz pianist and composer, was born 93 years ago today

Bill Evans, jazz pianist and composer, was born 93 years ago today.

Evans's use of impressionist harmony, inventive interpretation of traditional jazz repertoire, block chords and trademark rhythmically independent, "singing" melodic lines influenced a generation of pianists.

He was considered by some to be the most influential post-World War II jazz pianist. Unlike many other jazz musicians of his time, Evans never embraced new movements like jazz fusion or free jazz.

Born in Plainfield, New Jersey, Evans received a classical education and studied Southeastern Louisiana University. In 1955, he moved to New York and soon began work with bandleader and theorist, George Russell.

In 1958, Evans joined Miles Davis's sextet, where he had a profound influence. In 1959, the band, then immersed in modal jazz, recorded Kind of Blue, the best-selling jazz album of all time.

In late 1959, Evans left Davis and soon began his career as a trio leader with Scott LaFaro and Paul Motian, now regarded as one of the best jazz bands.

In 1961, ten days after recording the highly acclaimed Sunday at the Village Vanguard, and Waltz for Debby, LaFaro died in a car accident. After months of seclusion, Evans reprised his work, now with bassist Chuck Israels.

In 1963, Evans recorded Conversations with Myself, an innovative solo album featuring overdubbing. In 1966, he met bassist Eddie Gomez, with whom he would work for eleven years. Several successful albums followed, like Bill Evans at the Montreux Jazz Festival, Alone and The Bill Evans Album.

Some of his compositions, specially "Waltz for Debby," have been recorded by many artists. During the late 1970s, Evans became addicted to cocaine. At first, it was only one gram per weekend, but later increased dramatically. His health declined.

On September 15, 1980, Evans, who had been several days in bed with stomach pains at his home in Fort Lee, was accompanied by Joe LaBarbera and Laurie Verchomin to the Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, where he died that afternoon. He was 51.

The cause of death was a combination of peptic ulcer, cirrhosis, bronchial pneumonia and untreated hepatitis. Evans's friend, Gene Lees, described Evans's struggle with drugs as "the longest suicide in history."

Here, the Bill Evans Trio performs “Waltz for Debby”

On this day in 1930 — 92 years ago — a dancing frog set a new standard in animation

On this day in 1930 — 92 years ago — a dancing frog set a new standard in animation.

“Fiddlesticks,” featuring Flip the Frog, was the first stand-alone cartoon with synchronized sound.

Music was already widely used to accompany animations; some of the more laborious animations were even in color. And there had been steps toward combining the two features.

In Germany, Lotte Reiniger’s character silhouettes of the 1920s used changing background colors to create atmospheric scenes. In the U.S., “King of Jazz” in 1930 featured a short color animation with synchronized sound.

In “Fiddlesticks,” Flip the Frog tap-dances his way through a world of merry animals, but then is moved to tears as he plays the piano alongside a violin-playing rodent that resembles Mickey Mouse.

The animation was released by Ub Iwerks, who had helped produce Mickey Mouse, shortly after he left Walt Disney’s growing enterprise. The Flip franchise ended in 1933, and Iwerks returned to work at Disney.

Thanks New York Times!

Elvis Presley died at age 42 in Memphis on August 16, 1977 — 45 years ago today

Elvis Presley died at age 42 in Memphis on August 16, 1977 — 45 years ago today.

The death of the "King of Rock and Roll" brought legions of mourning fans to his mansion, Graceland. Doctors said he died of a heart attack, likely brought on by his addiction to prescription barbiturates.

Born in Tupelo, Mississippi, on January 8, 1935, Presley’s twin brother, Jesse, died during the birth. Elvis grew up dirt-poor in Tupelo and Memphis and found work as a truck driver after high school.

When he was 19, he walked into a Memphis recording studio and paid $4 to record a few songs as a present to his mother. Sam Philips, the owner of the studio, was intrigued by the rough, soulful quality of his voice and invited Presley back to practice with some local musicians.

After Philips heard Elvis sing the rhythm-and-blues song "That's All Right," which Presley imbued with an accessible country-and-western flavor, he agreed to release the rendition as a single on his Sun Records label. The recording went to the top of the local charts, and Presley's career was launched.

During the next year, Elvis attracted a growing following in the South, and in 1955 Sun Records sold his contract to a major record label, RCA, for a record $40,000. His first record for RCA was "Heartbreak Hotel," which made him a national sensation in early 1956. He followed this up with the double-sided hit record "Hound Dog"/"Don't Be Cruel."

In September, 1956, Elvis appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show, a national variety television show. Teenagers went into hysterics over his dynamic stage presence, good looks and simple but catchy songs. Many parents, however, were appalled by his sexually suggestive pelvic gyrations, and by his third appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, Elvis was filmed from only the waist up.

From 1956 through 1958, Elvis dominated the music charts and ushered in the age of rock and roll, opening doors for both white and black rock artists. During this period, he starred in four successful motion pictures, all of which featured his soundtracks: Love Me Tender (1956), Jailhouse Rock (1957), Loving You (1957) and King Creole (1958).

In 1958, Presley was drafted into the U.S. Army and served an 18-month tour of duty in West Germany as a Jeep driver. Teenage girls were overcome with grief, but Elvis' manager, Colonel Tom Parker, kept American youth satiated with stockpiled recordings that Presley made before his departure.

All five singles released during this period eventually became million-sellers. After being discharged as a sergeant in 1960, Elvis underwent a style change, eschewing edgy, rhythm-and-blues-inspired material in favor of romantic, dramatic ballads such as "Are You Lonesome Tonight?"

He retired from concerts to concentrate on his musical films, and he made 27 in the 1960s, including G.I. Blues (1960), Blue Hawaii (1961), Girls! Girls! Girls! (1962), Viva Las Vegas (1964) and Frankie and Johnny (1966).

In 1967, he married Priscilla Beaulieu, and the couple had a daughter, Lisa Marie, in 1968. By the end of the 1960s, rock and roll had undergone dramatic changes, and Elvis was no longer seen as relevant by American youth. A 1968 television special won back many of his fans, but hits were harder to come by. His final Top 10 entry, "Burning Love," was in 1972.

Still, he maintained his sizable fortune through lucrative concert and television appearances. By the mid 1970s, Elvis was in declining physical and mental health. He divorced his wife in 1973 and developed a dangerous dependence on prescription drugs.

He was also addicted to junk food and gained considerable weight. In the last two years of his life, he made erratic stage appearances and lived nearly as a recluse.

On this afternoon in 1977, he was found unconscious in his Graceland mansion and rushed to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead. He was buried on the grounds of Graceland, which continues to attract fans and has been turned into a highly successful tourist attraction.

