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Lyla Tiffany, an 80-year-old street musician, plays her accordion outside Carnegie Hall, 1960

Photo by Alfred Eisenstaedt

Lucinda Williams is 69 years old today

Lucinda Williams is 69 years old today.

A rock, folk, blues and country music singer and songwriter, Williams recorded her first albums in 1978 and 1980 in a traditional country and blues style and received very little attention from radio, the media or the public.

In 1988, she released her self-titled album, Lucinda Williams. This release featured "Passionate Kisses," a song later recorded by Mary Chapin Carpenter.

Known for working slowly, Williams recorded and released only one other album in the next several years (Sweet Old World in 1992) before her greatest success came in 1998, Car Wheels on a Gravel Road.

This album presented a broader scope of songs that fused rock, blues, country and Americana into a more distinctive style that still managed to remain consistent and commercial in sound. It went gold and was universally acclaimed by critics.

Since Car Wheels on a Gravel Road, she has released a string of albums that have also been critically acclaimed, though none have sold in the numbers of her 1998 breakthrough.

By her early 20s, Williams was playing publicly in Austin and Houston, concentrating on a folk-rock-country blend. In the 1980s, Williams moved to Los Angeles, before finally settling in Nashville.

Williams had garnered considerable critical acclaim, but her commercial success was moderate. Emmylou Harris said of Williams, "She is an example of the best of what country at least says it is, but, for some reason, she's completely out of the loop and I feel strongly that that's country music's loss."

Williams has gained a reputation as a perfectionist and slow worker when it comes to recording.

Here, Williams performs “Real Love” on Letterman, 2008

Lucinda Williams was born in Lake Charles, Louisiana, the daughter of poet and literature professor, Miller Williams, and an amateur pianist. Her music is rooted in Louisiana.

In this bittersweet song, she sings about an old boyfriend in “Lake Charles,” from her 1998 album, Car Wheels on a Gravel Road.

The song is about Lucinda's one-time boyfriend, Clyde Woodward, who died long after they'd split up.

Lucinda had married and divorced in the interim, but Woodward’s influence was so profound that when his deterioration from cirrhosis of the liver reached its final stages in August, 1991, Lucinda jumped on a plane from Los Angeles to see him before he died.

Woodward died as Lucinda was in transit and she didn't get to say goodbye.

Woodward knew the Louisiana backroads of Ville Platte, Eunice, Cankton and Sulpher. He could paint florid descriptions of crawfish boils and backwoods French dances as if he were swamp born. He was a cultural chameleon capable of conjuring jaw-dropping magic.

He knew the music of Louisiana from swamp pop to Cajun to New Orleans to zydeco to Dixieland and back. He swore no Jazz Fest was right unless you'd had a Dixie beer and softshell crab poboy for breakfast.

He taught writers how to eat like royalty at happy hour buffets for the price of a beer. He knew how to build the best barbecue pits ("you dig a big hole and get an ol 'refrigerator with the door off...") and could talk his way into the Palomino in L.A.

He acted as Lucinda's first agent. He'd bring club owners boudin and crawfish by the bagful when he and Lucinda would come back from gigs in Louisiana.

This is Clyde’s song.

Akio Morita, co-founder of Sony and inventor of the Walkman portable music player, was born 101 years ago today

Akio Morita, co-founder of Sony and inventor of the Walkman portable music player, was born 101 years ago today.

A true inventor, in the rare mold of Steve Jobs at Apple and Amar Bose, founder of Bose, Morita’s unique vision resulted in products that changed the world. Sony’s decline as a great company began and continued after Morita’s death.

Born in Nagoya, Aichi, Japan, Morita’s family was involved in sake, miso and soy sauce production in the village of Kosugaya (currently a part of Tokoname City) on the western coast of Chita Peninsula in Aichi Prefecture since 1665. He was the oldest of four siblings and his father Kyuzaemon trained him as a child to take over the family business.

Akio, however, found his true calling in mathematics and physics. In 1944, he graduated from Osaka Imperial University with a degree in physics. He was later commissioned as a lieutenant in the Imperial Japanese Navy, and served in World War II. During his service, Morita met his future business partner, Masaru Ibuka, in the Navy's Wartime Research Committee.

On May 7, 1946, Morita and Ibuka founded Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo Kabushiki Kaisha (Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering Corp., the forerunner of Sony) with about 20 employees. Morita's family invested in Sony during the early period and was the largest shareholder.

In 1949, the company developed magnetic recording tape and in 1950, sold the first tape recorder in Japan. In 1957, it produced a pocket-sized radio (the first to be fully transistorized).

In 1958, Morita and Ibuka decided to rename their company Sony (derived from "sonus" — Latin for "sound.”)

Since the early Sony radio was slightly too big to fit in a shirt pocket, Morita made his employees wear shirts with slightly larger pockets to give the radio a "pocket-sized" appearance.

In 1960, Sony produced the first transistor television in the world. In 1975, it released the first Betamax home video recorder, a year before VHS format came out.

In 1979, the Walkman was introduced, making it the world's first portable music player. In 1984, Sony launched the Discman series which extended their Walkman brand to portable CD products.

Morita moved his entire family to the United States in 1963 to learn American culture. He built a valuable network by continually socializing and giving parties during the week, a habit he maintained throughout his career. Morita followed art and music and was a sports fanatic.

In his 60s, he took up wind surfing and scuba diving and started skiing to ensure good exercise through the winter. He loved to water-ski and even crafted a water-resistant microphone on a handle, connected by a wire on the ski rope to a speaker on the boat so he could relay instructions to his wife, Yoshiko.

To simply have a good time, he would invent and perfect products. The Walkman is just such an invention. Morita watched as his children and their friends played music from morning until night. He noticed people listening to music in their cars and carrying large stereos to the beach and the park.

Sony's engineering department was generally opposed to the concept of a tape player without a recording function (it would be added later), but Morita would not be denied. He insisted on a product that sounded like a high-quality car stereo yet was portable and allowed the user to listen while doing something else — thus the name Walkman.

It is this contrary vision lacking at Sony since Morita’s death.

Morita suffered a stroke in 1993, during a game of tennis. On November 25, 1994, he stepped down as Sony chairman.

On October 3, 1999, Morita died of pneumonia at the age of 78.

Huey "Piano" Smith, a rhythm and blues pianist whose sound was influential in the development of rock and roll, is 88 years old today

Huey "Piano" Smith, a rhythm and blues pianist whose sound was influential in the development of rock and roll, is 88 years old today.

Smith’s piano playing incorporated the boogie styles of Pete Johnson, Meade Lux Lewis and Albert Ammons as well as the jazz style of Jelly Roll Morton and the piano sound of Fats Domino.

"At the peak of his game, Smith epitomized New Orleans R&B at its most infectious and rollicking, as showcased on his classic signature tune, "Don't You Just Know It," wrote Steve Huey, a journalist for Allmusic.

Born in New Orleans' Garden District and was influenced by New Orleans' piano innovator, Professor Longhair, Smith became known for his shuffling right-handed break on the piano that influenced other Southern players.

Smith wrote his first song on the piano, "Roberson Street Boogie" (named after the street where he lived), when he was only eight years old. He performed the tune with a friend. They billed themselves as Slick and Dark.

Smith attended McDowell High and Xavier University of Louisiana in New Orleans. When he was fifteen, Smith began working in clubs and recording records with his flamboyant partner, Eddie Jones, who rose to fame as Guitar Slim.

When he was eighteen, in 1952, he signed a recording contract with Savoy Records, which released his first known single, "You Made Me Cry." In 1953, Smith recorded with Earl King.

In 1955, Smith turned 21, and became the piano player with Little Richard's first band for Specialty Records. The same year he also played piano on several studio sessions for other artists such as Lloyd Price. Two of the sessions resulted in hits for Earl King ("Those Lonely Lonely Nights") and Smiley Lewis ("I Hear You Knocking").

In 1957, Smith formed Huey 'Piano' Smith and His Clowns with blues singer and female impersonator, Bobby Marchan, and signed a long term contract with former Specialty record producer, Johnny Vincent at Ace Records.

They hit the Billboard charts with several singles in succession, including a breakout Top Five R&B hit, "Rockin' Pneumonia and the Boogie Woogie Flu."

The record was issued as "Rockin' Pneumonia and the Boogie Woogie Flu Part 1" on the topside, (a vocal) and "Rockin' Pneumonia and the Boogie Woogie Flu Part 2," an instrumental, on the flip. The lyrics were written by John Vincent and the record sold over a million copies.

