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shefanispeculator · 1 year ago

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For every new star on the recording scene, there is at least one unheralded industry drone without whom that star might never have shone. In the case of Blake Shelton, who is about to receive his well-deserved Hollywood Walk of Fame star after more than two decades as one of country music’s best, there are probably more like a dozen heroes who made Blake’s incredible career possible.

One of those heroes is your humble Nashville correspondent, me. No, that’s the truth. Once or twice in your life the impossible hits you between the eyes and you need to be prepared if you want to turn it into pure sunshine before the inevitable eclipse drifts in.

One day in 1995 or 1996 I got a call from Jim Sharpe, then publisher of American Songwriter magazine. He had found this big kid from Oklahoma, best singer he’d ever heard, would I like to come by the office to hear him sing? “Why?” I asked. You see, I was trying to dodge what the gods were hurling at me. I was done with the music business. I would just be a waste of this kid’s time.

But a week or two later found me in Sharpe’s office shaking hands with this kid, six-foot-four, great looking, with a big, black cowboy hat, big black Takamine guitar, a voice so huge it shook the walls of Sharpe’s office, and a laugh to match.

I was hooked, and soon we were writing songs together every Tuesday.

But nothing further happened until a couple from California hired me to run their music publishing company. We signed Shelton to a publishing deal. And then nothing more happened. I learned that he’d already been turned down by labels all over Music Row, talent be damned.

Now comes the big twist in the story.

I’m not the hero, after all. The hero is a guy I’m about to call. Bobby Braddock has written or co-written many of country music’s biggest hits, including “He Stopped Loving Her Today,” “I Wanna Talk About Me,” “People Are Crazy,” “Golden Ring,” “Time Marches On” and “D-I-V-O-R-C-E.” He also produces terrific demos and he’s always wanted to produce records.

The call goes like this:

“Hello, Homer (his phone name is Homer, and mine is Jethro). I’ve got something I want you to hear.” I’m holding an old microcassette tape recorder in my right hand, and a telephone receiver in my left. This phone call is high-tech. I push the recorder flush against my telephone mouthpiece and press the start button. Homer listens to Blake sing for a little more than two minutes. When the tape has finished playing, Bobby speaks.

“The song is OK, but who’s that singer?”

“He’s 20 years old and we signed him a couple of months ago,” I reply.

“He sounds like a young Hank Jr. Can I meet him?”

The three of us met at Braddock’s house and Braddock and Shelton hit it off immediately. Braddock agreed to produce Shelton, and Braddock persuaded his publishing company, Sony/ATV Music, to pay for the session. That’s a big deal, to get a producer and publisher to put time and money into a session. But the hard part is not cutting the session — it’s getting a record company to love the session and sign the artist.

Armed with the fresh recording, Braddock hit the pavement. One label at a time. Fortunately, in 1998, there were still a lot of record labels left in Nashville.

“I took Blake’s CD all over town,” says Braddock. “RCA showed some interest, but they passed. Arista Records showed enough interest to request a showcase, and we gave it to them, then they passed. I was running out of record labels. The last label I went to was Giant Records, an affiliate of Warner Bros. Doug Johnson listened hard. And he said yes.”

Now life got tougher. Braddock produced an album by Shelton. Virtually everybody at the label loved it. Braddock, Shelton and a whole lot of other people waited for the album to be released. And they waited. People wondered why they waited.

Then Debbie Zavitson, a stalwart of Giant Records’ A&R department, received a CD from publisher Jana Talbot of a special song called “Austin,” written by David Kent and Kirsti Manna. Braddock, Shelton and a handful of great session players went to Sound Stage recording studio on Music Circle South and cut “Austin” and two other songs. Braddock recalls that the label had picked another song for the first single, but he had sent copies of the session to several friends and they felt that “Austin” was the hit. He took this new information from “the people,” and, he says, convinced the label to go with “Austin” instead. Then they waited, and while they waited, rumors circulated that Giant Records might soon be closing down.

“It took Giant three years to put out Blake’s record,” says Braddock, his brow furrowed in puzzlement over the memory. “And it never would have gotten out at all, if it hadn’t been for Fritz Kuhlman!”

Braddock would later refer to Kuhlman as “the promotion man who committed mutiny.” Kuhlman had heard the rumors about Giant, and while he was not a powerful executive at the label, he did have the ability to send out copies of “Austin” to country radio stations all over the country. And that’s just what he did, because he believed in “Austin.”

Stations began to play “Austin,” but Giant closed its doors anyway. By this time it didn’t matter. “Austin” was hot with or without a label. Giant’s parent company, Warner Bros., picked up the record and ran with it, and thanks to Kuhlman, “Austin” became a multi-week No. 1 country smash.

Country music had a brand new star. Over the next two decades, Shelton would pump out hit after hit, and become a national TV icon on the worldwide hit show “The Voice,” as well as a member of the venerable Grand Ole Opry. I can’t help but think of the many heroes it took to make it happen for Blake Shelton.

Of course there’s Shelton, with all that talent, heart and personality. Then there’s Bobby Braddock, one of Nashville’s greatest songwriters, listening to hundreds of other people’s songs in search of that special one for Shelton. And Braddock in the studio, hour after hour, with some of the world’s best studio musicians, background singers and studio engineers, pursuing the perfect record. Then cruising from label to label, determined to find a yes among all the inevitable no answers. And then there’s me, playing a cassette over the phone to my friend Braddock, who I thought was a genius in a recording studio.

And gutsy Kuhlman, on his own, mailing out CDs on a wing and a prayer.

Lots of other heroes, too, braving the stiff competition: promoters, publicists, A&R people, bookers, roadies, managers — and nobody outside the business knows their names. It took a lot of skill and experience to make a music industry in those days, and I like to think it still does.

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leasthaunted · 2 years ago

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The Flaming French Bowie-Batman Connection.

If I can just share a random musical fact that leads into a greater lyrical appreciation of a song that was featured in the soundtrack to Batman Forever....

In 1968 David Bowie was approached by a music publisher to translate the 1957 French song, Comme d'habitude into english. The original song was about falling out of love and the end of a relationship. Bowie had translated a few other songs before for this publisher, and so he took this job too.

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His song, Even A Fool Falls In Love, was rejected by the original song rights holders because they believed Bowie was too obscure of an artist at this point, and they wanted a huge hit so they could get residuals.

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A short time later Paul Anka bought the rights for the song and rewrote it, and had another artist cover it. It was a huge hit for the artist and soon became their signature tune. The Artist? Frank Sinatra. The Song? My Way.

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Bowie was understandably a little miffed by all of this. So, he wrote a parody song that used some of the same chord progressions and melody. That Song? Life on Mars.

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"WHAT DOES ANY OF THIS HAVE TO DO WITH BATMAN?!" I hear you scream into the night.

In 1995 Warner Brothers releases Batman Forever. Two songs stood out from the associated soundtrack release. Seal's Kiss From a Rose, and Bad Days by The Flaming Lips. The later of which was to serve as the "theme song" for Jim Carrey's Riddler. The Batman Forever soundtrack was the first album the song debuted on. And so is considered the official release of the song.

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"But Cody," I hear you ask, "What does that have to do with Life on Mars and My Way?"

It is a song about escaping your bad days into your dreams. The song opens with the lines:

"You're sorta stuck where you are, But in your dreams, you can buy expensive cars Or live on Mars, and have it your way. "

The inflection at the end of the line is identical and mocking of Sinatra's My Way. Wayne Coyne was obviously aware of the connection between the two songs, which is impressive in a pre internet world. But we forget that pre internet, fans would actually read fan magazines and interviews, and such. So being into music, he would have definitely heard of this story.

But there is another layer!

Bowie was hired to write a translation of a song for a record company. The Flaming lips were hired to write a song by a record company. So the line is also a nod to The Flaming Lips (a band from Oklahoma City) getting some recognition, and maybe moving forward. The chance to buy expensive cars, live on mars, and have it their way. Beyond that there is the double reference of "Have it your way" being the slogan that Burger King used against McDonalds.

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Batman Forever was a huge advertising monster, and had a tie in with McDonalds.

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So it was possibly another way for the band to take a dig at the whole concept behind the song as a way to sell a movie tie in for Warner Brother's records, AND a dig at McDonalds.

GENIUS! And all of that coded in two sentences!