Here, Elvis performs “Heartbreak Hotel” in 1956

Thanks History.com

The Ramones gave their debut public performance at CBGBs on this day, 48 years ago

Five years to the day after half a million rain-soaked hippies grooved and swayed to the psychedelic sounds of the Grateful Dead at Woodstock, four young men from Forest Hills, Queens, took to the stage of an East Village dive bar in jeans, motorcycle jackets and Converse high-tops to launch a two-minute sonic attack on everything those 60s icons stood for.

The date was August 16, 1974 — 48 years ago today. The bar was CBGB's and the band was the Ramones, giving their debut public performance.

The rapidly shouted words with which they opened that show and launched the punk-rock revolution were, as they would always be, "One! Two! Three! Four!"

One eyewitness to the scene was music journalist Legs McNeil, the future co-founder of Punk magazine. "They were all wearing these black leather jackets. And they counted off this song...and it was just this wall of noise," McNeil later recalled. "These guys were not hippies. This was something completely new."

Those responsible for this new sound were Douglas Colvin, John Cummings, Thomas Erdelyi and Jeffrey Hyman, better known to the world as Dee Dee, Johnny, Tommy and Joey Ramone. The Ramones' sound didn't even have an agreed-upon name until McNeil's magazine codified the term "punk rock" in 1975.

But the group's members knew right from the beginning that they were out to provide a bracing antidote to the tamed and bloated corporate rock and roll of the mid-1970s. "Eliminate the unnecessary and focus on the substance," was the way Tommy Ramone expressed the group's philosophy many years later.

Following their now-historic debut performance on this day in 1974, the Ramones quickly became a force on the burgeoning underground rock scene centered in the downtown Manhattan clubs CBGB and Max's Kansas City.

With the release of their self-titled debut album in 1976, the Ramones may have failed to score a true hit, but they managed to inspire a whole new movement across the Atlantic, as groups like the Sex Pistols and the Clash rushed to embrace their loud, fast and unstudied approach.

When they toured England in 1976, Joey Ramone would later say, "All these kids came over to us and told us how we were responsible for turning them on, to go out and form their own bands."

As the Ramone's manager at the time, Danny Fields, put it when assessing the impact of punk's founding fathers, an entire generation of future punks looked at the Ramones and said, "Look at them. They can't play. They're terrible! They don't know more than three notes....Let's start a band!'

Thanks History.com

Russ Titelman, music producer, is 78 years old today

Russ Titelman is 78 years old today.

Titelman is record producer and songwriter. He produced the Steve Winwood song, "Higher Love,” and Eric Clapton's Journeyman and Unplugged albums. He also produced the 24 Nights live album of 1990 and the all-blues album, From The Cradle, released in 1994.

Beginning his career in the 1960s, he has worked with musicians such as The Monkees, Dion Dimucci, George Harrison, Bee Gees, Little Feat, Christine McVie, Meat Loaf, Paul Simon, Brian Wilson, James Taylor, Rickie Lee Jones, Chaka Khan, Ry Cooder, Randy Newman, Gordon Lightfoot, Eric Clapton and Gerry Goffin.

After having worked for Warner Bros. Records for 25 years, Titelman has been an independent producer since 1997. Titelman started his independent music label Walking Liberty Records in New York City.

Russ Titelman with Michael Garrett, Emmylou Harris, Jared Taylor and Mary Kay Place during the recording of Blue Alleluia, released in 2005.

It was one of Titelman’s first releases from Walking Liberty Records.

Fire Island Sunset, August 13, 2017

Photo by James Gavin

Living in a Time of Extreme Hate

Living in a Time of Extreme Hate

I try to avoid the nasty politics of this era on these pages. I focus on creativity and what our species can achieve at his or her best. Yet, I grew up with hate in South Carolina, have written and reported about it, studied it and seen it wear different disguises over the years. It is often hard to ignore.

Mendacity — as Tennessee Williams so perfectly described it — constantly generates new disguises and wears many masks as those who practice it try to hide it. Mendacity is and always will be a fog of lies that allows humans to try to hide what is real in their lives and avoid facing it. The facade fractures and blows up occasionally, just as it has during the pandemic and post-Trump era.

As sad as it is, we must face the harsh fact that a large chunk of the American population is feeding this mendacity. The attack on Salman Rushdie last week was especially heinous. It seems to be getting worse and never ends.

We remain a split nation. It has been caused by several things, including misinformation via an increasingly fragmented internet and a core of despicable people, led by a disgraced former president, who feeds it. The remnants of this toxic time still hangs in the air.

Racism has always been ugly. The last few years have given many permission to take off their masks. It has happened for all to see on television. All we see is rage, insanity and violence. Trump’s defeat at the polls last year does not make it instantly go away.

Shakespeare told us about these traits many years ago. Some of us learned what he wrote. But the current lack of education and jobs, coupled with extreme poverty and ignorance, has taken a huge toll. As a country, we have to dig our way out of it or we will cease to exist as a nation. It is a major and severe challenge ahead.

I doubt it will happen in my lifetime. That’s why I find solace in the creative arts. For me, the arts are the best way to enjoy life in a time of 24/7 chaos and despair. It’s all I know to do. Each of us must deal with it in our own way. But none of us should ever accept it. That would be the greatest tragedy of all.

Frank Beacham

Above photo by Edu Bayer

The Woodstock Music and Art Fair, "An Aquarian Exposition," opened on this day in 1969 at Max Yasgur's dairy farm in upstate New York — 53 years ago

The Woodstock Music and Art Fair, "An Aquarian Exposition," opened on this day in 1969 at Max Yasgur's dairy farm in upstate New York — 53 years ago.

Promoters expected the music festival, modeled after the famous Monterey Pop Festival, to attract up to 200,000 for the weekend. Instead, nearly a half a million people converged on the concert site. The promoters soon realized that they could not control access to the site and opened it up to all comers free of charge.

Because of the unexpected size of the audience, volunteers were needed to help alleviate many of the logistics problems, while helicopters were used to fly in food, doctors and medical supplies, as well as many of the musical acts that performed during the three-day festival.

Despite rain and mud, the audience enjoyed non-stop performances by singers like Richie Havens, Janis Joplin, Arlo Guthrie, Joe Cocker and Joan Baez, as well as the bands Creedence Clearwater Revival, The Grateful Dead, The Jefferson Airplane, Sly and the Family Stone and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young.

Although different types of people attended the festival, many were members of the counterculture who rejected materialism and authority, experimented with drugs and actively protested against the Vietnam War. Much of the music had a decided anti-war flavor.

Representative of this genre was the "Fixin' to Die Rag" by Country Joe and the Fish. This song and its chorus ("And it's one, two, three, what are we fighting for... Don't ask me, I don't give a damn, next stop is Vietnam...And it's five, six, seven, open up the pearly gates... There ain't no time to wonder why... Whoopie, we're all gonna die!") became an anti-war classic.

