#Baltimore musicians

[radiofauxshow]

Photo of the Day: November 7, 2024

The George Peabody Library I had to take a week off from these posts due to personal stuff, but I’m back this week with some photos from a recent trip to Baltimore. Here are several more photos from the inside of the George Peabody Library. I’ve also included a song by Greg Kihn (who was born in Baltimore). The Breakup Song on Amazon Prime Music

[discoholicmusic]

👏 not many DJs get the privilege of playing patty-cake on stage

📸 rob roy taylor at the shrek rave in baltimore soundstage on nov 2022

[faetoothofficial]

April we will be making our way out to the East Coast! We hope to see you there! 💟✨

On-sale December 13th 10am ET

[thelensofyashunews]

Q DA FOOL SHARES NEW ALBUM KING GEORGE

Finally home following a years-long battle with the Maryland legal system, DMV rapper Q Da Fool is "reclaiming his career," in the words of a recent Rolling Stone feature, with his new album King George – out now along with an accompanying music video for "Shining". The hard-hitting LP arrives on the heels of lead single "Pookie" (feat. Veeze), an explosive track named for Chris Rock's character from the 1991 cult classic film New Jack City, which stamped Q Da Fool's first collaboration with the aforementioned Detroit heavyweight. Since putting out charismatic homecoming single “Heisman” last year — his first release as a free man after serving 18 months in jail — Q Da Fool has continued to flood the streets with his distinct sound. 2023 was a massive year for the DMV mainstay, who garnered recognition for projects I’ll Be Back, Home Detention, and Art of Ambition, the latter of which saw HotNewHipHop praise Q Da Fool for “putting the Free State on everyone’s radar.” Recent months have seen the rapper release a strong run of singles, including “Hey Auntie”, "chopt", and "Tarzan", as well as a collaboration with Daimo Dunkin on "Clientele".

Hailing from the small town of Largo, Q Da Fool has long been a DMV standout — as showcased on a number of hit singles including “Win” (10M Streams) and a momentous collaboration with Shoreline Mafia — steadily carving out a distinct lane by sharing detailed stories of his own lived experiences within Maryland street life. Having released projects with producers like Kenny Beats as well as the Grammy award-winning Zaytoven, Q has chosen not to follow directly in the footsteps of his area’s popular go-go wave, an artistic decision that has allowed him to fully flex his gritty lyricism and energetic flows. Fresh off an impressive run of 2023 mixtapes, the arrival of King George marks the beginning of a new era for Q Da Fool as he continues to put on for the thriving DMV rap scene.

[importantwomensbirthdays]

Jessica Williams

Jazz pianist Jessica Williams was born in 1948 in Baltimore, Maryland. Over the course of her career, Williams released 50 albums and became known for her brilliant technique. She was nominated for two Grammy awards, and received two grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, as well as a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship.

Jessica Williams died in 2022 at the age of 78.

[brezaunthe1]

[boutzie]

Three years later.

I’m back in the booth.

I’m back behind the mic.

Boutzie 🌻

[chrismontmusic]

Here’s where I’ll be performing in April & May. Come join me at Sol Oaxaca Cocina Mexicana, Dejon Vineyard, JD's Smokehouse - North, 5th Company Brewing, Inverness Brewing, Hopkins Farm Brewery, and the Poplar Inn! 🎵

[thebaltimoreyoudontknow]

It's been a while since I checked on this, but there is an ongoing grassroots effort to prevent Cab Calloway's childhood home in Baltimore from being demolished for new development.

Cab Calloway's childhood home in Baltimore, Maryland, United States

[monicareconstructed]

Pat Barrington.

Pat screamed feminine sex appeal, like 'I AM WOMAN!!' at top decibels.

Not such a happy childhood, and lived the life of a stripper with a few forays into film. But her looks and body - oh, my! I would have loved to have her body in her prime!!

