Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart is 80 years old today
Mickey Hart at a performance in Santa Clara, California
Mickey Hart is 80 years old today.
A percussionist and musicologist, Hart is one of the two drummers for the Grateful Dead. He was a member of the Grateful Dead from September, 1967 to February, 1971, and from October, 1974 to August, 1995. He and fellow Dead drummer, Bill Kreutzmann, shared the nickname "the rhythm devils.”
Before joining the Dead, Hart and his father, Leonard Hart, a champion rudimental drummer, owned and operated Hart Music, selling drums and musical instruments in San Carlos, California. During Hart’s 1972 sabbatical, he recorded the album, Rolling Thunder.
Hart returned to the Dead in 1974, and remained with the group until their official dissolution in 1995. Collaboration with the remaining members of the Grateful Dead continued under the band name, The Dead.
Alongside his work with the band, Hart has flourished as a solo artist, percussionist and the author of several books. In these endeavors, he has pursued a lifelong interest in ethnomusicology and in world music.
His travels and his interest in all things percussion-related led him to collect percussion instruments and to collaborate with percussion masters the world over.
Hart recently toured with Dead & Company, a band consisting of former Grateful Dead members Bob Weir and Bill Kreutzmann, along with John Mayer (guitar), Oteil Burbridge (bass) and Jeff Chimenti (keyboards).
Here, Hart performs with the Global Drum Project.
Leo Kottke is 78 years old today.
Born in Athens, Georgia, Kottke is an acoustic guitarist known for a fingerpicking style that draws on influences from blues, jazz, folk and for syncopated, polyphonic melodies.
Kottke overcame a series of personal obstacles, including partial loss of hearing and a nearly career-ending bout with tendon damage in his right hand to emerge as a widely-recognized master of his instrument.
Focusing primarily on instrumental composition and playing, Kottke also sings sporadically, in an unconventional yet expressive baritone famously self-described as sounding like "geese farts on a muggy day.”
In concert, Kottke intersperses humorous and often bizarre monologues with vocal and instrumental selections from throughout his career, played solo on his signature six and 12-string guitars.
Here Kottke performs a short set on the Rockpalast TV show in Germany, 1977.
Harry Connick, Jr. is 56 years old today.
A singer, big-band leader/conductor, pianist, actor and composer, Connick has sold more than 25 million albums worldwide. He has seven Top 20 U.S. albums and ten #1 U.S. jazz albums, earning more #1 albums than any other artist in the U.S. jazz chart history.
Connick's best selling album in the United States is his 1993 Christmas album, When My Heart Finds Christmas. His highest charting album is his 2004 release, Only You, which reached #5 in the U.S. and #6 in Britain.
Connick began his acting career as a tail gunner in the World War II film, Memphis Belle, in 1990. He played a serial killer in Copycat in 1995, before being cast as jet fighter pilot in the 1996 blockbuster, Independence Day.
Connick's first role as a leading man was in 1998's Hope Floats with Sandra Bullock. His first thriller film since Copycat came in 2007, when he played the violent ex-husband in Bug, before two romantic comedies, 2007's P.S. I Love You, and the leading man in New in Town with Renée Zellweger in 2009.
Here, Harry Connick, Jr. performs Just the Way You Are.
Jimmie Davis, country singer and former two-term governor of Louisiana, was born 124 years ago today.
A noted singer of both sacred and popular songs who served two nonconsecutive terms as the Governor of Louisiana (1944–1948 and 1960–1964), Davis was a nationally popular country music and gospel singer from the 1930s into the 1960s, occasionally recording and performing as late as the early 1990s.
Born in 1899 to a sharecropping couple, the family was so poor that young Jimmie did not have a bed in which to sleep until he was nine years old.
Davis graduated from Beech Springs High School and Soule Business College, New Orleans campus. He received his bachelor's degree in history from the Baptist-affiliated Louisiana College in Pineville and received a master's degree from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge.
Davis's 1927 master's thesis examined the intelligence levels of different races, and is titled Comparative Intelligence of Whites, Blacks and Mulattoes. He taught history (and, unofficially, yodeling) for a year at the former Dodd College for Girls in Shreveport during the late 1920s.
He was hired by the college president, Monroe Elmon Dodd, who was also the pastor of the large First Baptist Church of Shreveport and a pioneer radio preacher. Davis became a commercially successful singer of rural music before he entered politics.