Jimi Hendrix closed the concert with a freeform solo guitar performance of "The Star Spangled Banner." Woodstock became a symbol of the 1960s American counterculture and a milestone in the history of rock music.

Thanks History.com

Here’s Joni Mitchell’s Woodstock, 1969

On the Road to Woodstock, 1969

Photo by Baron Wolman

Oscar Peterson was born 97 years ago today

Oscar Peterson was born 97 years ago today.

A Canadian jazz pianist and composer, Peterson was called the "Maharaja of the keyboard" by Duke Ellington. He was known as "O.P." by his friends.

Peterson released over 200 recordings. He was one of the greatest jazz pianists of all time, having played thousands of live concerts to audiences worldwide in a career lasting more than 60 years.

Born to immigrants from the West Indies, Peterson’s father worked as a porter for Canadian Pacific Railway. He grew up in the neighborhood of Little Burgundy in Montreal, Quebec. It was in this predominantly black neighborhood that Peterson found himself surrounded by the jazz culture that flourished in the early 20th century.

At the age of five, Peterson began honing his skills with the trumpet and piano. However, a bout of tuberculosis when he was seven stopped him playing trumpet again, and so he directed all his attention to the piano.

His father, Daniel Peterson, an amateur trumpeter and pianist, was one of his first music teachers, and his sister, Daisy, taught Oscar classical piano. Young Oscar was persistent at practicing scales and classical etudes daily, and thanks to such arduous practice he developed his astonishing virtuosity.

As a child, Peterson also studied with Hungarian-born pianist, Paul de Marky, a student of István Thomán, who was himself a pupil of Franz Liszt. So young Peterson’s training was predominantly based on classical piano.

Meanwhile, he was captivated by traditional jazz and learned several ragtime pieces and especially the boogie-woogie. At that time, Peterson was called "the Brown Bomber of the Boogie-Woogie." At the age of nine, he played piano with control that impressed professional musicians. For many years his piano studies included four to six hours of practice daily. Only in his later years did he decrease his daily practice to just one or two hours.

In 1940, at fourteen years of age, Peterson won the national music competition organized by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. After that victory, he dropped out of school and became a professional pianist working for a weekly radio show, and playing at hotels and music halls.

Some of the artists who influenced Peterson's music during the earlier type of years were Teddy Wilson, Nat "King" Cole, James P. Johnson and Art Tatum, to whom many have tried to compare Peterson in later years.

Peterson wrote pieces for piano, trio, quartet and big band. He also wrote several songs and made recordings as a singer. Probably his best-known compositions are "Canadiana Suite" and "Hymn to Freedom," the latter composed in the 1960s and inspired by the U.S. civil rights movement.

On December 23, 2007, Peterson died of kidney failure at his home in Mississauga, Ontario.

Here, Peterson, featuring Joe Pass, performs “Cakewalk” in Tokyo, 1987

Nicolas Roeg was born 94 years ago today.

Roeg with David Bowie during the shooting of The Man Who Fell To Earth

Nicolas Roeg was born 94 years ago today.

An English film director and cinematographer, Roeg started his film career by contributing to the visual look of Lawrence of Arabia and Roger Corman's The Masque of the Red Death. He co-directed and photographed Performance in 1970.

He would later direct such landmark films as Walkabout, Don't Look Now and The Man Who Fell to Earth.

Roeg's films were known for having scenes and images from the plot presented in a disarranged fashion, out of chronological and causal order, requiring the viewer to do the work of mentally rearranging them to comprehend the storyline. His films seem to shatter reality into a thousand pieces and are unpredictable, fascinating, cryptic and liable to leave viewers wondering what just happened.

Roeg displayed a freedom from conventional film narration and his work often consists of a kaleidoscopic multiplication of images. A characteristic of Roeg's films was they are edited in disjunctive and semi-coherent ways that make full sense only in the film's final moments, when a crucial piece of information surfaces.

These techniques, and Roeg's foreboding sense of atmosphere, influenced later filmmakers such as Steven Soderbergh, Tony Scott, Ridley Scott, Christopher Nolan, François Ozon and Danny Boyle.

Roeg's influence on cinema is not limited to deconstructing narrative. The "Memo From Turner" sequence in Performance predates many techniques later used in music videos. And the "quadrant" sequence in Bad Timing, in which the thoughts of Theresa Russell and Art Garfunkel are heard before words are spoken, set to Keith Jarrett's piano music from the Köln Concert, again stretched the boundaries of what could be done with film.

Roeg died in London on Nov. 23, 2018 of natural causes at the age of 90.

Jimmy Webb is 76 years old today

Jimmy Webb is 76 years old today.

A songwriter, composer and singer, Webb wrote numerous platinum-selling classics, including "Up, Up and Away,” "By the Time I Get to Phoenix,” "Wichita Lineman,” "Galveston,” The Worst That Could Happen,” "All I Know” and "MacArthur Park.”

Born in Elk City, Oklahoma, Webb’s father, Robert Lee Webb, was a Baptist minister and former member of the United States Marine Corps who presided over rural churches in southwestern Oklahoma and West Texas.

With his mother's encouragement, Webb learned piano and organ, and by the age of 12 was playing in the choir of his father's churches, accompanied by his father on guitar and his mother on accordion. Webb grew up in a conservative religious home where his father restricted radio listening to country music and white gospel music.

During the late 1950s, Webb began applying his creativity to the music he was playing at his father's church, frequently improvising and rearranging the hymns. He began to write religious songs at this time, but his musical direction was soon influenced by the new music being played on the radio, including the music of Elvis Presley.

In 1961, at the age of 14, he bought his first record, "Turn Around, Look at Me" by Glen Campbell. Webb was drawn to the singer's distinctive voice.

In 1964, Webb and his family moved to Southern California, where he attended San Bernardino Valley College studying music. Following the death of his mother in 1965, his father made plans to return to Oklahoma.

Webb decided to stay in California to continue his music studies and to pursue a career as a songwriter in Los Angeles. Webb would later recall his father warning him about his musical aspirations, saying, "This songwriting thing is going to break your heart."

Seeing that his son was determined, however, he gave him $40, saying, "It's not much, but it's all I have."

After transcribing other people's music for a small music publisher in Hollywood, Webb was signed to a songwriting contract with Jobete Music, the publishing arm of Motown Records. The first commercial recording of a Jimmy Webb song was "My Christmas Tree" by The Supremes, which appeared on their 1965 Merry Christmas album.

