Frank Beacham's Journal

Samuel Charters was born 93 years ago today

Sam Charter with his wife, Ann

Samuel Charters was born 93 years ago today.

Born in Pittsburgh, Charters was a music historian, writer, record producer, musician and poet. He was a noted and widely published author on the subjects of blues and jazz music, as well as a writer of fiction.

Charters was born into an upper-middle-class family that was interested in listening to and playing music of all sorts. "I grew up in a world of band rehearsals, blues records and a whole consciousness of jazz . . . The family also played ragtime, also played Debussy, also was involved in hearing Bartok's new music. It was a general musical cultural interest in which jazz was central."

Charters first became enamored of blues music in 1937, after hearing Bessie Smith's version of Jimmy Cox's song, "Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out." He moved with his family to Sacramento at the age of 15. Charters said that he was "playing clarinet, playing jazz steadily all this time; I had my first orchestra when I was thirteen . . . I had no natural abilities, but I soldiered on, and it was this that directly lead [sic] me to the beginning of the research."

Charters attended high schools in Pittsburgh and California and attended Sacramento City College, graduating in 1949. After completing military service during the Korean War, he received a bachelor's degree in economics from the University of California at Berkeley in 1956.

In the 1940s and 1950s, though he was mostly immersed in studying and playing jazz, Charters also purchased numerous old recordings of American blues musicians, eventually amassing a huge and valuable collection and beginning to understand that blues and jazz were connected in the history of black music.

In 1951, at the age of 21, he moved to New Orleans, where he absorbed the history and culture he had previously only read about. He lived there for most of the 1950s, moving back and forth between Berkeley and New Orleans. He served for two years in the United States Army (1951–53) and began to study jazz clarinet with George Lewis.

Charters was always interested in politics and had wished to play a role in public life, but because he had run afoul of the House Un-American Activities Committee while in the Army in 1952, he decided that he would have to engage in politics without holding any sort of office.

"For me, the writing about black music was my way of fighting racism. That's why my work is not academic, that is why it is absolutely nothing but popularization: I wanted people to hear black music, as I said in The Poetry of the Blues . . . It's where I say, you know, if by introducing music I can have somebody look across the racial divide and see a black face and see this person as a human being — and that's why my work is unashamedly romantic."

Charters always thought of blues as containing within it a small and pure strain of folk poetry, something that ran through the lyrics of early artists such as Charley Patton or Blind Willie McTell, but which was lost in the later, more commercialized, blues. "I really got bored with all those damn guitar solos. To me, they all sounded like B.B. King, and what I really wanted to hear was great text . . ."

The poetry of the blues, then, Charters thought of as profound human cultural expression that could connect all people who love poetry. For years he had been doing research into the history of jazz, but in the 1950s he also began to study the blues.

Noticing that his copy of the bluesman Robert Johnson's recordings were recorded in San Antonio, Charters set out for Texas in 1953 to discover what he could about Robert Johnson, but also about another favorite musician, Blind Willie Johnson.

For Charters and his wife, Ann Charters, the search for Robert Johnson began his years of doing field recordings (initially for Folkways Records throughout the United States, and then in the Bahamas in 1958 where he made the first recordings of Joseph Spence). Their 1959 recordings of the Texas bluesman, Lightnin' Hopkins, proved instrumental to Hopkins' rediscovery.

Also in 1959, Charters published his very influential book, The Country Blues, the first history of blues and an absorbing account of his search for the bluesmen themselves, as well as issuing the companion album to accompany it.

During the years of field work in the 1950s that lead to the publication of The Country Blues, Charters always felt overwhelmed with the amount of work required to properly document the music of black Americans and hoped that his writing would encourage others to join him.

"I always had the feeling that there were so few of us, and the work so vast. That's why I wrote the books as I did — to romanticize the glamor of looking for old blues singers. I was saying, 'Help! This job is really big, and I really need lots of help!' I really exaggerated this, but it worked! My God, I came back from that year in Europe and I found kids doing research in the South . . . They almost all came to me at some point, they wrote me a letter saying this is what I'm doing."