#music #flaming lips #david bowie #batman #leasthaunted #Youtube

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sheetmusiclibrarypdf · 6 months ago

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Chet Baker, 1929-1988 (sheet music Jazz transcriptions)

Chet Baker (sheet music Jazz transcriptions) The tragic story of Chet Baker, the trumpeter whose death is a mystery Best Sheet Music download from our Library. Please, subscribe to our Library. Thank you! Cultor of cool jazz Playing with bird Debt problems Return to europe With Enrico Rava A documentary as a requiem Browse in the Library:

Chet Baker (sheet music Jazz transcriptions)

https://www.youtube.com/embed?listType=playlist&list=PLHraDT2z7ffbj1adbE7lKG3rgnJ69hymA&layout=gallery

The tragic story of Chet Baker, the trumpeter whose death is a mystery

Chesney Henry Baker Jr., Chet Baker (Yale, Oklahoma, United States, December 23, 1929 - Amsterdam, Holland, May 13, 1988) was an American jazz trumpeter and singer. He is one of the most popular jazz musicians in history. As a child, Chet Baker sang love songs on radio contests. A documentary film, released in Barcelona around 2008, Let's Get Lost, from 1988, shows us a very clichéd jazz musician, although clichés carry a lot of reality, a musician hooked on opiates and stimulants, with a life tortured by excesses. The movie All the Fine Young Cannibals is also loosely based on his biography. Chet Baker, a talented improviser and singer of a unique style with a tragic history of drug addiction. His death was shrouded in mystery: suicide or accident. Chet Baker was found dead in the early hours of May 13, 1988, on the street. He was in a fetal position, his head and part of his face were smashed, and his posture would indicate that he did not die immediately. He was wearing a short-sleeved shirt and striped pants, and he reportedly fell from the second floor of the Prins Hendrik hotel in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, where he had occupied room C-20 for a long time and where the police found heroin and cocaine. Chet was 58 years old. Doubts about his death were immediate, since those who knew him admitted that he lived under the influence of heroin (he had been dragging an addiction for more than 30 years), but they ruled out that suicide was an option for the artist who had concerts scheduled in Scandinavia. One version indicated that the hotel had prevented him from entering his room for lack of payment and that he decided to climb the two floors to recover, at least, his trumpet, but this possibility would have been virtually ruled out. Another pointed out that it would have been the result of a reckoning for the debt he had with several traffickers who, tired of excuses, threw him out the window. Finally, the expert said that it could have been an accidental death.

Cultor of cool jazz

Baker was one of the main exponents of Cool Jazz, the jazz of the West Coast of the United States, a style strongly embracing the harmonies of bebop, but rhythmically attached to swing. His interpretive style had an intimate, sober, modest tone, but beyond jazz, the trumpeter attracted a good part of his audiences for his photogenic appearance and his peculiar vocal style. Some called him the James Dean of jazz.

Chet Baker managed to become a cult idol in a short time, a star in the world of music, which not only did not solve his drug problems, but rather made him a coveted prey for the police. He was someone special, a jazz musician, white, famous and good looking. Despite a persistent heroin addiction, which would have started lukewarmly around 1952, Baker recorded 230 albums as a leader during his 36-year career. He has recorded with Stan Getz, Gerry Mulligan, Art Pepper, Jim Hall, Archie Shepp, Joe Pass, Herbie Hancock, Charlie Haden, Bud Shank, Ron Carter, Lee Konitz, and Roland Hanna, among others. He came to master more than 500 songs, that is, he had a privileged memory. Its beginnings were in jam sessions in different places in California, such as in the Hermosa Beach area and in the famous Lighthouse club, which was on the beach and was a permanent meeting place for jazzmen from the West Coast. His first group was that of saxophonist Vido Musso, from which he went on to Stan Getz's quintet, with whom he recorded an excellent version of Out Of Nowhere, on March 24, 1952; At the end of May of that year, he got the audition to accompany none other than Charlie Parker at Tiffany's Club. Chet Baker also sang, something that in his last years he did more, due to the difficulty in playing the trumpet.

Playing with bird

In his autobiography As if I had wings. Lost memories, Baker recounts those moments: “It was incredible to be on stage with Bird. The first song was very fast, after which the rest of the evening was quiet. Charlie Parker was an impeccable instrumentalist even though he scooped up shit and drank Hennessy non-stop; he gave the impression that all that did not produce the slightest effect on him ”. In August, the baritone saxophonist Gerry Mulligan puts together his famous pianoless quartet in Los Angeles, a novelty for the jazz scene, with Baker on trumpet, Chico Hamilton on drums and Bob Whitlock on double bass. Successful due to its excellent compositions and a fresh and airy sound that imposes an innovative sound aesthetic, the quartet records one of the great albums of cool jazz, The Gerry Mulligan Quartet with an emblematic version of My Funny Valentine, a theme that Miles Davis recorded years later. Baker had limitations as a musician, for example a not very wide register, a poor ability to read sheet music and a technique that was little special, as a soloist he is among the most outstanding of his generation. His intuition for melodic improvisation was superlative and his expressiveness was moving. first time in prison In October 1952, Baker was arrested for the first time and his problems with the law began. In June 1953, Mulligan is arrested for heroin possession and the group disbands and Chet almost unwittingly begins his career as leader. They were intense years for the trumpeter who between 1952 and 1953 recorded 35 albums, some as a leader and others within different groups and ensembles. All of this work is rewarded by countless offers for club shows, concerts and recordings that Baker cleverly handled. In 1954, he released several recordings, but two were very successful, Chet Baker Sings (the original record did not mention that he sang) and Chet Baker Quintet With Strings. Yes, Baker sang as if he had never heard anyone before; he is surprised by his natural and direct style with which he achieved a deep emotional penetration in the listener; his way of singing is more stylized than his way of playing the trumpet. Since that time, Baker has never stopped singing in his live performances. Chet Baker, trumpeter and singer with a tragic history. The times of fame In a short time he achieved a fame that took him on tour in several cities in the United States and that is consolidated by having won the surveys of Metronome and Donwbeat magazines as Best Trumpeter and Best Jazz Vocalist. His icy beauty even takes him to Hollywood, where he films Hell's Horizon and photographer William Claxton does historic photo shoots that he puts together in the work 'The Young Chet'. In 1959 he received his first conviction for drug possession; six months in Rikers Island, New York, of which he serves four months for good conduct and when he leaves he travels to Europe. It is in the 1960s when drugs begin to significantly interfere with his career. In the early 1960s he traveled to France and from there to Italy, where he had already been and had good friends and contacts. After undergoing a sleep cure in Milan due to his strong addiction to opiates, he is arrested in August for falsifying prescriptions and possession of drugs that lead him to spend fifteen months in prison. He goes out and celebrates it by recording in Italy the excellent Chet Is Back! (1962). On the presentation tour he is arrested in Germany and expelled to Switzerland and then to France. He moves to England with his third wife, Carol, but in March 1963 he is deported to France and from there he travels to Barcelona. He is again found with drugs during a tour of Germany, and in March 1964 he is deported to the United States, where he will remain until the mid-'70s.

Debt problems

In the United States, Chet Baker moves between New York and California although his career was seriously affected in July 1966 as a result of a beating he suffered in San Francisco related to his drug debts and which caused him to have his mouth broken. and a tooth (the incident was exaggerated, even by Baker himself) and that he was removed from the scene for a while due to embouchure problems with the instrument. Now, the general deterioration of his teeth that led him to need a false one has to do with the use of drugs and not with that fight. So, although the beating was not the determinant of the decline of his career, he did have an emblematic weight in his decline. At the beginning of the '70s he stopped playing: he worked at a service station and began a treatment with methadone that improved him mentally and physically. Helped by his colleague Dizzy Gillespie, he planned his return to a New York club and a famous meeting with Gerry Mulligan, on November 24, 1974, at Carnegie Hall, in which John Scofield and Ron Carter participated and which was edited as Carnegie Hall Concert: Gerry Mulligan & Chet Baker. Chet Baker's death is shrouded in mystery. The police concluded that it was an accident, but there is talk of murder or suicide.

Return to europe

Soon after, Baker returned to Europe and settled in different countries, France, England and finally the Netherlands. He traveled often to Japan and from time to time to the United States. He kept recording and playing, with some periods where he disappeared from the scene for a while. In the '80s he caught the attention of some rock musicians, such as Elvis Costello, who invited him to record the trumpet on the theme Shipbuilding, against the Malvinas War. His activity is incessant; he records with French, Italian, German musicians and builds a permanent circuit in Europe. His last concert was in England on April 1, 1988. Baker's youthful appearance was replaced by a grim cowboy face, wrinkled and prematurely old. Chesney Henry Baker Jr. was born Yale, Oklahoma, on December 23, 1929; his father was a professional guitarist and Chet participated in different choirs and singing competitions in his childhood. When he was thirteen years old, his father, a great admirer of Jack Teagarden, gave him a trombone that, due to his size, he could not play; weeks later the trombone disappeared and a trumpet arrived. 'It's just that my father also liked Bix Beiderbecke,' the musician said in his memoirs. He had an enormous musical capacity, an intuitive and intelligent musician, virtues that somehow played against him in becoming a diligent student. He memorized and did not need to read, which meant that he did not finish his studies at the El Camino College Conservatory at the age of 16. He enlisted in the army twice, the first time, in 1946, he was stationed in Germany, but military life did not work out for him, although it gave him an enriching experience. Baker was married three times; Charlaine, Halima and Carol were his wives; he had four children, Chesney, with Halima, and Dean, Paul, and Melissa, with Carol. It was inevitable that the effects of a life steeped in drugs would not decline, yet strangely enough the music of Chet's later years was imbued with a sweetness and an almost architectural order, a true paradox in the face of a life totally messy. Chet Baker is buried in the Inglewood Park Cemetery in California, next to his father. Baker dixit: “I get the feeling that most people are impressed by just three things: how fast you play, how high-end you get, and how loud and loud you bring out of the instrument. This is a bit infuriating to me, but I'm much more experienced now and have come to understand that probably not even two per cent of the public can hear properly. When I say I mean the ability to follow a trumpeter and discern his ideas.

