Frank Beacham's Journal

Writer Pat Conroy was born 77 years ago today

Photo by David G. Spielman

Writer Pat Conroy was born 77 years ago today.

Conroy wrote several acclaimed novels and memoirs. Two of his novels, The Prince of Tides and The Great Santini, were made into Oscar-nominated films. He is recognized as a leading figure of late-20th century Southern literature.

Born in Atlanta, he was the eldest of seven children (five boys and two girls) born to Marine Colonel Donald Conroy, of Chicago, Illinois and the former Frances "Peggy" Peek of Alabama. His father was a Marine Corps fighter pilot, and Conroy moved often in his youth, attending eleven schools by the time he was 15.

He never had a hometown until his family settled in Beaufort, South Carolina, where he finished high school. His alma mater was The Citadel, a military college in South Carolina. His experiences at the military school provided the basis for two of his best-known works, the novel, The Lords of Discipline, and the memoir, My Losing Season.

Conroy has said his stories were heavily influenced by his military brat upbringing, and in particular, difficulties experienced with his own father, a U.S. Marine Corps pilot, who was physically and emotionally abusive toward his children. The pain of a youth growing up in such a harsh environment is evident in Conroy's novels, particularly The Great Santini.

On February 15, 2016, Conroy said he was being treated for pancreatic cancer. He died on March 4, 2016 at the age of 70.

On this day in 1881 — 141 years ago — the Earp brothers faced off against the Clanton-McLaury gang in the legendary shootout at the OK Corral in Tombstone, Arizona

On this day in 1881 — 141 years ago — the Earp brothers faced off against the Clanton-McLaury gang in the legendary shootout at the OK Corral in Tombstone, Arizona.

After silver was discovered nearby in 1877, Tombstone quickly grew into one of the richest mining towns in the Southwest. Wyatt Earp, a former Kansas police officer working as a bank security guard, and his brothers, Morgan and Virgil, the town marshal, represented "law and order" in Tombstone, though they also had reputations as being power-hungry and ruthless.

The Clantons and McLaurys were cowboys who lived on a ranch outside of town and sidelined as cattle rustlers, thieves and murderers.

In October, 1881, the struggle between these two groups for control of Tombstone and Cochise County ended in a blaze of gunfire at the OK Corral.
   
On the morning of October 25, Ike Clanton and Tom McLaury came into Tombstone for supplies. Over the next 24 hours, the two men had several violent run-ins with the Earps and their friend, Doc Holliday. Around 1:30 p.m. on October 26, Ike's brother, Billy, rode into town to join them, along with Frank McLaury and Billy Claiborne.

The first person they met in the local saloon was Holliday, who was delighted to inform them that their brothers had both been pistol-whipped by the Earps. Frank and Billy immediately left the saloon, vowing revenge.

Around 3 p.m., the Earps and Holliday spotted the five members of the Clanton-McLaury gang in a vacant lot behind the OK Corral, at the end of Fremont Street.

The famous gunfight that ensued lasted all of 30 seconds, and around 30 shots were fired. Though it's still debated who fired the first shot, most reports say that the shootout began when Virgil Earp pulled out his revolver and shot Billy Clanton point-blank in the chest, while Doc Holliday fired a shotgun blast at Tom McLaury's chest.

Though Wyatt Earp wounded Frank McLaury with a shot in the stomach, Frank managed to get off a few shots before collapsing, as did Billy Clanton.

When the dust cleared, Billy Clanton and the McLaury brothers were dead, and Virgil and Morgan Earp and Doc Holliday were wounded. Ike Clanton and Claiborne had run for the hills.

Sheriff John Behan of Cochise County, who witnessed the shootout, charged the Earps and Holliday with murder. A month later, however, a Tombstone judge found the men not guilty, ruling that they were "fully justified in committing these homicides."

The famous shootout has been immortalized in many movies, including Frontier Marshal (1939), Gunfight at the OK Corral (1957), Tombstone (1993) and Wyatt Earp (1994).   

Pablo Picasso was born 141 years ago today

Pablo Picasso in his studio in Vallauris, France, October 23, 1953

Pablo Picasso was born 141 years ago today.

Picasso was Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and stage designer who spent most of his adult life in France.

