Lester Flatt, member of the Flatt & Scruggs bluegrass duo, was born 109 years ago today
Photo by Jim McGuire
Lester Flatt was born 109 years ago today.
Flatt was a bluegrass musician and guitarist and mandolinist, best known for his membership in the Bluegrass group, The Foggy Mountain Boys, and in the duo, Flatt and Scruggs, with banjo picker Earl Scruggs.
Flatt's career spanned multiple decades. Besides his work with Scruggs, he released multiple solo and collaboration works. Flatt also served as a member of Bill Monroe's band during the 1940s.
Born in Duncan's Chapel, Overton County, Tennessee, Flatt was a singer and guitarist. He first came to prominence as a member of Bill Monroe's Blue Grass Boys in 1945. In 1948, he started a band with fellow Monroe alumnus, Earl Scruggs, and for the next twenty years Flatt and Scruggs and the Foggy Mountain Boys were one of the most successful bands in bluegrass.
When they parted ways in 1969, Flatt formed a new group, the Nashville Grass, hiring most of the Foggy Mountain Boys. His role as lead singer and rhythm guitar player in each of these seminal ensembles helped define the sound of traditional bluegrass music.
He created a role in the Bluegrass Boys later filled by the likes of Jimmy Martin, Mac Wiseman, Peter Rowan and Del McCoury. His rich lead voice is unmistakable in hundreds of bluegrass standards. He is also remembered for his library of compositions. The Flatt songbook looms titanic for any student of American acoustic music.
Flatt continued to record and perform with that group until his death in 1979 of heart failure, after a prolonged period of ill health. He was posthumously inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1985 with Scruggs. He was also posthumously made an inaugural inductee into the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Honor in 1991.
Flatt and Scruggs performed "The Ballad of Jed Clampett," which was used as the theme for the television show, The Beverly Hillbillies.
Here, Flatt and Scruggs perform “Salty Dog Blues”
The Flatt and Scruggs television show
When I was growing up in the late 1950s and early 1960s in South Carolina, I always watched the Flatt and Scruggs television show in the early morning before going to school.
My mother hated it, perplexed at why her young son was attracted to what she called that “white trash” music. She preferred Lawrence Welk and tried to push him on me without success.
Before I knew what bluegrass music really was, I liked it. I was also aware — I don’t know how — that Bill Monroe and Flatt & Scruggs were the best bluegrass performers. To my parents, they were just local musicians lucky enough to be on television.
As I grew up, I went to hear them all perform. When I worked at the local radio station while in high school, I actually recorded Bill Monroe’s Blue Grass Boys in the station’s studio, though I didn’t know who they were at the time.
On this birthday of Lester Flatt, I can look back and say honestly that I was right and my mother was wrong on this one.
Bluegrass still rules!
Carole King began her career in music as a young newlywed and college graduate, working a 9-to-5 shift alongside her then-husband, Gerry Goffin, in Don Kirshner's songwriting factory, Aldon Music.
It was there, working in a cubicle with a piano, staff paper and tape recorder, that she co-wrote her first hit song (the Shirelles' "Will You Love Me Tomorrow," 1960), her second and third hit songs (the Drifters' "Some Kind Of Wonderful" and Bobby Vee's "Take Good Care Of My Baby," both 1961), her 14th and 17th hit songs (the Chiffons' "One Fine Day," 1963, and Herman's Hermits' "Something Tells Me I'm Into Something Good," 1964).
It was not until 10 years after her songwriting breakthrough, however, that Carole King finally fulfilled her long-held dream of having her own hit record as both singer and songwriter.
On June 19, 1971 — 52 years ago today — she earned her first #1 single as a performer with the double-sided hit, "It's Too Late/I Feel The Earth Move." King's hit single came from Tapestry, one of the best and most popular albums of the singer-songwriter era — an era that Carole King helped create.
Tapestry was a milestone not only for King, but for women in rock and roll in general. As the critic Robert Christgau put it: "King has done for the female voice what countless singer-composers achieved years ago for the male: liberated it from technical decorum. She insists on being heard as she is...with all the cracks and imperfections that implies."
On the heels of Tapestry's success, up-and-coming solo female performers like Carly Simon and Rickie Lee Jones found an easier path to popularity, and Joni Mitchell entered the period of her greatest commercial success.
The success of Tapestry and Carole King's first #1 single launched her career as a solo performer, but a look around the pop charts of 1971 reveals just how big a force she remained behind the scenes.