Charters' writings have been influential, bringing to light aspects of African American music and culture that had previously been largely unknown to the general public, as well as publishing poetry and novels. His writings include numerous books on the subjects of blues, jazz, African music, and Bahamian music, as well as liner notes for numerous sound recordings.

From 1966 to 1970, he worked as a producer for the psychedelic, anti-war band, Country Joe and the Fish (all albums except CJ Fish in 1970). He became thoroughly disenchanted with American politics during the Vietnam War and moved with his family to Sweden, establishing a new life there despite not being able to speak the language at first.

He divided his time between Sweden (where he had Swedish citizenship, though maintaining his U.S. citizenship) and Connecticut. He translated into English the works of the Swedish writer, Tomas Tranströmer, and helped produce the music of various Swedish musical groups.

Charters' first marriage, at the age of 20, ended in divorce. In 1959, Charters married the writer, editor, Beat generation scholar, photographer and pianist Ann Charters (b. 1936), whom he met at the University of California, Berkeley during the 1954-55 academic year in a music class. She is a retired professor of English and American literature at the University of Connecticut.

Charters’ book, The Country Blues, was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1991 as one of the "Classics of Blues Literature."

In 2000, Charters and his wife donated the “Samuel & Ann Charters Archive of Blues and Vernacular African American Musical Culture” to the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center of the University of Connecticut in Storrs, Connecticut. The archive contains materials collected during the couple's decades of work documenting and preserving African American music throughout the United States, the Caribbean and Africa.

The archive's materials include more than 2,500 sound recordings, as well as video recordings, photographs, monographs, sheet music, field notes, correspondence, musicians' contracts and correspondence.

Charters' book, A Trumpet Around the Corner: The Story of New Orleans Jazz, was released in April, 2008.

Charters died at his home in Arsta, Sweden on March 18, 2015 of myelodysplastic syndrome, a type of bone marrow cancer.

His is a video on Sam Charters collection at the University of Connecticut

Roger Daltrey is 78 years old today

Roger Daltry at a bar in New York City, 2005

Photo by Frank Beacham

Roger Daltrey is 78 years old today.

An English singer, musician, songwriter and actor, Daltrey is best known as the founder and lead singer of The Who. He has maintained a musical career as a solo artist and has also worked in the film industry, acting in films, theatre and television roles. He has also produced films.

Born in the Hammersmith area of London, Daltrey was brought up in Acton. It was the same working class suburban district that produced fellow Who members, Pete Townshend and John Entwistle.

Daltrey attended Victoria Primary School and then Acton County Grammar School for Boys along with Townshend and Entwistle. He showed academic promise in the English state school system.

His parents hoped he would eventually continue on to study at university, but Daltrey turned out to be a self-described "school rebel" and developed a dedicated interest in the emerging rock and roll music scene instead.

He made his first guitar from a block of wood, a cherry red Strat copy, and joined an existing skiffle band called the Detours in need of a lead singer. They told him he had to bring a guitar, and within a few weeks he showed up with it. And he could play it too.

When his father bought him an Epiphone guitar in 1959, he became the lead guitarist for the band and soon afterwards was expelled from school for smoking.

Describing the post-war times, Pete Townshend wrote in his autobiography:

"Until he was expelled, Roger had been a good pupil. Then he heard Elvis and transmogrified into a Teddy Boy with an electric guitar and a dress-sneer. Was it simply rock 'n' roll? It was obvious to a young man as intelligent as Roger that there was no future in conforming any more."

Daltrey became a sheet metal worker during the day, while practicing and performing nights with the band at weddings, pubs and working men's clubs. He invited schoolmate Entwistle to play bass in the band, and on the advice of Entwistle, invited Townshend to play guitar.

At that time, the band consisted of Daltrey on lead guitar, Pete Townshend on rhythm guitar, John Entwistle on bass, Doug Sandom on drums and Colin Dawson on lead vocals.

After Colin Dawson left the band, Daltrey switched to vocals and played harmonica as well, while Townshend became the lead guitarist. In 1964, drummer Doug Sandom left the band, eventually being replaced by Keith Moon.

Early on, Daltrey was the band's leader, earning a reputation for using his fists to exercise control when needed. In 1964, the group discovered another band working as the Detours and discussed changing their name.