As one of the greatest and most influential artists of the 20th century, he is widely known for co-founding the Cubist movement, the invention of constructed sculpture, the co-invention of collage and for the wide variety of styles that he helped develop and explore.

Among his most famous works are the proto-Cubist Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907), and Guernica (1937), a portrayal of the German bombing of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War.

Picasso, Henri Matisse and Marcel Duchamp are commonly regarded as the three artists who most defined the revolutionary developments in the plastic arts in the opening decades of the 20th century, each responsible for significant developments in painting, sculpture, printmaking and ceramics.

Picasso demonstrated extraordinary artistic talent in his early years, painting in a realistic manner through his childhood and adolescence.

During the first decade of the century, his style changed as he experimented with different theories, techniques and ideas. His revolutionary artistic accomplishments brought him universal renown and immense fortune, making him one of the best-known figures in art.

Here Picasso’s draws in a short video

Pablo Picasso paints Guernica in his Paris studio, circa 1937

Photo by Dora Maar

Two women sitting at a bar, 1902

Painting by Pablo Picasso

From the artist’s blue period. The painting hangs in the Royal Academy of Arts in London.

Helen Reddy was born 81 years ago today

Helen Reddy was born 81 years ago today.

An Australian American singer, actress and activist, Reddy was often referred to as the "Queen of 70s Pop."

In the 1970s, she enjoyed international success, especially in the United States, where she placed 15 singles in the Top 40 of the Billboard Hot 100. Six made the Top 10 and three reached #1, including her signature hit, "I Am Woman."

She placed 25 songs on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart. Fifteen made the Top 10 and eight reached #1, six consecutively.

In television, she was the first Australian to host her own one-hour weekly primetime variety show on an American network, along with several specials that were seen in over forty countries.

Reddy retired from live performance in 2002 and practiced as a clinical hypnotherapist and motivational speaker. She lived in Australia.

Her song, "I Am Woman," played a large role in popular culture and became an anthem for second-wave feminism. She came to be known as a "feminist poster girl" or a "feminist icon."

Reddy died on September 29, 2020 in Los Angeles at age 78. She suffered from Addison’s disease and dementia in her later years.

Here, Reddy performs “I Am Woman” in 1971

Minnie Pearl was born 110 years ago today

Minnie Pearl, 1956

Photo by Walden S. Fabry

Sarah Ophelia Colley Cannon — known better as her character, Minnie Pearl — was born 110 years ago today.

She was a country comedienne who appeared at the Grand Ole Opry for more than 50 years (from 1940 to 1991) and on the television show, Hee Haw, from 1969 to 1991.

Sarah Colley was born in Centerville, in Hickman County, Tennessee, about 50 miles southwest of Nashville. She was the youngest of the five daughters of a prosperous lumberman in Centerville.

She graduated from Ward-Belmont College (now Belmont University), at the time Nashville's most prestigious school for young ladies, where her major was theater studies. Dance was a particular interest of hers. After graduation, she taught dance for several years.

Her first professional theatrical job was with the Wayne P. Sewell Production Company, a touring theater company based in Atlanta, for which she produced and directed plays and musicals for local organizations in small towns throughout the southeastern United States.

As part of her work with the Sewell company, she made brief appearances at civic organizations to promote the group's shows. She developed her Minnie Pearl routine during this period. While producing an amateur musical comedy in Baileyton, Alabama, she met a mountain woman whose style and talk became the basis for "Cousin Minnie Pearl.”

Her first stage performance as Minnie Pearl was in 1939 in Aiken, South Carolina.

The following year, executives from Nashville radio station WSM-AM saw her perform at a bankers' convention in Centerville and gave her an opportunity to appear on the Grand Ole Opry on November 30, 1940.

The success of her debut on the show began an association with the Grand Ole Opry that continued for more than 50 years.

Pearl's comedy was gentle satire of the rural South, often called "hillbilly" culture. Pearl always dressed in styleless "down home" dresses and wore a hat with a price tag hanging from it, displaying the price of $1.98. Her catch phrase was "How-w-w-DEE-E-E-E! I'm jes' so proud to be here!" delivered in a loud holler.

After she became an established star, her audiences usually shouted "How-w-w-DEE-E-E-E!" back.

Pearl's humor was often self-deprecating, and involved her unsuccessful attempts at attracting the attention of "a feller" and, particularly in later years, her age. She also told monologues involving her comical 'ne'er-do-well' relatives, notably "Uncle Nabob" and "Brother,” who was simultaneously both slow-witted and wise.

