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September 27, 2021
On the day in 1912 — 109 years ago — W.C. Handy published “Memphis Blues,” which introduced his style of 12 bar blues. Many consider it the first blues song
On the day in 1912 — 109 years ago — W.C. Handy published “Memphis Blues,” which introduced his style of 12 bar blues. Many consider it the first blues song.
Handy sold the rights to the song for $100.
By 1914, when he was 40, he had established his musical style, his popularity had greatly increased and he was a prolific composer.
Bud Powell, jazz pianist who was a key to the development of bebop, was born 97 years ago today
Bud Powell, jazz pianist who was a key to the development of bebop, was born 97 years ago today.
Born and raised in Harlem, Powell was a close friend of Thelonious Monk. His greatest influence on piano was Art Tatum.
Along with Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, Powell was a key player in the development of bebop, and his virtuosity as a pianist led many to call him the Charlie Parker of the piano.
Powell's father was a stride pianist. He took to his father's instrument and started to learn classical piano at age five from a teacher his father hired. By age ten, he had also showed interest in the jazz that could be heard all over the neighborhood.
He first appeared in public at a rent party, where he mimicked Fats Waller's playing style. The first jazz composition that he mastered was James P. Johnson's, "Carolina Shout.” Bud's older brother, William, played the trumpet, and by age fifteen, Bud was playing in his band.
By this time, he had become familiar with Art Tatum, whose overwhelmingly virtuosic technique Powell then set out to equal.
Bud's younger brother, Richie, and his teenage friend, Elmo Hope, were also accomplished pianists who had significant careers. Bud, though underage, soon was exposed to the exciting, musically adventurous atmosphere at Uptown House, an after-hours venue that was near where he lived.
It was here that the first stirrings of modernism could be heard on a nightly basis, and where Charlie Parker first appeared when he was unattached to a band and stayed briefly in New York.
Thelonious Monk had some involvement there, but by the time that he and Powell met around 1942, the elder pianist/composer was able to introduce Powell to the circle of bebop musicians which was starting to form at Minton's Playhouse.
Monk was resident there and, consequently, presented Powell as his protégé. The mutual affection grew to where Monk was Powell's greatest mentor and dedicated his composition, "In Walked Bud," to him.
In the early 1940s, Powell played in a few dance orchestras, including that of Cootie Williams, whom Powell's mother decided her son should play for and tour with (rather than accept an offer from Oscar Pettiford and Dizzy Gillespie, whose modernist quintet was about to open at a midtown nightclub).
Powell was the pianist on a handful of Williams's recording dates in 1944, the last of which included the first-ever recording of Monk's "'Round Midnight." His tenure with Williams was terminated one night in January, 1945, when he got separated from the band after a Philadelphia dance engagement and was apprehended, drunk, by railroad police inside a station. He was beaten by them, and then briefly detained by the city police.
Shortly after his release and return to Harlem, he was hospitalized — first in Bellevue, an observation ward, and then in a psychiatric hospital, sixty miles away. He stayed there for two and a half months.
Powell resumed playing in Manhattan immediately, in demand by various small-group leaders for nightclub engagements in the increasingly integrated midtown scene. His 1945-46 recordings, many as the result of his sudden visibility on the club scene, were for Frank Socolow, Dexter Gordon, J. J. Johnson, Sonny Stitt, Fats Navarro and Kenny Clarke.
Powell soon became renowned for his ability to play at fast tempos. His percussive punctuation of certain phrases, as well as his predilection for speed, showed the influence of Parker and other modern horn soloists.
Powell's career advanced when Parker chose him to be his pianist on a quintet record date, with Miles Davis, Tommy Potter and Max Roach in May, 1947.
Powell demonstrated his mature style on the third complete take of "Donna Lee," where he got a brief solo spot, and with his jocular chord fills while the horn players paused to breathe during "Buzzy," the last tune recorded.
When the quintet came together for the final ensemble section, Powell's piano made its final, sarcastic comment on the proceedings.
In November, 1947, Powell had an altercation with another customer at a Harlem bar. In the ensuing fight, he was hit over his eye with a bottle. When Harlem Hospital found him incoherent and rambunctious, it sent him to Bellevue, which had the record of his previous confinement there and in a psychiatric hospital.
It chose to institutionalize him again, though this time at Creedmoor State Hospital, a facility much closer to Manhattan. He was kept there for eleven months.
From 1949 through 1953, Powell made his best recordings, most of which were for Alfred Lion of Blue Note Records and for Norman Granz of Mercury, Norgran and Clef.
The first Blue Note session, in August, 1949, features Fats Navarro, Sonny Rollins, Powell, Tommy Potter and Roy Haynes, and the compositions "Bouncing with Bud" and "Dance of the Infidels." The second Blue Note session in 1951 was a trio with Russell and Roach, and includes, "Parisian Thoroughfare" and "Un Poco Loco."
Powell was hospitalized in New York after months of increasingly erratic behavior and self-neglect. On July 31, 1966, he died of tuberculosis, malnutrition and alcoholism.
The pianist Bill Evans paid Powell a tribute in 1979: “If I had to choose one single musician for his artistic integrity, for the incomparable originality of his creation and the grandeur of his work, it would be Bud Powell. He was in a class by himself.”
Here, Powell plays piano in “Anthropology” in Copenhagen, 1962
Don Cornelius, host and creator of Soul Train, was born 85 years ago today
Don Cornelius, host and creator of Soul Train, was born 85 years ago today.
Cornelius was the show host and producer of Soul Train, which he hosted from 1971 until 1993. Cornelius sold the show to MadVision Entertainment in 2008.
Born in Chicago's South Side and raised in the Bronzeville neighborhood, Cornelius graduated from DuSable High School in 1954 and then joined the Marines. He served 18 months in Korea.
In 1966, he took a three-month broadcasting course, despite being married with two sons and having only $400 in his bank account. That year he landed a job as an announcer, news reporter and disc jockey on Chicago radio station WVON.
In 1967, Cornelis joined Chicago television station, WCIU-TV, and hosted a news program, A Black's View of the News. In 1970, he launched Soul Train on WCIU-TV as a daily local show. The program entered national syndication and moved to Los Angeles the following year.
Eddie Kendricks, Gladys Knight & the Pips, Bobby Hutton and The Honey Cone were featured on the national debut episode.
Originally a journalist inspired by the civil rights movement, Cornelius recognized that in the late 1960s there was no television venue in the United States for soul music. He introduced many African-American musicians to a larger audience as a result of their appearances on Soul Train, a program that was both influential among African-Americans and popular with a wider audience.
As writer, producer and host of Soul Train, Cornelius was instrumental in offering wider exposure to black musicians such as James Brown, Aretha Franklin and Michael Jackson, as well as creating opportunities for talented dancers that would presage subsequent television dance programs.
In the early-morning hours of February 1, 2012, officers responded to a report of a shooting at 12685 Mulholland Drive and found Cornelius with an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.
He was taken to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead by the Los Angeles County Assistant Chief Coroner.
According to former Soul Train host, Shemar Moore, Cornelius may have been suffering from early onset of dementia or Alzheimer's disease and his health had been in decline.
An autopsy found that Cornelius had been suffering from seizures during the last 15 years of his life, a complication of a 21-hour brain operation he underwent in 1982 to correct a congenital deformity in his cerebral arteries. He admitted that he was never quite the same after that surgery and it was a factor in his decision to retire from hosting Soul Train in 1993.
According to his son, he was in "extreme pain" by the end and said shortly before his death: "I don't know how much longer I can take this."
Marvin Lee Aday — better known at “Meat Loaf” — is 74 years old today
Meat Loaf performs in Central Park, New York City, 1978
Photo by Sheri Lynn Behr
Marvin Lee Aday — better known at “Meat Loaf” — is 74 years old today.
A hard rock musician and actor, Meat Loaf is known for the Bat Out of Hell album trilogy consisting of Bat Out of Hell, Bat Out of Hell II: Back Into Hell and Bat Out of Hell III: The Monster is Loose.
Bat Out of Hell has sold more than 43 million copies worldwide. After 35 years, it still sells an estimated 200,000 copies annually and stayed on the charts for over nine years, making it one of the best selling albums of all time.
Although he enjoyed success with Bat Out of Hell and Bat Out of Hell II: Back Into Hell, Meat Loaf experienced some initial difficulty establishing a steady career within his native United States.
However, he has retained iconic status and popularity in Europe, especially the UK, where he ranks 23rd for the number of weeks overall spent on the charts.
Meat Loaf has also appeared in over 50 movies and television shows, sometimes as himself or as characters resembling his stage persona. His most notable roles include Eddie in the American premiere of The Rocky Horror Show and The Rocky Horror Picture Show and Robert "Bob" Paulson in Fight Club.
Arthur Penn was born 99 years ago today
Arthur Penn and Arlo Guthrie
Arthur Penn was born 99 years ago today.
Penn was an American director and producer of film, television and theater. He directed critically acclaimed films throughout the 1960s such as the drama The Chase (1966), the biographical crime film, Bonnie and Clyde (1967) and the Arlo Guthrie comedy, Alice's Restaurant (1969).
He also got attention for his revisionist Western, Little Big Man (1970). By the mid-1970s, his films were received with much less enthusiasm.
In the 1990s, he returned to stage and television direction and production, including an executive producer role for the crime series, Law & Order.