With Enrico Rava

Italian trumpeter Enrico Rava met Chet Baker in the 1970s. One of the musicians who knew Chet Baker best was the Italian trumpeter Enrico Rava. 'When Chet wasn't playing he was at home in Torino and there I was, trying to say something clever or surprise him with some witty remark. Nothing ever came of it; he would just look at him and nod when he made a joke or something like that,' the Italian said. He remembered that when he would ask him a question about technique, Chet had no idea how to convey this or that idea to him. 'He was self-taught, like me, so he only knew how to play the songs, but not how he did it. He felt that he was quite frustrated that he couldn't explain how he played them,' he said. According to Rava, he often sang more than he played because of a persistent cold sore on his lip that made life miserable. 'It was very painful but he neither complained nor stopped his performances, but he could hardly play the trumpet,' he recalled. To Rava, Chet was special. He could be very sweet and warm, but the dire need for money to support his addiction made him, at times, unscrupulous. “I think I could kill you for a few coins”, and he recounted his experience with that side of Baker: “One afternoon I came home with a personal recorder, they were one of the first to be launched on the market and he was precisely at home. It was a beautiful device and we spent the whole afternoon trying it out. I had to go play and he stayed. Upon my return, he had left with the recorder, ”recalled the musician. “Unfortunately, drugs did not allow him to manage his career so that he could have some financial peace of mind. The day to day was all she could plan. He came to touch the cap in the streets of Rome ', concluded Rava.

A documentary as a requiem

On September 15, 1988, four months after his death, Let's Get Lost, the documentary dedicated to Chet Baker, directed and produced by photographer Bruce Weber, premiered at the Toronto Film Festival, in which he also appears of the trumpeter, his third wife, Carol Baker, pianist Russ Freeman and photographer William Claxton, among others. The film traces an arc between the musician of the fifties, young and successful, and the one of the eighties, struck by the long-standing addiction to heroin and virtually forgotten by the music business. A contrast between that James Dean and the sleazy-looking cowboy he had become. A documentary that was being filmed when Baker died. Read the full article

#sheetmusicdownload #sheetmusicJazztranscriptions #sheetmusicscoredownloadpartiturapartitionspartitinoten楽譜망할음악ноты

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brookston · 2 years ago

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Holidays 6.9

Holidays

Accession Day (Jordan)

Bill and Ted Day

Birsa Munda Shahidi Diwas (Madhya Pradesh; India)

Clothing Poverty Awareness Day (UK)

Community Day (La Rioja, Murcia; Spain)

Coral Triangle Day

Cornflower Day (French Republic)

Denture Day

Donald Duck Day

Feast of the Birth of the White-Breasted Giantess

Filipino-Chinese Friendship Day

International Archives Day

International Batten Disease Awareness Day

International Day of Celtic Art

International Dough Disco Day

La Rioja Day (Spain)

Meezer’s Colors Day

Monkey Spank Day

Murcia Day (Spain)

National Earl Day

National Helen Day

National Heroes’ Day (Uganda)

National Krewe of Tucks Day

National Long COVID Awareness Day (Canada)

National Meal Prep Day

National Mitchell Day

National No Apologies Period Day

National Sex Day

No Apologies Period Day

Profess Your Love Day

Purple People Eater Day

Rockman Day

Senior Race Day (T.T. Bank; Isle of Man)

Toy Industry Day

Traverse Myelitis Awareness Day (UK)

World Accreditation Day

World APS Day (a.k.a. World Antiphospholipid Antibody Syndrome Day)

Writers’ Rights Day

Food & Drink Celebrations

International Dark ’n Stormy Day

Kraft Cheese Day

Strawberry Rhubarb Pie Day

2nd Friday in June

Banana Split Day (Ohio) [2nd Friday]

Kamehameha Day (Hawaii) [June 11, Unless a Weekend, then Friday before]

National Day of Prayer for Law Enforcement Officers [2nd Friday]

National Lemonade Days begin [2nd Friday]

National Marriage Day [2nd Friday]

National Movie Night [2nd Friday]

Pirate Day Friday (Australia) [2nd Friday]

Poultry Days begin (Versailles, Ohio) [2nd Friday]

Red Earth Native American Cultural Festival begins (Oklahoma) [2nd Friday thru Sunday]

World Verdejo Day [2nd Friday]

Independence Days

Flevelt (a.k.a. the Confederation of Flevelt; Declared; 2016) [unrecognized]

Självstyrelsedagen (Åland Self-Governing Day; Åland)

Feast Days

Aidan of Lindisfarne (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America)

Architects of the Middles Ages (Positivist; Saints)

Bathe in Marinara Day (Pastafarian)

Bede (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America)

Cloverfield Dairy Cow (Muppetism)

Columba of Iona (a.k.a. Columbia or Columkille; Celtic Christian) [Poets]

Edmund (Christian; Saint)

Ephrem the Syrian (Roman Catholic Church and Church of England)

James Collinson (Artology)

Jim Jones Day (Church of the SubGenius; Saint)

José de Anchieta (Christian; Saint)

Jotunheim Day (Pagan)

Liborius (Christian; Saint)

Lord Buddha's Parinirvana (Bhutan)

Pelagia (Christian; Virgin and Martyr)

Primus and Felician (Christian; Martyrs)

Ralph Goings (Artology)

Remembrance for Sigurd the Dragonslayer (a.k.a. Siegfried; Asatru/Slavic Pagan)

Richard, Bishop of Andria (Christian; Saint)

Vesalia (Feast of Vesta; Roman Goddess of the Hearth)

Vincent (Christian; Martyr)

Lucky & Unlucky Days

Shakku (赤口 Japan) [Bad luck all day, except at noon.]

Unfortunate Day (Pagan) [33 of 57]

Premieres

Bill of Hare (WB MM Cartoon; 1962)

Cars (Animated Pixar Film; 2006)

Dire Straits, by Dire Straits (Album; 1978)

The Empty Chair, by Jeffrey Deaver (Novel; 2000)

Gone in 60 Seconds (Film; 2000)

How Do I Know It’s Sunday (WB MM Cartoon; 1934)

Invisible Touch, by Genesis (Album; 1986)

Jelly-Roll Blues, recorded by Jelly Roll Morton (Song; 1924)

Kids Say th Darnedest Things!, by Art Linkletter (Humor Book; 1958)

Labour of Lust, by Nick Lowe (Album; 1979)

Loki (TV Series; 2021)

Mr. Tambourine Man, recorded by Bob Dylan (Song; 1964)

The Name of the Rose, by Umberto Eco (Novel; US Translation 1983)

A Pirate Looks at Fifty, by Jimmy Buffett (Memoir; 1998)

Party Girl (Film; 1995)

Secret, Profane & Sugarcane, by Elvis Costello (Album; 2009)

Some Girls, by The Rolling Stones (Album; 1978)

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (Film; 1989)

Stroke It Rich (Radio Game Show; 1947)

Super 8 (Film; 2011)

The Wise Little Hen (Disney Cartoon; 1934) [1st Donald Duck]

Today’s Name Days

Annamaria, Ephraim, Grazia (Austria

Diomed, Efrem, Kolumban, Ranko (Croatia)

Stanislava (Czech Republic)

Primus (Denmark)

Elar, Haljand, Hallar, Helar, Helari, Hellar (Estonia)

Ensio (Finland)

Diane (France)

Annamaria, Diana, Ephram, Grazia (Germany)

Rodanthi (Greece)

Félix (Hungary)

Efrem, Primo (Italy)

Gita, Liega, Ligita, Naula, Valeska (Latvia)

Felicijus, Gintas, Gintė (Lithuania)

Kolbein, Kolbjørn (Norway)

Felicjan, Pelagia, Pelagiusz (Poland)

Chiril (România)

Stanislava (Slovakia)

Efrén, Feliciano, Julián (Spain)

Birger, Börje (Sweden)