She usually closed her monologues with the exit line, "I love you so much it hurts!" She also sang comic novelty songs. Pearl's comic material derived heavily from her hometown of Centerville, which in her act she called Grinder's Switch.

Grinder's Switch is a community just outside of Centerville that consisted of little more than a railroad switch. Those who knew her recognized that the characters were largely based on real residents of Centerville.

So much traffic resulted from fans and tourists looking for Grinder's Switch that the Hickman County Highway Department eventually changed the designation on the "Grinder's Switch" road sign to "Hickman Springs Road."

Pearl suffered a serious stroke in June, 1991, bringing her performing career to an end. After the stroke she resided in a Nashville nursing home where she received frequent visits from country music industry figures, including Chely Wright, Vince Gill and Amy Grant.

Her death on March 4, 1996, at the age of 83, was attributed to complications from another stroke.

She was an important influence on younger female country music singers and rural humorists such as Jerry Clower, Jeff Foxworthy, Bill Engvall, Carl Hurley, David L Cook, Chonda Pierce, Ron White and Larry the Cable Guy. In 1992, she was awarded the National Medal of Arts.

In 2002, she was ranked as #14 on CMT's 40 Greatest Women in Country Music list.

Here, Minnie Pearl performs in the “Jasper High” sketch on the Johnny Cash Show

Eddie Lang, father of the jazz guitar, was born 120 years ago

Eddie Lang at age 22

Eddie Lang, father of the jazz guitar, was born 120 years ago.

Lang played a Gibson L-4 and L-5 guitar, providing great influence for many guitarists, including Django Reinhardt.

Born as Salvatore Massaro, he was the son of an Italian-American instrument maker in Philadelphia. He took violin lessons for 11 years. In school, he became friends with Joe Venuti, with whom he would work for much of his career.

Lang was playing professionally by 1918, playing violin, banjo and guitar. He worked with various bands in the northeast of the U.S., worked in London (late 1924 to early 1925) and then settled in New York City.

Lang was considered the first important jazz guitarist. He was effectively able to integrate the guitar into 1920s jazz recordings. He played with the bands of Joe Venuti, Adrian Rollini, Roger Wolfe Kahn and Jean Goldkette, in addition to doing a large amount of freelance radio and recording work.

On February 4, 1927, Lang featured in the recording of "Singin' the Blues" by Frankie Trumbauer and his Orchestra featuring Bix Beiderbecke on cornet. Lang traded guitar licks while Beiderbecke soloed on cornet, in a landmark jazz recording of the 1920s.

In 1929, he joined Paul Whiteman's Orchestra, and can be seen and heard in the movie, The King of Jazz. In 1930, Lang played guitar on the original recording of the jazz and pop standard "Georgia On My Mind,” recorded with Hoagy Carmichael and his Orchestra. Joe Venuti and Bix Beiderbecke also played on this recording.

When Bing Crosby left Whiteman, Lang went with Crosby as his accompanist, and can be seen with him in the 1932 movie, Big Broadcast. Lang also played under the pseudonym, Blind Willie Dunn, on a number of blues records with Lonnie Johnson.

Lang died following a tonsillectomy in New York City in 1933 at the age of thirty.

He had been urged by Crosby to have the tonsillectomy so that he might have speaking parts in Crosby's films. Lang's voice was chronically hoarse, and it was hoped that the operation would remedy this.

Here, Italian jazz guitarist, Michele Ariodante, and American violinist, Andy Stein, play “Wild Cat,” a classic tune by the Lang-Venuti duo

On this day in 1991 — 31 years ago — Bill Graham, the rock music promoter, died in a helicopter crash

On this day in 1991 — 31 years ago — Bill Graham, the rock music promoter, died in a helicopter crash.

In the early 1960s, Graham moved to San Francisco, and, in 1965, began to manage the San Francisco Mime Troupe. He had teamed up with local Haight Ashbury promoter, Chet Helms, and Family Dog, and their network of contacts, to organize a benefit concert, then promoted several free concerts.

This eventually turned into a profitable full-time career and he assembled a talented staff. Graham had a profound influence around the world, sponsoring the musical renaissance of the '60s from the epicenter, San Francisco.