Her web bio:

Pat Barrington was an extremely buxom, curvy, and drop-dead gorgeous blonde topless dancer who popped up in a handful of enjoyably trashy softcore sexploitation features throughout the 1960's, often for producer Harry H. Novak's Boxoffice International Pictures and directed by William Rotsler.

Barrington was born Patricia Annette Bray on October 16, 1939 in Charlotte, North Carolina. Her mother Willie Jo Bray had a fling with a local man named Claude Weidenhause and became pregnant at age sixteen. Weidenhause had already left by the time Barrington was born. Pat moved with her mother Willie Jo to Richmond, Virginia when she was only two years old. Willie Jo married another man, Eugene Lee Barringer. But the marriage was short-lived and Pat found herself moving once again with her mother to Hyattsville, Maryland. Willie Jo subsequently married a former Marine suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Upset with the unstable situation at home, Barrington left her mother and went out to fend for herself after her sophomore year in high school.

Pat relocated to Baltimore, Maryland, where she hooked up with an Italian-American mobster named Bob. Barrington got married for the first time in the late 1950's. But Pat soon left her first husband after the relationship became abusive. Bob helped Barrington get back on her feet by securing her a job as an exotic dancer. Pat then made a name for herself in Washington, D.C. dancing under the name of Vivian Storm. Barrington caught the eye of local jazz musician Melvin Rees and moved into Rees's abode in Hyattsville, Maryland in 1959. Pat moved down south with Rees in 1960. Alas, Rees was found guilty of murdering a Virginia family and was sentenced to life in prison.

Barrington moved to Los Angeles, California in 1962 and promptly got a job dancing at the prestigious nightclub The Classic Cat. Pat then decided to pursue a modeling career and subsequently started posing in spreads for various men's magazines as well as numerous commercial layouts. After an ill-advised foray into dancing in Las Vegas, Barrington returned to Los Angeles and resumed her career as a model while still dancing on the side. Pat eventually began auditioning for film work in the mid-1960's. Barrington achieved her greatest cult cinema fame as the female lead in Stephen C. Apostolof's unintentionally hilarious horror camp hoot Orgy of the Dead (1965), in which she also performs one of her patented steamy nude dances as the painted Gold Girl. Barrington had another rare substantial starring part as a bored housewife who works as a high-priced call girl in the seamy Agony of Love (1966). More often, though, the stunning and spectacularly alluring Pat was relegated to secondary roles as a go-go dancer in such delightfully down'n'dirty low-grade fare as Lila (1968), The Girl with the Hungry Eyes (1967) and Sisters in Leather (1969). She appeared as herself in both the lurid mondo item Hedonistic Pleasures (1969) and Russ Meyer's blithely silly documentary Mondo Topless (1966). During this time Barrington was briefly married to cinematographer Robert Caramico.

After calling it quits as an actress, Pat left Los Angeles and moved to New Jersey with a singer named Romeo. Barrington soon found gainful employment dancing in clubs up and down the East Coast under the pseudonym of Princess Jajah. In the mid-1970's Pat branched out into topless dancing. She settled down in Cliffside Park, New Jersey in 1980. Barrington eventually dumped Romeo and became involved with a much younger man named Robert. Pat moved with Robert to Fort Lauderdale, Florida in 1984. Pat worked as a stripper using the name Yvette at assorted seedy clubs throughout Florida. After retiring from dancing in the early 1990's, Barrington went on to work as a telemarketer. In her later years Pat also helped local animal rescue groups (she was a lifelong lover of animals). Barrington died from lung cancer at age 74 on September 1, 2014.