Their most famous single, 1958’s "Don't You Just Know It" b/w "High Blood Pressure," hit #9 on the Billboard Pop chart and #4 on the Rhythm and Blues chart. It was their second million seller.

In later years, Smith became a Jehovah's Witness and left the music industry permanently.

In 2000, Smith was honored with a Pioneer Award by the Rhythm and Blues Foundation.

Here, Smith performs “Don’t You Just Know It”

Paul Newman was born 97 years ago today

Paul Newman was born 97 years ago today.

Newman was an actor, film director, entrepreneur, humanitarian, professional racing driver, auto racing team owner and auto racing enthusiast.

He won numerous awards, including an Academy Award for best actor for his performance in the 1986 Martin Scorsese film, The Color of Money, and eight other nominations, a BAFTA Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award and a Cannes Film Festival Award.

He also won several national championships as a driver in Sports Car Club of America road racing, and his race teams won several championships in open wheel IndyCar racing.

Newman was a co-founder of Newman's Own, a food company from which Newman donated all post-tax profits and royalties to charity. As of June, 2012, these donations exceeded $330 million.

Newman was one of the few actors who successfully made the transition from 1950s cinema to that of the 1960s and 1970s. His rebellious persona translated well to a subsequent generation.

Newman starred in Exodus (1960), The Hustler (1961), Hud (1963), Harper (1966), Hombre (1967), Cool Hand Luke (1967), The Towering Inferno (1974), Slap Shot (1977) and The Verdict (1982). He teamed with fellow actor, Robert Redford, and director, George Roy Hill, for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) and The Sting (1973).

He appeared with his wife, Joanne Woodward, in the feature films The Long, Hot Summer (1958), Rally 'Round the Flag, Boys!, (1958), From the Terrace (1960), Paris Blues (1961), A New Kind of Love (1963), Winning (1969), WUSA (1970), The Drowning Pool (1975), Harry & Son (1984) and Mr. and Mrs. Bridge (1990).

Twenty-five years after The Hustler, Newman reprised his role of "Fast" Eddie Felson in the Martin Scorsese–directed The Color of Money (1986), for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor.

He told a television interviewer that winning an Oscar at the age of 62 deprived him of his fantasy of formally being presented with it in extreme old age.

Newman announced that he would entirely retire from acting on May 25, 2007. He stated that he did not feel he could continue acting at the level he wanted to. "You start to lose your memory, you start to lose your confidence, you start to lose your invention. So I think that's pretty much a closed book for me," he said.

Newman was scheduled to make his professional stage directing debut with the Westport Country Playhouse's 2008 production of John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men, but he stepped down on May 23, 2008, citing health issues.

In June, 2008, it was widely reported that Newman had been diagnosed with lung cancer and was receiving treatment at Sloan-Kettering hospital in New York City. Photographs taken of Newman in May and June showed him looking gaunt.

In August, after reportedly finishing chemotherapy, Newman told his family he wished to die at home. He died on September 26, 2008, aged 83, surrounded by his family and close friends.

Here is a series of clips highlighting Newman’s career

Paul Newman kisses his wife, Joanne Woodward

Stéphane Grappelli, French jazz violinist, was born 114 years ago today

Stéphane Grappelli, Great Music Hall, San Francisco, March 21, 1976

Photo by Jon Sievert

Stéphane Grappelli, French jazz violinist, was born 114 years ago today.

Grappelli founded the Quintette du Hot Club de France with guitarist, Django Reinhardt, in 1934. It was one of the first all-string jazz bands. He has been called "the grandfather of jazz violinists" and continued playing concerts around the world well into his 80s.

For the first three decades of his career, he was billed using a Gallicised spelling of his last name, Grappelly — reverting to "Grappelli" in 1969. The latter Italian spelling is now used almost universally when referring to the violinist – even on reissues of his early work.

Grappelli was born in Paris to Italian/French parents. At six, he was accepted into Isadora Duncan's dance school, where he liked French Impressionist music.

Grappelli started his musical career busking on the streets of Paris and Montmartre with a violin. He began playing the violin at age 12 and attended the Conservatoire de Paris studying music theory (1924–28).

He made a living busking on the side until he gained fame in Paris as a violin virtuoso. He also worked as a silent film pianist while at the conservatory and played the saxophone and accordion.

Grappelli’s early fame came playing with the Quintette du Hot Club de France with Django Reinhardt, which disbanded in 1939 at the outbreak of World War II.

In 1940, a little-known jazz pianist by the name of George Shearing made his debut as a sideman in Grappelli's band. Shearing went on to enjoy a long career.

After the war, Grappelli appeared on hundreds of recordings including sessions with Duke Ellington, jazz pianists Oscar Peterson, Michel Petrucciani and Claude Bolling, jazz violinist Jean-Luc Ponty, jazz violinist Stuff Smith, Indian classical violinist L. Subramaniam, vibraphonist Gary Burton, pop singer Paul Simon, mandolin player David Grisman, classical violinist Yehudi Menuhin, orchestral conductor André Previn, guitar player Bucky Pizzarelli, guitar player Joe Pass, cello player Yo Yo Ma, harmonica and jazz guitar player Toots Thielemans, jazz guitarist Henri Crolla, bassist Jon Burr and fiddler Mark O'Connor.

He also collaborated extensively with the British guitarist and graphic designer Diz Disley, recording 13 record albums with him and his trio (which included Denny Wright in its early years), and with now renowned British guitarist, Martin Taylor.

His Parisian trio of many years included guitarist Marc Fosset and bassist Patrice Carratini.

Grappelli died in Paris at age 89 after undergoing a hernia operation. He is buried in the city's famous Père Lachaise Cemetery.

Here, Grappelli joins Frankie Gavin to perform “Sweet Georgia Brown”

On January 26, 1962 — 60 years ago today — "The Twist" by Chubby Checker finally ended its record-setting run at #1

On January 26, 1962 — 60 years ago today — "The Twist" by Chubby Checker finally ended its record-setting run at #1.

Back in 1958, Ernest "Chubby" Evans was a high-school student and part-time chicken-plucker about to be touched by the hand of fate, in the person of Dick Clark.

For his industry holiday card that year, Clark decided to have a Christmas novelty record made, and he delegated the job to a friend in the business named Kal Mann.

Mann's friend, Tony Anastasi, owner of the Philadelphia poultry market where young Ernest Evans worked, suggested that Mann give his charismatic young employee a shot at recording the tune.

Thus did Chubby Evans — renamed Chubby Checker by Dick Clark's wife as a takeoff on "Fats Domino" — take the first, small step down a path toward selling more than 250 million records worldwide.

The song that would make Checker rich and famous. "The Twist" had been a non-hit in 1958 for its writer, Hank Ballard, best known for 1954's "Work With Me Annie," which was then considered filthy enough to warrant an FCC ban.

Believing "The Twist" to be a potential smash, but unwilling to have the controversial Ballard on his American Bandstand, Dick Clark picked the wholesome Chubby Checker to record a cover.

With the help of Clark's tireless on-air promotion, "The Twist" turned Chubby Checker into an overnight success when it shot to the top of the Billboard pop chart in September, 1960.

As all hit records do, "The Twist" then faded away. The dance craze it popularized did, too, as America's teenagers moved on to things like the Mashed Potato and the Pony.

Chubby Checker had a second #1 hit just five months after "The Twist" with "Pony Time," and then something remarkable happened.

A full year after the initial success of "The Twist," a gossip item in the New York papers placed the actress, Merle Oberon, and the elderly exile, Prince Serge Obolensky, of Russia at the Peppermint Lounge, twisting the night away.

Suddenly a fad was reborn — this time among American adults, who took to the Twist with an alacrity that must have provoked uncountable cringes among their teenaged children.

Soon enough, "The Twist" began a remarkable second run up the charts, reclaiming the #1 spot on January 13 and finally relinquishing it on this day in 1962.

It was the first and only time a pop single has fallen completely out of Billboard's "Hot 100" only to re-attain the #1 spot in a completely separate release.

Here’s Dick Clark’s hypes “The Twist” with Chubby Checker

Kissing Couple, Hollywood, CA

Photo by WR Young

Etta James was born 84 years ago today

Etta James was born 84 years ago today.

James’ singing style spanned the blues, rhythm and blues, rock and roll, soul, gospel and jazz. She bridged the gap between rhythm and blues and rock and roll.