Penn was born to a Russian Jewish family in Philadelphia, the son of Sonia (Greenberg), a nurse and Harry Penn, a watchmaker. He was the younger brother of Irving Penn, the fashion photographer.
At 19, he was drafted into the army. Stationed in Britain, he became interested in theater. He started to direct and take part in shows being put on for the soldiers around England at the time. As Penn grew up, he became increasingly interested in film, especially after seeing the Orson Welles film, Citizen Kane.
He later attended Black Mountain College in North Carolina, and was a featured commentator in the documentary, Fully Awake, about the college.
After making a name for himself as a director of quality television dramas, Penn made his feature debut with a western, The Left Handed Gun (1958), for Warner Brothers. A retelling of the Billy the Kid legend, it was distinguished by Paul Newman's sharp portrayal of the outlaw as a psychologically troubled youth (the role was originally intended for the archetypal portrayer of troubled teens, James Dean).
The production was completed in only 23 days, but Warner Brothers reedited the film against his wishes with a new ending he disapproved of. The film subsequently failed upon release in North America, but was well received in Europe.
Penn died in Manhattan, on September 28, 2010, a day after his 88th birthday from congestive heart failure.
Peter Sellars, director of compelling operas and plays, is 64 years old today
Peter Sellars: A Memorable Encounter
It’s Peter Sellars 64th birthday today. He is a noted director for his unique contemporary stagings of classical and contemporary operas and plays. But I remember him for another reason.
I met Sellars at the MIT Media Lab in Cambridge in the 1990s and heard him give some insightful comments on the issue of serendipity on the internet. Not only have his early perceptions proven true, but they were memorable and have stuck with me over time.
Hundreds of years ago, Sellars said, people in search of knowledge went on personal pilgrimages for information. The process, he said, could take years. By not having the information at their fingertips, there was experience attached to the search that made the finding of the information far more meaningful.
"The actual act of finding something had value," Sellars said. "It was a beautiful thing because when you found something it meant something."
Now, said Sellars in the 1990s: "We are getting all this information with no experience attached to it. Where there is no pilgrimage the information itself is debased, devalued and dehumanized. In a sense the ratio of experience to information content is radically altered. What's irritating about the age of information is that it creates this yuppie denial of experience. We have everything at our fingertips, but we don't value anything."
The "untamed quality" of the basic internet structure appeals to Sellars because it allows the user to wander and discover information through personal experience. "To just meander is one of the pleasures of life," he noted.
To have the audience making wrong turns through the information "is exactly the point," Sellars continued. "That's where the juice is."
Today's electronic media reflects only a single point of view. "A very narrow group of people are creating this insane gridlock" on information about human experience, Sellars said. "We are aware there are many, many voices that we don't hear today at all. The CBS Evening News represents only one voice."
Artists, Sellars said, "must break out of the official information structure" to find new ways to express important subjects that mainstream media refuses to address.
"You get the feeling that huge parts of human experience are going undocumented and unrecognized," he continued. "Aristotle wrote about the attempts to touch the totality of an experience. As human beings, we are complex, divided and multilayered. Therefore, what satisfies us is complex, multilayered and has all these built-in conflicts just as we do. How — with set up (new media) structures — do we show our real feelings?"
The World Wide Web, as conceived by Tim Berners-Lee, offered the promise of a new media structure for a greater diversity of voices and ideas. But it has since been hijacked by not only by traditional media, but by commerce and narrow demagogic political voices. Even the most creative new works remain invisible — hidden under a cluttered sea of political and commercial noise?
Peter Sellars saw this early on and sadly it has not changed all these years earlier.
For his innovative collected work in the field of opera and music productions, Sellars was awarded the prestigious Swedish Polar Music Prize of 2014 alongside Chuck Berry.
On September 27, 1999 — 22 years ago today — operatic tenor Plácido Domingo made his 18th opening-night appearance at the Metropolitan Opera House, breaking an "unbreakable" record previously held by Enrico Caruso
On September 27, 1999 — 22 years ago today — operatic tenor Plácido Domingo made his 18th opening-night appearance at the Metropolitan Opera House, breaking an "unbreakable" record previously held by Enrico Caruso.
Caruso, of course, was the biggest star the world of opera had ever seen. Following his New York debut with the Metropolitan Opera in 1903, he made opening-night appearances at the Met in 16 of the next 17 years.
With his death in 1921, Caruso's streak stopped at 17 — a mark that no other singer even remotely approached for the next 60 years.
The Italian bass-baritone Ezio Pinza was the closest challenger to Caruso before Domingo came along, but even Pinza failed to reach double digits, topping out at nine opening nights with the Met over the course of his 22-year career.
Even Domingo never thought that Caruso's record would be broken, much less that he would be the one to break it.
"But when I was in my 11th or 12th opening night," he recalled during an interview before his record-setting performance, "somebody asked me, 'Do you realize how close you are to the number of times Caruso opened the Met season?' What can I tell you? I started to think maybe I can do it.''
As a contemporary of the great Luciano Pavarotti, Plácido Domingo never enjoyed undisputed status as the greatest tenor of his time. But his far superior stamina and his broader repertoire made him the go-to choice for opening nights at the Met, of which Pavarotti sang only seven.
Domingo sang his first opening with the Met in 1971, in Verdi's Don Carlo, and over the years he sang opening-night parts as diverse as the title role in Verdi's Otello and Sigmund in Wagner's Die Walkurie.
When he sang at his record-setting 18th opening night on this day in 1999, Domingo did so, appropriately enough, as Canio in Ruggero Leoncavallo's Pagliacci — a role most closely associated the man whose record he surpassed, Enrico Caruso.
In 2009, the Met honored Domingo for 40 years with the company.
In August 2019, Domingo was accused by multiple women of sexual harassment. Eight singers and a dancer said that Domingo sexually harassed them in incidents that spanned three decades from the late 1980s.
The alleged harassment took place at venues including opera companies where the musician held top positions. Additional women came forward expressing their discomfort due to his sexual advances.
It was reported that Domingo's sexual advances towards younger women were an "open secret" in the opera world. Domingo issued a statement, stating "The allegations from these unnamed individuals dating back as many as 30 years are deeply troubling, and as presented, inaccurate,” adding that "I recognize that the rules and standards by which we are—and should be—measured against today are very different than they were in the past.”
In September 2019, the Metropolitan Opera announced it would be ending its relationship with Domingo in light of the allegations of sexual harassment.
Following the announcement, Domingo issued a statement: "While I strongly dispute recent allegations made about me...upon reflection, I believe that my appearance in this production of Macbeth would distract from the hard work of my colleagues both on stage and behind the scenes."
He quit the show.
Thomas Nast, father of American political cartooning, was born 181 years ago today
Thomas Nast, who was born 181 years ago today, is widely considered the father of American political cartooning.
As a regular contributor to Harper’s Weekly, he wielded enormous influence, skewering corrupt officials and politicians he opposed.
He introduced the Republican elephant in 1874, popularized the donkey as a symbol for Democrats, and was the first to depict Uncle Sam as we know him today, with a beard, top hat and pinstripe suit.
“He was a tremendous force in American politics for more than two decades,” The New York Times wrote in 1940, for the centennial of Nast’s birth. “He helped to win a war and to elect three presidents of the United States” — Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant (twice) and Rutherford B. Hayes, whom he later abandoned.
Nast also helped bring down the New York politician, William M. Tweed, the boss of the rapacious Democratic machine, Tammany Hall. His tactics might seem familiar. “He did it by heaping contempt and ridicule upon the opposing forces and the rival candidates,” The Times said.
Nast, who was born in Germany, was a defender of many immigrants and of black Americans, and he was a confirmed foe of the Ku Klux Klan. In addition to politics, he also gave America its modern vision of Santa Claus. His depiction of Santa Claus was on the cover of the January 3, 1863, issue of Harper's Weekly. The image stuck in American minds.
Thanks New York Times!
September 26, 2021
Harmonica Man, Washington Square Park, 2012
Photo by Frank Beacham
(In 2012, during a short September shower, many people huddled under the Washington Square arch to stay dry. One man on a bicycle did not, staring at us from just outside the arch. I took his photo. I don’t know his real name. I call him “Harmonica Man.”)
Abbey Road, the Beatles’ album, was released on this day in 1969 — 52 years ago
The Beatle’s Abbey Road album cover features the four band members walking across a zebra crossing outside Abbey Road Studios and has become one of the most famous and imitated images in the history of recorded music.
Photo by Iain Macmillan
Abbey Road, the Beatles’ album, was released on this day in 1969 — 52 years ago.
The eleventh studio album by the Beatles, the recording sessions for the album were the last in which all four Beatles participated. Although, Let It Be, was the final album that the Beatles completed before the band's dissolution in April, 1970, most of the album had been recorded before the Abbey Road sessions began.
A double A-side single from the album, "Something"/"Come Together,” released in October, topped the Billboard chart in the US.
Abbey Road incorporates genres such as blues, pop and progressive rock, and it makes prominent use of the Moog synthesizer and the Leslie speaker. Side two contains a medley of song fragments edited together to form a single piece.
The album was recorded amid a more collegial atmosphere than the Get Back/Let It Be sessions earlier in the year, but there were still frequent confrontations within the band, particularly over Paul McCartney's song, "Maxwell's Silver Hammer,” one of four tracks on which John Lennon did not perform.
Lennon had privately left the group by the time the album was released and McCartney publicly quit the following year.