[radiofauxshow]

Song of the Day: November 7, 2024

Frank Zappa: Be-Bop Tango Be-Bop Tango on Amazon Prime Music Completing this week’s focus on Frank Zappa, today’s song is “Be-Bop Tango” from the 1993 album The Yellow Shark. In 1990, Zappa was diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer and he spent the last few years of his life working on orchestral and Synclavier compositions. The last album he released before his death on 12/4/93 was a…

[showbizbvby]

🎤🔥   laura   kariuki.   cis   woman.   she/her.   |   breaking   :   SAPPHIRE   DIXON   spotted   at   a   nail   salon.   the   TWENTY   -   FOUR   year   old   has   been   making   moves   at   gravity   records   as   a   MEMBER   OF   HARMONIX   (   BACKING   VOCALIST   )   -   known   for   bringing   various   jeweled   flasks   that   always   match   her   dresses   to   award   shows,   it’s   clear   they’re   not   here   to   play.   with   a   reputation   for   being   ARDENT   and   SELF-ABSORBED,   they’ve   already   made   quite   the   impression,   but   will   it   be   enough   ?   let’s   see   if   they’ve   got   what   it   takes   to   stay   on   top. 

BASICS.

full name: sapphire naomi dixon

nicknames: saff and saffy

gender: cis woman (she/her)

sexuality: bisexual

dob: 16th of october

zodiac sign: libra

age: 24

place of birth: baltimore, maryland

current residency: atlanta, georgia

occupation: musician

APPEARANCE.

faceclaim: laura kariuki

height: 5ft10

build: toned, athletic and statuesque

hair: braids are her go to hairstyle but she drastically changes her hair every one or two months

eyes: dark brown

style: sapphire is passionate about fashion and loves beautiful clothes. she puts a lot of care, attention and love into her wardrobe. her style is quite glamorous and inspired by the early 00s. she also loves sparkle and monochrome outfits

distinguishing features: she's a tall queen and is known for her striking smile

PERSONALITY.

positive traits: candid, intrepid, captivating and exuberant

negative traits: flightly, impatient, overly optimistic and ditsy

personality markers: esfp, sanguine, type 7-the enthusiast & chaotic good

counterparts: cher horowitz (clueless), hilary banks (fresh prince of bel-air), london tipton (the suite lufe of zack & cody) & alexis rose (schitt's creek)

FACTS.

growing up sapphire's dad repeatedly told her she was his lucky charm. she must have been because he won the superbowl three months after she was born. anthony "dixie" dixon was right sapphire, in a lot of ways sapphire was born lucky. she had two loving and (newly) wealthy parents. most people only have parents who are one or the other.

due to her dad’s job sapphire had three major cross country moves growing up. these drastic moves helped shape her into someone who’s adaptable and gets restless living in the same place for too long. the moves were difficult for short periods of time. she missed the friendship groups she formed but sapphire was the type of kid who found it easy to form friendships. maybe it was because of her famous father but sapphire likes to believe she always possessed a sparkling personality.

no matter where she moved music was always a constant in sapphire’s life. she developed a passion for music and performing from a young age. she loved the attention she received on stage but also how people would congratulate her after talent show or theater group performances. the attention didn't hurt but it wasn't the only reason for sapphire's love of performing. she also had an interest in making songs that entertained people or brought them to tears.

sapphire looks back fondly in her adolescence. she was popular in high school thanks to a combination of her extroverted personality and love of gossip. she was on the cheerleading team.

after graduating high school sapphire decided not to go to college. she had no interest in higher education and wanted to get straight to work. she published a mixtape online that she emailed to various agents, executives and venue promoters. she also did various small gigs but she career didn't really take off. while she was struggling to get her music career off the ground her parents suggested she get a "real job" as a way to make her own income. she got a job at a bridal boutique that she enjoyed but didn't want to be doing permanently.

meeting the harmonix girls was a blessing. sapphire would prefer to be solo however she enjoys having two people to bounce ideas off of and support her while going through the struggles of trying to be successful in the music industry

[arctic-hands]

Thirty minutes and 9 paragraphs into an excited list of alternatives to Spotify's monopoly re: music, videos, podcasts, audiobooks, for weenies like me who are nervous about pirating, and my app crashes.