Starting her career in 1954, she gained fame with hits such as "Roll With Me, Henry," "At Last," "Tell Mama," "Something's Got a Hold on Me" and "I'd Rather Go Blind," for which she wrote the lyrics.

Born in Los Angeles to Dorothy Hawkins, who was 14 at the time, James’ father has never been identified. She speculated that she was the daughter of pool player Rudolf "Minnesota Fats" Wanderone, whom she met briefly in 1987.

Her mother was frequently absent from their apartment in Watts, conducting relationships with various men, and Jamesetta lived with a series of foster parents. James referred to her mother as "the Mystery Lady.”

James received her first professional vocal training at the age of five from James Earle Hines, musical director of the Echoes of Eden choir at the St. Paul Baptist Church, in south-central Los Angeles.

Under his tutelage, she suffered physical abuse during her formative years, with her instructor often punching her in the chest while she sang to force her voice to come from her gut. As a consequence, she developed an unusually strong voice for a child her age.

Thoughout her life, she faced a number of personal problems, including drug addiction, before making a musical resurgence in the late 1980s with the album, The Seven Year Itch.

James was diagnosed with leukemia in early 2011. The illness became terminal and she died on January 20, 2012, just five days before her 74th birthday, at Riverside Community Hospital in Riverside, California.

Her death came three days after that of Johnny Otis, the man who discovered her in the 1950s. Additionally, just 36 days after her death, her sideman Red Holloway also died.

Here, James performs “I’d Rather Go Blind (Blind Girl)” with Dr. John, 1987

Etta James performs with Chuck Berry

Sleepy John Estes, blues guitarist, songwriter and singer, was born 123 years ago today

Sleepy John Estes, blues guitarist, songwriter and singer, was born 123 years ago today.

Estes was born in Ripley, Tennessee. In 1915, his father, a sharecropper who also played some guitar, moved the family to Brownsville, Tennessee. Not long after, Estes lost the sight of his right eye when a friend threw a rock at him during a baseball game.

At the age of 19, while working as a field hand, he began to perform professionally. The venues were mostly local parties and picnics, with the accompaniment of Hammie Nixon, a harmonica player, and James "Yank" Rachell, a guitarist and mandolin player. He would continue to work on and off with both musicians for more than fifty years.

Estes made his debut as a recording artist in Memphis in 1929 at a session organized by Ralph Peer for Victor Records. His partnership with Nixon was first documented on songs such as "Drop Down Mama" and "Someday Baby Blues" in 1935.

Later sides replaced the harmonica player with the guitarists, Son Bonds or Charlie Pickett. He later recorded for the Decca and Bluebird labels, with his last pre-war recording session taking place in 1941.

Estes made a brief return to recording at Sun Studio in Memphis in 1952, recording "Runnin' Around" and "Rats in My Kitchen," but otherwise was largely out of the public eye for two decades.

A fine singer, Estes had a distinctive "crying" vocal style. He frequently teamed with more capable musicians, like "Yank" Rachell, Hammie Nixon and the piano player, Jab Jones.

Estes sounded so much like an old man, even on his early records, that blues revivalists reportedly delayed looking for him because they assumed he would have to be long dead, and because fellow musician Big Bill Broonzy had written that Estes had died.

By the time he was tracked down by Bob Koester and Samuel Charters in 1962, he had become completely blind and was living in poverty. He resumed touring and recording, reunited with Nixon and toured Europe several times and Japan, with a clutch of albums released on the Delmark Records label.

His later records are generally considered less interesting than his pre-war output. Nevertheless, Estes, Nixon and Rachell also made a successful appearance at the 1964 Newport Folk Festival.

Bob Dylan mentions Estes in the sleeve notes to Bringing It All Back Home in 1965.

Many of Estes' original songs were based on events in his own life or on people he knew from his home town of Brownsville, such as the local lawyer ("Lawyer Clark Blues"), local auto mechanic ("Vassie Williams' Blues") or an amorously inclined teenage girl ("Little Laura Blues").

"Lawyer Clark Blues" referenced the lawyer, and later judge and senator, Hugh L. Clarke. Clarke and his family lived in Brownsville, and according to the song let Estes “off the hook” for an offense.

He also dispensed advice on agricultural matters ("Working Man Blues") and chronicled his own attempt to reach a recording studio for a session by hopping a freight train in "Special Agent (Railroad Police Blues).”

His lyrics combined keen observation with an ability to turn an effective phrase. Some accounts attribute his nickname "Sleepy" to a blood pressure disorder and/or narcolepsy.

Others, such as blues historian Bob Koester, claim he simply had a "tendency to withdraw from his surroundings into drowsiness whenever life was too cruel or too boring to warrant full attention."

Estes suffered a stroke while preparing for a European tour, and died on June 5, 1977 at his home of 17 years in Brownsville.

His gravemarker reads:

Sleepy John Estes
".. ain't goin' to worry Poor John's mind anymore"
In Memory
John Adam Estes
Jan. 25, 1899
June 5, 1977
Blues Pioneer
Guitarist - Songwriter - Poet

Sleepy John Estes' epitaph ".. ain't goin' to worry Poor John's mind anymore" was from his song, "Someday Baby Blues."

Here, Sleepy John Estes and Hammie Nixon perform “Corrine Corrine” in 1976

Scottish poet Robert Burns was born on this day in 1759 — 263 years ago

Scottish poet Robert Burns was born on this day in 1759 — 263 years ago.

The day is still celebrated by Burns fans across the English-speaking world, with high-spirited "Robert Burns Night" feasts, featuring haggis and other Scottish delicacies, as well as enthusiastic drinking, toasting and speechmaking.

Burns, the son of a poor farmer, received little formal schooling but read extensively. A restless, dissatisfied spirit, he fell in love with a young woman, Jean Armour, in the mid-1780s, but refused to marry her when she became pregnant. The pair endured a legal struggle and her parents resisted a marriage. Eventually, the couple had nine children, the last one born on the day of Burns' funeral.

Burns published his first poetry collection, Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect, in 1786, and he quickly became the darling of elite Edinburgh intellectuals.

Perhaps more famous for his lively lyrics in the Scottish dialect than for his longer, more literary poems, Burns is still beloved and celebrated today as the author of the New Year's anthem, "For Auld Lang Syne."

Thanks History.com

On this day in 1961 — 61 years ago — President John F. Kennedy became the first U.S. president to hold a live televised news conference

On this day in 1961 — 61 years ago — President John F. Kennedy became the first U.S. president to hold a live televised news conference.

From a podium in the State Department auditorium, Kennedy read a prepared statement regarding the famine in the Congo, the release of two American aviators from Russian custody and impending negotiations for an atomic test ban treaty.

He then opened the floor for questions from reporters, answering queries on a variety of topics including relations with Cuba, voting rights and food aid to impoverished Americans.

Ever since his televised presidential debate with Richard Nixon in 1960, Kennedy had been aware of the media's enormous power to sway public opinion. On that day, Kennedy had appeared rested, well-groomed and in control.

Nixon, on the other hand, was not as telegenic as Kennedy and appeared sweaty and flustered. His five o'clock shadow created more of a stir than his responses to the moderator's questions.

Kennedy knew that, in a televised news conference, his appearance would count almost as much as what he said. On this day in 1961, the president exhibited a calm demeanor and responded to reporters' questions with intelligence and decorum.

Kennedy's ability to project charm, intelligence, strength and openness defined the presidential image in the age of mass media.

Thanks History.com

Virginia Woolf was born 140 years ago today

Virginia Woolf was born 140 years ago today.

An English writer, Woolf is one of the foremost modernists of the 20th century. During the interwar period, she was a significant figure in London literary society and a central figure in the influential Bloomsbury Group of intellectuals.

Her most famous works include the novels Mrs Dalloway (1925), To the Lighthouse (1927) and Orlando (1928), and the book-length essay, A Room of One's Own (1929), with its famous dictum, "A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction."

Woolf suffered from severe bouts of mental illness throughout her life, thought to have been the result of what is now called bipolar disorder.

She committed suicide by drowning in 1941 at the age of 59.

Blind Willie Johnson was born 125 years ago today

Blind Willie Johnson was born 125 years ago today.

Johnson was a gospel blues singer and guitarist. While the lyrics of his songs were usually religious, his music drew from both sacred and blues traditions and is distinguished by his slide guitar accompaniment and gravelly false-bass voice, with occasional use of a tenor voice.

Johnson, according to his death certificate, was born in 1897 near Brenham, Texas. When he was five, he told his father he wanted to be a preacher and then made himself a cigar box guitar. His mother died when he was young and his father remarried soon after her death.