Many critics view the album as the Beatles' best work and rank it as one of the greatest albums of all time. In particular, George Harrison's contributions, "Something" and "Here Comes the Sun,” are considered to be among the best songs he wrote for the group.
The album's cover features the four band members walking across a zebra crossing outside Abbey Road Studios and has become one of the most famous and imitated images in the history of recorded music.
Today, Abbey Road remains one of the Beatles' best-selling albums.
Legendary blues singer Bessie Smith was killed in a car wreck on Sept. 26, 1937 — 84 years ago today
Legendary blues singer Bessie Smith was killed in a car wreck on Sept. 26, 1937 — 84 years ago today.
Smith was killed when the old Packard she was driving hit a parked truck near Coahoma, Mississippi, between Clarksdale and Memphis.
There is no record of Smith's exact birth date, but she was about 43 years old.
Bessie Smith had been in show business since she was a teenager. In 1912, she joined a traveling vaudeville troupe, the Rabbit Foot Minstrels, and spent the next decade singing in minstrel shows and cabarets all around the South.
In 1923, Smith released her first record, "Down-Hearted Blues." It sold nearly 800,000 copies and made her a superstar. In fact, by the end of the 1920s, Smith had made more money than any black performer ever had.
She performed and recorded with luminaries like Clarence Williams, Louis Armstrong and Fletcher Henderson's band and she starred in the 1929 film, "St. Louis Blues."
Unfortunately, in the 1930s, Smith's career stalled. The Depression changed musical tastes that favored jazz and swing instead of vaudeville blues. Plus Smith’s severe alcoholism made it nearly impossible for her to find work. Toward the end of the decade, though, Smith had begun to record and perform again.
The circumstances surrounding the singer's death are mysterious. It is known that Smith was gravely injured — her arm was nearly severed — in the accident. After that, some people say, the doctor at the scene ignored her while he tended to the bumps and scrapes of a white couple that was in a nearby fender-bender.
Other sources say that Smith bled to death while her ambulance drove around in search of a hospital that would treat black patients. Edward Albee based his 1959 play, "The Death of Bessie Smith," on this version of events.
While neither one of these scenarios would have been much of a surprise in the Jim Crow South, most historians now agree that the stories are apocryphal. Smith did make it to the hospital, but her injuries were so severe that it made no difference.
In the summer of 1970, shortly before her own death from a heroin overdose, the young singer, Janis Joplin, had a headstone made for Smith's unmarked grave. It reads, "The Greatest Blues Singer in the World Will Never Stop Singing."
Bessie Smith, 1936
Photo by Carl Van Vechten
Bessie Smith came up in the era of race records, which were marketed to black audiences. Songs of those recordings blossomed with the birth of the blues in the 1920s.
Classically, blues songs were about misery and deprivation, but human nature meant that songs with suggestive lyrics actually sold an awful lot better. Blues singers didn't just talk the talk.
The bisexual Bessie Smith enjoyed nights in buffet flats — illegal drinking parties — which often involved gay and lesbian orgies. She sang about it too — in “Kitchen Man” and “Young Women's Blues.”
In the code of the time, “sissy man” or “freak” denoted a gay man, while “BD” (or bull-dyker) referred to a lesbian.
When Ma Rainey (the “Mother of the Blues”) was arrested for running an indecent party, it was Bessie Smith who bailed her out.
Ma's own, “Prove it on Me Blues,” asserted: “I went out last night with a crowd of my friends/ They must've been women, 'cause I don't like no men.'”
Carlene Carter is 66 years old today
Carlene Carter is 66 years old today.
Born Rebecca Carlene Smith, she is a country singer and songwriter and the daughter of June Carter and her first husband, Carl Smith.
Between 1978 and the present, Carter has recorded twelve albums, primarily on major labels. In the same timespan, she has released more than twenty singles, including three #3 peaking hits on the Billboard Hot Country Songs charts.
In 1987, Carlene Carter joined with the singing trio, The Carter Sisters, consisting of her mother June Carter Cash and June's sisters Helen and Anita Carter in a revived version of The Carter Family. They were featured on a 1987 television episode of Austin City Limits along with Carter's stepfather, Johnny Cash.
Her solo recording career had begun in the late 1970s with a debut album. In 1979, during a concert at New York's Bottom Line, she introduced a song about mate-swapping called “Swap-Meat Rag,” from her album, Two Sides to Every Woman.
She said, "If this song don't put the cunt back in country, I don't know what will." Johnny and June Carter were in the audience, unknown to Carlene. The comment was quoted widely in the press, and Carter spent much of the next decade trying to live it down.
Carter's career really took off with the album, I Fell in Love, in 1990. The album and title song topped the U.S. country albums and singles charts, respectively. Following a stint in the UK and in the run-up to her divorce from the English singer-songwriter, Nick Lowe, Carter returned to America.
In 1988, she met musician, Howie Epstein. He helped Carter get her career back on track, producing, I Fell in Love, and co-authoring its title track with longtime collaborator, Milwaukee writer Perry M. Lamek.
The album, which featured straight-ahead, retro-sounding country (unlike her prior work, which had combined country, rock and roll and pop sounds) was among the first successes of the 1990s "neotraditionalist" movement in country.
Three years later, Epstein produced Carter's follow-up CD, Little Love Letters, featuring the hit, "Every Little Thing," which was one of the top-rated music videos of the year.
Epstein and Carter were engaged in the mid to late 1990s, but never married. Epstein died in 2003 of a suspected drug overdose.
Here, Carter performs “I Fell In Love”
Nick Lowe performs “Cruel To Be Kind”
With actual footage of his wedding to Carlene Carter
Bryan Ferry is 76 years old today
Bryan Ferry is 76 years old today.
An English singer, musician and songwriter known for his unique vocal style, Ferry came to prominence in the early 1970s as lead vocalist and principal songwriter with the band, Roxy Music.
He had a successful career with three #1 albums and ten singles entering the Top 10 charts in the United Kingdom during the 1970s and '80s, including "Virginia Plain," "Street Life" and "Jealous Guy."
Ferry began his solo career in 1973, while still a member of Roxy Music, which he continues to the present day. His solo hits include, "Let's Stick Together" and "Slave To Love."
His album, The Jazz Age, was released in 2012. In November, 2014, Ferry released a new album, Avonmore, featuring original material. The same month in 2014, Ferry was diagnosed with acute laryngitis and on medical advice was declared unfit to perform the remaining dates of his current European tour. His concerts were rescheduled for 2015.
When his sales as a solo artist and as a member of Roxy Music are combined, Ferry has sold more than 30 million albums worldwide.
Donna Douglas, who played Elly May Clampett on The Beverly Hillbillies, was born 89 years ago today
Donna Douglas, best known for her role as Jed Clampett's (played by Buddy Ebsen) only daughter, Elly May Clampett, in the CBS television series, The Beverly Hillbillies (1962-1971), was born 89 years ago today.
She starred on the program for all nine seasons, along with Buddy Ebsen, Irene Ryan, Nancy Kulp, Raymond Bailey and Max Baer, Jr.
The Beverly Hillbillies became the #1 show in the United States in its first two years. During the 1966 summer hiatus for the show, Douglas made her only starring motion picture appearance, cast as Frankie in Frederick de Cordova's Frankie and Johnny (1966), opposite Elvis Presley.
The film proved popular, and is among Presley’s most frequently televised movies, but it did little to advance Douglas's big-screen career.
In 1981, she returned for a made-for-TV reunion movie, The Return of the Beverly Hillbillies.
Douglas died at age 82 on January 1, 2015 from pancreatic cancer.
George Gershwin was born 123 years ago today
George Gershwin, 1927
Photo by Edward Steichen
George Gershwin was born 123 years ago today.
A composer and pianist, Gershwin's compositions spanned both popular and classical genres. His most popular songs are the orchestral compositions, Rhapsody in Blue and An American in Paris, as well as the opera, Porgy and Bess.
Born in Brooklyn to a Ukrainian father of Jewish descent and a Russian mother, Gershwin studied piano under Charles Hambitzer and composition with Rubin Goldmark and Henry Cowell.
He began his career as a song plugger, but soon after started composing Broadway theatre works with his brother, Ira Gershwin, and Buddy DeSylva. He moved to Paris intending to study with Nadia Boulanger, who refused him. There, he began to compose An American in Paris.
After returning to New York City, he wrote Porgy and Bess with Ira and author, DuBose Heyward. Initially a commercial failure, Porgy and Bess is now considered one of the most important American operas of the 20th century.
Gershwin moved to Hollywood and composed numerous film scores until his death at age 38 in 1937 from a brain tumor.
Gershwin's compositions have been used in numerous films and on television, and several became jazz standards recorded in many variations. Countless singers and musicians have recorded his songs. He was influenced by French composers of his time.
What set Gershwin apart was his ability to manipulate forms of music into his own unique voice. He took the jazz he discovered on Tin Pan Alley into the mainstream by splicing its rhythms and tonality with that of the popular songs of his era.
Although Gershwin would seldom make grand statements about his music, he believed that "true music must reflect the thought and aspirations of the people and time. My people are Americans. My time is today."
In 2007, the Library of Congress named their Prize for Popular Song after George and Ira Gershwin. Recognizing the profound and positive effect of popular music on culture, the prize is given annually to a composer or performer whose lifetime contributions exemplify the standard of excellence associated with the Gershwins.
On March 1, 2007, the first Gershwin Prize was awarded to Paul Simon.
Marty Robbins was born 96 years ago today
Marty Robbins was born 96 years ago today.
A singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, Robbins was one of the most popular and successful country and Western singers of his era. For most of his nearly four-decade career, Robbins was rarely far from the country music charts and several of his songs also became pop hits.
Robbins was born in Glendale, a suburb of Phoenix, in Maricopa County, Arizona. He was reared in a difficult family situation. His father took odd jobs to support the family of ten children.
His father's drinking led to divorce in 1937. Among his warmer memories of his childhood, Robbins recalled having listened to stories of the American West told by his maternal grandfather, Texas Bob Heckle.
Robbins left the troubled home at the age of 17 to serve in the United States Navy as an LCT coxswain during World War II. He was stationed in the Solomon Islands in the Pacific. To pass the time during the war, he learned to play the guitar, started writing songs and came to love Hawaiian music.
After his discharge from the military in 1945, he began to play at local venues in Phoenix, then moved on to host his own show on KTYL. He later had his own television show on KPHO-TV in Phoenix.
After Little Jimmy Dickens made a guest appearance on Robbins' TV show, Dickens got Robbins a record deal with Columbia Records. Robbins became known for his appearances at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville.
In addition to his recordings and performances, Robbins was an avid race car driver, competing in 35 career NASCAR races with six Top 10 finishes, including the 1973 Firecracker 400. In 1983, NASCAR honored Robbins by naming the annual race at Nashville the Marty Robbins 420. He was also the driver of the 60th Indianapolis 500 Buick Century pace car in 1976.
Robbins later portrayed a musician in the 1982 Clint Eastwood film, Honkytonk Man. He died a few weeks before the film's release in December, 1982 of complications following cardiac surgery. He was 57.
Marty Robbins poses for a fan at the 1973 Alamo 500 at the Texas World Speedway. Robbins dropped out of the race with a broken valve spring.
Olivia Newton-John is 73 years old today
Olivia Newton-John is 73 years old today.
An English born Australian singer and actress, Newton-John has amassed five #1 and ten other Top Ten Billboard Hot 100 singles and two #1 Billboard 200 solo albums. Eleven of her singles (including two platinum) and 14 of her albums (including two platinum and four double platinum) have been certified gold.
Newton-John’s music has been successful in pop, country and adult contemporary genres and has sold an estimated over 100 million albums worldwide.
She co-starred with John Travolta in the film adaptation of the Broadway musical, Grease, which featured one of the most successful film soundtracks in Hollywood history.
Newton-John has been a long-time activist for environmental and animal rights issues.
Since surviving breast cancer in 1992, she has been an advocate for health awareness becoming involved with various charities, health products and fundraising efforts.
Newton-John has been married twice. She currently lives with her second husband, John Easterling, in Jupiter Inlet, Florida.
Newton-John still tours. In 2014, she began residency at the Flamingo Las Vegas and released a new EP in April, 2014, Hotel Sessions, which consisted of seven tracks of unreleased demos that were recorded between 2002 and 2011 with her nephew, Brett.
In May, 2017, it was announced that Newton-John's breast cancer had returned and metastasized to her lower back. It was also reported that the cancer had progressed to Stage IV and spread to her bones.
Newton-John has openly talked about using cannabis oil to ease her cancer pain and has become an advocate for medical cannabis. Her daughter Chloe also owns a cannabis farm in Oregon.
The Rocky Horror Picture Show opened in the United States on this day in 1975 — 46 years ago
The Rocky Horror Picture Show opened in the United States on this day in 1975 — 46 years ago.
Opening at the UA Westwood in Los Angeles, it did well at that location, but not elsewhere. Before the midnight screenings' success, the film was withdrawn from its eight opening cities due to very small audiences and its planned New York City opening on Halloween night was cancelled.
Fox re-released the film around college campuses on a double-bill with another rock music film parody, Brian De Palma's Phantom of the Paradise, but again it drew small audiences.
With Pink Flamingos (1972) and Reefer Madness (1936) making money in midnight showings nationwide, a Fox executive, Tim Deegan, was able to talk distributors into midnight screenings, starting in New York City on April Fools' Day of 1976.
The cult following started shortly after the film began its midnight run at the Waverly Theater in New York City. Many attendees would get in free if they arrived in costume. The popularity of the film gradually grew to where nearly every screening was accompanied by a live fan cast.
The film, produced by Lou Adler and Michael White and directed by Jim Sharman, is considered to be the longest-running release in film history. It has never been pulled by 20th Century Fox from its original 1975 release, and it continues to play today in cinemas.
The production is a parody tribute to the science fiction and horror B movies of the 1930s through to the early 1970s. Along with co-writer Richard O'Brien, the film stars Tim Curry, Susan Sarandon and Barry Bostwick.
T.S. Eliot was born 133 years ago today.
T.S. Eliot, 1956
Photo by Cecil Beaton
T.S. Eliot was born 133 years ago today.
Eliot was a publisher, playwright, literary and social critic — and one of the most important English-language poets of the 20th century.
Although he was born an American, he moved to the United Kingdom in 1914 (at age 25) and was naturalized as a British subject in 1927 at age 39.
The poem that made his name — The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock — was published in Chicago in 1915. It is considered a masterpiece of the Modernist movement.
It was followed by some of the best-known poems in the English language, including Gerontion (1920), The Waste Land (1922), The Hollow Men (1925), Ash Wednesday (1930) and Four Quartets (1945).
He is also known for his seven plays, particularly Murder in the Cathedral in 1935.
Eliot was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948.
He received an undergraduate degree at Harvard, studied at the Sorbonne, returned to Harvard to study Sanskrit and then studied at Oxford. After meeting poet and lifelong friend Ezra Pound, Eliot relocated to England.
In 1915, he married Vivian Haigh-Wood, but the marriage was unhappy, partly due to her mental instability. She died in an institution in 1947.
Eliot began working at Lloyd's Bank in 1917, writing reviews and essays on the side. In 1925, he accepted a job as an editor at Faber and Faber, which allowed him to quit his job at the bank. He held the position for the rest of his life.
Eliot lectured in the United States frequently in the 1930s and 1940s. In 1957, he married his assistant, Valerie Fletcher. The couple lived happily until his death in 1965 at the age of 76.
West Side Story premiered on Broadway on this day in 1957 — 64 years ago
West Side Story premiered on Broadway on this day in 1957 — 64 years ago.
East Side Story was the original title of the Shakespeare-inspired musical conceived by choreographer Jerome Robbins, written by playwright Arthur Laurents and scored by composer and lyricist, Leonard Bernstein, in 1949.
A tale of star-crossed lovers — one Jewish, the other Catholic — on Manhattan's Lower East Side, the show in its original form never went into production, and the idea was set aside for the next six years.
It was more than just a change of setting, however, that helped the re-titled show get off the ground in the mid-1950s. It was also the addition of a young, relatively unknown lyricist named Stephen Sondheim.
The book by Arthur Laurents and the choreography by Jerome Robbins helped make West Side Story a work of lasting genius, but it was the strength of the songs by Stephen Sondheim and Leonard Bernstein that allowed it to make its Broadway debut on this day in 1957.
The re-conception of West Side Story as a tale of love across the divide of two street gangs, one Latin and one white-ethnic, came quickly once the creative principals returned to the project in 1955.
With the support of producer Carol Crawford, plans for the show proceeded over the course of two years. But by the spring of 1957, no financial backers were ready to commit to a controversial show in which Act I would end with two principal characters dead as a result of gang violence.
Crawford announced she was pulling out of the project. At this point West Side Story seemed to be dead. What saved the show was the relationship between Stephen Sondheim and Broadway producer, Hal Prince, whom Sondheim called with the bad news.
Prince and his partner, Bobby Griffith, made arrangements for a quick visit to New York to consult with the West Side Story team, and it was there that they were won over by the power of the music Bernstein played them in his midtown apartment.
"About halfway through the audition," Prince later recalled, "I started to sing along with the material....at the end of the whole thing, Bobby and I looked at each other, and we said, without hesitation, 'We'll do it!'"
With Prince and Griffith's backing, West Side Story got back on track for a premiere on September 26, 1957, that would begin one of the longest initial runs in Broadway history.
The original Broadway production of West Side Story opened at the Winter Garden Theatre in New York City.
Opening Night
September 25, 2021
Ian Tyson, of the 1960s duo, Ian and Sylvia, is 88 years old today
Ian and Sylvia, 1974
Photo from the Toronto Telegram
Ian Tyson is 88 years old today.
The Canadian singer-songwriter, best known for his song "Four Strong Winds,” was half of the duo, Ian & Sylvia.
Tyson was born to British immigrants in Victoria in 1933, and grew up in Duncan B.C. A rodeo rider in his late teens and early twenties, he took up the guitar while recovering from an injury he sustained in a fall.
He made his singing debut at the Heidelberg Café in Vancouver, British Columbia in 1956 and played with a rock and roll band, "The Sensational Stripes." After graduation from the Vancouver School of Art in 1958, Tyson moved to Toronto, Ontario where he worked as a commercial artist.
There he performed in local clubs and in 1959 began to sing on occasion with Sylvia Fricker. By early 1959, Tyson and Fricker were performing part-time at the Village Corner as "Ian & Sylvia." The pair became a full-time musical act in 1961 and married four years later.
In 1969, they formed and fronted the group, The Great Speckled Bird. Residing in southern Alberta, Tyson toured all over the world. Tyson's first marriage, to Sylvia Fricker Tyson, ended in an amicable divorce in 1975.