Since, his songs have been performed by many popular contemporary singers, including Glen Campbell, The 5th Dimension, Thelma Houston, The Supremes, Richard Harris, Johnny Maestro, Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, Isaac Hayes, Art Garfunkel, Amy Grant, America, Linda Ronstadt, R.E.M., Michael Feinstein, Donna Summer and Carly Simon.

According to BMI, his song "By the Time I Get to Phoenix" was the third most performed song in the fifty years between 1940 to 1990.

Webb is the only artist ever to have received Grammy Awards for music, lyrics and orchestration.

Here, Webb performs “MacArthur Park”

Paul Shaffer, Jimmy Webb, Will Lee and the CBS Orchestra perform "MacArthur Park" on the David Letterman Show, 2014

Edna Ferber, novelist, short story writer and playwright, was born 137 years ago today.

Edna Ferber, novelist, short story writer and playwright, was born 137 years ago today.

Ferber’s novels were especially popular and included the Pulitzer Prize-winning So Big (1924), Show Boat (1926; made into the celebrated 1927 musical), Cimarron (1929; made into the 1931 film which won the Academy Award for Best Picture), and Giant (1952; made into the 1956 Hollywood movie).

Born in Kalamazoo, Michigan to a Hungarian-born Jewish storekeeper and his wife, Ferber graduated from high school and briefly attended Lawrence University. She took newspaper jobs at the Appleton Daily Crescent and the Milwaukee Journal before publishing her first novel.

She covered the 1920 Republican National Convention and 1920 Democratic National Convention for the United Press Association.

Ferber's novels generally featured strong female protagonists, along with a rich and diverse collection of supporting characters. She usually highlighted at least one strong secondary character who faced discrimination ethnically or for other reasons. Through this technique, Ferber demonstrated her belief that people are people and that the not-so-pretty people have the best character.

Several theatrical and film productions have been based on her works, including Show Boat, Giant, Ice Palace, Saratoga Trunk, Cimarron (which won an Oscar) and the 1960 remake. Three of these works – Show Boat, Saratoga Trunk and Giant – have been developed into musicals.

When composer Jerome Kern proposed turning the very serious, Show Boat, into a musical, Ferber was shocked, thinking it would be transformed into a typical light entertainment of the 1920s. It was not until Kern explained that he and Oscar Hammerstein II wanted to create a different type of musical that Ferber granted him the rights.

Saratoga, based on Saratoga Trunk, was written at a much later date, after serious plots had become acceptable in stage musicals.

In 1925, she won the Pulitzer Prize for her book, So Big, which was made into a silent film starring Colleen Moore that same year. An early talkie movie remake followed, in 1932, starring Barbara Stanwyck and George Brent, with Bette Davis in a supporting role. A 1953 remake of So Big starred Jane Wyman in the Stanwyck role, and is the version most often seen today.

Ferber was a member of the Algonquin Round Table, a group of wits who met for lunch every day at the Algonquin Hotel in New York. She, and another member of the Round Table, Alexander Woollcott, were long-time enemies, their antipathy lasting until Woollcott's death in 1943.

Howard Teichmann wrote in his biography of Woollcott that their feud was due to a misunderstanding. According to Teichmann, Ferber once described Woollcott as "a New Jersey Nero who has mistaken his pinafore for a toga."

Ferber collaborated with Round Table member, George S. Kaufman, on several plays presented on Broadway, most notably The Royal Family (1927), Dinner At Eight (1932) and Stage Door (1936).

Ferber never married, had no children and is not known to have engaged in a romance or sexual relationship. In her early novel, Dawn O'Hara, the title character's aunt is said to have remarked, "Being an old maid was a great deal like death by drowning – a really delightful sensation when you ceased struggling."

Ferber died at her home in New York City, of stomach cancer, at the age of 82.

She was portrayed by the actress, Lili Taylor, in the 1994 film, Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle.

In the above  photo, “Giant” author Edna Ferber, then 70, spins lassos on set in Marfa, Texas in 1955 with James Dean, with whom she became friends (he was reportedly working on a sculpture of Ferber at the time of his death).

In a rare show of authorial force, she became a one-third production partner and received a cut of the movie’s profits. She was later said to have been underwhelmed by director George Stevens’ big-screen adaptation.

Bill Pinkney, founding member of the Drifters, was born 97 years ago today

Bill Pinkney, at home in 1994

Photo by Frank Beacham

Bill Pinkney, founding member of the Drifters, was born 97 years ago today.

Pinkney was chiefly responsible for The Drifter’s early sounds, having a strong influence on soul, rhythm and blues and rock and roll.

Born in Dalzell, South Carolina, Pinkney grew up singing his favorite music, gospel, in his church choir. Before his career with the Drifters, Pinkney was a pitcher for the Negro Baseball League's New York Blue Sox sandlot team.

He also served in the Army in World War II. He earned a Presidential Citation with five Bronze Stars (for battles including Normandy and Bastogne under General Patton). Returning from the war, Pinkney began to sing again in various gospel choirs. It was there that he would meet and join with the men who became the original members of the Drifters.

Bill Pinkney, brothers Andrew and Gerhart Thrasher, and bass singer, Willie Ferbie, were approached by Clyde McPhatter, who had just quit as the lead tenor of the popular R&B group, Billy Ward & the Dominoes. McPhatter proposed they create a new group to record for Atlantic Records.

On their first record, "Money Honey," Pinkney, a natural bass-baritone with a multi-octave range, actually sang first tenor. After Ferbie left, Pinkney switched to the bass part, in which he was heard on "Honey Love," "White Christmas," "Adorable," "Ruby Baby" and many other early Drifters recordings.

In 1954, the Drifters recorded their version of "White Christmas" by Irving Berlin. That version was featured in the 1990 movie, Home Alone. Pinkney can also be heard singing lead on the 1956 recording, "I Should Have Done Right," and in 1955’s, "Steamboat.”

Pinkney worked with the group from 1956 through 1958, when the manager fired all of the individual Drifters, including Pinkney, and hired an entire new group of singers. The were from the Crowns (formally known as the Five Crowns), who were signed under the Drifters' name.

After Pinkney's permanent departure, The Drifters recorded hit classics such as "Under the Boardwalk," "Save the Last Dance for Me," "There Goes My Baby," "Up on the Roof" and "On Broadway," with the new line-up.

Pinkney quickly created a group called the Original Drifters, made up of key members of the first (1953–58) group. Pinkney's Original Drifters was consistently popular throughout the southeastern United States. For decades their music was a staple of the "beach music" scene.

Leaders such as President Bill Clinton and President Nelson Mandela of South Africa recognized Pinkney's contributions. He received many musical awards, including the Rhythm and Blues Foundation Pioneer Award, and was inducted into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, United Group Harmony Association and the Beach Music Hall of Fame.