Johnson was not born blind, and, although it is not known how he lost his sight, Angeline Johnson told Samuel Charters that when Willie was seven his father beat his stepmother after catching her going out with another man. According to this account, the stepmother then blinded young Willie by throwing lye in his face.

It is believed that Johnson married at least twice. He was first married to Willie B. Harris. Her recollection of their initial meeting was recounted in the liner notes for Yazoo Records's "Praise God I'm Satisfied" album.

Johnson was also said to be married to Angeline Robinson, a sister of blues artist, L.C. Robinson. No marriage certificates have yet been discovered.

Johnson remained poor until the end of his life, preaching and singing in the streets of several Texas cities including Beaumont. A city directory shows that in 1945, a Rev. W. J. Johnson, undoubtedly Blind Willie, operated the House of Prayer at 1440 Forrest Street, Beaumont, Texas. This is the same address listed on Johnson's death certificate.

In 1945, his home burned to the ground. With nowhere else to go, Johnson lived in the burned ruins of his home, sleeping on a wet bed in the August/September Texas heat. He lived like this until he contracted malarial fever and died on September 18, 1945.

Several of Blind Willie Johnson's songs have been interpreted by other musicians, including "Jesus Make Up My Dying Bed," "It's Nobody's Fault but Mine," "Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground," "John the Revelator," "You'll Need Somebody on Your Bond," "Motherless Children" and "Soul of a Man."

"Dark Was the Night" was also included on the Voyager Golden Record, copies of which were mounted on both of the Voyager Project unmanned space probes.

Carl Sagan, who was involved with the selection of the contents of the record, chose the song as he believed it properly encapsulated the essence of loneliness that mankind often faces.

Ry Cooder's slide guitar title song and soundtrack music of the Wim Wenders film, Paris, Texas (1984), was based on "Dark Was the Night."

Here, Johnson performs “Dark Was The Night”

W. Somerset Maugham, British playwright, novelist and short story writer, was born 148 years ago today

W. Somerset Maugham, British playwright, novelist and short story writer, was born 148 years ago today.

Maugham was among the most popular writers of his era and reputedly the highest paid author during the 1930s.

After losing both his parents by the age of 10, Maugham was raised by a paternal uncle who was emotionally cold. Not wanting to become a lawyer like other men in his family, Maugham eventually trained and qualified as a doctor.

The first run of his first novel, Liza of Lambeth (1897), sold out so rapidly that Maugham gave up medicine to write full-time.

During the First World War, he served with the Red Cross and in the ambulance corps, before being recruited in 1916 into the British Secret Intelligence Service, for which he worked in Switzerland and Russia before the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917.

During and after the war, he traveled in India and Southeast Asia. All of these experiences were reflected in later short stories and novels.

Maugham died in 1965 at age 91 in France.

Above, Maugham photographed by Carl Van Vechten in 1934

Alicia Keys is 41 years old today

Alicia Keys is 41 years old today.

A singer, songwriter, record producer and actress, Keys debut album, Songs in A Minor, was a commercial success, selling over 12 million copies worldwide. She became the best-selling new artist and best-selling R&B artist of 2001.

Her second studio album, The Diary of Alicia Keys, was released in 2003 and was also another success worldwide, selling eight million copies. Later that year, she released her first live album, Unplugged, which debuted at #1 in the United States.

Here was released in 2016, becoming her seventh R&B/Hip-Hop chart topping album.

An accomplished pianist, Keys incorporates piano into a majority of her songs and often writes about love, heartbreak and female empowerment.

Here, Keys performs “Fallin” at the Manchester Cathedral

On this day in 1986 — 36 years ago today — Albert Grossman died of a heart attack while flying on the Concorde from New York to London

Albert Grossman and Bob Dylan

Photo by David Gahr

On this day in 1986 — 36 years ago today — Albert Grossman died of a heart attack while flying on the Concorde from New York to London.

Grossman managed Bob Dylan (between 1962 and 1970), Peter, Paul and Mary, The Band, Janis Joplin, Odetta, Gordan Lightfoot, Richie Havens, The Electric Flag, Ian and Sylvia, Phil Ochs, Jsse Winchester and Todd Rundgren.

Grossman built the Bearsville Recording Studio near Woodstock in 1969 and in 1970 he founded Bearsville Records. The cover of Dylan's Bringing It All Back Home album was photographed at Grossman's home in Woodstock. The woman in the cover photo with Dylan, in the red trouser suit, was Grossman's wife, Sally.

Having returned to Woodstock at the end of his 1966 World Tour, Dylan was on his way home from Grossman's house in West Saugerties when he suffered the motorcycle accident that precipitated his eight-year withdrawal from touring.

In his autobiography, Chronicles: Volume One, Dylan describes first encountering Grossman at the Gaslight Cafe:

"He looked like Sydney Greenstreet from the film, The Maltese Falcon, had an enormous presence, always dressed in a conventional suit and tie, and he sat at his corner table. Usually when he talked, his voice was loud like the booming of war drums. He didn't talk so much as growl."

The contracts between Dylan and Grossman were officially dissolved on July 17, 1970, prompted by Dylan's realization that Grossman had taken 50 percent of his song publishing rights in a hastily signed contract. Grossman had a reputation for aggressiveness in both his method of acquiring clients and the implementation of their successes. That aggressiveness was based in large measure on Grossman's faith in his own aesthetic judgments.

He charged his clients 25 percent commission (industry standards were 15 percent). He is quoted as saying, "Every time you talk to me you're ten percent smarter than before. So I just add ten percent on to what all the dummies charge for nothing."

In negotiations, one of Grossman's favorite techniques was silence. Musician manager Charlie Rothschild said of Grossman: "He would simply stare at you and say nothing. He wouldn't volunteer any information, and that would drive people crazy. They would keep talking to fill the void, and say anything. He had a remarkable gift for tipping the balance of power in his favor."

Grossman sometimes appeared treacherously devoted to his clients' satisfaction. While wooing Joan Baez into representation, Grossman is quoted as saying, "Look, what do you like? Just tell me what do you like? I can get it for you. I can get anything you want. Who do you want? Just tell me. I'll get you anybody you want."

On this day in 1978 — 44 years ago — Bob Dylan’s four-plus-hour film, Renaldo & Clara, began a run in movie theaters in New York City and Los Angeles

On this day in 1978 — 44 years ago — Bob Dylan’s four-plus-hour film, Renaldo & Clara, began a run in movie theaters in New York City and Los Angeles.

After playing in a few more cities, the film was pulled from distribution. Later, a shorter version of the film was released. Then it disappeared. The film, to this day, remains an underground classic.

Here’s a link to Dylan performing “One More Cup of Coffee” from Renaldo & Clara, 1975

Back seat kiss, Brooklyn, circa 1950s

Photo by Bruce Davidson

Aretha Franklin found her professional niche 55 years ago in a historic recording session at FAME Studios in Alabama

"Respect," "Chain of Fools" and "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman" are the passionate, gospel-charged classics with which Aretha Franklin is most closely associated.

They were enormous, career-defining hits that earned her universal and eternal acclaim as the Queen of Soul.

What some may not realize, however, is that when Aretha recorded those hits, she was already 10 years into a professional career that would have been defined very differently had it ended before January 24, 1967 — 55 years ago today.

That was the date on which Aretha Franklin's career was effectively reborn in a historic recording session at FAME Studios in Sheffield, Alabama. The road to Muscle Shoals led through Columbia Records, where Aretha Franklin languished for six years without a breakthrough hit.

Worse than that, Aretha's recordings from 1960-66 showed almost no hint of her roots in gospel music. Columbia Records was as mainstream as mainstream could get in the 1950s and 60s, and their goal was to cast Aretha as an all-around pop entertainer in the mold of Johnny Mathis.

The head of Columbia, Mitch Miller, was the man who nurtured the recording career of Doris Day, who passed on signing Buddy Holly and who led millions of Americans through songs like "Be Kind To Our Web-Footed Friends" on his proto-karaoke television show, Sing Along With Mitch.

Under Miller's guidance, the closest Aretha came to pop success was with the song, "Rock-A-Bye Your Baby (With A Dixie Melody)," in 1961.

When her contract with Columbia expired, Franklin made the pivotal decision to sign with Atlantic Records, the label that introduced the world to Ray Charles, Ruth Brown, Big Joe Turner, LaVern Baker and the Drifters.