Cole, Coleman, Colman, Dean, Deana, Deanna, Dee, Dena, Diana, Diane, Dianna, Dianne, Dyane, Prima, Primavera (USA)

Today is Also…

Day of Year: Day 160 of 2024; 205 days remaining in the year

ISO: Day 5 of week 23 of 2023

Celtic Tree Calendar: Huath (Hawthorn) [Day 26 of 28]

Chinese: Month 4 (Ding-Si), Day 22 (Wu-Xu)

Chinese Year of the: Rabbit 4721 (until February 10, 2024)

Hebrew: 20 Sivan 5783

Islamic: 20 Dhu al-Qada 1444

J Cal: 10 Sol; Threesday [10 of 30]

Julian: 27 May 2023

Moon: 63%: Waning Gibbous

Positivist: 20 St. Paul (6th Month) [Architects of the Middles Ages]

Runic Half Month: Odal (Home, Possession) [Day 15 of 15]

Season: Spring (Day 81 of 92)

Zodiac: Gemini (Day 19 of 32)

#calendar #Holidays

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brookstonalmanac · 2 years ago

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Holidays 6.9

Holidays

Accession Day (Jordan)

Bill and Ted Day

Birsa Munda Shahidi Diwas (Madhya Pradesh; India)

Clothing Poverty Awareness Day (UK)

Community Day (La Rioja, Murcia; Spain)

Coral Triangle Day

Cornflower Day (French Republic)

Denture Day

Donald Duck Day

Feast of the Birth of the White-Breasted Giantess

Filipino-Chinese Friendship Day

International Archives Day

International Batten Disease Awareness Day

International Day of Celtic Art

International Dough Disco Day

La Rioja Day (Spain)

Meezer’s Colors Day

Monkey Spank Day

Murcia Day (Spain)

National Earl Day

National Helen Day

National Heroes’ Day (Uganda)

National Krewe of Tucks Day

National Long COVID Awareness Day (Canada)

National Meal Prep Day

National Mitchell Day

National No Apologies Period Day

National Sex Day

No Apologies Period Day

Profess Your Love Day

Purple People Eater Day

Rockman Day

Senior Race Day (T.T. Bank; Isle of Man)

Toy Industry Day

Traverse Myelitis Awareness Day (UK)

World Accreditation Day

World APS Day (a.k.a. World Antiphospholipid Antibody Syndrome Day)

Writers’ Rights Day

Food & Drink Celebrations

International Dark ’n Stormy Day

Kraft Cheese Day

Strawberry Rhubarb Pie Day

2nd Friday in June

Banana Split Day (Ohio) [2nd Friday]

Kamehameha Day (Hawaii) [June 11, Unless a Weekend, then Friday before]

National Day of Prayer for Law Enforcement Officers [2nd Friday]

National Lemonade Days begin [2nd Friday]

National Marriage Day [2nd Friday]

National Movie Night [2nd Friday]

Pirate Day Friday (Australia) [2nd Friday]

Poultry Days begin (Versailles, Ohio) [2nd Friday]

Red Earth Native American Cultural Festival begins (Oklahoma) [2nd Friday thru Sunday]

World Verdejo Day [2nd Friday]

Independence Days

Flevelt (a.k.a. the Confederation of Flevelt; Declared; 2016) [unrecognized]

Självstyrelsedagen (Åland Self-Governing Day; Åland)

Feast Days

Aidan of Lindisfarne (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America)

Architects of the Middles Ages (Positivist; Saints)

Bathe in Marinara Day (Pastafarian)

Bede (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America)

Cloverfield Dairy Cow (Muppetism)

Columba of Iona (a.k.a. Columbia or Columkille; Celtic Christian) [Poets]

Edmund (Christian; Saint)

Ephrem the Syrian (Roman Catholic Church and Church of England)

James Collinson (Artology)

Jim Jones Day (Church of the SubGenius; Saint)

José de Anchieta (Christian; Saint)

Jotunheim Day (Pagan)

Liborius (Christian; Saint)

Lord Buddha's Parinirvana (Bhutan)

Pelagia (Christian; Virgin and Martyr)

Primus and Felician (Christian; Martyrs)

Ralph Goings (Artology)

Remembrance for Sigurd the Dragonslayer (a.k.a. Siegfried; Asatru/Slavic Pagan)

Richard, Bishop of Andria (Christian; Saint)

Vesalia (Feast of Vesta; Roman Goddess of the Hearth)

Vincent (Christian; Martyr)

Lucky & Unlucky Days

Shakku (赤口 Japan) [Bad luck all day, except at noon.]

Unfortunate Day (Pagan) [33 of 57]

Premieres

Bill of Hare (WB MM Cartoon; 1962)

Cars (Animated Pixar Film; 2006)

Dire Straits, by Dire Straits (Album; 1978)

The Empty Chair, by Jeffrey Deaver (Novel; 2000)

Gone in 60 Seconds (Film; 2000)

How Do I Know It’s Sunday (WB MM Cartoon; 1934)

Invisible Touch, by Genesis (Album; 1986)

Jelly-Roll Blues, recorded by Jelly Roll Morton (Song; 1924)

Kids Say th Darnedest Things!, by Art Linkletter (Humor Book; 1958)

Labour of Lust, by Nick Lowe (Album; 1979)

Loki (TV Series; 2021)

Mr. Tambourine Man, recorded by Bob Dylan (Song; 1964)

The Name of the Rose, by Umberto Eco (Novel; US Translation 1983)

A Pirate Looks at Fifty, by Jimmy Buffett (Memoir; 1998)

Party Girl (Film; 1995)

Secret, Profane & Sugarcane, by Elvis Costello (Album; 2009)

Some Girls, by The Rolling Stones (Album; 1978)

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (Film; 1989)

Stroke It Rich (Radio Game Show; 1947)

Super 8 (Film; 2011)

The Wise Little Hen (Disney Cartoon; 1934) [1st Donald Duck]

Today’s Name Days

Annamaria, Ephraim, Grazia (Austria

Diomed, Efrem, Kolumban, Ranko (Croatia)

Stanislava (Czech Republic)

Primus (Denmark)

Elar, Haljand, Hallar, Helar, Helari, Hellar (Estonia)

Ensio (Finland)

Diane (France)

Annamaria, Diana, Ephram, Grazia (Germany)

Rodanthi (Greece)

Félix (Hungary)

Efrem, Primo (Italy)

Gita, Liega, Ligita, Naula, Valeska (Latvia)

Felicijus, Gintas, Gintė (Lithuania)

Kolbein, Kolbjørn (Norway)

Felicjan, Pelagia, Pelagiusz (Poland)

Chiril (România)

Stanislava (Slovakia)

Efrén, Feliciano, Julián (Spain)

Birger, Börje (Sweden)

Cole, Coleman, Colman, Dean, Deana, Deanna, Dee, Dena, Diana, Diane, Dianna, Dianne, Dyane, Prima, Primavera (USA)

Today is Also…

Day of Year: Day 160 of 2024; 205 days remaining in the year

ISO: Day 5 of week 23 of 2023

Celtic Tree Calendar: Huath (Hawthorn) [Day 26 of 28]

Chinese: Month 4 (Ding-Si), Day 22 (Wu-Xu)

Chinese Year of the: Rabbit 4721 (until February 10, 2024)

Hebrew: 20 Sivan 5783

Islamic: 20 Dhu al-Qada 1444

J Cal: 10 Sol; Threesday [10 of 30]

Julian: 27 May 2023

Moon: 63%: Waning Gibbous

Positivist: 20 St. Paul (6th Month) [Architects of the Middles Ages]

Runic Half Month: Odal (Home, Possession) [Day 15 of 15]

Season: Spring (Day 81 of 92)

Zodiac: Gemini (Day 19 of 32)

#Holidays

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buckgooter · 2 years ago

Photo

Time flies. It sure does. This photo of us from 2007 was taken while we were recording in our practice shed with Jim Nipe. We wrote our song list on the wall of the space during this phase. One song on the list that we probably only "played" once was called "Ghost Brain". The only evidence of it is scrawled on the wall and in my memory. When I was putting together the new Buck Gooter album, I remembered the name of this long lost song and decided to use it for the album title. "Time Flies" was a poem of Terry's that he was quite fond of. He would often scrawl this verse on venue walls or leave it on notes at places we stayed on the road. A pastor thought that poem was brilliant and used it in a sermon once, much to Terry’s heretical delight. One step closer to the TT cult we all desperately need… What a revelation it was to hear him singing "Time Flies"! Terry's vocal was snipped from a buried poetry reading video and I put the instrumental together using mostly the Mellotron. The beat was TT style and the rest was new for me but seemed right. Oliver’s bass playing hit the nail on the head and has a real Gallup to it, if you know what I mean.