His early work was in the style of early country music luminary, Jimmie Rodgers, and he was also known for recording energetic and raunchy blues tunes like, "Red Nightgown Blues.” Some of these records included slide guitar accompaniment by black bluesman, Oscar "Buddy" Woods.
During his first run for governor, opponents reprinted the lyrics of some of these songs in order to undermine Davis's campaign. In one case, anti-Davis forces played some of the records over an outdoor sound system only to give up after the crowds started dancing, ignoring the double-entendre lyrics.
Davis until the end of his life never denied or repudiated those records. He is associated with several popular songs, most notably "You Are My Sunshine,” which was designated an official state song of Louisiana in 1977. He claimed that he wrote the song while attending graduate school at LSU, but research indicates he bought it from another performer.
The practice of buying songs from their composers was a common practice during the 1930s through the 1960s as some writers in need of cash often sold tunes to others. "You Are My Sunshine" was ranked #73 on CMT's 100 Greatest Songs in Country Music in 2003. Until his death, Davis insisted that he wrote the song. In any case, it will forever be associated with him.
Davis became the popular "singing governor" who often performed during his campaign stops. While governor, he had a #1 hit single in 1945 with "There's a New Moon Over My Shoulder.”
Davis recorded for Decca Records for decades and released over 40 albums. A number of his songs were used as part of motion picture soundtracks, and Davis himself appeared in half a dozen films, one with the popular entertainers Ozzie and Harriet.
Members of Davis' last band included Allen "Puddler" Harris of Lake Charles, who had also been an original pianist of Ricky Nelson.
Davis died in 2000 at age 101.
Here, Davis sings “You Are My Sunshine.”
On this day in 1964 — 59 years ago — the Beatles announced in Jacksonville, Florida they would not play to a racially segregated audience.
The concert, at Jacksonville’s Gator Bowl, was originally to have been whites only, but The Beatles refused to perform until they received an assurance from the promoter that the audience would be integrated.
“We never play to segregated audiences and we aren't going to start now,” John Lennon said. “I'd sooner lose our appearance money.”
The 1971 Mississippi campaign for governor. Evers is in the center and a 23-year-old Frank Beacham on the top right.
Charles Evers, brother of slain civil rights leader Medgar Evers, was born 101 years ago today.
In 1969, Evers became the first African American since the Reconstruction era to have been elected as mayor in a Mississippi city, Fayette, in Jefferson County. In 1971, he ran for governor and later for the U.S. Senate in 1978, both times as an Independent candidate.
As a young reporter for United Press International assigned to the final days of the civil rights movement, I covered Evers' 1971 campaign for governor. He was a fascinating man in a fascinating time.
During World War II, Charles and Medgar Evers both served in the United States Army. Charles fell in love with a Filipino woman overseas. He could not marry her and go to his native Mississippi because of her "white" skin color. Mississippi had enshrined Jim Crow rules in its constitution, which prohibited interracial marriages.
In Mississippi in 1951, Charles and Medgar grew interested in African freedom movements. They were interested in Jomo Kenyatta and the rise of the Kikuyu tribal resistance to colonialism in Kenya, known as the "Mau-Mau" Rebellion as it moved to open violence.
Along with his brother, Charles became active in the Regional Council of Negro Leadership (RCNL), a civil rights organization that also promoted self-help and business ownership. He drew inspiration from Dr. T. R. M. Howard, the president of the RCNL, who was one of the wealthiest blacks in the state.
Between 1952 and 1955, Evers often spoke at the RCNL's annual conferences in Mound Bayou on such issues as voting rights. Around 1956, Evers's entrepreneurial gifts and his civil rights activism landed him in trouble in Philadelphia, Mississippi. He left town and moved to Chicago.
There, he vowed to support the movement back home, and fell into a life of hustling, running numbers for organized crime and managing prostitutes. The money he made was said to have been substantial, and much of it was used to underwrite the Civil Rights Movement.
In 1963, Byron De La Beckwith shot Medgar Evers as he arrived home from work. Evers died in an ambulance on the way to the hospital. Charles Evers was shocked and deeply upset by news of his brother's death.
Over the opposition of more establishment figures in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) like Roy Wilkins, Charles took over Medgar's post as head of the NAACP in Mississippi.