Among the artists who earned #1 pop hits that year, Tony Orlando and Dawn, Rod Stewart, Isaac Hayes, George Harrison and Paul McCartney all recorded a Carole King song at one point in their careers.
Donny Osmond and James Taylor owe their only chart-topping 1971 hits ("Go Away Little Girl" and "You've Got A Friend," respectively) to her songwriting talents.
Here, King performs “I Feel The Earth Move”
Thanks History.com
The Three Stooges (Moe Howard in center)
Moses Harry Horwitz — better known as Moe Howard, the de facto leader of The Three Stooges — was born 126 years ago today.
Born in the Bensonhurst neighborhood of Brooklyn, Horwitz was the fourth-born of five brothers of Lithuanian Jewish ancestry. He was named Moe when still very young. Although his parents were not involved in show business, Moe, his older brother, Shemp, and younger brother, Curly, all eventually became world-famous as members of the Three Stooges.
He loved to read, as older brother, Jack, recalled: "I had many Horatio Alger books, and it was Moe's greatest pleasure to read them. They started his imaginative mind working and gave him ideas by the dozen. I think they were instrumental in putting thoughts into his head to become a person of good character and to become successful." This helped him in his acting career in later years, such as in memorizing his lines quickly and easily.
Although his "bowl cut" hairstyle is now widely recognized, Moe's mother refused to cut his hair in childhood, letting it grow to shoulder length. Finally, he could not take his classmates' years of teasing any longer, sneaked off to a shed in the back yard and cut his hair. He was so afraid his mother would be upset (she enjoyed curling his hair) that he hid under the house for several hours, causing a panic. He finally came out and his mother was so glad to see him she didn't even mention the hair.
Moe began to develop an interest in acting to the point where his schoolwork suffered. He began playing hooky from school and going to the theater. He said, "I used to stand outside the theater knowing the truant officer was looking for me. I would stand there 'til someone came along, and then ask them to buy my ticket. It was necessary for an adult to accompany a juvenile into the theater.
“When I succeeded, I'd give him my ten cents — that's all it cost — and I'd go up to the top of the balcony where I'd put my chin on the rail and watch, spellbound, from the first act to the last. I would usually select the actor I liked the most and follow his performance throughout the play."
Despite his waning attendance, Horwitz graduated from P.S. 163 in Brooklyn but dropped out of Erasmus Hall High School after only two months, ending his formal education. To please his parents, he took an electric shop course, but quit after a few months to pursue a career in show business.
He started off running unpaid errands at the Vitagraph Studios in Midwood, Brooklyn, and was rewarded at first with bit parts in movies in production. In 1910, a fire destroyed the films. With the fire, Horwitz’s work was done at Vitagraph.
In 1909, he had met a young man, Lee Nash, who was later to provide a significant boost for his career aspirations. In 1912, they both got a summer job working in Annette Kellerman's aquatic act as diving "girls."
Moe continued his attempts at gaining show business experience by singing in a bar with his older brother, Shemp, until their father put a stop to it. In 1914, Horwitz joined a performing troupe on a Mississippi River showboat for the next two summers. In 1921, he joined Lee Nash, now firmly established in show business as Ted Healy, in a vaudeville routine.
In 1923, he caught sight of Shemp in the audience and yelled at him from the stage. The two brothers heckled each other, garnering a great response from the audience, and Healy immediately hired Shemp as a permanent part of the act. He then recruited the vaudeville violinist, Larry Fine, to join the troupe in 1925. They were billed as Ted Healy and His Racketeers (later changed to Ted Healy and His Stooges).
By 1930, Ted Healy and His Stooges were on the verge of hitting "the big time" and made their first movie, Soup to Nuts — featuring Healy, and his four Stooges. Moe (billed as "Harry Howard"), Shemp, Larry and one-shot Stooge, Fred Sanborn, worked in the movie for Fox Films, later to become 20th Century Fox.
Shemp had never seen eye-to-eye with the hard-drinking and sometimes belligerent Healy, however. He left the group shortly after their first group of films to pursue a solo movie career. After a short search for a replacement, Moe Howard suggested his youngest brother, Jerome ("Babe" to Moe and Shemp). Healy originally passed on Jerry (whom he disliked), but Jerry was so eager to join the act that he shaved off his luxuriant auburn mustache and hair and ran on stage during Healy's routine. That finally got Healy to hire Jerry, who took the stage name, "Curly."
Healy and the Stooges were hired by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer as "nut" comics, to liven up feature films and short subjects with their antics. After a number of appearances in MGM films, however, Healy was being groomed as a solo character comedian.