Well now I'm on a laptop and I swear to god if this crashes too I'm calling it a conspiracy.

LEGAL ALTERNATIVES TO SPOTIFY:

Music: There are virtually limitless options here. Buy music directly from the musicians/band! If they don't sell mp3s directly from their site, they almost certainly have CDs for sale, so buy those and rip the mp3s to your computer (if your computer doesn't have a CD slot, you can buy an external one for fairly cheap). Go to a new/used music store, they still exist!, and buy albums there. Buy old albums from ebay! Go to goodwill or other thrift stores and browse there collection of cast-off music for cheap, you never know what you'll find. Hell, browse their cheap vinyl if you prefer their sound and get a vinyl-to-MP3 conversion device if you like. They even have conversion devices for cassette tapes, if you find a treasure that was only ever released on tape. Once upon a time I would have said Bandcamp for MP3 or even physical albums (I once upon a time got an AUTOGRAPHED TO MY NAME CD of Lauren Ruth Ward's Well Hell album), but they recently union busted and a lot of artists pulled their stuff from them. I don't really know anything about 7Digital's business practices, but they are another seller of MP3 music, as well as MP4, FLAC, and WAV.

Music DEVICES: If you just want to manage everything on one device, your phone, get the free VLC app! It's open source and is absolutely wonderful. I only ever used it for music, but it's capable of much more than I realized, and it's open source and ad-free! And the audio files are tiny, even when I was running out of room on my sixteen gig old phone, I still had a substantial music library on it before before I got a dedicated music player.

Which brings me to my next point: MP3 PLAYERS STILL EXIST! I own two! My first one is a twenty-dollar SanDisk Clip Jam (an established and sturdy brand), my current is a thirty-dollar Phinistec Z6 (that just came out of nowhere it seems). Each have their pros and cons, and there are so so so many options out there. Some are smart, some don't even have wifi (neither of mine do). Some have expandable card slots for even more music. Some are extremely basic, some have a plethora of features. Some are cheap but still decent in sound, some are high-end for that true audiophile experience. Some have touch screens, some have buttons, some have no screens at all. Some only use wired earphones, some only use bluetooth, some (like the Z6) can use both! There are so many brands out there even in Twenty Twenty-four. Even the random brands cropping up online are some really good shit, and I bought both of mine used bc I have concerns about the lithium industry. Oh, and some are regular battery powered. And you don't need iTunes or anything, I just use the basic Windows Media Player to rip my CDs or put mp3s music on my player. In fact I've been avoiding Apple players because I'm worried they'd brick older devices, especially ones with wifi. But there are so many options out there, it's impossible to name them all.

Audiobooks: YOU DON'T HAVE TO USE AUDIBLE! Libro.fm has a similar business model (an optional subscription fee with a free credit every month, or the option to buy book without a subscription for a little bit extra price), and you can direct the profits to the indie bookseller of your choice! I have mine set to go to Baltimore's anarcho-feminist bookstore, Red Emma's. How to listen to the audiobooks you buy? Libro has an app you can listen to directly from! AND they have the option to directly download from the site (meaning no program you have to install) the book in non-proprietary mp3/mp4 files so you can listen to it on any device that can use those files! THAT INCLUDES MP3 PLAYERS! Almost every music player on the market now not only plays audiobooks, but has sections on the device specifically for them! Some, like the Clip Jam, are even proprietary audible-compatible if you still use or already have books there (check audible's site, and you'll have to go thru a registration process). I was listening to audiobooks on both my CJ and the Z6 (the Z6 doesn't have a section for them, but still played them), but I recently bought an e-ink/e-paper (meaning no backlit LED screen causing eye strain or insomnia) ereader, a Pocketbook Touch HD 3, and that is mp3/mp4 capable for audiobooks, and is easier to maneuver books with since it's meant for books. ALSO: the library apps Hoopla and Libby also have audiobooks you can listen to via phone or computer/browser, depending on your library's catalog. Some ereaders can even have the apps for them, and if they have audiocapabilities you can use the ereader for that too.