Atlantic's Jerry Wexler knew the direction he wanted Aretha to go, and he sent her to Sheffield, Alabama, as a first step. It was there that she recorded the blues ballad, "I Never Loved A Man (The Way I Love You)," backed by the now-legendary Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section.

With the lush production Columbia had forced upon her stripped away, Aretha Franklin finally began sounding like Aretha Franklin. "They made me sit down at the piano, and the hits came," Aretha would say years later of the career transformation that began at FAME Studios on this day in 1967.

Aretha Franklin died on August 16, 2018 at age 76. The cause of death was pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor, or pNET.

Thanks History.com

Here, Aretha Franklin performs "I Never Loved A Man (The Way I Love You)

Aretha Franklin and musicians at Atlantic Records studios in April, 1968 with (l-r) producer Arif Mardin, guitarist Tommy Cogbill, drummer Roger Hawkins, bassist Jerry Jemmott, keyboardist Spooner Oldham, guitarist Jimmy Johnson and producer and arranger, Tom Dowd

Photo by David Gahr

John Belushi was born 73 years ago today

John Belushi was born 73 years ago today.

A comedian, actor and musician, Belushi is best known as one of the original cast members of the hit NBC sketch comedy show, Saturday Night Live. He was the co-star and co-creator of the hugely successful motion picture, The Blues Brothers.

The older brother of James "Jim" Belushi, he was known for his brash, energetic style and raunchy humor. During his career he had a close personal and artistic partnership with fellow SNL comedian and author, Dan Aykroyd.

Belushi died on March 5, 1982 in Hollywood, California after overdosing on a mixture of cocaine and heroin at the age of 33.

Here, with Aykroyd, Belushi performs “Everybody Needs Somebody to Love” from the Blues Brothers movie

Nastassja Kinski is 61 years old today

Nastassja Kinski is 61 years old today.

A German actress and former model, Kinski has appeared in more than sixty films in Europe and the United States. Her starring roles include the title character in Tess (1979), and her role in Paris, Texas (1984). It is one of a number of films she made with the German director, Wim Wenders.

Born in Berlin as Nastassja Aglaia Nakszynski, Kinski is the daughter of the German actor Klaus Kinski and his wife, actress Ruth Brigitte Tocki. She is of part Polish descent. Kinski began working as a model as a teenager in Germany.

Actress Lisa Kreuzer of the German New Wave helped get her the role of the dumb Mignon in Wim Wenders film, The Wrong Move. In 1976, while still a teenager, Kinski had her first two major roles. One was in Wolfgang Petersen's feature-film length episode, Reifezeugnis, of the German TV crime series, Tatort.

Next she appeared in the British horror film, To the Devil a Daughter (1976), produced by Hammer Film Productions.

In 1981, Richard Avedon photographed Kinski with a Burmese python coiled around her nude body. The image was marketed as a poster.

From 1992 until 1995, Kinski lived with musician Quincy Jones, though she kept her own apartment on Hilgard Avenue, near UCLA, at the time.

In 1993 they had a daughter, Kenya Julia Miambi Sarah Jones.

Above is the classic Avedon poster shot in 1981

Canned beer made its debut on this day in 1935 — 87 years ago today

Canned beer made its debut on this day in 1935 — 87 years ago today.

In partnership with the American Can Company, the Gottfried Krueger Brewing Company delivered 2,000 cans of Krueger's Finest Beer and Krueger's Cream Ale to faithful Krueger drinkers in Richmond, Virginia.

Ninety-one percent of the drinkers approved of the canned beer, driving Krueger to give the green light to further production. By the late 19th century, cans were instrumental in the mass distribution of foodstuffs, but it wasn't until 1909 that the American Can Company made its first attempt to can beer.

This was unsuccessful, and the American Can Company would have to wait for the end of Prohibition in the United States before it tried again. Finally in 1933, after two years of research, American Can developed a can that was pressurized and had a special coating to prevent the fizzy beer from chemically reacting with the tin.

The concept of canned beer proved to be a hard sell, but Krueger's overcame its initial reservations and became the first brewer to sell canned beer in the United States. The response was overwhelming.

Within three months, over 80 percent of distributors were handling Krueger's canned beer, and Krueger's was eating into the market share of the "big three" national brewers — Anheuser-Busch, Pabst and Schlitz. Competitors soon followed suit, and by the end of 1935, over 200 million cans had been produced and sold.

The purchase of cans, unlike bottles, did not require the consumer to pay a deposit. Cans were also easier to stack, more durable and took less time to chill. As a result, their popularity continued to grow throughout the 1930s, and then exploded during World War II, when U.S. brewers shipped millions of cans of beer to soldiers overseas.

After the war, national brewing companies began to take advantage of the mass distribution that cans made possible, and were able to consolidate their power over the once-dominant local breweries, which could not control costs and operations as efficiently as their national counterparts.

Today, canned beer accounts for approximately half of the $20 billion U.S. beer industry. Not all of this comes from the big national brewers. In recent years, there has been renewed interest in canning from microbrewers and high-end beer-sellers, who are realizing that cans guarantee purity and taste by preventing light damage and oxidation.

Thanks History.com

Women try canned beer, 1935

Ernest Borgnine was born 105 years ago today

Ernest Borgnine was born 105 years ago today.

Borgnine was a film and television actor whose career spanned more than six decades. He was an unconventional lead in many films of the 1950s, winning an Oscar in 1955 for Marty.

On television, he played Quinton McHale in the 1962–1966 series, McHale's Navy, and co-starred in the mid-1980s action series, Airwolf, in addition to a wide variety of other roles.

Borgnine earned an Emmy Award nomination at age 92 for his work on the series ER.

He was also known for being the original voice of Mermaid Man on SpongeBob SquarePants from 1999 to 2012.

He died in 2012 at age 95.

On January 24, 1956 — 66 years ago today — Look magazine published the confessions of J.W. Milam and Roy Bryant, two white men from Mississippi who were acquitted in the 1955 kidnapping and murder of Emmett Till

On January 24, 1956 — 66 years ago today — Look magazine published the confessions of J.W. Milam and Roy Bryant, two white men from Mississippi who were acquitted in the 1955 kidnapping and murder of Emmett Louis Till, an African-American teenager from Chicago.

In the Look article, titled "The Shocking Story of Approved Killing in Mississippi," the men detailed how they beat Till with a gun, shot him and threw his body in the Tallahatchie River with a heavy cotton-gin fan attached with barbed wire to his neck to weigh him down. The two killers were paid a reported $4,000 for their participation in the article.

In August 1955, 14-year-old Till, whose nickname was Bobo, traveled to Mississippi to visit relatives and stay at the home of his great-uncle, Moses Wright.

On August 24, he went into Bryant's Grocery and Meat Market in Money, Mississippi, to buy candy. At some point, he allegedly whistled at Carolyn Bryant, a white woman who ran the store with her husband, Roy, who was away at the time. Till's seemingly harmless actions carried weight in an era when prejudice and discrimination against blacks was persistent throughout the segregated South.

In the early hours of August 28, Roy Bryant and his half-brother, J.W. Milam, abducted Emmett Till from his great-uncle's home. The men were soon arrested, but maintained their innocence. On August 31, Till's decomposed body was found in the Tallahatchie River.

On September 3, Till's mother held an open-casket funeral for her son, in order to bring attention to his murder. An estimated 50,000 mourners attended. Afterward, Jet magazine published graphic photos of Till's corpse.

On September 19, the kidnapping and murder trial of Bryant and Milam began in Sumner, Mississippi. Five days later, on September 23, the all-white, all-male jury acquitted the two men of murder after deliberating for little over an hour.

The jury claimed it would've reached its decision even more quickly — despite overwhelming evidence that the defendants were guilty — had it not taken a soda break. The acquittal caused international outrage and helped spark the American civil rights movement.

Milam and Bryant were never brought to justice and both later died of cancer.

In 2004, the U.S. Justice Department reopened the case amid suggestions that other people — some of whom are still alive — might have participated in the crime.

Till's body was exhumed by the FBI in 2005 and an autopsy was performed. In 2007, a grand jury decided not to seek an indictment against additional individuals.

Thanks History.com

Neil Diamond is 81 years old today

Neil Diamond is 81 years old today.

Diamond is a singer-songwriter with a career that began in the 1960s. He has sold over 125 million records worldwide, and is the third most successful adult contemporary artist on the Billboard charts behind Barbra Streisand and Elton John.

His songs have been covered internationally by many performers from various musical genres.