With Healy pursuing his own career in 1934, his Stooges (now renamed The Three Stooges) signed with Columbia Pictures, where they stayed until December, 1957. They made 190 comedy shorts. With Healy's departure, Moe Howard assumed Healy's prior role as the aggressive, take-charge leader of the Three Stooges. He was a short-tempered bully, prone to slapstick violence against the other two Stooges.
But despite his outwardly rather cruel demeanor towards his pals, Moe was also very loyal and protective of the other Stooges on film, keeping them from harm and, should it befall them, doing whatever it took to save them.
He emphasized in his 1977 book, however, that the ill-tempered aspects of his on-screen persona did not reflect his real personality. He also boasted of being a shrewd businessman by wisely investing the money made from his film career.
But the Stooges received no subsequent royalties (i.e., residuals) from any of their many shorts. They were paid a flat amount for each one and Columbia owned the rights (and profits) thereafter.
However, according to Larry Fine in the 1970s, Columbia allowed the Stooges to do live tours when they were not filming in exchange for half salary during those months. Fine indicated that the profits from the tours substantially increased their yearly take.
In 1934, Columbia released its first Three Stooges short, Woman Haters, where their stooge characters were not quite fully formed. It was not a Stooge comedy in the classic sense but rather a romantic farce. Their next film, Punch Drunks, was the only short film written entirely by the Three Stooges, with Curly as a reluctant boxer who goes ballistic every time he hears "Pop Goes the Weasel."
Their next short, Men in Black (a parody of the hospital drama, Men in White), was their first and only film to be nominated for an Academy Award (with the classic catchphrases "Calling Dr. Howard, Dr. Fine, Dr. Howard" followed by their reiterated unison declaration as young doctors, "FOR DUTY AND HUMANITY!!").
They continued making short films at a steady pace of eight per year, such as Three Little Pigskins (with a very young Lucille Ball), Pop Goes the Easel, Hoi Polloi (where two professors make a bet trying to turn the Three Stooges into gentlemen) and many others.
In the 1940s, the Three Stooges became topical, making several anti-Nazi movies including You Nazty Spy! (Moe's favorite Three Stooges film), I'll Never Heil Again and They Stooge to Conga. Moe's hilarious impersonation of Adolf Hitler highlighted these shorts, the first of which preceded Charlie Chaplin's controversial but classic film satire, The Great Dictator, by months.
On May 6, 1946, during the filming of Half-Wits Holiday, brother Curly suffered a stroke. He had already suffered a series of them prior to the filming of Beer Barrel Polecats, and was replaced by Shemp, who agreed to return to the group but only until Curly would be well enough to rejoin.
Although Curly recovered enough to appear in Hold That Lion! in a cameo appearance (the only Three Stooges film to contain all three Howard brothers; Moe, Curly and Shemp), he soon suffered a second series of strokes which led to his death at age 48 on January 18, 1952.
The Three Stooges' series of shorts continued to be popular through the 1950s. Shemp co-starred in 73 comedies. (The Stooges also co-starred in a George O'Brien western, Gold Raiders, in 1951.) Moe also co-produced occasional western and musical films in the 1950s.
On November 22, 1955, Shemp died of a heart attack at age 60, necessitating the need for another Stooge.
Producer Jules White used old footage of Shemp to complete four more films with Columbia regular Joe Palma filling in for Shemp (thus creating the “Fake Shemp” phenomenon), until Columbia head Harry Cohn hired Joe Besser in 1956.
Moe sold real estate when his show-business life slowed down, although he still did minor roles and walk-on bits in movies (Don't Worry, We'll Think of a Title, Dr. Death: Seeker of Souls) and television appearances (Here's Hollywood, Toast of the Town, Masquerade Party, Truth or Consequences and several appearances on The Mike Douglas Show).
Howard died of lung cancer at age 77 on May 4, 1975 in Los Angeles where he had been admitted a week earlier in April, just over three months after Larry Fine's death. He was a heavy smoker for much of his adult life.
At the time of his death, Moe was working on his autobiography, titled "I Stooged to Conquer." Moe's autobiography was released in 1977 as Moe Howard and the Three Stooges.
Al Wilson was born 84 years ago today.
Wilson was a soul singer known for the million-selling #1 hit, "Show and Tell," and his Northern soul anthem, "The Snake."
Born in Meridian, Mississippi, Wilson showed little interest in education but performed in school plays, sang in talent shows and won first prize in a local art contest. He began his career at the age of twelve leading his own spiritual quartet and singing in the church choir. He also liked to perform covers of country and western hits.