In 1969, Charles Evers was elected mayor of Fayette, Mississippi, the first African-American mayor in his state since Reconstruction. By then, Fayette had a majority of black residents, but African Americans had been effectively disfranchised in Mississippi from 1890 until passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Fayette had no industry, which meant it had almost no residents who had grown up outside the area. Its white community was known to be hostile towards blacks. Evers' election as mayor had enormous symbolic significance statewide and national resonance. The NAACP named Evers the 1969 "Man of the Year."
John Updike mentioned Evers in his popular novel, Rabbit Redux. Evers popularized the slogan, "Hands that picked cotton can now pick the mayor." Evers served many terms as mayor of Fayette. Admired by some, he alienated others with his inflexible stands on various issues. Evers did not like to share or delegate power.
The political rival who finally defeated Evers in a mayoral election used the slogan: "We've seen what Fayette can do for one man. Now let's see what one man can do for Fayette."
In 1971, Evers ran but was defeated in the gubernatorial general election by Democrat William "Bill" Waller, 601,222 (77 percent) to 172,762 (22.1 percent). Waller had been the original prosecutor of Byron De La Beckwith.
In 1978, Evers ran for the Senate seat vacated by James O. Eastland. He finished in third place behind his opponents, Democrat Maurice Dantin and Republican Thad Cochran, but he received 24 percent of the vote. Cochran won the election and still holds the Senate seat.
Evers died on July 22, 2020 in Brandon, Mississippi at the age of 97.
Fatty Arbuckle, silent film star, was arrested for murder on this day in 1921 — 102 years ago.
Arbuckle, a silent-film era performer at the height of his fame, was arrested in San Francisco for the rape and murder of aspiring actress, Virginia Rappe. He was later acquitted by a jury, but the scandal essentially put an end to his motion picture career.
Roscoe Conkling Arbuckle was born on March 24, 1887, in Smith Center, Kansas. He worked as a vaudeville performer, and in 1913, began appearing in Mack Sennett’s Keystone Cops comedies. He became known for his comedic pratfalls and pie-throwing.
In 1917, Arbuckle formed his own company and began writing and directing films, many of which starred his friend and fellow comedian, Buster Keaton. In 1919, the heavy-set actor signed a $1 million per year deal with Paramount Pictures, an extraordinary sum for the time.
In September, 1921, Arbuckle went to San Francisco with two male friends for a short vacation and checked into the St. Francis Hotel. The men hosted a party in their suite, during which a guest named, Virginia Rappe, who had been drinking, became ill.
Rappe, who was in her twenties, died several days later from peritonitis caused by a ruptured bladder. Maude Delmont, another guest at the party, claimed Arbuckle had raped Rappe and injured her bladder.
Arbuckle’s arrest on September 11 by the San Francisco police soon generated a massive scandal. Arbuckle maintained his innocence, but he was lambasted in the press. The public — unused to Hollywood scandal — boycotted his films.
The politically ambitious San Francisco district attorney was determined to prosecute Arbuckle, even though Delmont turned out to be a questionable witness with a criminal record of her own. Several other witnesses would later claim the prosecution had intimidated them into giving false testimony.
After two mistrials, the jury in Arbuckle’s third trial found him not guilty and even issued him an apology. Despite this favorable outcome for Arbuckle, the U.S. film industry nevertheless banned him.
He subsequently attempted a comeback and even directed several films under the pseudonym William B. Goodrich, but his career never fully recovered and he struggled with alcoholism.
Arbuckle died of heart failure at age 46 on June 29, 1933 in New York City.
Thanks History.com
On this day in 1952 — 71 years ago — Ahmet Ertegun began recording his newest signing, Ray Charles, then 21, at Atlantic Records on West 56th St in New York City.
Ertegun had purchased the Charles contract from the Swingtime label for $2,500.
The Singing Butler, 1992
Painting by Jack Vettriano
An oil-on-canvas painting made by Scottish artist Vettriano in 1992, The Singing Butler sold at auction in 2004 for nearly a million U.S. dollars, which was the record at the time for any painting ever sold in Scotland.Reproductions of The Singing Butler make it the best-selling art print in the UK.
The painting depicts a couple dancing on the damp sand of a beach on the coast of Fife, with grey skies above a low horizon. To the left and right, a maid and a man hold up umbrellas against the weather. The dancers wear evening dress: a dinner jacket and a red ball gown; the woman also wears long red gloves but appears to have bare feet.
As a contemporary cultural icon, The Singing Butler has been compared to Grant Wood's American Gothic.
Vettriano has described the painting as an "uplifting fantasy" and chose the subject after being complimented on his paintings of beaches.