The cover for the single is the same image as the back of the LP sleeve and it's a photo by Morgan Garrett of us watching Todd's shadowplay in Oklahoma City. This image was a deep inspiration for the record. We're caught staring into the beyond here. I wonder what we saw?

Listen to "Time Flies" all over the web and secure a physical copy of it in super limited LP format, or CD/cassette, at https://buckgooter.bandcamp.com/track/time-flies !! There's a fly in my ice cream The ice cream melts but not the fly

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newmusicradionetwork · 2 years ago

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Jody Miller’s Final Album Wayfaring Stranger Available Today On Heart of Texas Records

Heart of Texas Records is excited to announce Jody Miller’s latest release ‘Wayfaring Stranger-The Final Recordings.’ This six-song collection is the final recording project from Grammy Award Winner Jody Miller and even includes a re-recording of her biggest record. Jody Miller, a versatile singer with a rich, resonant voice who won a Grammy Award for “Queen of the House,” a homemaker’s reply to a hobo’s refrain, died on October 6, 2022, at her home in Blanchard, Oklahoma. She was 80 years old. Although lauded for her recordings in the folk, pop, patriotic and Gospel genres, her most consistent success came in the field of country music, where she notched six Top 10 Hot Country hits out of her 30 Billboard charting singles, including her Grammy-nominated cross-over version of “He’s So Fine.” It was Jody Miller’s intention to record a project primarily of songs that she had enjoyed performing throughout her illustrious career, but never had the opportunity to record. She entered the Heart of Texas Recording Studio in Brady, Texas, and recorded the old-time spirituals “Wayfaring Stranger” and “Tramp On The Street.” Miller recalled hearing both of these songs as a child growing up and cited Molly O’Day’s version of “Tramp On The Street” as one of her favorite versions of the classic. The song “I Can’t Even Walk Without You Holding My Hand” became a personal favorite and testimony of Miller, especially during the last few years of her life. Written in 1974, by Colbert and Joyce Croft, the lines “I can’t even walk without You holding my hand. The mountain’s too high and the valley’s too wide. Down on my knees, I learned to stand. And I can’t even walk without You holding my hand” gave inspiration to Miller as she struggled with a debilitating disease. “For the past several years, I’ve been dealing with the effects of Parkinson’s Disease,” Miller wrote in July of 2022. “Through God’s grace and help of my family and close friends, I have been able to complete this project. Although I wish I had been stronger, I am so happy and grateful to share the messages of faith and inspiration conveyed through the words and music of most of these songs. I pray that they will be an encouragement to you.” Miller also included a new song “Blessed Are The Believers, and asked her long-time friend and fellow label mate Tony Booth to duet with her on the record. Miller and Booth were originally label mates on Capitol Records, and each spent a lot of time touring on the West Coast. Miller’s friend Bill Lorance, a confidante of fellow Oklahoma music legend Kay Starr, presented Yvonne DeVaney’s country song “My Exes” to Miller, and she immediately decided to include it on the “Wayfaring Stranger” project. Jody Miller concluded the project with a re-recording of her greatest hit, “Queen of The House,” the song that literally changed her life. Released in 1965, the song is based on Roger Miller’s monster #1 hit from early 1965, “King of the Road.” The song would garner Miller a Grammy Award and became her signature record that propelled her into Country Music, so it is very fitting that she ended her recording career by leaving her fans another version of this classic. The musicians included Michael Archer and Justin Trevino on bass, Deena Auderegg and Emily Gimble on piano, Justin Trevino on rhythm guitar, Charlie Walton on lead guitar, Jim Loessberg on pedal steel and drums, RJ Smith and Robert Weeks on fiddle and Jennifer McMullen and Jody Miller on harmony vocals. It was recorded at the Heart of Texas Recording Studio in Brady, Texas, and produced by Justin Trevino. The album liner notes include a heartfelt farewell message to Miller’s fans, as she knew this was to be her final recording project: “So now, I simply say, ‘thank you, my friends’ for allowing me, through the gift of song, to be a part of your lives for all these years.” “We felt privileged to work with Jody professionally for many years,” Heart of Texas Records President Tracy Pitcox said. “We were indeed honored that she chose Heart of Texas Records as the label to record her final project. She was the ultimate professional, and her remarkable career will forever be remembered and cherished by fans all over the world.” To order ’Wayfaring Stranger,’ visit heartoftexascountry.com or call (325) 597-1895. Read the full article

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blurred-cat · 9 months ago

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OML i'm trying to respond on the saddest wifi connection in the world! wanted to say thanks and i value your thoughts! i love seeing musical discussion because there's so many different perspectives. there's as many as there are people. another friend of mine loves certain songs from the album that i absolutely can't stand LMAO

i do gotta clarify that i meant Shitpost/Sharknado in a non derogatory manner! it was very complimentary! Terrible in a, "i have to listen to this again and again because i love it"

I watch Sharknado every few months with love in all my heart and soul and it's terrible (affectionate)

Alsp, have you heard the concept of "jumping the shark"? essentially i see sweet honey buckin as a shark jump!

the pure and unashamed ability to just make what one wants regardless of how it may be received or the opinions on it or the outside influence going into it. It's an abstract painting.

throwing together a lot of elements that would not be "expected" to be combined.

that song is my top 5 for a reason and it is because i love it. not because of "irony" or anything like that. i admire its boldness. i love listening to it. i'm also buckin. Woah.

but here's a bit more info you might've missed to help deepen the appreciation of that particular song a lil more!

To start, the initial song SWEET is a rehash of the song "I Fall To Pieces" by Patsy Cline, which is a classical country song from the 70s. it's pretty underrated but was very raw in its emotion. One of the most simple and straightforward country songs.

Shaboozey has been mixing country and trap beats for most of his career. if you want more, he's a good point to listen to. dude is hella underrated. I'd say his influence as inspiration is all throughout this album.

so the "Sweet" portion mentions "Coming Home" which is a very on the nose reference to Homecoming, for beyonce. She made a tour and documentary by the same name. It's a call back but also more literal in the album context, which means returning to Houston in this song. More on that in a couple paragraphs lmao.

the Honey portion of the song was a flashback/reimagining of her song PURE/HONEY from the album she released before this. it was very overtly sexual in the previous iteration, and the stylistic choice of vocals she uses in this version, is a play on how such sexuality was often "disguised" in such vocals in previous "eras" of music.

the BUCKIN portion is reference to the AAVE usage of the word as a slang term which means "willing to fight/threatening violence" and it is set to a New Jersey Club beat (Pharell Williams had a strong hand in the composition of the song and he's known for making such compositions from back during his days with N.E.R.D.).

i can only speculate about this bit i'm about to mention but, given that the album's songs are a deliberate and direct reference to the Chitlin Circut, aka the few venues across the country where Black performers were allowed to perform during Jim Crow era and 1930's up until/durin the civil rights movement, i'd guess the New Jersey Club Beat is tying in the Northern portion of the Chitlin Circut, as venues in Maryland/Delaware/New Jersey also played a part in it.

Houston was also a very notable member of the Chitlin Circut. "Coming home" in the context of the album, if one looks at the track list, is literally arriving back in Houston after completing a tour Away from Texas (this ain't texas - Possibly Oklahoma), Tennessee (Jolene), Florida (Alliigator Tears), Oh (Louisiana) Been Away Too Long, Flamenco (New Mexico/East Texas), Mississippi (Riverdance), II HANDS (Arizona, coyotes run wild), etc. etc.

I'm sure the Bey Hive Scholars could pinpoint more Chitlin Circut locales than I have. But yeah!

The "Look at That Horse" line is possibly a reference to what we say in the black community in the south about weaves and lace fronts and wigs- that it is horse hair. "Dining on farce" further adds to this implication. As the hair is a farce. She follows it up by counter arguing against that assumption in, again, in an intercultural manner by saying it's all natural. Beyonce has been criticized for having long nlonde hair for all of her career. In the black community, it's often assumed to be false. Horse hair. Look at that horse.

If you can't tell i'm really in love with this album. also the album art is a direct reference to rodeo queens. she's sitting side saddle, which was associated with women of high status as well. Rodeo Queen = Queen Bey. it's right there. She grabbed it. She's a clever girl, she said so herself.

💜 u and have a good week!!

My Top 5 from Cowboy Carter

(Just in case anyone was curious) Riverdance + II HANDS II HEAVEN (played together for an even better listening experience. it's brought me to tears lmao) Alligator Tears (I'm seeing this one being slept on a bit lmao. it's getting lost in the mix because there's 25 fucking tracks but it's such a good song wtf.) Bodyguard (Holy shit what a groove!! NO OTHER NOTES! GROOVE!) SWEET ★ HONEY ★ BUCKIIN' (this one is so goofy that i both hate it and love it at the same time it's sharknado for me. look at that horse. 🐎🐴🐎. I love this song.)