Podcasts: There are so many apps for this. I have Podcast Addict (I don't remember off the top of my head if it's on apple, I use android, but there are still so many apps). Literally I only had to sacrifice one podcast when I stopped using spotify, PodcastAddict has everything else I've ever listened to or want to listen to in the future. You can download them for offline use on your phone, and, you guessed it, MOST MP3 PLAYERS HAVE PODCAST SECTIONS TOO. MINE DO! There are still ads at the beginning and end, but I usually skip over them without care.

Video: This one is a bit trickier as YouTube is also a monopoly, but what I do is just watch yt on my phone's Firefox browser with UBlock Origins adblocker installed. Sometimes yt gets into a hissy fit with adblocker, but UBlock usually gets ahead pretty quickly thus far. And if in the periods Origins is losing, I just find something else to do. I'm sure someone else has recommendations for videos, they're just not a big part of my life right now.

Anyway, don't let the horrid beast that is spotify monopoloize the audio industry OR your time! There are options, and even if you're not a luddite like me that hates having everything on my smartphone bc I'm worried about privacy or companies yoinking their stuff off my devices via wifi (like Amazon did once with their copies of, of all things, Nineteen Eighty-four about a decade ago) at the whim of corporations. You HAVE OPTIONS! YOU HAVE THE POWER TO CONTROL YOUR MEDIA AND REJECT MONOPOLIES!

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

September 1, 2024

Heather Cox Richardson

Sep 02, 2024

Almost one hundred and forty-two years ago, on September 5, 1882, workers in New York City celebrated the first Labor Day holiday with a parade. The parade almost didn’t happen: there was no band, and no one wanted to start marching without music. Once the Jewelers Union of Newark Two showed up with musicians, the rest of the marchers, eventually numbering between 10,000 and 20,000 men and women, fell in behind them to parade through lower Manhattan. At noon, when they reached the end of the route, the march broke up and the participants listened to speeches, drank beer, and had picnics. Other workers joined them.

Their goal was to emphasize the importance of workers in the industrializing economy and to warn politicians that they could not be ignored. 

Less than 20 years before, northern men had fought a war to defend a society based on free labor and had, they thought, put in place a government that would support the ability of all hardworking men to rise to prosperity. But for all that the war had seemed to be about defending men against the rise of an oligarchy that intended to reduce all men to a life of either enslavement or wage labor, the war and its aftermath had pushed workers’ rights backward.   

The drain of men to the battlefields and the western mines during the war resulted in a shortage of workers that kept unemployment low and wages high. Even when they weren’t, the intense nationalism of the war years tended to silence the voices of labor organizers. “It having been resolved to enlist with Uncle Sam for the war,” one organization declared when the war broke out, “this union stands adjourned until either the Union is safe, or we are whipped.” 

Another factor working against the establishment of labor unions during the war was the tendency of employers to claim that striking workers were deliberately undercutting the war effort. They turned to the government to protect production, and in industries like Pennsylvania's anthracite coal fields, government leaders sent soldiers to break budding unions and defend war production.

During the war, government contracting favored those companies that could produce big orders of the mule shoes, rifles, rain slickers, coffee, and all the other products that kept the troops supplied. The owners of the growing factories grew wealthy on government contracts, even as conditions in the busy factories deteriorated. While wages were high during the war, they were often paid in greenbacks, which were backed only by the government’s promise to pay. 

While farmers and some entrepreneurs thrived during the war, urban workers and miners had reason to believe that employers had taken advantage of the war to make money off them. After the war, they began to strike for better wages and safer conditions. In August 1866, 60,000 people met as the National Labor Union in Baltimore, Maryland, where they called for an eight-hour workday. Most of those workers calling for organization simply wanted a chance to rise to comfort, but the resolutions developed by the group’s leaders after the convention declared that workers must join unions to reform the abuses of the industrial system. 