Their son, Clay, (Clayton Dawson Tyson, born 1966) was also a musical performer. He later moved to a career modifying racing bikes.
In 1989, Tyson was inducted into the Canadian Country Music Hall of Fame.
Here, Tyson performs his song, “Saddle Bronc Girl,” 2011
Ian & Sylvia Tyson are interviewed in Studio Q
Ian and Sylvia perform Dylan’s “Tears of Rage,” 1970
Sylvia Tyson of Ian and Sylvia and Terri Thal, Bob Dylan’s first manager and the former wife of Dave Van Ronk, in Washington Square Park, 2015
Photo by Frank Beacham
Erik Darling, a songwriter and a folk music artist who was an important influence on the folk scene in the late 1950s and early 1960s, was born 88 years ago today
Erik Darling, a songwriter and a folk music artist who was an important influence on the folk scene in the late 1950s and early 1960s, was born 88 years ago today.
Born in Baltimore, Maryland, Darling was inspired by The Weavers. In the '50s, he formed The Tunetellers, which evolved into The Tarriers with actor/singer, Alan Arkin. Their version of the "Banana Boat Song" reached #4 on the Billboard charts.
In April, 1958, Darling replaced Pete Seeger in The Weavers, although he continued working club dates with The Tarriers until November, 1959. Darling also recorded three solo albums. His second solo effort, True Religion, for Vanguard in 1961 was influential on younger folkies of the day.
Darling left the Weavers in June, 1962 to work as a soloist on the emerging coffeehouse circuit. That summer he formed a jazz-folk trio, The Rooftop Singers, with longtime friend, Bill Svanoe, and jazz singer, Lynn Taylor. Intended as a studio-only project for Vanguard, the group landed an unexpected #1 pop hit with the song, "Walk Right In."
Don McLean who became friends with Darling in 1961, looked back on Darling as “a genuine philosopher and perfectionist.” McClean said he appreciated the time Darling spent with him in his early days. “Undivided mental attention to every aspect of music making and performing is a hallmark of Erik’s work, and I believe some of that rubbed off on me,” McClean said.
In 1967, Darling and Paul Bennett were co-credited for writing the song, "Babe I'm Gonna Leave You," by Quicksilver Messenger Service, which appears to be a medley of Darling's 1958 song "St. John's River," and Joan Baez's recording of "Babe I'm Gonna Leave You," originally written by Anne Bredon.
Darling died in Chapel Hill, North Carolina in 2008 from lymphoma at the age of 74.
Here, Darling performs “On My Journey” with the Weavers at Carnegie Hall in 1960
The Weavers with Erik Darling perform “Brother Can You Spare a Dime?”
F for Fake, the iconic documentary by Orson Welles, was released 48 years ago today
F for Fake, the iconic documentary by Orson Welles, was released 48 years ago today.
Known as Truths and Lies in French, F for Fake was directed by and starred Welles and co-written with Oja Kodar, his companion. It focuses on Elmyr de Hory's recounting of his career as a professional art forger.
de Hory's story serves as the backdrop for a fast-paced, meandering investigation of the natures of authorship and authenticity, as well as the basis of the value of art. Loosely a documentary, the film operates in several different genres and has been described as a kind of film essay.
Far from serving as a traditional documentary on Elmyr de Hory, the film also incorporates Welles's companion, Oja Kodar, notorious "hoax-biographer" Clifford Irving and Welles as himself.
In addition to the 85-minute film, Welles also shot and edited a self-contained nine-minute short film as a "trailer," almost entirely composed of original material not found in the main film itself.
Several narratives are woven together throughout the film, including those of de Hory, Irving, Welles, Howard Hughes and Kodar. About de Hory, we learn that he was a struggling artist who turned to forgery out of desperation, only to see the greater share of the profits from his deceptions go to doubly unscrupulous art dealers.
As partial compensation for that injustice, he is maintained in a villa in Ibiza by one of his dealers. What is only hinted at in Welles's documentary is that de Hory had recently served a two-month sentence in a Spanish prison for homosexuality and consorting with criminals. de Hory would commit suicide a few years after the release of Welles' film, on hearing that Spain had agreed to turn him over to the French authorities.
Irving's original part in F for Fake was as de Hory's biographer, but his part grew unexpectedly at some point during production. There has not always been agreement among commentators over just how that production unfolded, but the now-accepted story is that the director, François Reichenbach, shot a documentary about de Hory and Irving before giving his footage to Welles, who then shot additional footage with Reichenbach as his cinematographer.
In the time between the shooting of Reichenbach's documentary and the finishing of the Welles film, it became known that Irving had perpetrated a hoax of his own, namely a fabricated "authorized biography" of Howard Hughes (the hoax was later fictionalized in the film, The Hoax).
This discovery prompted the shooting of still more footage, which then got woven into F for Fake. Interweaving the narratives even more, there are several pieces of footage in the film showing Welles at a party with de Hory, and, at one point, de Hory even signs a painting with a forgery of Welles' signature.
Some of Hughes' career is outlined in the form of a parody of the "News on the March" sequence in Citizen Kane.
Welles also draws parallels between the de Hory and Irving hoaxes and his own brush with early notoriety by including a recreation of part of his 1938 War of the Worlds radio drama, which had simulated a newscast about a Martian invasion and sparked panic among some listeners.
Exactly one hour before narrating Kodar's story, Welles promises that everything in the next hour of his film will be true. Exactly one hour later, the film tells a story where Kodar sits for a series of nudes for Pablo Picasso after getting him to agree to give her the finished portraits, and then selling not those very portraits but fake Picassos in their place.
The story climaxes with Welles and Kodar re-enacting a tense exchange between Picasso and Kodar's grandfather, the alleged forger of the paintings, before Welles reminds the viewer that he only promised to tell the truth for an hour and that "for the last 17 minutes, I've been lying my head off."
John Howard Lawson — one of the "Hollywood Ten" writers who went to jail — was born 127 years ago today
The Hollywood Ten
John Howard Lawson — one of the "Hollywood Ten" writers who went to jail — was born 127 years ago today.
A writer, Lawson was head of the Hollywood division of the Communist Party USA. He was also the organization's cultural manager, and answered directly to V.J. Jerome, the Party's New York-based cultural chief.
He was the first president in the Writers Guild of America, West after they changed from their name from Screen Writers Guild.
In 1928, Lawson moved to Hollywood where he wrote scripts for films such as The Ship for Shanghai, Bachelor Apartment and Goodbye Love. In the winter of 1930-1931, it was at this time during the Great Depression that Lawson wrote Success Story.
The Theatre Guild rejected the script, but Harold Clurman, a reader for them, had recently just formed the Group Theatre (New York) and needed new scripts. Clurman and Lawson reworked the play during the summer of 1932, and Success Story opened on September 26, 1932 for 121 performances.
During the 1930s, leftists accused Lawson of having a lack of ideological and political commitment. New Playwrights Theatre associate Mike Gold attacked him in The New Masses on April 10, 1934, calling him a "A Bourgeois Hamlet of Our Time" who wrote adolescent works that lacked moral fiber or clear ideas.
Lawson responded a week later in The New Masses in the article "'Inner Conflict' and Proletarian Art." He cited his middle-class childhood as the reason why he could fully understand the working people. He also recognized that his prosperity and Hollywood connections were suspect in the fight for workers' rights.
Due to the criticism, Lawson joined the Communist Party and began a program of educating himself about the proletarian cause. He would soon travel throughout the poverty-stricken South to study bloody labor conflicts in Alabama and Georgia.
While in the South, he would submit articles to the Daily Worker which got him arrested numerous times. These experiences would inspire his next play, Marching Song. It was put on by the radical Theatre Union and it opened on February 17, 1937 and ran for sixty-one performances.
Lawson, who joined the American Communist Party in 1934, made several films that were political, including Blockade (1938), which starred Henry Fonda. It was a film on the Spanish Civil War for which he received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Story.
Lawson also wrote Counter-Attack (1945), a tribute to the Soviet-USA alliance during the Second World War. He also wrote more innocuous films, such as the critically acclaimed, Algiers (1938), and the Humphrey Bogart vehicles, Sahara and Action in the North Atlantic, in 1943.
After the World War II, the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) began an investigation into the Hollywood Motion Picture Industry. In September 1947, the HUAC interviewed 41 people who were working in Hollywood.
These people attended voluntarily and became known as "friendly witnesses.” During their interviews they named several individuals whom they accused of holding left-wing views.
Lawson appeared before the HUAC on October 29, 1947, but like Alvah Bessie, Herbert Biberman, Albert Maltz, Adrian Scott, Dalton Trumbo, Lester Cole, Edward Dmytryk, Samuel Ornitz and Ring Lardner Jr, he refused to answer any questions.
Known as the Hollywood Ten, they claimed that the First Amendment of the United States Constitution gave them the right to do this. The HUAC and U.S. appeals courts, however, disagreed and all were found guilty of contempt of Congress and Lawson was sentenced to twelve months in Ashland Prison and fined $1,000.
Blacklisted by the Hollywood studios, Lawson moved to Mexico where he began writing Marxist interpretations of drama and film-making such as The Hidden Heritage (1950), Film in the Battle of Ideas (1953) and Film: The Creative Process (1964). He also wrote one of the first anti-apartheid movies, Cry, the Beloved Country (1951) under a pseudonym.