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ascendingtostardust · 3 years ago

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Abba - Arrival

Amy Winehouse - Back to Black

Barbara Streisand - Stoney End

Beatles - Sgt. Pepper

Beatles - The Red Album

Blood, Sweat, and Tears - 3

Billie Eilish - Happier Than Ever

Billy Joel - The Stranger

Bing Crosby - Merry Christmas

Bob Dylan - Real Live

Brandi Carlile - In These Silent Days

Bruce Springsteen - Born to Run

Bruce Springsteen - Greetings From Asbury Park NJ

The Byrds - Untitled

The Byrds - Mr. Tambourine Man

Carole King - Rhymes and Reasons

Carole King - Music

Carpenters - Close To You

Carpenters - Horizon

Carpenters - Passage

Carpenters - Ticket To Ride

Carpenters - A Song For You

Carpenters - Christmas Portrait

Charlie Byrd - Aquarius

Claudine - The Look of Love

Crosby, Stills, and Nash - Self Titled

Daisy Jones & The Six - Aurora

Dan Fogelberg - The Innocent Age

Dan Fogelberg - Netherlands

Dan Fogelberg - Phoenix

Dave Mason & Cass Elliot - Self Titled

Deep Purple - Perfect Strangers

Diana Ross and The Supremes - Greatest Hits

Dolly Parton - Best of Dolly Parton

Dolly Parton/Kenny Rogers - Once Upon a Christmas

Duane Eddy - Lonely Guitar

Eagles - One Of Those Nights

Elton John - Honky Chateau

Elvis Presley - Blue Hawaii

Elvis Presley - Elvis’ Golden Records

Emmylou Harris - Quarter Moon In a Ten Cent Town

Erin Rae - Lighten Up

Etta James - At Last

Eydie Gorme - Don’t Go To Strangers

Fleet Foxes - Self Titled

Fleetwood Mac - Rumors

Fleetwood Mac - Self Titled

Fleetwood Mac - Tusk

Florence & The Machine - Dance Fever

Four Seasons - 2nd Vault of Golden Hits

Gallery - Nice To Be With You

Gladys Knight and The Pips - Silk n’ Soul

Greta Van Fleet - Black Smoke Rising

Greta Van Fleet - From The Fires

Greta Van Fleet - Anthem Of The Peaceful Army

Greta Van Fleet - The Battle At Gardens Gate

Greta Van Fleet - Live From Los Angeles

The Grass Roots - Golden Grass

Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds - Self Titled

Harry Styles - Fine Line

Houndmouth - Good For You

Ida Mae - Click Click Domino

Jackson 5 - ABC

Jethro Tull - Stand Up

Jim Croce - Time In A Bottle

Jim & Ingrid Croce - Another Day, Another Town

Joan Baez - Where Are You Now, My Son?

Joan Baez - Come From The Shadows

Josh Baez - Diamonds and Rust

Joan Baez - From Every Stage

Joan Baez - One Day At a Time

Joan Baez - Any Day Now

Joan Baez - Blessed Are…

Joan Baez - Noel

John Denver - Greatest Hits

John Denver - Greatest Hits Vol. II

John Denver - Seasons Of The Heart

John Denver - An Evening With John Denver

John Denver - Poems, Prayers, and Promises

John Denver - Farewell Andromeda

John Denver - Rhymes & Reasons

John Denver - Autograph

John Denver - Windsong

John Denver - Aerie

John Denver - It’s About Time

John Denver - Some Days Are Diamonds

John Denver - Rocky Mountain Christmas

Judy Garland - Judy

Khalid - American Teen

Lana Del Rey - Lust For Life

Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin II

Led Zeppelin - In Through The Out Door

Leslie Gore - Golden Hits

Linda Ronstadt - Greatest Hits

Lord Huron - Lonesome Dreams

Lord Huron - Strange Trails

Lord Huron - Vide Noir

Lord Huron - Long Lost

Mac DeMarco - 2

Mac Miller - The Divine Feminine

Mama Cass - Bubble Gum, Lemonade, and Something For Mama

The Mamas and The Papas - Self Titled

The Mamas and The Papas - Greatest Hits

The Mamas and The Papas - Live At The Monterey International Pop Festival

The Mamas and The Papas - People Like Us

The Mamas and The Papas - If You Can Believe Your Eyes And Ears

The Mamas and The Papas - Deliver

McKendree Spring - 3

Monkees - Headquarters

Monkees - Greatest Hits

Moody Blues - Seventh Sojourn

Moody Blues - Days Of Future Past

Moody Blues - On The Threshold Of A Dream

Moody Blues - To Our Children’s Children’s Children

Moody Blues - Every Good Boy Deserves Favour

Moody Blues - This Is The Moody Blues

Nancy Sinatra - Nancy

Oklahoma - Self Titled

The Ozark Mountain Daredevils - It’ll Shine When It Shines

Peach Pit - Being So Normal

Peter Paul and Mary - 10 Years Together

Peter Paul and Mary - In Concert

Peter Paul and Mary - Late Again

Peter Paul and Mary - Album 1700

Peter Paul and Mary - Self Titled

Peter Paul and Mary - See What Tomorrow Brings

Peter Paul and Mary - Moving

Peter Paul and Mary - In The Wind

Pink Floyd - Animals

Ricky Nelson - Ricky Sings Again

Robert Plant - Pictures At Eleven

Rolling Stones - Big Hits (High Tide And Green Grass)

Rolling Stones - Got Live If You Want It

Selena - Ones

Sierra Ferrell - Long Time Coming

Simon and Garfunkel - Bridge Over Troubled Water

Simon and Garfunkel - Greatest Hits

Smokey Robinson - Smokey

Sonny and Cher - The Wondrous World Of Sonny And Cher

Stevie Nicks - Bella Donna

Styx - Paradise Theater

Tash Sultana - Flow State

Tom Rush - Wrong End Of The Rainbow

U2 - War

Van Halen - 5150

Whitney Houston - Self Titled

Woodstock (original recordings)

Misc

2001 A Space Odyssey Soundtrack

Valley Of The Dolls Soundtrack

A Chorus Line Soundtrack

Funny Girl Soundtrack

Sound Of Music Soundtrack

My Fair Lady Soundtrack

#this took me forever but I love seeing everyone else’s and wanted to do one too #yes I do have a problem #personal

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timeless-hollywood-classics · 4 years ago

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Rhonda Fleming (born Marilyn Louis; August 10, 1923 – October 14, 2020) was an American film and television actress and singer. She acted in more than 40 films, mostly in the 1940s and 1950s, and became renowned as one of the most glamorous actresses of her day, nicknamed the "Queen of Technicolor" because she photographed so well in that medium.

Fleming was born Marilyn Louis in Hollywood, California, to Harold Cheverton Louis, an insurance salesman, and Effie Graham, a stage actress who had appeared opposite Al Jolson in the musical Dancing Around at New York's Winter Garden Theatre from 1914 to 1915. Fleming's maternal grandfather was John C. Graham, an actor, theater owner, and newspaper editor in Utah.

She began working as a film actress while attending Beverly Hills High School, from which she graduated in 1941. She was discovered by the well-known Hollywood agent Henry Willson, who changed her name to "Rhonda Fleming".

"It's so weird", Fleming said later. "He stopped me crossing the street. It kinda scared me a little bit -- I was only 16 or 17. He signed me to a seven-year contract without a screen test. It was a Cinderella story, but those could happen in those days."

Fleming's agent Willson went to work for David O. Selznick, who put her under contract.[5][6] She had bit parts in In Old Oklahoma (1943), Since You Went Away (1944) for Selznick, and in When Strangers Marry (1944).

She received her first substantial role in the thriller, Spellbound (1945), produced by Selznick and directed by Alfred Hitchcock. "Hitch told me I was going to play a nymphomaniac", Fleming said later. "I remember rushing home to look it up in the dictionary and being quite shocked." The film was a success and Selznick gave her another good role in the thriller The Spiral Staircase (1946), directed by Robert Siodmak.

Selznick lent her out to appear in supporting parts in the Randolph Scott Western Abilene Town (1946) at United Artists and the film noir classic Out of the Past (1947) with Robert Mitchum and Kirk Douglas, at RKO, where she played a harried secretary.

Fleming's first leading role came in Adventure Island (1947), a low-budget action film made for Pine-Thomas Productions at Paramount Pictures in the two-color Cinecolor process and co-starring fellow Selznick contractee Rory Calhoun.