To many of those who thought the war would create a country where hard work would mean success, the resolutions seemed to fly in the face of that harmony, echoing the southern enslavers by dividing the world into people of wealth and workers, and asking for government intervention, this time on the side of workers. Republicans began to redefine their older, broad concept of workers to mean urban unskilled or semi-skilled wage laborers specifically.

Then in 1867, a misstep by Senator Benjamin Wade of Ohio made the party step back from workers. Wade had been a cattle drover and worked on the Erie Canal before studying law and entering politics, and he was a leader among those who saw class activism as the next step in the party’s commitment to free labor. His fiery oratory lifted him to prominence, and in March 1867 the Senate chose him its president pro tempore, in effect making him the nation’s acting vice president in those days before there was a process for replacing a vice president who had stepped into the presidency.

Wade joined a number of senators on a trip to the West, and in Lawrence, Kansas, newspapers reported—possibly incorrectly—that Wade predicted a fight in America between labor and capital. “Property is not equally divided,” the reporter claimed Wade said, “and a more equal distribution of capital must be worked out.” Congress, which Wade now led, had done much for ex-slaves and must now address “the terrible distinction between the man that labors and him that does not.”

Republican newspapers were apoplectic. The New York Times claimed that Wade was a demagogue. Every hard worker could succeed in America, it wrote. “Laborers here can make themselves sharers in the property of the country,—can become capitalists themselves,—just

as nine in ten of all the capitalists in the country have done so before them,—by industry, frugality, and intelligent enterprise.” Trying to get rich by force of law would undermine society.

Congress established an eight-hour day for federal employees in June 1868, but in that year’s election, voters turned Wade, and others like him, out of office. In 1869, Republican president Ulysses S. Grant issued a proclamation saying that the eight-hour workday of "laborers, workmen, and mechanics" would not mean cuts in wages.

Then, in spring 1871, in the wake of the Franco-Prussian War, workers took over the city of Paris and established the Paris Commune. The transatlantic cable had gone into operation in 1866, and American newspapers had featured stories of the European war. Now, hungry for dramatic stories, they plastered details of the Commune on their front pages, describing it as a propertied American’s worst nightmare. They highlighted the murder of priests, the burning of the Tuileries Palace, and the bombing of buildings by crazed women who lobbed burning bottles of newfangled petroleum through cellar windows. 

The Communards were a “wild, reckless, irresponsible, murderous mobocracy” who planned to confiscate all property and transfer all money, factories, and land to associations of workmen, American newspapers wrote. In their telling, the Paris Commune brought to life the chaotic world the elite enslavers foresaw when they said it was imperative to keep workers from politics. 

Scribner’s Monthly warned in italics: “the interference of ignorant labor with politics is dangerous to society.” Famous reformer Charles Loring Brace looked at the rising numbers of industrial workers and the conditions of city life, and warned Americans, “In the judgment of one who has been familiar with our ‘dangerous classes’ for twenty years, there are just the same explosive social elements beneath the surface of New York as of Paris.”

At the same time, it was also clear that wealthy industrialists were gaining more and more control over both state and local governments. In 1872 the Credit Mobilier scandal broke. This was a complicated affair, and what had actually happened was almost certainly misrepresented, but it seemed to show congressmen taking bribes from railroad barons, and Americans were ready to believe that they were doing so. Then, in July 1877, after the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad cut wages 20 percent and strikers shut down most of the nation’s railroads, President Rutherford B. Hayes sent U.S. soldiers to the cities immobilized by the strikes. It seemed industrialists had the Army at their beck and call.

By 1882, factories and the fortunes they created had swung the government so far toward men of capital that it seemed there was more room for workingmen to demand their rights. By the 1880s, even the staunchly Republican Chicago Tribune complained about the links between business and government: “Behind every one of half of the portly and well-dressed members of the Senate can be seen the outlines of some corporation interested in getting or preventing legislation,” it wrote. The Senate, Harper’s Weekly noted, was “a club of rich men.” 