Pinkney died the evening of July 4, 2007 in Florida from a heart attack while staying at the Daytona Beach Hilton. He was to perform with The Drifters at the annual Daytona Beach 4th of July celebration, Red, White & Boom.

Here, Pinkney was interviewed by the Rock Hall of Fame on Buddy Holly and segregation.

Bill Pinkney at a concert, two months before he died

Photo by Frank Beacham

On this day in 1979 — 43 years ago — Apocalypse Now, the acclaimed Vietnam War film directed by Francis Ford Coppola, opened in theaters around the United States

On this day in 1979 — 43 years ago — Apocalypse Now, the acclaimed Vietnam War film directed by Francis Ford Coppola, opened in theaters around the United States.

The film, inspired in part by Joseph Conrad’s 1899 novella, Heart of Darkness, among other sources, told the story of an Army captain (played by Martin Sheen) and crew of men who are sent into the Cambodian jungle to kill a U.S. Special Forces colonel, played by Marlon Brando, who has gone AWOL and is thought to be crazy.

Apocalypse Now, which co-starred Robert Duvall and Dennis Hopper, became notorious for its long, difficult production, which included budget problems, shooting delays due to bad weather on the Philippines set, a heart attack for Sheen and a nervous breakdown for Coppola.

Despite the production hurdles, the film became a commercial success and won two Academy Awards (Best Cinematography and Best Sound). It received six other Oscar nominations, including Best Director, Best Picture and Best Supporting Actor (Duvall).

The film included such memorable lines as “I love the smell of napalm in the morning” and “The horror…the horror!”

At the time of the film’s release, Coppola, who was then 40, was already famous for writing and directing The Godfather (1972) and The Godfather Part II (1974). Following Apocalypse Now, he went on to direct such movies as The Outsiders (1983), The Godfather Part III (1990) and Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992).

Prior to starring in Apocalypse Now, Martin Sheen’s movie credits included 1973’s Badlands with Sissy Spacek. Sheen, who was born Ramon Estevez in 1940, would later co-star in such films as Wall Street (1987), opposite his son, Charlie Sheen, and The Departed (2006). From 1999 to 2006, he played the fictional U.S. President Josiah Bartlett on the award-winning television show, The West Wing, created by Aaron Sorkin.

Brando, who died at the age of 80 in 2004, was regarded as one of the greatest actors of his era. He won Best Actor Oscars for On the Waterfront (1954) and The Godfather and was nominated for his performances in A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), Viva Zapata! (1952), Julius Caesar (1953), Sayonara (1957), Last Tango in Paris (1973) and A Dry White Season (1989).

Here’s Robert Duvall’s “Napalm in the Morning” scene

Thanks History.com

On this day in 1945 — 77 years ago — during the celebration of Japan’s surrender in World War II, Alfred Eisenstaedt wandered through Times Square in New York City with his Leica IIIa camera looking for pictures.

He found one — an American sailor kissing a woman in a white dress.

Because he was photographing people in the streets rapidly, Eisenstaedt didn’t get the couple’s names.

A week later the image was published in Life magazine.

Overnight, Eisenstaedt’s image, known as “The Kiss,” became a cultural icon.

David Crosby is 81 years old today

David Crosby at Joan Baez’s 75th birthday concert, Beacon Theatre, New York City, Jan., 2016

Photo by Frank Beacham

David Crosby is 81 years old today.

Crosby is a guitarist, singer, songwriter and a founding member of three bands, The Byrds, Crosby, Stills & Nash (who are sometimes joined by Neil Young) and CPR.

Born in Los Angeles, Crosby’s father, Floyd Crosby, was an Academy Award-winning cinematographer. He attended several schools, including the University Elementary School in Los Angeles, the Crane Country Day School in Montecito and Laguna Blanca School in Santa Barbara for the rest of his elementary school and junior high.

Crosby also attended Santa Barbara City College. Originally, he was a drama student, but dropped out to pursue a career in music. He moved toward the same Greenwich Village scene (as a member of the Les Baxter's Balladeers) in which Bob Dylan participated, and even shared a mentor of Bob Dylan's in local scene favorite, Fred Neil.

With the help of producer Jim Dickson, Crosby cut his first solo session in 1963.

For the Byrds, Crosby joined Jim McGuinn (who later changed his name to Roger) and Gene Clark, who were then named the Jet Set (although there is no evidence that they ever performed under that name). They were augmented by drummer, Michael Clarke, at which point Crosby attempted, unsuccessfully, to play bass.

Late in 1964, Chris Hillman joined as bassist and Crosby relieved Gene Clark of rhythm guitar duties. Through connections that Jim Dickson (The Byrds' manager) had with Bob Dylan's publisher, the band obtained a demo acetate disc of Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man" and recorded a cover version of the song, featuring McGuinn's 12-string guitar as well as McGuinn, Crosby and Clark's vocal harmonizing.

The song turned into a massive hit, soaring to #1 in the charts in the U.S. and the U.K. during 1965.

While Roger McGuinn originated The Byrds' trademark 12-string guitar sound (which he in turn took from George Harrison on "A Hard Day's Night"), Crosby was responsible for the soaring harmonies and often unusual phrasing on their songs.

In 1966, Gene Clark, who then was the band's primary songwriter, left the group due to stress. This placed all the group's songwriting responsibilities in the hands of McGuinn, Crosby and Hillman. Crosby took the opportunity to hone his craft, and soon blossomed into a prolific and talented songwriter.

His early Byrds efforts included the classic 1966 hit, "Eight Miles High," (to which he contributed one line, while Clark and McGuinn wrote the rest), and its flip side "Why," co-written with McGuinn, which showed Crosby at his hard-edged best.

Crosby is widely credited with popularizing the song, "Hey Joe," after he picked it up from Dino Valente. He taught the song to Bryan MacLean and Arthur Lee of Love, who then taught it to members of The Leaves. Since he felt responsible for having popularized the song, Crosby convinced the other members of The Byrds to cover it on Fifth Dimension.

By Younger Than Yesterday, The Byrds' album of 1967, Crosby clearly began to find his trademark style.

Friction between Crosby and the other Byrds came to a head in mid-1967. Tensions were high after the famous Monterey Pop Festival in June, when Crosby's on-stage political diatribes between songs elicited rancor from McGuinn and Hillman.

The next night he further annoyed his bandmates when, at the invitation of Stephen Stills, he substituted for an absent Neil Young during Buffalo Springfield’s set. The internal conflict boiled over during recording of The Notorious Byrd Brothers album in August and September.

Differences over song selections led to arguments, with Crosby being particularly adamant that the band should record only original material. McGuinn and Hillman dismissed Crosby in mid-September, after he refused to participate in the recording session of the Goffin and King song, "Goin' Back."