On the Hot 100 and Adult Contemporary charts, he has had ten #1 singles: "Cracklin' Rosie," "Song Sung Blue," "Longfellow Serenade," "I've Been This Way Before," "If You Know What I Mean," "Desiree," "You Don't Bring Me Flowers," "America," "Yesterday's Songs," "Heartlight" and "I'm A Believer."

On January 22, 2018, Diamond announced that he would immediately retire from live performance due to having been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. His official Neil Diamond website, announced the immediate cancellation of the remainder of his "50 Year Anniversary World Tour."

The cancellation affected tour dates in Australia and New Zealand. In the online statement, the website said the cancellation would allow Diamond to "continue his writing, recording and development of new projects."

Here, Diamond performs “Cracklin’ Rosie” in 1971

On this day in 1980, a billboard was erected at Tower Records on the Sunset Strip in Los Angeles to promote Pink Floyd's new album, The Wall

On this day in 1980, a billboard was erected at Tower Records on the Sunset Strip in Los Angeles to promote Pink Floyd's new album, The Wall.

A blank wall was pasted up and each day a brick was removed to slowly reveal the inside spread and title of the album.

During the 1970s, you knew you’d made it big if your record label paid for a hand-painted billboard on the Strip. The billboards were visual interpretations of a musician’s ethos, spirit and vibe.

These giant artworks were often variations on album art, relying on eye-catching imagery and minimal text to remind passersby of the music they needed to hear immediately.

Borne out of the social and artistic upheaval of the late 1960s, rock-’n’-roll billboards flourished for a little over a decade, disappearing in the early 1980s as musicians put their money into music videos and televised ads.

Executed by skilled painters who mostly remained anonymous, these billboards pushed the boundaries of roadside advertising, with cryptic imagery and unpredictable designs that literally burst from their rectangular borders.

Photo of The Wall billboard by Robert Landau

Jools Holland is 64 years old today

Jools Holland is 64 years old today.

Holland is an English pianist, bandleader, singer, composer and television presenter. He was a founder of the band, Squeeze, and his work has involved him with many artists including Sting, Eric Clapton, Mark Knopfler, George Harrison, David Gilmour, Magazine and Bono.

Holland is a published author and appears on television shows besides his own and contributes to radio shows. In 2004, he collaborated with Tom Jones on an album of traditional R&B music.

Since 1992, he has hosted, Later... with Jools Holland, a music-based show aired on BBC2, on which his annual show, Hootenanny, is based.

He also regularly hosts the weekly program, Jools Holland, on BBC Radio 2, which is a mix of live and recorded music and general chat and features studio guests, along with members of his orchestra.

Aaron Neville is 81 years old today

Aaron Neville is 81 years old today.

A soul, R&B and country performer, Neville has had four Top 20 hits in the United States along with four platinum-certified albums. He has recorded with his brothers Art, Charles and Cyril as The Neville Brothers and is the father of singer/keyboards player, Ivan Neville.

Of mixed African American and Native American heritage, Neville’s music also features Cajun and Creole influences. His hits include 1991’s "Everybody Plays the Fool," which reached #8 on the Hot 100; "Don't Take Away My Heaven," "Hercules" and "Can't Stop My Heart From Loving You (The Rain Song)."

Neville's biggest solo successes have been on the Adult Contemporary chart, where "Don't Know Much," "All My Life" and "Everybody Plays the Fool" were hits. All reached #1 in eight European countries.

In August, 2005, his home in Eastern New Orleans was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. He evacuated to Memphis before the hurricane hit and moved to Nashville after the storm.

In January 2013, paying tribute to the songs of his youth, Blue Note Records released Neville's My True Story, a collection of 12 doo-wop tunes, produced by Don Was and Keith Richards, with backing by musicians such as Benmont Tench and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.

In October 2015, Keith Richards selected the song "My True Story" as one of his Desert Island Discs.

Neville with India Arie performed Randy Newman's "Louisiana 1927" during NBC's “A Concert for Hurricane Relief” on September 2, 2005

Warren Zevon was born 75 years ago today

Warren Zevon was born 75 years ago today.

A rock singer-songwriter and musician, Zevon was known for the dark and somewhat bizarre sense of humor in his lyrics. His work has often been praised by Jackson Browne, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan and Neil Young.

Zevon’s best-known compositions include "Werewolves of London," "Lawyers, Guns and Money," "Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner" and "Johnny Strikes Up the Band," all of which are featured on his third album, Excitable Boy (1978).

Other well-known songs written by Zevon have been recorded by other artists, including "Poor Poor Pitiful Me" (a Top 40 hit by Linda Ronstadt), "Accidentally Like a Martyr," "Mohammed's Radio," "Carmelita" and "Hasten Down the Wind."

Along with his own compositions, Zevon recorded or performed occasional covers, including Allen Toussaint's “A Certain Girl,” Bob Dylan's "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" and Leonard Cohen's "First We Take Manhattan."

Zevon had a lifelong phobia of doctors and seldom received medical assessment. Shortly before playing at the Edmonton Folk Music Festival in 2002, he started feeling dizzy and developed a chronic cough.

After a period of suffering with pain and shortness of breath, Zevon was encouraged by his dentist to see a physician. He was diagnosed with inoperable peritoneal mesothelioma (a form of cancer associated with exposure to asbestos).

Refusing treatments he believed might incapacitate him, Zevon instead began recording his final album, The Wind, which includes guest appearances by close friends including Bruce Springsteen, Don Henley, Jackson Browne, Timothy B. Schmit, Joe Walsh, David Lindley, Billy Bob Thornton, Emmylou Harris, Tom Petty and Dwight Yoakam.

Zevon died on September 7, 2003 at age 56 at his home in Los Angeles.

The Wind was certified gold in December, 2003.

Here is Zevon in full concert at the Capitol Theatre in 1982

On this day in 1961 — 61 years ago — Bob Dylan first arrived in New York City

On this day in 1961 — 61 years ago — Bob Dylan first arrived in New York City.

Dylan was 19, and drove with friends to New York from Wisconsin. He had two immediate goals: to meet Woody Guthrie and to perform at Greenwich Village coffee houses. He achieved both.

Within a few months, he would not only get a rave review in the New York Times and meet the legendary record man and producer, John Hammond, but would be signed by Hammond to Columbia Records and by the end of the year he’d record his first album, Bob Dylan.

Dylan recorded his first six albums in New York, and the city was his base of operations from 1961 into 1966.

Here, Dylan performs “Talkin’ New York” live at Town Hall on April 12, 1963

Rosalinda, Iioilo City, Philippines

Photo by Manuel Librodo Jr.

Jeanne Moreau was born 94 years old today

Jeanne Moreau was born 94 years old today.

A French actress, singer, screenwriter and director, Moreau was the recipient of a César Award for Best Actress, a BAFTA Award for Best Foreign Actress and a Cannes Film Festival Best Actress Award for individual performances, and several lifetime awards.

Moreau made her theatrical debut in 1947, and established herself as one of the leading actresses of the Comédie-Française. She began playing small roles in films in 1949 and eventually achieved prominence as the star of Lift to the Scaffold (UK)/Elevator to the Gallows (USA) (1958), directed by Louis Malle and Jules et Jim (1962), directed by François Truffaut.

Moreau was married to Jean-Louis Richard (1949–1964) and then to American film director, William Friedkin (1977–1979). Director Tony Richardson left his wife, Vanessa Redgrave, for her in 1967 but they never married.

She has also had affairs with directors Louis Malle and François Truffaut, fashion designer Pierre Cardin, jazz trumpeter Miles Davis and Theodoros Roubanis, the Greek actor/playboy.

Most prolific during the 1960s, Moreau continued to appear in films until her death. She was a close friend of Sharon Stone, who presented a 1998 American Academy of Motion Pictures life tribute to Moreau. Orson Welles called her "the greatest actress in the world."

Moreau died on July 31, 2017.

Above photo of Moreau in 1962

The meaning of “Now we just need your John Hancock”

“Now we just need your John Hancock”

That phrase you often hear when you have to sign a document is a celebration of one of history’s most famous signatures.

And today, National Handwriting Day, commemorates the birthday of John Hancock (1737), the first signer of the Declaration of Independence. (As president of the Continental Congress, he got first dibs.)

With a blank space, he made sure to make his name large, legible and ornate. It stands out among the 56 signatures.

Hancock apparently did it as a defiant message to the British king, and so that British ministers could read his name “without spectacles.”

Ernie Kovacs was born 103 years ago today

Ernie Kovacs was born 103 years ago today.