The workers marching in New York City in the first Labor Day celebration in 1882 carried banners saying: “Labor Built This Republic and Labor Shall Rule it,” “Labor Creates All Wealth,” “No Land Monopoly,” “No Money Monopoly,” “Labor Pays All Taxes,” “The Laborer Must Receive and Enjoy the Full Fruit of His Labor,” ‘Eight Hours for a Legal Day’s Work,” and “The True Remedy is Organization and the Ballot.” 

Two years later, workers helped to elect Democrat Grover Cleveland to the White House. A number of Republicans crossed over to support the reformer, afraid that, as he said, “The gulf between employers and the employed is constantly widening, and classes are rapidly forming, one comprising the very rich and powerful, while in another are found the toiling poor…. Corporations, which should be the carefully restrained creatures of the law and the servants of the people, are fast becoming the people's masters.” 

In 1888, Cleveland won the popular vote by about 100,000 votes, but his Republican opponent, Benjamin Harrison, won in the Electoral College. Harrison promised that his would be “A BUSINESS MAN’S ADMINISTRATION” and said that “before the close of the present Administration business men will be thoroughly well content with it….” 

Businessmen mostly were, but the rest of the country wasn’t. In November 1892 a Democratic landslide put Cleveland back in office, along with the first Democratic Congress since before the Civil War. As soon as the results of the election became apparent, the Republicans declared that the economy would collapse. Harrison’s administration had been “beyond question the best business administration the country has ever seen,” one businessmen’s club insisted, so losing it could only be a calamity. “The Republicans will be passive spectators,” the Chicago Tribune noted. “It will not be their funeral.” People would be thrown out of work, but “[p]erhaps the working classes of the country need such a lesson….”

As investors rushed to take their money out of the U.S. stock market, the economy collapsed a few days before Cleveland took office in early March 1893. Trying to stabilize the economy by enacting the proposals capitalists wanted, Cleveland and the Democratic Congress had to abandon many of the pro-worker policies they had promised, and the Supreme Court struck down the rest (including the income tax).

They could, however, support Labor Day and its indication of workers’ political power. On June 28, 1894, Cleveland signed Congress’s bill making Labor Day a legal holiday. Each year, the first Monday in September would honor the country’s workers.  

In Chicago the chair of the House Labor Committee, Lawrence McGann (D-IL), told the crowd gathered for the first official observance: “Let us each Labor day, hold a congress and formulate propositions for the amelioration of the people. Send them to your Representatives with your earnest, intelligent indorsement [sic], and the laws will be changed.”

Happy Labor Day.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[brookstonalmanac]

Birthdays 2.12

Beer Birthdays

Adolph Schell (1858)

Jennifer Talley (1969)

Five Favorite Birthdays

Tex Beneke; jazz saxophonist, singer, bandleader (1914)

R. Buckminster Fuller; architect, engineer (1895)

Steve Hackett; rock guitarist (1950)

Abraham Lincoln; 16th U.S. President (1809)

Christina Ricci; actor (1980)

Famous Birthdays

Maud Adams; actor (1945)

Darren Aronofsky; film director (1969)

Lolly Badcock; English porn actor (1984)

Joe Don Baker; actor (1936)

Judy Blume; writer (1938)

Omar Bradley; U.S. general (1893)

Josh Brolin; actor (1968)

Paul Bunyan; mythical character (1834)

Thomas Campion; English writer (1567)

Charles Darwin; scientist (1809)

Pat Dobson; Baltimore Orioles P (1942)

Joe Garagiola; baseball C, sportscaster (1926)

Lorne Greene; actor (1914)

Arsenio Hall; comedian,, talk-show host (1955)

Michael Ironside; actor (1950)

Joanna Kerns; actor (1953)

