Frank Beacham's Journal

Brian Jones was born 80 years ago today

Brian Jones turns his back to the audience during a Rolling Stones set at the All Night Rave at Alexandra Palace, London, June 24, 1964

Photo by John “Hoppy” Hopkins

Brian Jones was born 80 years ago today.

An English musician and a founding member of The Rolling Stones, Jones’ main instruments were the guitar, the harmonica and the piano, but he was a talented and wide-ranging multi-instrumentalist.

His innovative use of traditional or folk instruments, such as the sitar and marimba, was integral to the changing sound of the band.

Although he was originally the leader of the group, Jones' fellow band members Mick Jagger and Keith Richards soon overshadowed him, especially after they became a successful songwriting team. He developed a serious drug problem over the years and his role in the band steadily diminished.

He was asked to leave the Rolling Stones in June, 1969 and guitarist Mick Taylor took his place in the group.

Jones died less than a month later at age 27 by drowning in the swimming pool at his home on Cotchford Farm in Hartfield, East Sussex.

Original Stones bassist Bill Wyman said of Jones: "He formed the band. He chose the members. He named the band. He chose the music we played. He got us gigs. Very influential, very important and then slowly he lost it — highly intelligent — and just kind of wasted it and blew it all away."

His death, at 27, was the first of several major rock artists. Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison found their own drug-related deaths at the same age within two years (Morrison died two years to the day after Jones). The coincidence of ages has been described as the "27 Club."

When Alastair Johns, who owned Cotchford Farm for over 40 years after Jones's death, refurbished the pool, he sold the original tiles to Jones’s fans for £100 each, paying for half of the work. Johns noted that Cotchford Farm remained for decades an attraction for Jones' fans.

The Stones' "Shine a Light" was written by Jagger after his death and depicts Jones's behavior and remoteness from the band, and asks God to shine a light on his soul.

Several other songs have been written about Jones. The Doors' song, "Tightrope Ride," was originally written for Jones by Morrison, but after Morrison's death Ray Manzarek rewrote some of the lyrics so that they apply to both musicians.

The Psychic TV song, "Godstar," is about Jones's death, as are Robyn Hitchcock's "Trash," The Drovers' "She's as Pretty as Brian Jones Was," Ted Nugent's "Death by Misadventure" and Salmonblaster's "Brian Jones."

Here, the members of the Rolling Stones discuss the life of Brian Jones

Charles Durning was born 99 years ago today

Charles Durning with Robert Redford in The Sting, 1973

Charles Durning was born 99 years ago today.

Durning was a stage and screen actor with appearances in over 200 movies, television shows and plays. His memorable roles included the Oscar-winning The Sting (1973) and Dog Day Afternoon (1975), along with the comedies Tootsie (1982) and The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1982) and To Be or Not to Be (1983).

Durning died of natural causes at his home in Manhattan on December 24, 2012, at the age of 89. On December 27, 2012, Broadway theaters dimmed their lights to honor him.

The New York Times referred to Durning and actor, Jack Klugman, who died the same day, as "extraordinary actors ennobling the ordinary.” The Huffington Post compared the two men, calling them "character actor titans."

Here, Durning as Gov. Pappy O’Daniel in “O Brother, Where Art Thou?,” 2000

Dinah Shore was born 106 years ago

Dinah Shore was born 106 years ago on Feb. 29. Because it’s not a leap year, we’ll acknowledge it today.

Born Frances Rose Shore, she was a singer, actress, television personality and the top-charting female vocalist of the 1940s.

Shore reached the height of her popularity as a recording artist during the Big Band era of the 1940s and 1950s, but achieved even greater success a decade later, in television, mainly as hostess of a series of variety programs for Chevrolet.

After failing singing auditions for the bands of Benny Goodman, and both Jimmy and Tommy Dorsey, Shore struck out on her own to become the first singer of her era to achieve huge solo success.

She had a string of 80 charted popular hits, spanning the years 1940 to 1957, and after appearing in a handful of feature films went on to a four-decade career in American television, starring in her own music and variety shows from 1951 through 1963 and hosting two talk shows in the 1970s. TV Guide magazine ranked her at #16 on their list of the Top 50 television stars of all time.

Stylistically, Shore was compared to two singers who followed her in the mid-to-late 1940s and early 1950s, Doris Day and Patti Page.