After he was blacklisted, he taught at several universities including Stanford University, Loyola Marymount University and Los Angeles University of Judaism.
In his book, Film in the Battle of Ideas, Lawson asserted that "the rulers of the United States take the film very seriously as an instrument of propaganda" and that the influence of Hollywood movies is utilized to "poison the minds of U.S. working-class people" and that inaccurately describes the reality of U.S. working-class life.
Lawson’s writing on techniques in play and screenwriting are highly respected today.
Robert McKee used Lawson’s work in courses I took from him over the years and later borrowed and credited Lawson for many key ideas in his book, Story.
Roosevelt "Booba" Barnes was born 85 years ago today
Roosevelt "Booba" Barnes, Chicago, 1991
Photo by James Fraher
Roosevelt "Booba" Barnes was born 85 years ago today.
A Delta blues guitar player and vocalist, Barnes — along R. L. Burnside, Big Jack Johnson, Paul "Wine" Jones and James "Super Chikan" Johnson — were present-day exponents of an edgier, electrified version of the raw, uncut Delta blues sound.
Born in Longwood, Washington County, Mississippi, Barnes got his start in 1960 as a member of the Swinging Gold Coasters, a local Mississippi blues band. He relocated to Chicago in 1964, where he played in bars and clubs, but returned to Mississippi in 1971 and continued to perform locally into the early 1980s.
In 1985, he opened a nightclub, the Playboy Club, and played there with a backing group called the Playboys. They became regional blues favorites and eventually signed to Rooster Blues, who released Barnes's debut effort in 1990.
The album was hailed by Allmusic as "an instant modern classic,” and Guitar Player called Barnes "a wonderfully idiosyncratic guitar player and an extraordinary vocalist by any standard.” Barnes toured the U.S. and Europe following the album's release.
Barnes's career was interrupted in the middle of the decade when he was diagnosed with cancer, and he died of the disease in 1996 in Chicago at age 59.
Here, Barnes performs “I’m Going Back Home” and “Bluebird” in Oxford, Mississippi in 1983
Shel Silverstein, poet, singer-songwriter, cartoonist, screenwriter and author of children's books, was born 91 years ago today
Shel Silverstein, circa 1968
Photo by Alice Ochs
Shel Silverstein, poet, singer-songwriter, cartoonist, screenwriter and author of children's books, was born 91 years ago today.
Silverstein grew up in the Logan Square neighborhood of Chicago and attended Roosevelt High School. Later, he went the University of Illinois before he was expelled. He then attended Chicago Academy of Fine Arts and Roosevelt University for three years, until 1953 when he was drafted into the Army. He served in Japan and Korea.
Silverstein began drawing at age seven by tracing the works of Al Capp. "When I was a kid — 12 to 14, around there — I would much rather have been a good baseball player or a hit with the girls, but I couldn't play ball. I couldn't dance. Luckily, the girls didn't want me. Not much I could do about that. So I started to draw and to write. I was also lucky that I didn't have anybody to copy, be impressed by,” he told Publisher’s Weekly.
“I had developed my own style. I was creating before I knew there was a Thurber, a Benchley, a Price and a Steinberg. I never saw their work till I was around 30. By the time I got to where I was attracting girls, I was already into work, and it was more important to me. Not that I wouldn't rather make love, but the work has become a habit."
After returning to Chicago, Silverstein began submitting cartoons to magazines while also selling hot dogs at Chicago ballparks. His cartoons began appearing in Look, Sports Illustrated and This Week.
In 1957, Silverstein became one of the leading cartoonists in Playboy, which sent him around the world to create an illustrated travel journal with reports from far-flung locales. During the 1950s and 1960s, he produced 23 installments called "Shel Silverstein Visits..." as a feature for Playboy.
Employing a sketchbook format with typewriter-styled captions, he documented his own experiences at such locations as a New Jersey nudist colony, the Chicago White Sox training camp, San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district, Fire Island, Mexico, London, Paris, Spain and Africa.
Silverstein's passion for music was clear early on as he studied briefly at Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University. His musical output included a large catalog of songs — a number of which were hits for other artists, most notably the rock group, Dr. Hook & The Medicine Show.
He wrote Tompall Glaser's highest-charting solo single "Put Another Log on the Fire," "One's on the Way" (a hit for Loretta Lynn) and "25 Minutes to Go," sung by Johnny Cash, about a man on Death Row with each line counting down one minute closer.
Silverstein also wrote one of Johnny Cash's best known hits, "A Boy Named Sue." Other songs co-written by Silverstein include "the Taker" by Waylon Jennings and "On Susan’s Floor” by Gordon Lightfoot and a sequel to "A Boy Named Sue" called: "Father of a Boy Named Sue" which is less known, but he performed the song on television on The Johnny Cash Show.
He also penned a song entitled "F*** 'em" which is lesser known and contained a reference to "f*** children."
Silverstein styled himself as Uncle Shelby in some works. Translated into more than 30 languages, his books have sold over 20 million copies.
On May 10, 1999, Silverstein died at age 68 of a massive heart attack in Key West, Florida.
William Faulkner was born 124 years ago today
William Faulkner was born 124 years ago today.
A writer and Nobel Prize laureate from Oxford, Mississippi, Faulkner wrote novels, short stories, a play, poetry, essays and screenplays during his career.
He is primarily known and acclaimed for his novels and short stories, many of which are set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County, a setting Faulkner created based on Lafayette County, where he spent most of his life, and Holly Springs in Marshall County.
Faulkner is one of the most important writers of the Southern literature of the United States, along with Mark Twain, Robert Penn Warren, Flannery O'Connor, Truman Capote, Eudora Welty, Thomas Wolfe, Harper Lee and Tennessee Williams.
Though his work was published as early as 1919, and largely during the 1920s and 1930s, Faulkner was relatively unknown until receiving the 1949 Nobel Prize in Literature.
Two of his works, A Fable (1954), and his last novel, The Reivers (1962), won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
In 1998, the Modern Library ranked his 1929 novel, The Sound and the Fury, as sixth on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th Century. Also on the list were, As I Lay Dying (1930) and Light in August (1932).
Faulkner was known for his experimental style with meticulous attention to diction and cadence. In contrast to the minimalist understatement of his contemporary Ernest Hemingway, Faulkner made frequent use of "stream of consciousness" in his writing. He wrote often highly emotional, subtle, cerebral, complex and sometimes Gothic or grotesque stories of a wide variety of characters.
His characters included former slaves or descendants of slaves, poor white, agrarian or working-class Southerners and Southern aristocrats.
Faulkner suffered serious injuries in a horse-riding accident in 1959, and died from a myocardial infarction, at age 64, on July 6, 1962.
September 24, 2021
The trial for eight antiwar activists charged with violent demonstrations at the 1968 Democratic National Convention opened in Chicago on this day in 1969 — 52 years ago today
Photo by Richard Avedon
The trial for eight antiwar activists charged with the responsibility for the violent demonstrations at the 1968 Democratic National Convention opened in Chicago on this day in 1969 — 52 years ago today.
The defendants included David Dellinger of the National Mobilization Committee (NMC); Rennie Davis and Thomas Hayden of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS); Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin, founders of the Youth International Party ("Yippies"); and two lesser known activists, Lee Weiner and John Froines.
Bobby Seale, the eighth man charged, had his trial severed during the proceedings, lowering the number of defendants from eight to seven. The group was charged with conspiracy to cross state lines with intent to incite a riot. All but Seale were represented by attorneys William Kunstler and Leonard Weinglass.
The trial, presided over by Judge Julius Hoffman, turned into a circus as the defendants and their attorneys used the court as a platform to attack Nixon, the war, racism and oppression. Their tactics were so disruptive that at one point, Judge Hoffman ordered Seale gagged and strapped to his chair.
The Chicago Seven were indicted for violating the Rap Brown law, which had been tagged onto the Civil Rights Bill earlier that year by conservative senators. The law made it illegal to cross state lines in order to riot or to conspire to use interstate commerce to incite rioting. President Johnson's attorney general, Ramsey Clark, refused to prosecute the case.
When the trial ended in February, 1970, Hoffman found the defendants and their attorneys guilty of 175 counts of contempt of court and sentenced them to terms between two to four years. Although declaring the defendants not guilty of conspiracy, the jury found all but Froines and Weiner guilty of intent to riot. The others were each sentenced to five years and fined $5,000.
However, none served time because in 1972, a Court of Appeal overturned the criminal convictions and eventually most of the contempt charges were dropped as well.
Blind Lemon Jefferson, Texas born blues singer and guitarist, was born 128 years ago today
Blind Lemon Jefferson, Texas born blues singer and guitarist, was born 128 years ago today.
Jefferson was one of the most popular blues singers of the 1920s, and has been titled "Father of the Texas Blues." His singing and self-accompaniment were distinctive as a result of his high-pitched voice and originality on the guitar.
Though his recordings sold well, he was not so influential on some younger blues singers of his generation, who could not imitate him as they could other commercially successful artists.
However, later blues and rock and roll musicians attempted to imitate both his songs and his musical style. His recordings would later influence such legends as B.B. King, T-Bone Walker, Lightnin' Hopkins, Son House and Robert Johnson.
Lemon Henry Jefferson was born blind near Coutchman, Texas in Freestone County, near present-day Wortham, Texas. He was one of eight children born to sharecroppers Alex and Clarissa Jefferson.
Jefferson began playing the guitar in his early teens, and soon after he began performing at picnics and parties. He became a street musician, playing in East Texas towns in front of barbershops and on corners.