A comedian, actor and writer, Kovacs' uninhibited, often ad-libbed, and visually experimental comedic style came to influence numerous television comedy programs for years after his death in an automobile accident.

Many iconic and diverse shows have been influenced by Kovacs, such as Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In, Saturday Night Live, The Uncle Floyd Show, Captain Kangaroo, Sesame Street, The Electric Company, and TV hosts such as David Letterman, Conan O'Brien and Craig Ferguson.

Chevy Chase acknowledged Kovacs' influence and thanked him during his acceptance speech for his Emmy award for Saturday Night Live. Chase appeared in the 1982 documentary, Ernie Kovacs: Television's Original Genius, speaking again of the impact Kovacs had on his work.

On or off screen, Kovacs could be counted on for the unexpected, from having marmosets as pets to wrestling a jaguar on his live Philadelphia television show.

When working at WABC (AM) as a morning-drive radio personality and doing a mid-morning television show for NBC, Kovacs disliked eating breakfast alone while his wife was sleeping in after her Broadway performances. His solution was to hire a taxi driver to come into their apartment with his own key and whose job was to make breakfast for them both, then take him to the WABC studios.

While Kovacs and his wife, Edie Adams, received Emmy nominations for best performances in a comedy series in 1957, his talent was not formally recognized until after his death.

The 1962 Emmy for outstanding electronic camera work and the Directors' Guild award came a short time after his fatal accident. A quarter century later, he was inducted into the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Hall of Fame.

Kovacs was more than another wide-eyed, self-ingratiating clown. He was television's first significant video artist. He was its first surrealist — its most daring and imaginative writer. And he was television's first and possibly only auteur. He caused his audience to look at the world in a new way.

Kovacs died in an auto accident on January 13, 1962 at age 42 in Los Angeles.

Here, Kovacs joins Bobby Lauher to do “Whom Dunnit,” a satire about 50s-era panel quiz shows

On this day in 1957 — 65 years ago — the Wham-O toy company rolled out the first batch of their aerodynamic plastic discs — now known to millions of fans all over the world as Frisbees

On this day in 1957 — 65 years ago — the Wham-O toy company rolled out the first batch of their aerodynamic plastic discs — now known to millions of fans all over the world as Frisbees.

The story of the Frisbee began in Bridgeport, Connecticut, where William Frisbie opened the Frisbie Pie Company in 1871. Students from nearby universities would throw the empty pie tins to each other, yelling “Frisbie!” as they let go.

In 1948, Walter Frederick Morrison and his partner, Warren Franscioni, invented a plastic version of the disc called the “Flying Saucer” that could fly further and more accurately than the tin pie plates.

After splitting with Franscioni, Morrison made an improved model in 1955 and sold it to the new toy company Wham-O as the “Pluto Platter” — an attempt to cash in on the public craze over space and Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs).

In 1958, a year after the toy’s first release, Wham-O — the company behind such top-sellers as the Hula-Hoop, the Super Ball and the Water Wiggle — changed its name to the Frisbee disc, misspelling the name of the historic pie company.

A company designer, Ed Headrick, patented the design for the modern Frisbee in December, 1967, adding a band of raised ridges on the disc’s surface — called the Rings — to stabilize flight. By aggressively marketing Frisbee-playing as a new sport, Wham-O sold over 100 million of its famous toys by 1977.

In 1967, high school students in Maplewood, New Jersey, invented Ultimate Frisbee, a cross between football, soccer and basketball. In the 1970s, Headrick himself invented Frisbee Golf, in which discs are tossed into metal baskets. There are now hundreds of courses in the U.S., with millions of devotees.

There is also Freestyle Frisbee, with choreographed routines set to music and multiple discs in play, and various Frisbee competitions for both humans and dogs — the best natural Frisbee players.

Today, at least 60 manufacturers produce the flying discs — generally made out of plastic and measuring roughly 8 to 10 inches in diameter with a curved lip.

The official Frisbee is owned by Mattel Toy Manufacturers, who bought the toy from Wham-O in 1994.

The singer, actor, athlete and activist Paul Robeson died at the age of 79 on January 23, 1976 — 46 years ago today

Paul Robeson leading Moore Shipyard Workers in singing the Star Spangled Banner, Oakland, CA, September, 1942

The singer, actor, athlete and activist Paul Robeson died at the age of 79 on January 23, 1976 — 46 years ago today.

Robeson's physical strength, size and grace made him one of the elite sports figures of his generation, but his stature in other fields — music, theater, politics and human rights — eventually overshadowed his athletic greatness.

On stage and screen, his unique voice earned him universal artistic acclaim, but when he raised it in support of Civil Rights and social justice, his voice often aroused violent controversy.

Born in Princeton, New Jersey, on April 9, 1898, Paul LeRoy Bustill Robeson was the son of a father born into slavery and a mother raised as a vocal abolitionist. His academic and athletic achievements earned him a scholarship to Rutgers University in 1915, where he became not only a four-sport letterman and two-time All American football star, but a member of Phi Beta Kappa and class valedictorian — all of this while being only the third African-American student in school history.

Robeson moved to Harlem after graduation, where he worked his way through Columbia University Law School as an actor and professional football player.

By 1923, Robeson had passed the New York bar and earned critical raves on the London and Broadway stage. The lure of a promising career in law proved less compelling for Robeson than a career in the theater.

Over the next twenty years, Robeson established himself as one of the most important musical and dramatic performers of his day.

The role of Joe and the song "Ol' Man River" in Show Boat were written for Robeson's famous bass voice; Robeson originated the title role in Eugene O'Neill's The Emperor Jones and he became the first African American to play Othello on Broadway.

By the late 1940s, Robeson's international artistic reputation was well established, but it was rivaled by his reputation as a political activist.

Racism generally, and the horror of racial lynching particularly, were Robeson's greatest concerns. If his outspoken views on segregation didn't win him enough enemies in the United States, his openly leftist leanings certainly did.

In 1948, Robeson was preeminent in Henry A. Wallace's bid for the President of the United States, during which Robeson traveled to the Deep South, at risk to his own life, to campaign for him. In South Carolina, Robeson travelled alone, performing under the threat of death in small Southern towns.

Robeson traveled repeatedly to the Soviet Union beginning in the 1930s — a history that led to the unconstitutional seizure of his passport and to his blacklisting following an appearance before the Joseph McCarthy's House Un-American Activities Committee in 1950.

When asked during those hearings why he did not simply move to the USSR, Robeson offered a typically powerful response: "Because my father was a slave, and my people died to build this country, and I am going to stay right here and have a part of it just like you."

Thanks History.com

Here, Robeson performs “Joe Hill”

Paul Robeson with Henry Wallace, the presidential candidate in 1948

Paul Robeson was involved in the simmering racial politics that led to the Ku Klux Klan attack on Charlie’s Place in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina in the summer of 1950.

Charlie Fitzgerald’s coziness with whites was out of sync with the time and place. Racial tension in South Carolina began escalating after a federal judge opened the state’s Democratic primary to black voters in 1948. It was to the chagrin of many Southern whites that blacks began to assume a few positions of power.

The political awakening of the South’s black citizens was at the core of the racially charged 1950 Democratic U.S. Senate campaign in South Carolina.

The incumbent senator, Olin D. Johnston, entered the summer campaign bolstered by the successful attempt of Southern senators to block the establishment of a permanent Fair Employment Practices Commission (FEPC), a federal agency that would investigate racial discrimination in employment practices.

In bombastic Southern oratory, the earthy Johnston — his arms flailing wildly — railed in a speech on the floor of the U.S. Senate that it would be “a blow to Christianity” to require equal treatment of whites and blacks in hiring.

“A responsibility has been placed on mankind to keep his race pure,” argued Johnston. “Mongrelization of the races is the greatest destroyer of civilization and Christianity.”

In his deep baritone voice, Johnston decried “persistent agitation, designed to cause all colored people to have such a group consciousness as to carry continuously a chip on their shoulders,” and warned his fellow senators “not to mine the road ahead with dynamite that is certain to explode with great destruction when these opposite viewpoints collide.”

Back home in South Carolina, anxious to exploit the race issue to the maximum in his campaign for reelection, Johnston stumped the state’s forty-six counties in a series of verbal slugging matches with his opponent, incumbent Governor Strom Thurmond. It turned into quite a show.

In the towns along the campaign trail, the political rallies leading up to the July 11 Democratic primary were considered top-flight summer entertainment. Boisterous crowds of up to four thousand turned out for the carnival-like stump speeches, demanding that the candidates mix it up with an exchange of barbs and insults.