Fleming then auditioned for the female lead in a Bing Crosby film, a part Deanna Durbin turned down at Paramount in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1949), a musical loosely based on the story by Mark Twain. Fleming exhibited her singing ability, dueting with Crosby on "Once and For Always" and soloing with "When Is Sometime". They recorded the songs for a three-disc, 78-rpm Decca album, conducted by Victor Young, who wrote the film's orchestral score. Her vocal coach in Hollywood, Harriet Lee, praised her "lovely voice", saying, "she could be a musical comedy queen". The movie was Fleming's first Technicolor film. Her fair complexion and flaming red hair photographed exceptionally well and she was nicknamed the "Queen of Technicolor", a moniker not worth much to her as she would have preferred to be known for her acting. Actress Maureen O'Hara expressed a similar sentiment when the same nickname was given to her around this time.

She then played another leading role opposite a comedian, in this case Bob Hope, in the The Great Lover (1949). It was a big hit and Fleming was established. "After that, I wasn't fortunate enough to get good directors", said Fleming. "I made the mistake of doing lesser films for good money. I was hot – they all wanted me – but I didn't have the guidance or background to judge for myself."

In February 1949, Selznick sold his contract players to Warner Bros, but he kept Fleming.

In 1950 she portrayed John Payne's love interest in The Eagle and the Hawk, a Western.

Fleming was lent to RKO to play a femme fatale opposite Dick Powell in Cry Danger (1951), a film noir. Back at Paramount, she played the title role in a Western with Glenn Ford, The Redhead and the Cowboy (1951).

In 1950, she ended her association with Selznick after eight years, though her contract with him had another five years to run.

Fleming signed a three-picture deal with Paramount. Pine-Thomas used her as Ronald Reagan's leading lady in a Western, The Last Outpost (1951), John Payne's leading lady in the adventure film Crosswinds (1951), and with Reagan again in Hong Kong (1951).

She sang on NBC's Colgate Comedy Hour during the same live telecast that featured Errol Flynn, on September 30, 1951, from the El Capitan Theater in Hollywood.

Fleming was top-billed for Sam Katzman's The Golden Hawk (1952) with Sterling Hayden, then was reunited with Reagan for Tropic Zone (1953) at Pine-Thomas. In 1953, Fleming portrayed Cleopatra in Katzman's Serpent of the Nile for Columbia. That same year, she filmed a western with Charlton Heston at Paramount, Pony Express (1953), and two films shot in three dimensions (3-D), Inferno with Robert Ryan at Fox, and the musical Those Redheads From Seattle with Gene Barry, for Pine-Thomas. The following year, she starred with Fernando Lamas in Jivaro, her third 3-D release, at Pine-Thomas. She went to Universal for Yankee Pasha (1954) with Jeff Chandler. Fleming also traveled to Italy to play Semiramis in Queen of Babylon (1954).

Fleming was part of a gospel singing quartet with Jane Russell, Connie Haines, and Beryl Davis.

Much of the location work for Fleming's 1955 Western Tennessee's Partner, in which she played Duchess opposite John Payne as Tennessee and Ronald Reagan as Cowpoke, was filmed at the Iverson Movie Ranch in Chatsworth, California, (known as the most heavily filmed outdoor location in the history of film and television). A distinctive monolithic sandstone feature behind which Fleming (as Duchess) hid during an action sequence, later became known as the Rhonda Fleming Rock. The rock is part of a section of the former movie ranch known as "Garden of the Gods", which has been preserved as public parkland.

Fleming was reunited with Payne and fellow redhead Arlene Dahl in a noir at RKO, Slightly Scarlet (1956). She did other thrillers that year; The Killer Is Loose (1956) with Joseph Cotten and Fritz Lang's While the City Sleeps (1956), co-starring Dana Andrews, at RKO. Fleming was top billed in an adventure movie for Warwick Films, Odongo (1956).

Fleming had the female lead in John Sturges's Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957) co-starring Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas, a big hit. She supported Donald O'Connor in The Buster Keaton Story (1957) and Stewart Granger in Gun Glory (1957) at MGM.

In May 1957, Fleming launched a nightclub act at the Tropicana in Las Vegas. It was a tremendous success. "I just wanted to know if I could get out on that stage – if I could do it. And I did! ... My heart was to do more stage work, but I had a son, so I really couldn't, but that was in my heart."

Fleming was Guy Madison's co star in Bullwhip (1958) for Allied Artists, and supported Jean Simmons in Home Before Dark (1958), which she later called her favorite role ("It was a marvellous stretch", she said).

Fleming was reunited with Bob Hope in Alias Jesse James (1959) and did an episode of Wagon Train.

She was in the Irwin Allen/Joseph M. Newman production of The Big Circus (1959), co-starring Victor Mature and Vincent Price. This was made for Allied Artists, whom Fleming later sued for unpaid profits.

Fleming travelled to Italy again to make The Revolt of the Slaves (1959) and was second billed in The Crowded Sky (1960).

In 1960, she described herself as "semi-retired", having made money in real estate investments. That year she toured her nightclub act in Las Vegas and Palm Springs.

During the 1950s, 1960s, and into the 1970s, Fleming frequently appeared on television with guest-starring roles on The Red Skelton Show, The Best of Broadway, The Investigators, Shower of Stars, The Dick Powell Show, Wagon Train, Burke's Law, The Virginian, McMillan & Wife, Police Woman, Kung Fu, Ellery Queen, and The Love Boat.

In 1958, Fleming again displayed her singing talent when she recorded her only LP, entitled simply Rhonda (reissued in 2008 on CD as Rhonda Fleming Sings Just For You). In this album, which was released by Columbia Records, she blended then-current songs like "Around The World" with standards such as "Love Me or Leave Me" and "I've Got You Under My Skin". Conductor-arranger Frank Comstock provided the musical direction.

On March 4, 1962, Fleming appeared in one of the last segments of ABC's Follow the Sun in a role opposite Gary Lockwood. She played a Marine in the episode, "Marine of the Month".

In December 1962, Fleming was cast as the glamorous Kitty Bolton in the episode, "Loss of Faith", on the syndicated anthology series, Death Valley Days, hosted by Stanley Andrews. In the story line, Kitty pits Joe Phy (Jim Davis) and Peter Gabriel (Don Collier) to run against each other for sheriff of Pima County, Arizona. Violence results from the rivalry.

In the 1960s, Fleming branched out into other businesses and began performing regularly on stage and in Las Vegas.

One of her final film appearances was in a bit-part as Edith von Secondburg in the comedy The Nude Bomb (1980) starring Don Adams. She also appeared in Waiting for the Wind (1990).

Fleming has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In 2007, a Golden Palm Star on the Palm Springs Walk of Stars was dedicated to her.

Fleming worked for several charities, especially in the field of cancer care, and served on the committees of many related organizations. In 1991, her fifth husband, Ted Mann, and she established the Rhonda Fleming Mann Clinic for Women's Comprehensive Care at the UCLA Medical Center.

In 1964, Fleming spoke at the "Project Prayer" rally attended by 2,500 at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, California. The gathering, which was hosted by Anthony Eisley, a star of ABC's Hawaiian Eye series, sought to flood the United States Congress with letters in support of mandatory school prayer, following two decisions in 1962 and 1963 of the United States Supreme Court, which struck down mandatory school prayer as conflicting with the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.

Joining Fleming and Eisley at the rally were Walter Brennan, Lloyd Nolan, Dale Evans, Pat Boone, and Gloria Swanson. Fleming declared, "Project Prayer is hoping to clarify the First Amendment to the Constitution and reverse this present trend away from God." Eisley and Fleming added that John Wayne, Ronald Reagan, Roy Rogers, Mary Pickford, Jane Russell, Ginger Rogers, and Pat Buttram would also have attended the rally had their schedules not been in conflict.

Fleming married six times:

Thomas Wade Lane, interior decorator, (1940–1942; divorced), one son

Dr. Lewis V. Morrill, Hollywood physician, (July 11, 1952 – 1954; divorced)

Lang Jeffries, actor, (April 3, 1960 – January 11, 1962; divorced)

Hall Bartlett, producer (March 27, 1966 – 1972; divorced)

Ted Mann, producer, (March 11, 1977 – January 15, 2001; his death)

Darol Wayne Carlson (2003 – October 31, 2017; his death)

Through her son Kent Lane (b. 1941), Rhonda also had two granddaughters (Kimberly and Kelly), four great-grandchildren (Wagner, Page, Lane, and Cole), and two great-great-grandchildren.

She was a Presbyterian and a Republican who supported Dwight Eisenhower during the 1952 presidential election.

Fleming died on October 14, 2020, in Saint John's Health Center, Santa Monica, California, at the age of 97. She is interred at Hillside Memorial Park in Culver City, California.

#rhonda fleming #classic hollywood #classic movie stars #golden age of hollywood #old hollywood #1940s hollywood #1950s hollywood #1960s hollywood #1970s hollywood

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redhatmeg · 4 years ago

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Some more musings on “Oklahoma Jim”

I’m probably reading too much into this but there seems to be a theme all throughout this album about role models and what kind of man Kid Lucky will grow up to be.