Graham and Helms made famous the Fillmore and Winterland Arena; these turned out to be a proving grounds for rock bands and acts of the San Francisco Bay area including the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane and Big Brother and the Holding Company with Janis Joplin.

Graham was killed in the crash west of Vallejo, California on October 25, 1991, while returning home from a Huey Lewis and the News concert at the Concord Pavilion.

Flying in severe weather, with rain and gusty winds, the aircraft flew off course and too low over the tidal marshland north of San Pablo Bay. The Bell Jet Ranger flew directly into a 223-foot high-voltage tower near where Highway 37, which runs between Vallejo, California and Marin County, California, crosses Sonoma Creek.

The helicopter burst into flames on impact, killing Graham, pilot and advance man Steve "Killer" Kahn, and Graham's girlfriend, Melissa Gold, ex-wife of author Herbert Gold. The charred remains of the helicopter hung eerily in the tower for more than a day.

Women in Penn Station, New York, 1942

Photo by Marjory Collins

Bill Wyman is 86 years old today

Bill Wyman is 86 years old today.

Wyman is an English musician who was the bass guitarist for the Rolling Stones from 1962 until 1993.

Since 1997, he has recorded and toured with his own band, Bill Wyman's Rhythm Kings. He has worked producing both records and film, and has scored music for film in movies and television.

Wyman has kept a journal since he was a child after World War II. It has been useful to him as an author who has written seven books, selling two million copies.

His love of art has additionally led to his proficiency in photography and his photographs have hung in galleries around the world.

Wyman's lack of funds in his early years led him to create and build his own fretless bass guitar. He became an amateur archaeologist and enjoys relic hunting.

He designed and markets a patented Bill Wyman signature metal detector, which he has used to find relics in the English countryside dating back to the era of the Roman Empire.

As a businessman, he owns several establishments including the famous Sticky Fingers Café, a rock & roll-themed bistro serving American cuisine first opened in 1989 in the Kensington area of London and later, two additional locations in Cambridge and Manchester, England.

In March, 2016, Wyman said he had been diagnosed with prostate cancer and had made a full recovery.

Here, Bill Wyman is interviewed in 2005

Bill Wyman & Rhythm Kings perform “Chicken Shack Boogie”

On this day in 1962 — 60 years ago — James Brown recorded his breakthrough album, Live at the Apollo

On this day in 1962 — 60 years ago — James Brown recorded his breakthrough album, Live at the Apollo.

Brown began his professional career at a time when rock and roll was opening new opportunities for black artists to connect with white audiences. But the path he took to fame did not pass through Top 40 radio or through The Ed Sullivan Show and American Bandstand.

Brown would make his appearance in all of those places eventually, but only after a decade spent performing almost exclusively before black audiences and earning his reputation as the “Hardest Working Man in Show Business.”

On this day in 1962, he took a major step toward his eventual crossover and conquest of the mainstream with an electrifying performance on black America's most famous stage — a performance recorded and later released as Live at the Apollo (1963), the first breakthrough album of James Brown's career.

By the time 1962 rolled around, Brown was one of the most popular figures on the R&B scene, not so much on the strength of his recordings, but on the strength of his live act.

As he would throughout his long career, Brown ran his band, the Famous Flames, like a military unit, demanding of his instrumentalists and backing vocalists the same perfection he demanded of himself.

Even in the middle of a performance, Brown would turn around and dish out fines for missed or flubbed notes, all without missing or flubbing a dance step himself.

At the midnight show at the Apollo on October 24, 1962, however, every member of Brown's band knew that the fines they faced would be far greater than normal. "You made a mistake that night," band member Bobby Byrd told Rolling Stone magazine, "the fine would move from five or ten dollars to fifty or a hundred dollars."

The reason was simple. Having failed to convince the head of his label, King Records, to record and release the performance as a live album, James Brown, a man who was famously wise to the value of a dollar, was financing the Apollo recording himself.

In the end, the show went off not only without a hitch, but with such success that the famously tough Apollo crowd was in a state of rapture.

Released in May, 1963, Live at the Apollo ended up spending an astonishing 66 weeks on the Billboard album chart and selling upwards of a million copies, giving James Brown his first smash hit album and setting him on a course for his incredible crossover success in the mid-1960s and beyond.

Thanks History.com