Pete Townshend suggested "The Hair" and Townshend's roommate, Richard Barnes, suggested "The Who." The next morning, Daltrey made the decision for the band, saying "It's The Who, innit?"

With the band's first hit single and record deal in early 1965, Townshend began writing original material and Daltrey's dominance of the band began to decline.

As Townshend developed into one of rock's most accomplished composers, Daltrey's vocals became the vehicle through which Townshend's visions were expressed, and he gained an equally vaunted reputation as a powerful vocalist and riveting frontman.

The Who's stage act was highly energetic, and Daltrey's habit of swinging the microphone around by its cord on stage became his signature move.

Daltrey's Townshend-inspired stuttering expression of youthful anger, frustration and arrogance in the band's breakthrough single, "My Generation,” captured the revolutionary feeling of the 1960s for many young people around the world and became the band's trademark.

Later, his scream near the end of "Won't Get Fooled Again" became a defining moment in rock and roll.

With each of The Who's milestone achievements, Tommy, Who's Next, and Quadrophenia, Daltrey was the face and voice of the band as they defined themselves as the ultimate rebels in a generation of change.

When filmmaker Ken Russell's adaptation of Tommy appeared as a feature film in 1975, Daltrey played the lead role, was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for "Best Acting Debut in a Motion Picture" and appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine on April 10, 1975.

Afterward, Daltrey worked with Russell again, starring as Franz Liszt in Lisztomania. He worked with Rick Wakeman on the soundtrack to this film, writing the lyrics to three songs and also performing these, as well as others.

Daltrey has long been known as one of the most charismatic of rock's frontmen. According to Pete Townshend: "He almost invented the pseudo-messianic role taken up later by Jim Morrison and Robert Plant."

Daltrey uses Shure SM 58 microphones with cords which he tapes to reinforce the connection and avoid cutting his hands when he swings and catches the microphone.

In addition to music, Roger Daltrey has acted in advertisements, television and films, and maintains an extensive filmography.

Lauren Hutton, model and actress, is 78 years old today

Lauren Hutton, model and actress, is 78 years old today.

Born Mary Laurence Hutton in Charleston, South Carolina, Hutton’s parents divorced when she was young. Her mother remarried, and Mary's last name was changed to her step-father's name, Hall, although he never formally adopted her.

Hutton graduated from Chamberlain High School in Tampa, Florida in 1961. She was among the first students to attend the University of South Florida in Tampa in 1960. She later moved with former Tampa disc jockey Pat Chamburs, 19 years her senior, to New York City where she worked at the Playboy Club.

They later moved to New Orleans, where she attended Tulane University, graduating with a bachelor of arts degree in 1964. Hutton returned to New York, changed her name to Lauren Hutton, and became a top fashion model, cover girl (appearing on the cover of American Vogue a record 26 times) and commercial spokesperson.

She was advised to correct the slight gap in her teeth and tried using morticians' wax to cover the gap, cutting a line in the middle of it. Then she used a cap, which she would often swallow, laugh out or misplace. Later, she decided to retain this “imperfection,” which gave her on-camera persona a down-home sensibility that other, "more ethereal models lacked."

In her heyday, Hutton was known as "the fresh American face of fashion." In 1974, Hutton signed a million-dollar contract as the face of Revlon cosmetics.

At age 40, Revlon did not renew their contract with Hutton, and it was not until she was 50 that Hutton would sign a new contract with Revlon to be the representative for Revlon Results moisturizer line. She was presented on the November, 1999 Millennium cover of American Vogue as one of the "Modern Muses.”

Following her recovery from a motorcycle accident in 2000, she became the spokeswoman for her own signature brand of cosmetics, Good Stuff, sold primarily via Lauren Hutton Good Stuff in the USA, as well as through numerous secondary distribution channels throughout Europe and South America.

In October, 2005, at the age of 61, Hutton agreed to pose nude for Big magazine. "I want them (women) not to be ashamed of who they are when they're in bed," Hutton told ABC's Good Morning America.

She is signed to IMG Models in New York City, Paris and London. As an actress, Hutton made her film debut in the Paper Lion (1968), and she won notices for her performances in James Toback's The Gambler (1974), opposite James Caan. She also starred in John Carpenter's TV movie, Someone's Watching Me! (1978), and played the wealthy adventurous adulteress in American Gigolo (1980).