According to his cousin, Alec Jefferson, quoted in the notes for Blind Lemon Jefferson, Classic Sides: “They were rough (times). Men were hustling women and selling bootleg and Lemon was singing for them all night... he'd start singing about eight and go on until four in the morning... mostly it would be just him sitting there and playing and singing all night.”
By the early 1910s, Jefferson began traveling frequently to Dallas, where he met and played with fellow blues musician, Lead Belly.
In Dallas, Jefferson was one of the earliest and most prominent figures in the blues movement developing in the Deep Ellum area of Dallas. He likely moved to Deep Ellum in a more permanent fashion by 1917, where he met Aaron Thibeaux Walker, also known as T-Bone Walker. Jefferson taught Walker the basics of blues guitar, in exchange for Walker's occasional services as a guide.
Until Jefferson, very few artists had recorded solo voice and blues guitar, the first of which was vocalist Sara Martin and guitarist Sylvester Weaver. Jefferson's music is uninhibited and represented the classic sounds of everyday life from a honky-tonk to a country picnic to street corner blues to work in the burgeoning oil fields, a further reflection of his interest in mechanical objects and processes.
Jefferson did what very few had ever done — he became a successful solo guitarist and male vocalist in the commercial recording world. Unlike many artists who were "discovered" and recorded in their normal venues, in December, 1925 or January, 1926, he was taken to Chicago, Illinois, to record his first tracks.
Uncharacteristically, Jefferson's first two recordings from this session were gospel songs ("I Want to be like Jesus in my Heart" and "All I Want is that Pure Religion"), released under the name, Deacon L. J. Bates. This led to a second recording session in March, 1926.
His first releases under his own name — "Booster Blues" and "Dry Southern Blues" — were hits. This led to the release of the other two songs from that session, "Got the Blues" and "Long Lonesome Blues," which became a runaway success, with sales in six figures.
He recorded about 100 tracks between 1926 and 1929. Forty-three records were issued, all but one for Paramount Records. Unfortunately, Paramount Records' studio techniques and quality were bad, and the resulting recordings sound no better than if they had been recorded in a hotel room.
In fact, in May, 1926, Paramount had Jefferson re-record his hits, "Got the Blues" and "Long Lonesome Blues," in the superior facilities at Marsh Laboratories, and subsequent releases used that version. Both versions appear on compilation albums and may be compared.
It was largely due to the popularity of artists such as Blind Lemon Jefferson and contemporaries such as Blind Blake and Ma Rainey that Paramount became the leading recording company for the blues in the 1920s.
Jefferson's earnings reputedly enabled him to buy a car and employ chauffeurs. He was given a Ford car "worth over $700" by Mayo Williams, Paramount's connection with the black community. This was a frequently seen compensation for recording rights in that market.
Jefferson is known to have done an unusual amount of traveling for the time in the American South, which is reflected in the difficulty of pigeonholing his music into one regional category. It was Jefferson's old-fashioned sound and confident musicianship that made him easy to market. His skillful guitar playing and impressive vocal ranges opened the door for a new generation of male solo blues performers, including Furry Lewis, Charlie Patton and Barbecue Bob.
Jefferson died in Chicago on December 19, 1929 of what his death certificate called "probably acute myocarditis." For many years, apocryphal rumors circulated that a jealous lover had poisoned his coffee, but a more likely scenario is that he died of a heart attack after becoming disoriented during a snowstorm.
Some have said that Jefferson died from a heart attack after being attacked by a dog in the middle of the night. More recently, the book, Tolbert's Texas, claimed that he was killed while being robbed of a large royalty payment by a guide escorting him to Union Station to catch a train home to Texas.
Jefferson was buried at Wortham Negro Cemetery (later Wortham Black Cemetery). Far from his grave being kept clean, it was unmarked until 1967, when a Texas Historical Marker was erected in the general area of his plot, the precise location being unknown.
By 1996, the cemetery and marker were in poor condition, but a new granite headstone was erected in 1997. In 2007, the cemetery's name was changed to Blind Lemon Memorial Cemetery and his gravesite is kept clean by a cemetery committee in Wortham, Texas.
Here, Jefferson performs “Black Snake Moan”
Gerard "Gerry" Marsden, leader of Gerry and the Pacemakers, was born 79 years ago today
Gerry Marsden sings “You'll Never Walk Alone” to the Anfield crowd ahead of the European Cup game with HJK Helsinki, November 2, 1982
Gerard "Gerry" Marsden, leader of Gerry and the Pacemakers, was born 79 years ago today.
An English musician and television personality, Marsden was born at 8 Menzies Street, Toxteth, Liverpool, and his interest in music began at an early age. He remembered standing on top of an air raid shelter singing "Ragtime Cowboy Joe" and getting a great reception from onlookers. He said to himself then, "This is what I want to do.”
Gerry and the Pacemakers was the second group signed by Brian Epstein and remained among his favorite artists. Their first single was "How Do You Do It," recommended by George Martin after it was initially given to The Beatles. This was the first #1 hit for the Pacemakers. It was recorded at Abbey Road Studios and was released on EMI's Columbia label.
The band's second #1 was "I Like It," followed by "You'll Never Walk Alone." Other singles included "It's Gonna Be Alright," "I'm the One," "Don't Let the Sun Catch You Crying" and "Ferry Cross the Mersey."
After leaving the Pacemakers — made up of his brother, Fred Marsden, Les Maguire and Les Chadwick — Marsden maintained a low-key career on television, and starred in the West End musical, Charlie Girl, alongside Derek Nimmo and Anna Neagle.
Marsden returned to #1 in the charts twice during the 1980s with re-recordings of two of his old hits, with all profits going to charity.
In 1993, Marsden published his autobiography — I'll Never Walk Alone — co-written with former Melody Maker editor, Ray Coleman.
In September, 2003, Marsden had triple bypass heart surgery at Broad Green Hospital in Liverpool. He had a second heart operation in 2016, and announced his retirement in November, 2018 (nevertheless, he appeared with Take That at their concert at Anfield in June, 2019).
Marsden died on January 3, 2021 at Arrowe Park Hospital in Merseyside, after being diagnosed with a blood infection in his heart. He was 78 years old.
F. Scott Fitzgerald was born 125 years ago today
F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife, Zelda
F. Scott Fitzgerald was born 125 years ago today.
An author of novels and short stories, Fitzgerald’s works are the paradigm writings of the Jazz Age, a term he coined himself. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century.
Fitzgerald is considered a member of the "Lost Generation" of the 1920s. He finished four novels: This Side of Paradise, The Beautiful and Damned, Tender Is the Night, and his most famous, The Great Gatsby. A fifth unfinished novel, The Love of the Last Tycoon, was published posthumously.
Fitzgerald also wrote many short stories that treat themes of youth and promise along with despair and age.
The Great Gatsby has been the basis for numerous films of the same name, spanning nearly 90 years; 1926, 1949, 1974, 2000 and 2013. In 1958, his life from 1937–1940 was dramatized in Beloved Infidel.
While at a country club, Fitzgerald met Zelda Sayre (1900–1948), the "golden girl," in Fitzgerald's terms, of Montgomery, Alabama youth society. Fitzgerald attempted to lay a foundation for his life with Zelda. Despite working at an advertising firm and writing short stories, he was unable to convince Zelda that he would be able to support her, leading her to break off the engagement.
Scott returned to his parents' house at 599 Summit Avenue, on Cathedral Hill, in St. Paul, to revise The Romantic Egoist. Recast as This Side of Paradise, about the post-WWI flapper generation, it was accepted by Scribner's in the fall of 1919 and Zelda and Scott resumed their engagement. The novel was published on March 26, 1920, and became one of the most popular books of the year.
Scott and Zelda were married in New York's St. Patrick's Cathedral. Their only child, Frances Scott "Scottie" Fitzgerald, was born on October 26, 1921 and died on June 16, 1986.
Paris in the 1920s proved the most influential decade of Fitzgerald's development. The Great Gatsby, considered his masterpiece, was published in 1925.
Fitzgerald made several excursions to Europe, mostly Paris and the French Riviera, and became friends with many members of the American expatriate community in Paris, notably Ernest Hemingway. Fitzgerald’s friendship with Hemingway was quite vigorous, as many of Fitzgerald’s relationships would prove to be.
Hemingway, however, did not get on well with Zelda. In addition to describing her as "insane," he claimed that she “encouraged her husband to drink so as to distract Scott from his work on his novel."
As did most professional authors at the time, Fitzgerald supplemented his income by writing short stories for such magazines as The Saturday Evening Post, Collier's Weekly and Esquire.
Fitzgerald also sold his stories and novels to Hollywood studios. This “whoring,” as Fitzgerald and, subsequently, Hemingway called these sales, was a sore point in the authors’ friendship. Fitzgerald claimed that he would first write his stories in an authentic manner but then put in “twists that made them into salable magazine stories.”
Fitzgerald had been an alcoholic since his college days, and became notorious during the 1920s for his extraordinarily heavy drinking, leaving him in poor health by the late 1930s. He suffered two heart attacks in late 1930. After the first, in Schwab's Drug Store, he was ordered by his doctor to avoid strenuous exertion.
He moved in with Sheilah Graham, who lived in Hollywood on North Hayworth Ave., one block east of Fitzgerald's apartment on North Laurel Ave. Fitzgerald had two flights of stairs to climb to his apartment. Graham's was on the ground floor.