Born to Russian-Jewish immigrant shopkeepers, Anna and Solomon Shore, in Winchester, Tennessee, Shore’s father would often take her to his store where she would perform impromptu songs for the customers. In 1924, the Shore family moved to McMinnville, Tennessee, where her father had opened a department store. By her fifth-grade year, the family had moved to Nashville, where she completed elementary school.

At 14, she debuted as a torch singer at a Nashville nightclub only to find her parents sitting ringside, having been tipped off to their daughter's performance ahead of time. They allowed her to finish, but put her professional career on hold. She was paid $10, equivalent to $142 in 2016.

Shore graduated from Vanderbilt University with a degree in sociology. She visited the Grand Ole Opry and made her radio debut on Nashville's WSM (AM) radio station.

Shore decided to return to pursuing her career in singing, moving to New York City to audition for orchestras and radio stations, first on a summer break from Vanderbilt, and after graduation, for good.

In many of her auditions, she sang the popular song "Dinah." When disc jockey Martin Block could not remember her name, he called her the "Dinah girl," and soon after the name stuck, becoming her stage name.

Shore eventually was hired as a vocalist at radio station WNEW, where she sang with Frank Sinatra. She recorded and performed with the Xavier Cugat orchestra, and signed a recording contract with RCA Victor Records in 1940. Shore appeared in radio shows throughout the 1940s, including Birds Eye-Open House and Ford Radio Show. In early 1946, she moved to another label, Columbia Records.

At Columbia, Shore enjoyed the greatest commercial success of her recording career, starting with her first Columbia single release, "Shoo Fly Pie And Apple Pan Dowdy", and peaking with the most popular song of 1948, "Buttons and Bows,” (with Henri René & Orchestra) which was #1 for ten weeks.

Other #1 hits at Columbia included "The Gypsy" and "The Anniversary Song.” One of her most popular recordings was the holiday perennial "Baby, It's Cold Outside" with Buddy Clark from 1949.

After guest spots on many television shows, she was given her own program, The Dinah Shore Show on NBC on November 27, 1951. Vic Schoen was her musical director from 1951–54, and also arranged music for her on the Colgate Comedy Hour (1954). She did two 15-minute shows a week for NBC.

In 1956, Shore won the first of her many Emmy Awards for the program, which was sponsored by Chevrolet. The sponsor's theme song, "See the USA in Your Chevrolet", soon became the singer's signature piece.

In 1956, Shore began hosting a monthly series of one-hour full-color spectaculars as part of NBC's The Chevy Show series. These proved so popular that the show was renamed The Dinah Shore Chevy Show the following season, with Shore becoming the full-time host, helming three out of four weeks in the month.

Broadcast live and in NBC's famous "Living Color," this variety show was one of the most popular of the 1950s and early 1960s and featured the television debuts of stars of the era, such as Yves Montand and Maureen O'Hara, and Dinah in performances alongside Ella Fitzgerald, Mahalia Jackson, Peggy Lee, Frank Sinatra and Pearl Bailey.

In the spring of 1993, Shore was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. She died of the disease on February 24, 1994, at her home in Beverly Hills, California, five days before her 78th birthday.

Above, Shore in 1952.

Frank Gehry, architect, is 93 years old today

Frank Gehry, architect, is 93 years old today.

A number of Gehry’s buildings, including his private residence, have become world renowned tourist attractions. His works are cited as being among the most important works of contemporary architecture in the 2010 World Architecture Survey, which led Vanity Fair to label him as "the most important architect of our age.”

Gehry's best-known works include the titanium-covered Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain; MIT Ray and Maria Stata Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts and the Walt Disney Concert Hall in downtown Los Angeles.

Also The Vontz Center for Molecular Studies on the University of Cincinnati campus; Experience Music Project in Seattle; New World Center in Miami Beach; Weisman Art Museum in Minneapolis; Dancing House in Prague; the Vitra Design Museum and the museum MARTa Herford in Germany; the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto; the Cinémathèque française in Paris and 8 Spruce Street in New York City.

But it was his private residence in Santa Monica, California, that jump-started his career, lifting it from the status of "paper architecture" — a phenomenon that many famous architects have experienced in their formative decades through experimentation almost exclusively on paper before receiving their first major commission in later years.

Gehry is also the designer of the future National Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial.