Important roles in major films were relatively few, however, and her acting career diminished during the 1980s, with most of her appearances being in minor European features or American films that fizzled at the box office, such as Lassiter (1984), Once Bitten (1985) and Guilty as Charged (1992).

A motorcycle enthusiast, Hutton made headlines in October, 2000 when, at the age of 56, she was involved in a serious motorcycle accident. She was on a 100-mile ride near Las Vegas with various motorbikers, including actors Dennis Hopper and Jeremy Irons, to celebrate a planned motorcycle exhibit at the Hermitage-Guggenheim museum. Irons reportedly had given Hutton a full-face helmet just minutes before she crashed.

Losing control on a curve, she skidded about 100 feet and then went airborne, ultimately suffering multiple leg and arm fractures, broken ribs, a punctured lung, cuts and bruises.

She has never married, but had a 27-year-long relationship with her manager, Bob Williamson, who squandered some $13 million of her money.

As of March, 2014, Hutton is represented by the IMG Models agency and is one of their "Special Bookings" models. Julianne Moore and Liv Tyler are also represented by IMG under the same category.

"We have to be able to grow up. Our wrinkles are our medals of the passage of life. They are what we have been through and who we want to be. I don't think I will ever cut my face, because once I cut it, I'll never know where I've been," Hutton has been quoted.

Nico was born 83 years ago today

Nico was born 83 years ago today.

Born as Christa Päffgen, Nico was a German singer, lyricist, composer, musician, fashion model and actress. She initially rose to fame as a Warhol Superstar in the 1960s.

Nico is known for both her vocal collaboration on The Velvet Underground's debut album, The Velvet Underground & Nico (1967), and her work as a solo artist from the late 1960s through the early 1980s.

She also had roles in several films, including a cameo in Federico Fellini's La Dolce Vita (1960) and Andy Warhol's Chelsea Girls (1966), as herself.

Nico died in July 1988 at age 49, as a result of injuries sustained in a cycling accident while vacationing in Ibiza with her son.

Nico has influenced many musicians, including Siouxsie and the Banshees, Bauhaus, Stevie Nicks, Elliott Smith, Patti Smith, Morrissey, Björk, Coil, Jocelyn Pook, Fabienne Shine (who covered "All Tomorrow's Parties"), Dead Can Dance, Marcus Reeves as well as numerous contemporary goth bands.

Here, with the Velvet Underground, Nico performs “Femme Fatale,” 1975

Bettie Page was born 98 years ago today

Bettie Page was born 98 years ago today.

A model who gained a significant profile in the 1950s for her pin-up photos, Page is often referred to as the "Queen of Pinups.” Her jet black hair, blue eyes and trademark bangs have influenced artists for generations.

A native of Nashville, Page lived in California in her early adult years before moving to New York City to pursue work as an actress. There, she began to find work as a pin-up model and posed for dozens of photographers throughout the 1950s. Page was "Miss January, 1955," one of the earliest Playmates of the Month for Playboy magazine.

"I think that she was a remarkable lady, an iconic figure in pop culture who influenced sexuality, taste in fashion, someone who had a tremendous impact on our society," said Playboy founder, Hugh Hefner, to the Associated Press in 2008.

In 1959, Page converted to evangelical Christianity and worked for Billy Graham, studying at Bible colleges in Los Angeles and Portland, Oregon, with the intent of becoming a missionary. The latter part of Page's life was marked by depression, violent mood swings and several years in a state psychiatric hospital suffering from paranoid schizophrenia.

After years of obscurity, she experienced a resurgence of popularity in the 1980s. In 2006, Page and Halo Guitars collaborated to produce a limited edition of custom guitars, released at the 2007 Winter NAMM show in southern California.

The total run of one hundred guitars was handmade and designed by luthier Waylon Ford and the art was designed by Pamelina H. It was the only collector guitar series authorized by Bettie Page.

Page’s influence on popular culture was enormous.