While he was in high school, Wilson and his family relocated to San Bernardino, California, where he worked odd jobs as a mail carrier, a janitor and an office clerk. He also taught himself to play drums.
After graduation, he spent four years touring with Johnny Harris and the Statesmen, before joining the U.S. Navy. There, he sang with an enlisted men's chorus. He also developed his stand-up comedy routine in case he did not succeed as a singer.
After a two-year military stint, Wilson settled in Los Angeles, touring the local nightclub circuit before joining the R&B vocal group, the Jewels. From there, he landed with the Rollers, followed by a stint with the instrumental combo, the Souls.
In 1966, Wilson signed with manager Marc Gordon, who quickly sought his client an a cappella audition for Johnny Rivers. Wilson was signed to the Soul City label.
Rivers produced the sessions that yielded Wilson’s 1968 U.S. R&B hit single "The Snake" (U.S. Pop #27), which became popular on the Northern Soul circuit in the United Kingdom.
It also provided Wilson with his only UK Singles Chart hit, reaching #41 in 1975. The minor hit "Do What You Gotta Do" appeared that same year. In 1969, Wilson charted with his cover of Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Lodi" (U.S. #67) and Rivers' own, "Poor Side Of Town" (U.S. #75).
In 1973, Wilson he released the album, Show And Tell. The album's success was matched by the single "Show and Tell," which sold over a million copies and was awarded a gold disc in December, 1973. "The La La Peace Song," released in 1974, proved another hit although O. C. Smith also recorded a version. Wilson’s sales suffered as a result.
In 1976, Wilson recorded "I've Got a Feeling We'll Be Seeing Each Other Again" for Playboy Records which reached #3 in the R&B chart. He tried to leave Playboy Records, but was unable to get a release from his recording contract. Two years later, the label folded.
With 1979's "Count the Days," Wilson scored his final chart hit. He spent the next two decades touring clubs and lounges. In 2001, he re-recorded his hits for the album, Spice of Life. In March, 2007, many of his original master tapes were lost to a fire that swept through his home garage, which he had converted into a recording studio.
Wilson died on April 21, 2008 of kidney failure, in Fontana, California, at the age of 68.
Here, Wilson performs “Show and Tell”
Nick Drake was born 75 years ago today.
An English singer-songwriter and musician, Drake was known for his gentle guitar-based songs. He failed to find a wide audience during his lifetime, but his work has gradually achieved wider notice and recognition over the years.
A student at the University of Cambridge, Drake signed to Island Records when he was 20 years old. He released his debut album, Five Leaves Left, in 1969. By 1972, he had recorded two more albums — Bryter Layter and Pink Moon.
Neither sold more than 5,000 copies on initial release. Drake's reluctance to perform live, or be interviewed, contributed to his lack of commercial success. He suffered from depression, particularly during the latter part of his life. This was often reflected in his lyrics.
On completion of his third album, 1972's Pink Moon, he withdrew from both live performance and recording, retreating to his parents' home in rural Warwickshire. There is no known motion picture footage of the adult Drake. He was only captured in still photographs and in home footage from his childhood.
On November 24, 1974, at 26 years old, Drake died from an overdose of amitriptyline, a prescribed antidepressant. Whether his death was an accident or suicide has never been resolved.
Drake's music remained available through the mid-1970s, but the 1979 release of the retrospective album, Fruit Tree, caused his back catalog to be re-assessed. By the mid-1980s, Drake was being credited as an influence by such artists as Robert Smith, David Sylvian and Peter Buck.
In 1985, The Dream Academy reached the UK and U.S. charts with "Life in a Northern Town," a song written for and dedicated to Drake.
By the early 1990s, he had come to represent a certain type of "doomed romantic" musician in the UK music press and was frequently cited as an influence by artists including Kate Bush, Paul Weller, Beck and The Black Crowes.
His first biography appeared in 1997, and was followed in 1998 by the documentary film, A Stranger Among Us.
Here is Nick Drake performing “Things Behind the Sun”
Photo by Andrew Mcconnell
Josephine, a cello player, practices alone in 2010 in the Congolese capital of Kinshasa, one of the largest, noisiest and most dysfunctional cities on Earth.
She is a member of the Orchestre Symphonique Kimbanguiste, the world’s only all-black orchestra. The orchestra members, all very poor, started out playing homemade instruments.
Josephine, who gets up at 4:30 every morning, sells omelettes at the market each day to make a living.