Above, Gehry in front of the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain

The Frank Gehry-designed headquarters for Barry Diller’s InterActiveCorp at 555 West 18 St. in New York City was the architect’s first contribution to the Manhattan skyline.

It’s been said that Diller suggested that his riverside headquarters have “something to do with sailing up the Hudson” and, indeed, the building is the embodiment of that sense of motion and movement.

The building presents multiple points of view at the same time. Even the cube’s silver finish mimics the shimmer of Gehry’s signature stainless steel structures.

Photo by Frank Beacham

Joe South was born 82 years ago today

Joe South was born 82 years ago today.

A singer-songwriter and guitarist best known for his songwriting, South wrote "Games People Play" in 1970 and "Rose Garden" in 1972.

Born Joseph Alfred Souter, South started his pop career in July, 1958 with the NRC Records novelty hit, "The Purple People Eater Meets the Witch Doctor." After this hit, South's music grew increasingly serious.

In 1959, South wrote two songs which were recorded by Gene Vincent: "I Might Have Known," which was on the album, Sounds Like Gene Vincent (Capitol Records, 1959), and "Gone Gone Gone," which was included on the album, The Crazy Beat of Gene Vincent (Capitol Records, 1963).

South had met and was encouraged by Bill Lowery, an Atlanta music publisher and radio personality. He began his recording career in Atlanta with the National Recording Corporation, where he served as staff guitarist along with other NRC artists Ray Stevens and Jerry Reed. South's earliest recordings have been re-released by NRC on CD.

South was also a prominent sideman, playing guitar on Aretha Franklin's "Chain of Fools,” Tommy Roe's "Sheila," and Bob Dylan's Blonde on Blonde album. Some list South on the electric guitar part that was added to Simon & Garfunkel's first hit, "The Sounds of Silence," although others credit Al Gorgoni and/or Vinnie Bell instead.

Billy Joe Royal recorded four South songs: "Down in the Boondocks," "I Knew You When," "Yo-Yo" (later a hit for The Osmonds) and "Hush" (later a hit for Deep Purple, Somebody's Image with Russell Morris and Kula Shaker).

Responding to issues in late 1960s, South's style changed radically, most evident in his biggest single, 1969's pungent, no-nonsense, "Games People Play" (purportedly inspired by Eric Berne's book of the same name), a hit on both sides of the Atlantic.

South followed up with "Birds of a Feather" (originally "Bubbled Under" at #106 on February 10–17, 1968, more successful as a cover by The Raiders that peaked on the Hot 100 at #23 on October 23–30, 1971.

There were two other soul-searchers, the back-to-nature "Don't It Make You Want to Go Home" (also covered eight months later by Brook Benton With The Dixie Flyers) and the socially provocative, "Walk a Mile in My Shoes," also covered by Elvis Presley in a Las-Vegas era version, Bryan Ferry and Coldcut).

South's most commercially successful composition was Lynn Anderson's 1971 hit, "Rose Garden," which topped the charts in 16 countries worldwide.

In addition, other artists who have recorded South-penned songs include Johnny Cash, Glen Campbell, Loretta Lynn, Carol Burnett, Andy Williams, Kitty Wells, Dottie West, Jim Nabors, Liz Anderson and k. d. lang, although most covered versions of South's best known songs.

The 1971 suicide of South's brother, Tommy, resulted in him becoming clinically depressed. Tommy South had been his backing band's drummer and accompanied South not only in live performances but also on recording sessions when South produced hits for other artists, including Royal, Sandy Posey and Friend and Lover.

South died at his home in Buford, Georgia, northeast of Atlanta, on September 5, 2012, of heart failure. He was 72.

Here, South performs “Games People Play”

John Fahey was born 83 years ago today

John Fahey was born 83 years ago today.

A fingerstyle guitarist and composer who played the steel-string acoustic guitar as a solo instrument, Fahey’s style has been described as the foundation of American Primitivism, a term borrowed from painting and referring mainly to the self-taught nature of the music and its minimalist style.

Fahey borrowed from the folk and blues traditions in American roots music, having compiled many forgotten early recordings in these genres. He would later incorporate classical, Portuguese, Brazilian and Indian music into his work.

Fahey wrote a largely apocryphal autobiography. He spent many of his later years in poverty and poor health, but enjoyed a minor career resurgence with a turn towards the more explicitly avant-garde, and created a series of abstract paintings during the last years of his life.