Said MTV: "Katy Perry's rocker bangs and throwback skimpy jumpers. Madonna's Sex book and fascination with bondage gear. Rihanna's obsession with all things leather, lace and second-skin binding. Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction. The SuicideGirls Web site. The Pussycat Dolls. The entire career of burlesque dancer Dita Von Teese and Bernie Dexter" would not have been possible without Page.”

In 2011, Page’s estate made the Forbes annual list of top-earning dead celebrities, earning $6 million and tied with the estates of George Harrison and Andy Warhol, at 13th on the list. In 2014, Forbes estimated that Page's estate earned $10 million in 2013.

Page died on December 11, 2008 at age 85.

Lauren Hutton, the model and actress, is 77 years old today

Lauren Hutton, the model and actress, is 77 years old today.

Born Mary Laurence Hutton in Charleston, South Carolina, Hutton’s parents divorced when she was young. Her mother remarried, and Mary's last name was changed to her step-father's name, Hall, although he never formally adopted her.

Hutton graduated from Chamberlain High School in Tampa, Florida in 1961. She was among the first students to attend the University of South Florida in Tampa in 1960. She later moved with former Tampa disc jockey Pat Chamburs, 19 years her senior, to New York City where she worked at the Playboy Club.

They later moved to New Orleans, where she attended Tulane University, graduating with a bachelor of arts degree in 1964. Hutton returned to New York, changed her name to Lauren Hutton, and became a top fashion model, cover girl (appearing on the cover of American Vogue a record 26 times) and commercial spokesperson.

She was advised to correct the slight gap in her teeth and tried using morticians' wax to cover the gap, cutting a line in the middle of it. Then she used a cap, which she would often swallow, laugh out or misplace. Later, she decided to retain this “imperfection,” which gave her on-camera persona a down-home sensibility that other, "more ethereal models lacked."

In her heyday, Hutton was known as "the fresh American face of fashion." In 1974, Hutton signed a million-dollar contract as the face of Revlon cosmetics.

At age 40, Revlon did not renew their contract with Hutton, and it was not until she was 50 that Hutton would sign a new contract with Revlon to be the representative for Revlon Results moisturizer line. She was presented on the November, 1999 Millennium cover of American Vogue as one of the "Modern Muses.”

Following her recovery from a motorcycle accident in 2000, she became the spokeswoman for her own signature brand of cosmetics, Good Stuff, sold primarily via Lauren Hutton Good Stuff in the USA, as well as through numerous secondary distribution channels throughout Europe and South America.

In October, 2005, at the age of 61, Hutton agreed to pose nude for Big magazine. "I want them (women) not to be ashamed of who they are when they're in bed," Hutton told ABC's Good Morning America.

She is signed to IMG Models in New York City, Paris and London. As an actress, Hutton made her film debut in the Paper Lion (1968), and she won notices for her performances in James Toback's The Gambler (1974), opposite James Caan. She also starred in John Carpenter's TV movie, Someone's Watching Me! (1978), and played the wealthy adventurous adulteress in American Gigolo (1980).

Important roles in major films were relatively few, however, and her acting career diminished during the 1980s, with most of her appearances being in minor European features or American films that fizzled at the box office, such as Lassiter (1984), Once Bitten (1985) and Guilty as Charged (1992).

A motorcycle enthusiast, Hutton made headlines in October, 2000 when, at the age of 56, she was involved in a serious motorcycle accident. She was on a 100-mile ride near Las Vegas with various motorbikers, including actors Dennis Hopper and Jeremy Irons, to celebrate a planned motorcycle exhibit at the Hermitage-Guggenheim museum. Irons reportedly had given Hutton a full-face helmet just minutes before she crashed.

Losing control on a curve, she skidded about 100 feet and then went airborne, ultimately suffering multiple leg and arm fractures, broken ribs, a punctured lung, cuts and bruises.

She has never married, but had a 27-year-long relationship with her manager, Bob Williamson, who squandered some $13 million of her money.

As of March, 2014, Hutton is represented by the IMG Models agency and is one of their "Special Bookings" models. Julianne Moore and Liv Tyler are also represented by IMG under the same category.

"We have to be able to grow up. Our wrinkles are our medals of the passage of life. They are what we have been through and who we want to be. I don't think I will ever cut my face, because once I cut it, I'll never know where I've been," Hutton has been quoted.