On the night of December 20, 1940, Fitzgerald and Graham attended the premiere of This Thing Called Love starring Rosalind Russell and Melvyn Douglas. As the two were leaving the Pantages Theater, Fitzgerald experienced a dizzy spell and had trouble leaving the theater. He said to Graham: "They think I am drunk, don't they?"
The following day, as Fitzgerald ate a candy bar and made notes in his newly arrived Princeton Alumni Weekly, Graham saw him jump from his armchair, grab the mantelpiece, gasp and fall to the floor.
She ran to the manager of the building, Harry Culver, founder of Culver City. Upon entering the apartment to assist Fitzgerald, Culver said, "I'm afraid he's dead."
Fitzgerald had died of a massive heart attack. He was 44.
In 1966 — 55 years ago today — Jimi Hendrix arrived in London with his new manager, Chas Chandler, on a flight to stardom
In 1966 — 55 years ago today — Jimi Hendrix arrived in London with his new manager, Chas Chandler, on a flight from New York City.
With only the clothes he was wearing, Hendrix had sold his other belongings to pay a hotel bill in New York. He left the United States because he felt no one there understood his music.
One of the first things he did after arriving in England was to legally change his name from James to Jimi.
Shortly after that, he would became a major star.
Linda Eastman McCartney was born 80 years ago today
Linda Eastman McCartney was born 80 years ago today.
McCartney was a musician, photographer and animal rights activist. She was married to Paul McCartney, a founding member of the Beatles.
Her father, Lee Eastman, practiced entertainment law in New York for well-known clients, including bandleader Tommy Dorsey, songwriters Harold Arlen and Jack Lawrence, and fine artists such as Willem de Kooning and Mark Rothko.
In 1969, Paul McCartney married Linda Eastman, and their marriage was blessed at St John's Wood Church. Later, they formed McCartney's band, Wings.
In the same year, Paul adopted Heather Louise, Linda's daughter from her first marriage to Joseph Melville See. The McCartneys had three children: Mary Anna, Stella Nina and James Louis.
She wrote several vegetarian cookbooks, became a business entrepreneur (starting the Linda McCartney Foods company with her husband) and was a professional photographer, publishing Linda McCartney's Sixties: Portrait of an Era.
McCartney was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1995, and died at the age of 56 on April 17, 1998, in Tucson, Arizona, where the McCartneys had a ranch.
Above photo of Paul and Linda McCartney by Bill Bernstein
September 23, 2021
Bruce Springsteen — “the Boss” — is 72 years old today
Bruce Springsteen performs at The Clearwater Concert for Pete Seeger’s 90th birthday.
The concert was held on May 3, 2009 at Madison Square Garden in New York City. Over 40 performers from various genres performed at the event.
Photo by Frank Beacham
Bruce Springsteen — “the Boss” — is 72 years old today.
A singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist who records and tours with the E Street Band, Springsteen is known for his brand of heartland rock, poetic lyrics and Americana sentiments centered on his native New Jersey and his lengthy and energetic stage performances.
His concerts, from the 1970s to the present decade, can run up to an uninterrupted 250 minutes in length. Springsteen's recordings have included both commercially accessible rock albums and more somber folk-oriented works.
His most successful studio albums, Born in the U.S.A. and Born to Run, showcase a talent for finding grandeur in the struggles of daily American life.
Springsteen has sold more than 65 million albums in the United States and more than 120 million worldwide. He was among the recipients of the Kennedy Center Honors, an annual award to figures from the world of arts for their contribution to American culture, in December, 2009.
President Obama gave a speech in which he talked about how Springsteen has incorporated the life of regular Americans in his expansive palette of songs and how his concerts are beyond the typical rock-and-roll concerts, how — apart from being high-energy entertainment events — they are "communions.”
He ended the remark "while I am the president, he is The Boss.”
Here, Springsteen performs “Fire”
Bruce Springsteen on stage with Jen Chapin, Harry Chapin's daughter, and her baby on Jan. 28, 2006, New York City
Photo by Frank Beacham
On this day in 1944 — 77 years ago — President Franklin D. Roosevelt had to answer critics who made his Scottish terrier, Fala, a campaign issue in the heat of his re-election race
Fala with President Roosevelt
On this day in 1944 — 77 years ago — President Franklin D. Roosevelt had to answer critics who made his Scottish terrier, Fala, a campaign issue in the heat of his re-election race.
They claimed that Roosevelt had left Fala behind after a visit to the Aleutian Islands, and then sent a military ship to rescue the dog. The accusation was never proved.
“I don’t resent attacks, and my family doesn’t resent attacks, but Fala does resent them,” Roosevelt said, in a rebuttal inspired by his friend, Orson Welles.
“You know, Fala is Scotch, and being a Scottie, as soon as he learned that the Republican fiction writers in Congress and out had concocted a story that I'd left him behind on an Aleutian island and had sent a destroyer back to find him — at a cost to the taxpayers of two or three, or eight or twenty million dollars — his Scotch soul was furious. He has not been the same dog since. I am accustomed to hearing malicious falsehoods about myself ... But I think I have a right to resent, to object, to libelous statements about my dog,” the president said.
Roosevelt’s words delighted the public and the controversy was dropped.
Fala often slept at the foot of F.D.R.’s bed and was close to him until the end of the president’s life. The dog attended the Roosevelt funeral.
After the president’s death, Fala went to live with Mrs. Roosevelt in Val-Kill. The dog survived Roosevelt by seven years and was buried beside him. The relationship of Roosevelt and Fala is immortalized by a statue at Roosevelt’s memorial in Washington, D.C.
Thanks New York Times!
Ani DiFranco is 51 years old today
Photo by Jen Cray
Ani DiFranco is 51 years old today.
DiFranco is a singer, guitarist, multi-instrumentalist, poet and songwriter. She has released more than 20 albums and is widely considered a feminist icon.
Although DiFranco's music has been classified as both folk rock and alternative rock, she has reached across genres since her earliest albums incorporating punk, funk, hip hop and jazz influences.
She was one of the first independent musicians to create her own record label, Righteous Babe, a move that has given her significant creative freedom.
From the earliest days of her career, DiFranco has lent her voice and her name to a broad range of social movements, performing benefit concerts, appearing on benefit albums and speaking at rallies.
Through the Righteous Babe Foundation, DiFranco has backed various grassroots cultural and political organizations, supporting causes ranging from abortion rights to gay visibility.
DiFranco released an album on January 17, 2012, titled “Which Side Are You On?” It includes collaborations with Pete Seeger, Ivan Neville, Cyril Neville, Skerik, Adam Levy, Righteous Babe recording artist Anaïs Mitchell, CC Adcock, and a host of New Orleans-based horn players known for their work in such groups as Galactic, Bonerama and Rebirth Brass Band.
John Coltrane was born 95 years ago today
Photo by Charles Vlen
John Coltrane was born 95 years ago today.
A jazz saxophonist and composer, Coltrane worked in the bebop and hard bop idioms early in his career and helped pioneer the free jazz movement.
Coltrane organized at least fifty recording sessions as a leader during his recording career, and appeared as a sideman on many other albums, notably with trumpeter, Miles Davis, and pianist, Thelonious Monk.
As his career progressed, Coltrane and his music took on an increasingly spiritual dimension. His second wife was pianist, Alice Coltrane, and their son, Ravi Coltrane, is also a saxophonist.
Coltrane influenced innumerable musicians, and remains one of the most significant tenor saxophonists in jazz history. He received many posthumous awards and recognitions, including canonization by the African Orthodox Church as Saint John William Coltrane.
In 2007, Coltrane was awarded the Pulitzer Prize Special Citation for his "masterful improvisation, supreme musicianship and iconic centrality to the history of jazz."
Coltrane died from liver cancer at Huntington Hospital on Long Island on July 17, 1967, at the age of 40.
His funeral was held on Friday, July 21 at St. Peters Lutheran Church in New York City. The Albert Ayler Quartet and The Ornette Coleman Quartet respectively opened and closed the service.
Coltrane’s death surprised many in the musical community who were not aware of his illness. Miles Davis commented: "Coltrane's death shocked everyone, took everyone by surprise. I knew he hadn't looked too good... But I didn't know he was that sick — or even sick at all."
The influence Coltrane has had on music spans many different genres and musicians. His massive influence on jazz, both mainstream and avant-garde, began during his lifetime and continued to grow after his death. He is one of the most dominant influences on post-1960 jazz saxophonists and has inspired an entire generation of jazz musicians.
In 1972, A Love Supreme was certified gold for selling over half a million copies in Japan. This album, as well as My Favorite Things, was certified gold in the United States in 2001.
Here, the John Coltrane Quartet performs “Impressions.” McCoy Tyner is on piano.
Miles Davis, Cannonball Adderley and John Coltrane, 1958
Photo by Dennis Stock
Charlie's Place: Photo Essay
- The true story of the Ku Klux Klan’s violent attempt in South Carolina in the post World War II years to stop dirty dancing and kill the emerging black music behind it—rhythm & blues. E-book in all platforms.
Mill Town Murder: Photo Essay
- On the morning of Sept. 6, 1934, in the tiny town of Honea Path, S.C., friends and neighbors came to blows in a labor dispute. When it was over, seven people were dead and 30 others wounded. The bloody riot at the town’s cotton mill shaped the lives of two generations to follow—not because of the shock of what was known, but by what was unknown. E-book available on all platforms.
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