He died in 2001 at age 61 from complications from heart surgery.

Here, Fahey performs “Poor Boys Long Way From Home,” 1978

Thelonious Monk in the age of Beatlemania

Thelonious Monk works at his piano, 1949

Photo by Herman Leonard

Beatlemania was at its peak in the winter of 1964, but not every music fan had the Beatles' brand of rock and roll on their turntable.

In fact, it was jazz — vital, innovative, contemporary jazz — that captured the imagination of a significant proportion of American music fans in 1964, and no jazz musician at that time was more vital, innovative and contemporary than Thelonious Monk.

So important was jazz on the American cultural scene, and so important was Monk in the world of jazz, that his portrait graced the cover of Time magazine February 28, 1964 — 58 years ago today.

The piece inside the magazine, called "The Loneliest Monk," by writer Barry Farrell, gave Monk the credit he deserved for helping bring jazz out of the Swing era. "Monk presided at the birth of bop," Farrell wrote of Monk's legendary tenure as the resident piano player at Minton's Playhouse in New York City in the 1940s.

"Rhythms scrambled forward at his touch; the oblique boldness of his harmonies forced the horn players into flights the likes of which had never been heard before....[But] when bop drifted out of Harlem and into wider popularity after the war, Monk was already embarked on his long and lonely scuffle."

The "long and lonely scuffle" was Farrell's way not only of characterizing the iconoclastic musical path that Monk would follow through the 1950s, but also of alluding to Monk's well-known "eccentricity" — what his loved ones knew to be a longstanding but unnamed mental illness.

In the brilliant, Clint Eastwood-produced documentary, Thelonious Monk: Straight no Chaser, Monk's manager, Harry Colomby, recalled that the first interview with Farrell coincided with the start of one of Monk's episodes of strange behavior.

"By the time he got downstairs with me, he was already...he was already off somewhere," Colomby said.

"I don't recall him being hospitalized for it until the mid- to late-60s," his son, Thelonious Monk, Jr., recalled, "But my mom, she would tell me that she saw the signs of it much, much earlier."

For his part, Monk made light of the issue to Farrell, even joking about an incident in which he was briefly hospitalized after being found wandering alone and speaking incoherently. "I can't be crazy," he said, "'cause they had me in one of those places and they let me go."

Monk, composer of such jazz standards as "'Round Midnight," "Blue Monk" and "Well, You Needn't" continued performing and pursuing a truly unique direction in jazz until his death on February 17, 1982.

Thanks History.com

Thelonious Monk performs “Round Midnight,” 1966

Vincente Minnelli was born 118 years ago today

Vincente Minnelli was born 118 years ago today.

A stage and film director, Minnelli directed such classic movie musicals as Meet Me in St. Louis, The Band Wagon and An American in Paris. In addition to having directed some of the most famous and well-remembered musicals of his time, Minnelli made many comedies and melodramas.

He was married to Judy Garland from 1945 until 1951. They were the parents of Liza Minnelli.

Zero Mostel was born 107 years ago today

Zero Mostel was born 107 years ago today.

An actor and comedian of stage and screen, Mostel was best known for his portrayal of comic characters such as Tevye on stage in Fiddler on the Roof, Pseudolus on stage and on screen in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and Max Bialystock in the original film version of The Producers.

Mostel was a student of Don Richardson, using an acting technique based on muscle memory. He was a Tony Award and Obie Award winner, and was blacklisted during the 1950s. His testimony before the House Committee on Un-American Activities was well-publicized.

In the last four months of his life, Mostel took on a nutritionally unsound diet (later described by his friends as a starvation diet) that reduced his weight from 304 to 215 pounds.

During rehearsals for Arnold Wesker's new play, The Merchant, (in which Mostel played a re-imagined version of Shakespeare's Shylock) in Philadelphia, he collapsed in his dressing room and was taken to Thomas Jefferson University Hospital.

He was diagnosed with a respiratory disorder and it was believed he was in no danger and would be released soon. However, on September 8, 1977, Mostel complained of dizziness and lost consciousness. The attending physicians were unable to revive him, and he was pronounced dead that evening. It is believed that he suffered an aortic aneurysm. He was 62 years old.

Train Riders, New York City, circa 1950s

Photo by Vivian Maier