Crosby's controversial menage-a-trois ode "Triad," recorded by the band before his dismissal, was left off the album. Jefferson Airplane recorded "Triad" and released it on their album Crown of Creation in 1968.

David Crosby sang a solo acoustic version on Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young's 1971 double live album, Four Way Street. The Byrds' version appeared decades later on the 1988 Never Before release and is now available on the CD re-release of The Notorious Byrd Brothers.

In 1973, Crosby reunited with the original Byrds for the album Byrds, with Crosby acting as the record's producer. The album charted well (at #20, their best album showing since their second album) but was generally not perceived to be a critical success, and marked the final artistic collaboration of the original band.

Around the time of Crosby's departure from the Byrds, he met a recently unemployed Stephen Stills at a party at the home of Cass Elliot (of The Mamas and the Papas) in California in March, 1968.

There, the two started meeting informally together and jamming. They were soon joined by Graham Nash, who left his commercially successful group, The Hollies, to play with Crosby and Stills. Their appearance at the Woodstock Music and Art Fair in August, 1969 constituted their second live performance ever.

Their first album, Crosby, Stills & Nash of 1969, was an immediate hit, spawning two Top 40 hit singles and receiving key airplay on the new FM radio format, in its early days populated by unfettered disc jockeys who then had the option of playing entire albums at once.

The songs he wrote while with CSN include "Guinnevere," "Almost Cut My Hair," "Long Time Gone" and "Delta." He also co-wrote "Wooden Ships" with Paul Kantner of Jefferson Airplane and Stephen Stills.

In 1969, Neil Young joined the group, and with him they recorded the album, Déjà Vu, which went to #1 on the charts. That same year, Crosby's longtime girlfriend, Christine Hinton, was killed in a car accident only days after Hinton, Crosby, and fellow girlfriend, Debbie Donovan, moved from Los Angeles to the Bay Area.

Crosby was devastated, and he began abusing drugs much more severely than he had before. Nevertheless, he still managed to contribute "Almost Cut My Hair" and the title track, "Déjà Vu." After the release of the double live album, Four Way Street, the group went on a temporary hiatus to focus on their respective solo careers.

In December, 1969, David appeared with CSNY at the Altamont Free Concert, increasing his visibility after also having performed at Monterey Pop and Woodstock. At the beginning of the new decade, he briefly joined with Jerry Garcia, Phil Lesh and Mickey Hart from the Grateful Dead, billed as "David and the Dorks," and making a live recording at the Matrix on December 15, 1970.

CSNY reunited in 1973 at the Winterland in San Francisco. This served as a prelude to their highly successful stadium tour in the summer of 1974. Prior to the tour, the foursome attempted to record a new album, Human Highway.

The recording session, which took place at Neil Young's ranch, was very unpleasant, and marked by constant bickering. The bickering eventually became too much, and the album was cancelled.

In 1971, Crosby released his first solo album, If I Could Only Remember My Name, featuring contributions by Nash, Young, Joni Mitchell and members of Jefferson Airplane, the Grateful Dead and Santana. Panned on release by Rolling Stone, it has been reappraised amid the emergence of the freak folk and New Weird America movements and remains in print.

In 1996, Crosby formed CPR or Crosby, Pevar and Raymond with session guitarist, Jeff Pevar, and pianist James Raymond, Crosby's son. The group released two studio albums and two live albums before disbanding in 2004.

Raymond continues to perform with Crosby as part of the touring bands for Crosby & Nash and Crosby, Stills & Nash. Jeff Pevar sometimes tours with the re-formed Jefferson Starship.

In 1982, after appearing in criminal courts facing several drugs and weapons charges, Crosby spent nine months in Texas prisons. The drug charges stemmed from charges related to possession of heroin and cocaine.

Crosby was the recipient of a highly-publicized liver transplant in 1994, which was paid for by Phil Collins. News of his transplant created some controversy because of his celebrity status and his past issues with drug and alcohol addiction. Crosby suffers from type 2 diabetes and is being treated with insulin to manage the disease.

In January, 2000, Melissa Etheridge announced that Crosby was the biological father of two children that Julie Cypher gave birth to by means of artificial insemination. At the time, Etheridge and Cypher were in a relationship.

Here, Crosby, with Graham Nash and Paul Simon, perform “Here Comes the Sun”

Graham Nash, Stephen Stills and David Crosby, 1969

Photo by Henry Diltz

Armando "Buddy" Greco was born 96 years ago today

Buddy Greco and George Carlin in a skit from Away We Go, 1967

Armando "Buddy" Greco was born 96 years ago today.

A singer and pianist, Greco was born in Philadelphia. He began playing piano at the age of four. His first professional work was playing with Benny Goodman's band. Most of Greco's work was in the jazz and pop genres.

He has recorded songs such as “Oh Look A-There,” “Ain't She Pretty,” "The Lady is a Tramp," "Up, Up and Away" and "Around the World." He released about 72 albums and 100 singles.

Greco has had an active concert career playing in symphony halls, theatres, nightclubs and Las Vegas showrooms. In the 1960s, he made appearances with the Rat Pack.

Greco played the nightclub singer, Lucky, in the 1969 film, The Girl Who Knew Too Much. In 1967, Greco starred in the summer replacement television series, Away We Go, with drummer Buddy Rich and comedian George Carlin.

It is well known that Greco and spouse were close friends of Marilyn Monroe, and he admits to being one of the last to have seen her, along with close friend Frank Sinatra. His story is in the accompanying article.

In 2013, Greco celebrated his 80th year in show business with a concert in Southend, Essex. Stars such as the Rat Pack cast, Atila, Kenny Lynch, Paul Young and Michelle Collins were present and took part throughout the evening. Greco and his wife also performed together for the occasion.

Greco died on January 10, 2017, in Las Vegas at age 90. He was survived by his wife, Anders and his seven children.

Here, Greco performs “The Lady Is A Tramp” with Sammy Davis Jr., 1965

Buddy Greco hugs Marilyn Monroe while Frank Sinatra looks on at the Cal Neva Lodge, which straddles the border between Nevada and California on the shores of Lake Tahoe, July, 28, 1962. Monroe would die a week later.

Here’s the entire story…

Hipsters: Real vs. Fake

Harry “the Hipster” Gibson

Photo by William P. Gottlieb

Hipsters: Real vs. Fake

It makes my skin crawl whenever I hear a young person refer to his or herself as a “hipster.”

Not only do most people today not even understand what the term means, but they live in a corporate-infused world where it is now almost impossible to be truly hip.

The New York Times recently wrote about the origins of the word hipster, which might help to explain to those who don’t understand the history of the word and how it has changed over time.