For the first time, newly empowered black voters joined the mostly white crowds. It didn’t matter to either candidate that the rising black constituency would witness the most openly racist political campaign in the state’s modern history.

The two candidates worked hard to outdo each other with caustic race-baiting rhetoric. Thurmond accused Johnston of being soft on racial segregation and promised if elected to the Senate that he “will not sit with folded arms and my tongue cleaved to the roof of my mouth” when a federal court makes a civil rights ruling that attacks the southern way of life.

“Any man that says I am for mixing of the races is a low-down, contemptible liar,” charged Johnston in a speech at Georgetown. In another appearance at Charleston, the senator—loudly booed by blacks in the crowd — shouted to his hosts, “Make those niggers quit!”

Johnston, who darkened his graying hair with black shoe polish, sometimes found moist black streaks running down his forehead in the humid evenings of summer. Thurmond, a health fanatic, became well known for standing on his head on the lawn of the governor’s mansion.

At two stops a day in the grueling campaign, the candidates hammered each other on race. Thurmond was accused by Johnston of inviting the governor of the Virgin Islands, a black man, to the South Carolina governor’s mansion. Thurmond was irate.

“No Negro will ever be a guest at the governor’s mansion so long as I am governor,” Thurmond shouted to a chorus of boos from blacks at a rally in Columbia.

At a rally in Spartanburg, Thurmond chided Johnston for his tenure on the Senate’s District of Columbia Committee. “If he’s got so much influence, why does he let the Negroes swim in the same pools with white people?” Thurmond barked.

When they weren’t berating each other on race, the candidates were using paid political ads to polarize South Carolina’s electorate.

In a newspaper ad for his candidacy, Thurmond urged President Truman to forget about “minority blocs” of voters and withdraw his program to break down segregation in the armed forces. He warned that Truman’s desegregation plan would “compel Southern white boys to serve, eat, and sleep together with Negro troops and also use the same recreational facilities.”

As one looks back on this dark chapter of South Carolina’s history, it is fascinating to note that beginning in 1941, nine years before the senate campaign, Strom Thurmond began providing financial support to a daughter he had fathered with a black woman in 1925.

The revelation that Thurmond had a daughter of mixed race came after his death at age 100 in June, 2003. Thurmond’s daughter, Essie Mae Washington-Williams, was born October 12, 1925 to a 16-year-old unmarried mother, Carrie Butler, who cleaned the Thurmond family home in Edgefield, South Carolina. At the time, Thurmond, 22, was living at the home while he worked as a school teacher and high school coach.

Thurmond first met his daughter around 1941, after he had been a state senator and circuit judge. From then on, the aspiring politician provided financial support for the woman, who remained a well-kept secret throughout his public career.

Knowing Thurmond’s personal history makes his political attack on Paul Robeson, the heroic black singer, actor and human rights advocate, even more remarkable.

Robeson, Thurmond charged, “has been going all over the country demanding that we abolish segregation, and to show his contempt for our way of life in the South, he married his son off to a white girl.”

Robeson, one of the era’s most talented, articulate, and politically active public figures, had risked his life to tour small towns throughout the South in 1948 on behalf of the progressive presidential candidate Henry Wallace.

Strom Thurmond, as that year’s presidential candidate of the segregationist Dixiecrat party, represented everything Robeson abhorred.

In retrospect, Thurmond’s family secret made his attack on Robeson and his son staggering in its sheer hypocrisy. But this cynical Southern politician was not about to lower the racial temperature.

Robeson, however, was a black man that Thurmond couldn’t intimidate, and the eloquent intellectual knew how to get under the governor’s skin. Cheerfully singing his way through the deep South, Robeson attacked the Thurmond-led Dixiecrats as “powerful reactionaries who hope to stamp out the militant struggle of the Negro for complete freedom, equality and civil rights [and who] hope to keep all the wealth for themselves.”

Framing the “black belt of the South” as the area that would decide whether the Negro people “survive or perish,” Robeson spoke with a level of public candor then unheard of in South Carolina.

“For as long as any boy or girl can be denied opportunity in Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina and Mississippi — so long as one can be lynched as he or she goes to vote — so long as the precious land does not belong to the people of that area (and with the land, the wealth that flows there from in agriculture and in industry) — so long as they do not have the full opportunity to develop and enrich their cultural heritage and their lives — so long are the whole Negro people not free.”

To the South’s white establishment, those were fighting words.

Robeson’s story is in my book, Whitewash: A Southern Journey through Music, Mayhem and Murder

Django Reinhardt, pioneering French virtuoso jazz guitarist and composer, was born 112 years ago today

Django Reinhardt, pioneering French virtuoso jazz guitarist and composer, was born 112 years ago today.

Reinhardt is often regarded as one of the greatest guitar players of all time and regarded as the first important European jazz musician who made major contributions to the development of the idiom.

Reinhardt invented an entirely new style of jazz guitar technique (sometimes called “hot jazz” guitar) that has since become a living musical tradition within French gypsy culture. With violinist Stéphane Grappelli, he co-founded the Quintette du Hot Club de France, described by critic Thom Jurek as "one of the most original bands in the history of recorded jazz."

Reinhardt's most popular compositions have become jazz standards, including "Minor Swing," "Daphne," "Belleville," "Djangology," "Swing '42" and "Nuages."

While walking from the Avon railway station after playing in a Paris club in 1953, he collapsed outside his house from a brain hemorrhage. It was a Saturday and it took a full day for a doctor to arrive. Reinhardt was declared dead on arrival at the hospital in Fontainebleau at the age of 43.

For about a decade after Reinhardt's death, interest in his musical style was minimal. In the fifties, bebop superseded swing in jazz, rock and roll took off and electric instruments became dominant in popular music.

Since the mid-sixties, there has been a revival of interest in Reinhardt's music. Acoustic music was revived with the folk movement.

Several of Reinhardt's near-contemporaries, such as Paul "Tchan Tchou" Vidal, recorded for the first time in the sixties and seventies.

Here, Reinhardt performs with Stephane Grappelli in Jattendrai Swing, 1939

On this day — 92 years ago — poet and playwright Derek Walcott was born in St. Lucia, the Caribbean

On this day — 92 years ago — poet and playwright Derek Walcott was born in St. Lucia, the Caribbean.

Walcott won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1992 — the first Caribbean writer to do so.

Walcott's family descended from slaves in the West Indies, and the legacy of slavery is a common theme in his work. Both his parents were schoolteachers and encouraged a love of reading in their three children. When Walcott's father died, his mother raised the family on her own. Walcott knew early on he wanted to be a writer.

His first book of poems was published when he was only 18. He continued writing and began teaching as well. Deeply interested in theater as well as poetry, he received a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation in 1957, which allowed him to study with a prominent director in New York for two years. In New York, Walcott founded the Trinidad Theater Workshop.

A prolific poet, Walcott published In a Green Night: Poems 1948-1960 in 1962, Selected Poems in 1964, The Castaway in 1965 and The Gulf in 1969. His lush style explores multicultural tensions and questions of identity.

Meanwhile, he continued his work in the theater, with plays like Ti-Jean and His Brothers (produced in 1958), Dream on Monkey Mountain (produced 1967) and Pantomime (produced 1978).

He wrote more than 30 plays, while continuing to publish poetry collections regularly. His book-length poem, Omeros, published in 1990, evokes Homer's Odyssey in the environment of the Caribbean.

Joan Baez, 41 and divorced, met Steve Jobs, 27, in Palo Alto, California in 1982 and they began dating

Joan Baez, 41 and divorced, met Steve Jobs, 27, in Palo Alto, California in 1982 and they began dating.

Baez addressed their relationship in an interview in the New York Post.

Jobs had described the relationship between him and Baez as “two accidental friends who became lovers.” Baez said it was a case of opposites attracting.

“He was always very nice to me,” she told the Post, “[but] we didn’t agree on anything. He’d say, ‘I’m going to make a computer that won’t just duplicate a Beethoven sonata — it will be better!’

“And I’d say, ‘Excuse me? What about the soul? Where’s the soul in it?’

He’d say, ‘It’ll just be better,’ and I’d be dumbfounded . . . and then we’d grab dinner.”

That was usually Indian food, she said, though later, even food was a struggle.

“[Jobs] kind of turned into a fruit-arian,” she recalled. “He wanted the woman who cooked for me to work for him, but he’d quit eating anything but nuts and grains.”

Baez’s cook stayed put.