Sarah Lancaster; actor (1980)

John L. Lewis; labor leader (1880)

Alice Roosevelt Longworth; socialite, daughter of Teddy Roosevelt (1884)

Ray Manzarek; rock musician, keyboardist (1939)

Cotton Mather; writer, clergy (1663)

Michael McDonald; rock musician (1952)

George Meredith; English writer (1809)

Anna Pavlova; ballerina (1881)

Chynna Phillips; pop singer (1968)

Mel Powell; jazz pianist (1923)

Bill Russell; Boston Celtics C (1934)

Sylvia Saint; adult actress (1976)

Forrest Tucker; actor (1919)

Judd Winick; cartoonist (1970)

Paula Zahn; television journalist (1956)

Franco Zeffirelli; Italian film director (1923)

[dustedmagazine]

Linda Smith — Nothing Else Matters/I So Liked Spring (Captured Tracks)

In 2021 Captured Tracks released Till Another Time: 1988-96, a collection of recordings by Baltimore musician Linda Smith. Culled from Smith’s trove of cassette recordings, this was the first time Smith’s music had been pressed to vinyl.

Bedroom recording has long held an allure, but that release was timely. Smith, trailblazer of home taping, was already known and loved in certain pockets, especially among DIY musicians. But Till Another Time connected with pandemic-era listeners, many of whom were exploring their own isolated musical setups.

Smith’s home recording was born of its own sort of necessity. She played in a few bands over the years, including Woods, which performed at Maxwell’s and CBGB in the 1980s. But she never loved performing live.  “I knew I wasn’t a rock star,” she told the Baltimore Banner last year. “But I still wanted to make music.” While in Woods she bought her first 4 track recorder, hoping to get her ideas out in a way that her bandmates could understand.  For the first time, she said in a 1991 Popwatch interview, “my songs really seemed to belong to me.”

This past March Captured Tracks reissued two of Smith’s records, Nothing Else Matters and I So Liked Spring, originally released in 1995 and 1996, respectively. By the mid- '90st Smith had graduated from a 4-track recorder to a Fostex 8-track, allowing her to explore more sophisticated compositions.

As a kid Smith was a fan of the Beatles and Motown and spent a lot of time listening to AM radio, which imbued her with a strong sense of pop structures. Later she got into the Raincoats and Young Marble Giants, artists she admired and resembled both musically and philosophically: Clearly none of them were in it for fame and fortune.

Nothing Else Matters includes a cover of Young Marble Giants’  “Salad Days” which retains the stately simplicity of the original but doubles the runtime, extending it with layers of hysterical laughter and a soft roar of distant conversation. This marriage of minimalist elegance and woozy playfulness is typical of the record. It’s full of boney drum beats and  “96 Tears”-esque Wurlitzer-y riffs, cool garage-rock hooks, clever melodies, dry humor and smart, idiosyncratic lyrics.

For I So Liked Spring Smith set music to the poems of late 19th/early 20th century poet Charlotte Mew. It's slightly softer around the edges than Nothing Else Matters but the tunes still twist in unexpected directions as Smith, a worthy and convincing ambassador, shapes her compositions around Mew’s words. In their relative simplicity these songs bloom with each listen.

Generally, Smith told the Women in Sound zine in 2015, she’d start with a sample beat, then she’d layer guitar, keyboard, and more guitar to fill things out, then vocals and handheld percussion. “I never had a very expensive microphone,” she said, “and sometimes preferred cheaper ones to get an interesting sound.”

As the glut of pandemic-era Bandcamp releases proved, a home recording is only as good as the artist behind it. Smith — a skilled writer and intuitive arranger — didn’t give herself many places to hide within her recordings, and she didn’t have to. As with her simple instrumentation Smith knows how to work the unique dynamics of her slightly husky, untrained voice. Sometimes wistful, sometimes sardonic, sometimes exuberant, it all sparkles.

Margaret Welsh