Though the word has been in use for a long time, the Times credits the jazz clubs of 1940s Harlem for making the term popular. In the 40s, a Bronx-born, Juilliard-trained musician, Harry Raab, helped popularize the word with his stage name: Harry “the Hipster” Gibson. His big hit was “Who Put the Benzedrine in Mrs. Murphy’s Ovaltine.”

At the time, “hipster” was used to describe someone who saw him or herself as hip and ahead of the curve, Lewis Porter, a jazz historian at Rutgers University, told the Times.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word is also thought to be a modernized version of “hepcat,” which had the same meaning in jazz circles.

Porter added that the word might also have been used to describe white jazz musicians like Gibson, who played in traditionally black clubs. “That certainly was not its original meaning, but that could have become attached to it later on,” he said.

In his 1957 essay, “The White Negro,” Norman Mailer examined beatnik culture, posing the theory that to be a hipster was to be a white American who adopted black culture, world views and music as an act of rebellion against capitalist greed, wartime violence and the ever-present specter of nuclear war.

Hipster was used to refer to members of the Beat Generation, who virtually all defied and criticized the white, capitalist establishment culture of the 1950s. All lived cheaply and outside the scope of mainstream consumerism. Virtually all true hipsters observed the counter culture ethics of the 1960s.

Jack Kerouac described 1940s hipsters as "rising and roaming America, bumming and hitchhiking everywhere [as] characters of a special spirituality.” Near the beginning of his poem, Howl, Allen Ginsberg mentioned "angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night.”

The New York Times said it has used the word “hipster” more than 3,000 times since 1851. Yet, the newspaper said, the bulk of those references came after the year 2000, when most of the people who used the term were only wannabes.

The Times said it typically used the word to describe a class of people who moved to Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The problem with that, of course, is that if one could afford to live in Brooklyn after the boom, they were not genuine hipsters.

Today, the hipster subculture is composed of affluent or middle class youth who reside primarily in gentrifying neighborhoods. It is broadly associated with indie and alternative music, a varied non-mainstream fashion sensibility, vintage and thrift store-bought clothing, generally progressive political views, organic and artisanal foods and alternative lifestyles.

The subculture typically consists of white millennials living in urban areas. Often the world hipster is now used as a pejorative term to describe someone who is pretentious, overly trendy or effete.

In Rob Horning's April, 2009 article, The Death of the Hipster, he wrote that the hipster might be the "embodiment of postmodernism as a spent force, revealing what happens when pastiche and irony exhaust themselves as aesthetics."

Of all places, Time magazine, described the modern hipster phenomenon in a July, 2009 article:

“Hipsters are the friends who sneer when you cop to liking Coldplay. They're the people who wear T-shirts silk-screened with quotes from movies you've never heard of and the only ones in America who still think Pabst Blue Ribbon is a good beer. They sport cowboy hats and berets and think Kanye West stole their sunglasses. Everything about them is exactingly constructed to give off the vibe that they just don't care.”

One of the benefits of getting older is being able to easily see through the pretensions of youth. Whenever someone living in a major city like New York tells you today he or she is a “hipster,” run for the hills. Fraud is written all over them.

Thanks New York Times!

On this day in 1945 — 77 years ago — the comedian, actor, writer and musician Steve Martin was born

On this day in 1945 — 77 years ago — the comedian, actor, writer and musician Steve Martin, who would rise to fame as a “wild and crazy” comedian during the 1970s, was born in Waco, Texas.

Martin grew up in California and in his teens worked at Disneyland, where he entertained crowds with magic tricks and banjo music. After attending UCLA, he broke into show business as a comedy writer.

In 1969, Martin won an Emmy for his writing on the hit TV comedy program, The Smothers Brothers. He later wrote and appeared on other comedy-variety shows, including The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour.

Meanwhile, Martin began performing his own comedy at nightclubs and by the mid-1970s was appearing often on The Tonight Show and Saturday Night Live, notably in the role of the “wild and crazy guy,” a wannabe playboy from Czechoslovakia.

By the late 1970s, Martin was famous for his best-selling comedy records and shows, which included the hit song “King Tut” and the catchphrase, “Excuuuuse me.”

Martin’s first starring role in a feature film came in the 1979 box-office hit, The Jerk, which he co-wrote. He re-teamed with his Jerk director, Carl Reiner, for three more comedies: Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid (1982), The Man with Two Brains (1983) and All of Me (1984), co-starring Lily Tomlin.

Throughout the rest of the 1980s, Martin showcased his comedic talents in a string of hits, including Three Amigos (1986), Little Shop of Horrors (1986), Roxanne (1987) and Planes, Trains & Automobiles (1987).

The prematurely grey-haired Martin went from wild and crazy to parental (with equal success) in such films as Parenthood (1989), Father of the Bride (1991) and Cheaper by the Dozen (2003). He also did a more serious route, appearing in David Mamet’s enigmatic suspense film, The Spanish Prisoner (1997).

In 2005, Martin co-starred in Shopgirl, based on a novella of the same name that he penned. In that film, he played a wealthy businessman who romances a far younger woman, played by Claire Danes.

Returning to broad comedy in 2006, Martin played the bumbling Inspector Clouseau in The Pink Panther. Over the years, he has continued to appear periodically on Saturday Night Live and remains one of the show’s most frequent hosts.

Throughout his life, Martin has been an accomplished banjo player and has performed frequently with other bands, including Tony Trischka and Bela Fleck.

In 2007, Martin published a memoir, Born Standing Up, which critics praised for its humor and candor. He had previously opened up to interviewers about his personal life, including his marriage to the actress Victoria Tennant, his co-star in All of Me (they married in 1986 and divorced in 1994) and his subsequent breakup with the actress, Anne Heche.

On July 28, 2007, after three years together, Martin married Anne Stringfield, a writer and former staffer for The New Yorker magazine. Former Nebraska Sen. Bob Kerrey presided over the ceremony at Martin's Los Angeles home. Lorne Michaels, creator of Saturday Night Live, was best man.

Several of the guests, including close friends Tom Hanks, Eugene Levy, comedian Carl Reiner and magician/actor Ricky Jay, were not informed that a wedding ceremony would take place. Instead, they were told they were invited to a party and were surprised by the nuptials.

At age 67, Martin became a father for the first time when Stringfield gave birth to a daughter Mary, in December, 2012,

Martin has tinnitus (ringing in the ears), which is a symptom of hearing loss. He got it while filming a pistol-shooting scene for the film, Three Amigos, in 1986. He has been quoted as saying, "You just get used to it, or you go insane."

Here, Martin performs “The Crow” with Tony Trischka and Bela Fleck in 2007. Martin wrote the song.

Thanks History.com

Women in a Paris bar…

Photo by Steven Meisel

Jimmy McCracklin was born 101 years ago today

Jimmy McCracklin was born 101 years ago today.

A pianist, vocalist and songwriter, McCracklin’s style contained West Coast blues, jump blues and R&B. Over a career that spanned seven decades, McCracklin wrote almost a thousand songs and recorded hundreds of them. He recorded over 30 albums and earned four gold records.

"He was probably the most important musician to come out of the Bay Area in the post-World War II years," Tom Mazzolini of the San Francisco Blues Festival wrote of him.

Born James David Walker, sources differ as to whether McCracklin was born in Helena, Arkansas or St. Louis. He joined the United States Navy in 1938, later settled in Richmond, California, and began playing at the local Club Savoy owned by his sister-in-law, Willie Mae "Granny" Johnson.

The room-length bar served beer and wine, and Granny Johnson served home-cooked meals of greens, ribs, chicken and other southern cuisine. A house band composed of Bay Area musicians alternated with and frequently backed performers such as B. B. King, Charles Brown and L. C. Robinson.

Later, in 1963, McCracklin would write and record a song "Club Savoy" on his I Just Gotta Know album. He recorded a debut single for Globe Records, "Miss Mattie Left Me," in 1945, and recorded "Street Loafin' Woman in 1946.

McCracklin recorded for a number of labels in Los Angeles and Oakland, prior to joining Modern Records in 1949-1950. He formed a group called Jimmy McCracklin and his Blues Blasters in 1946, with guitarist, Lafayette Thomas, who remained with group until the early 1960s.

His popularity increased after appearing on Dick Clark's American Bandstand in support of his self written single, "The Walk" (1957). It was subsequently released by Checker Records in 1958.

The song went to #5 on the Billboard R&B chart and #7 on the pop chart, after more than 10 years of McCracklin selling records in the black community on a series of small labels. Jimmy McCracklin Sings, his first solo album, was released in 1962, in the West Coast blues style.

Later the same year, McCracklin recorded "Just Got to Know" for his own Art-Tone label in Oakland, after the record made #2 on the R&B chart. For a brief period in the early 1970s McCracklin ran the Continental Club in San Francisco. He booked blues acts such as T-Bone Walker, Irma Thomas, Big Joe Turner, Big Mama Thornton and Etta James.

In 1967, Otis Redding and Carla Thomas had success with "Tramp," a song credited to McCracklin and Lowell Fulson. Salt-n-Pepa made a hip-hop hit out of the song in 1987. Oakland Blues (1968) was an album arranged and directed by McCracklin and produced by World Pacific.

The California rock-n-roll "roots music" band, The Blasters, named themselves after McCracklin's backing band, The Blues Blasters. Blasters' lead singer, Phil Alvin, explained the origin of the band's name:

"I thought Joe Turner’s backup band on Atlantic records — I had these 78s — I thought they were the Blues Blasters. It ends up it was Jimmy McCracklin's. I just took the 'Blues' off and Joe finally told me, that’s Jimmy McCracklin’s name, but you tell ‘em I gave you permission to steal it."

McCracklin continued to tour and produce new albums in the 1980s and 1990s. Bob Dylan has cited McCracklin as a favorite. He played at the San Francisco Blues Festival in 1973, 1977, 1980, 1981, 1984 and 2007.

He was given a Pioneer Award by the Rhythm and Blues Foundation in 1990, and the Living Legend and Hall of Fame award at the Bay Area Black Music Awards in 2007. McCracklin continued to write, record and perform into the 21st century.

He died at age 91 in San Pablo, California, in the San Francisco Bay Area, on December 20, 2012, after a long illness.

Here, McCracklin performs “At the Club” at the Porretta Soul Festival, 2007

Annie Oakley was born 162 years ago today

Annie Oakley was born 162 years ago today.

Born as Phoebe Ann Mosey, Oakley was a sharpshooter and exhibition shooter. Her shooting talent led to a starring role in Buffalo Bill's Wild West show, and her timely rise to fame allowed her to become one of the first American women to be a superstar.

Perhaps Oakley's most famous trick was her ability — using a .22 rifle 90 feet away — to repeatedly split a playing card, edge-on, and put several more holes in it before it could touch the ground.

She was born in a log cabin in Darke County, Ohio, a rural western border county. Because of poverty, she did not regularly attend school as a child, although she did attend later in childhood and in adulthood.

Oakley began trapping at a young age, and shooting and hunting by age eight to support her siblings and her widowed mother. She sold the hunted game for money to locals, restaurants and hotels in southern Ohio. Her skill eventually paid off the mortgage on her mother's farm when she turned 15.

On Thanksgiving Day, 1875, the Baughman and Butler shooting act was in performance in Cincinnati. Traveling show marksman and former dog trainer, Frank E. Butler, an Irish immigrant, placed a $100 bet per side (worth $2,148 today) with Cincinnati hotel owner Jack Frost, that he, Butler, could beat any local fancy shooter.

The hotelier arranged a shooting match between Butler and the 15-year-old Annie Oakley saying, "The last opponent Butler expected was a five-foot-tall 15-year old girl named Annie." After missing on his 25th shot, Butler lost the match and the bet. He soon began courting Oakley, and they married on August 23, 1876. They did not have children.

Annie and Frank Butler lived in Cincinnati for a time. Oakley, the stage name she adopted when she and Frank began performing together, is believed to have been taken from the city's neighborhood of Oakley, where they resided.

They joined Buffalo Bill's Wild West in 1885. At five feet tall, Oakley was given the nickname of "Watanya Cicilla" by fellow performer Sitting Bull, rendered "Little Sure Shot" in the public advertisements.

In Europe, she performed for Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom, King Umberto I of Italy, President Marie François Sadi Carnot of France and other crowned heads of state. Oakley had such good aim that, at his request, she knocked the ashes off a cigarette held by the newly crowned German Kaiser Wilhelm II.

Throughout her career, it is believed that Oakley taught upwards of 15,000 women how to use a gun. She never failed to delight her audiences, and her feats of marksmanship were truly incredible. At 30 paces, she could split a playing card held edge-on, hit dimes tossed into the air, shoot cigarettes from her husband's lips.

Oakley playfully skipped on stage, lifted her rifle and aimed the barrel at a burning candle. In one shot, she snuffed out the flame with a whizzing bullet. Sitting Bull watched her knock corks off of bottles and slice through a cigar Butler held in his teeth.

Oakley continued to set records into her sixties, and she also engaged in extensive, albeit quiet, philanthropy for women's rights and other causes, including the support of specific young women that she knew. She embarked on a comeback and intended to star in a feature-length silent movie. In a 1922 shooting contest in Pinehurst, North Carolina, sixty-two-year-old Oakley hit 100 clay targets in a row from 16 yards

Oakley died of pernicious anemia in Greenville, Ohio, at the age of 66 on November 3, 1926.