First Kid Lucky and Old Timer go to Mushroom City and Old Timer insist on Kid going to school. Then we have this exchange:

We don’t know how Kid Lucky ended up travelling with some random old prospector, but we can assume that - for some reason - he wants to hang out with Old Timer, maybe even learn how to live in the wild and search for gold. Old Timer, on the other hand, tolerates him, but he also is aware (maybe even more here than in previous Kid Lucky comic) that he needs to teach the kid how to be a good person. That is why we later hear Kid Lucky repeating Old Timer’s advices about not being a bandit.

So while he himself is going to gamble in the saloon, Old Timer sends Luke to school, so the boy would learn something useful. Kid Lucky soon finds out that the parents in the town aren’t convinced that their children need education, so Luke is the only pupil there. Angry at the fact that other kids are making fun of him, he forces them to come into class, for which he gets a reward - cards with presidents. Then the teacher tells him that she can give him more if he bring four other brothers (they are Daltons, of course).

Yes, it is, Jolly. Because this is the first time of many when your partner will catch Daltons and other “bad boys” to bring them to the authorities. Especially because Daltons are in the middle of bandit activity, namely - they stole a calf.

Obviously they won’t go without a fight and - as the members of bandit clan - they use guns... but their aim is horrendous. And Luke manages to disarm them with his slingshot, but something goes wrong and he gets knocked off. Long story short, he almost got branded but the owner of the calf came to retrieve his cuttle and distracted Daltons long enough for Luke to get his consciousness back.

Obviously, the Daltons are destinated to be bandits, just like their parents (we do learn later that Pa Dalton is in the penitentiary right now and Ma went to visit him).

When Oklahoma Jim shows up in town and meets with kids and their teacher, he makes a tremendous impression - on children and the teacher. We can see that he’s a bad guy, but he’s charming and captivating. He says that he wants to learn how to write and count, and so he joins the class. And after the classes, he teaches kids how to shoot, at the same time filling their heads with his philosophy.

Earlier we see that Oklahoma Jim kicks a little girl who wants to learn how to shoot. While she walks away, pretty angry, Jolly Jumper sees her and reflects on what is happening with his partner.

So Luke is so preoccupied with Oklahoma Jim that he both neglects Jolly and doesn’t see what kind of man Jim really is.

And Oklahoma Jim is not just a bandit; he’s a bandit that uses children in bank robbery, because the natural response of sheriff would be to not shoot at them. Luke initially takes part in the robbery but - after some Angel and Devil debate - decides to not go through with this, partly because the only thing there is in the safe, is Old Timer’s lucky nugget.

And then arrives the US marshal. An old man who is after Oklahoma Jim and wants to get him before someone else. At first Luke thinks that the man has some kind of grudge against Jim and wants to be the oneto kill him, but the marshal says it’s quite the opposite. From the way he talks about Jim and from the way Jim talks about him, one can deduce what kind of relationship those two share.

So marshal doesn’t want to kill Jim, he only wants to bring him to jail, believing that it’s better for him than let him be hanged... but he also doesn’t kill the bandits that attack him and Luke.

The marshal uses his gun to disarm the bandits... the same way Lucky Luke will be disarming his opponents in the future. This non-lethal way of dealing with enemies combined with marshal’s desire to capture Jim before anyone else (thus making sure that Jim won’t get killed), probably makes an impression on young Kid Lucky, shaping him into the kind of man he wants to be - a man who solves the situation without blood and uses his aiming skills to bring justice but not death.

And Oklahoma Jim is truly a scum of the Earth - not only recruits children to rob banks, but also goes into desert knowing full well that marshal’s eyes are sensitive to sunlight “ever since his poor wife died”. At one point he even points gun at Luke. He’s a bad man, through and through, but even after everything is over, the marshal still is determined to rather put Jim in jail, than six feet under. He would rather see him serve 125 years of prison, because that way he won’t hurt anybody, but also he himself won’t get hurt.

During the final confrontation, Luke is unable to fight Jim, because the marshal previously removed the rubber band from his slingshot, but the kid does something else - to even the chances he throws sand into Jim’s eyes. That makes Oklahoma Jim angry, obviously, and he is ready to kill Luke... but he is shot, seemingly by Joe Dalton (who aimed at Kid Lucky).

This time marshal is ready to shoot Daltons, but their disastrous aim causes him to lose pants and holster. So Luke intervenes.

For the first time in his life Lucky Luke prevented Daltons from killing someone... but he also prevented others from killing them. And, it turns out that Oklahoma Jim is alive - Joe’s bullet was stopped by one of the sheriff stars Jim was keeping in his pocket.

He is brought to jail.

Alas, Oklahoma Jim escapes with help of a school teacher who has a crush on him. The marshal resumes his hunt once again.

But the important thing is that marshal serves as a role model to Kid Lucky - whenever either of them realize it or not. In the end, Kid Lucky doesn’t become a prospector like Old Timer nor a “free-spirit” bandit like Oklahoma Jim, but a law enforcer like the US marshal he met once.

#redhatmeg muses #Kid Lucky #lucky luke #oklahoma jim

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myrecordcollections · 4 years ago

Audio

From LA country-rock group Southwind, who were originally from Oklahoma and are largely remembered as the first band of songwriter John ("Moon") Martin, who later reemerged as a neo-retro rocker in the New Wave era... Here is is in earlier days, making the hippie scene down in SoCal... At the time, though, he wasn't the band's main songwriter, with keyboardist Fontaine Brown and bass player Jim Pulte doing most of the writing. Fontaine Brown was the most accomplished member of the band, having worked with rock'n'roller Del Shannon for several years, as well as some early stuff with Bob Seger in the late '60s; he later hooked up with Dave Edmunds, and had some success as a songwriter in Nashville. (Pulte, it should be noted, also recorded a couple of solo albums after Southwind broke up, and did a little session work, though he mostly seems to have faded from the scene...)

#Dynamite #Southwind #Rock #70s #What A Place To Land #Blues Rock

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watusichris · 4 years ago

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Leon Russell Au Naturel

When Les Blank’s A Poem is a Naked Person, his long-suppressed feature about Leon Russell, was finally exhumed some years back, I wrote about the film for the Night Flight web site. The story has since been scoured from the web. The film is airing Monday on TCM at the ungodly hour of 7:15 a.m. PT, as part of its Labor Day music movie marathon, so I decided to dig up my old piece and re-post it to supply some back story. It’s quite a picture, but it is not for the impatient or the squeamish. ********** Virtually unseen for more than 40 years, A Poem is a Naked Person, Les Blank’s portrait of Leon Russell, receives a formal Los Angeles premiere on July 8 with a screening at the Theatre at the Ace Hotel; a week of showings at Cinefamily, under the auspices of Allison and Tiffany Anders’ Don’t Knock the Rock Festival, commences on July 10. The reason for the picture’s long suppression is simple: Russell and his Shelter Records partner Denny Cordell commissioned Blank to make a promotional movie, and he gave them an art film, and not a flattering one at that. Therein lies a very interesting rub.

Some slightly convoluted back story is necessary. By 1972, when Blank was hired to create his portrait of the musician, guitarist-keyboardist-songwriter Russell had risen to a position of commercial eminence after years as one of L.A.’s top studio guns. Graduating from work in the house band of the weekly TV rock showcase Shindig! and record dates with such diverse clients as Phil Spector, the Byrds, and Herb Alpert, the Tulsa-born musician moved into the spotlight as musical director for Delaney and Bonnie Bramlett’s stomping R&B- and gospel-infused group and Joe Cocker’s huge, circus-like Mad Dogs & Englishmen unit.

Dubbed “The Master of Time and Space,” Russell began a fruitful label partnership with British producer Cordell with the inauguration of Shelter in 1970, a year before a high-profile appearance in the house band at George Harrison’s Concert For Bangla Desh. He bumped into the U.S. top 20 with his second solo album in 1971, but the 1972 LP Carney soared to No. 2 and spawned the No. 11 single “Tight Rope,” which was animated by Russell’s rolling keyboard work and rough yet affecting singing. The three-LP concert collection Leon Live would reach the top 10 and cement his position as a solo star in 1973.

Russell and Cordell doubtlessly envisioned a conventional feature surveying the musician’s stage show and sessions for a forthcoming country album when, on the recommendation of the American Film Institute, they commissioned Blank. By then active in Northern California for a dozen years, the director had made his rep with earthy short features about a pair of Texas musicians, bluesman Lightnin’ Hopkins (The Blues According to Lightnin’ Hopkins, 1968) and songster Mance Lipscomb (A Well Spent Life, 1971).

For nearly two years, Blank and his collaborator Maureen Gosling set up shop at Russell’s home and studio complex on a lake outside Tulsa, where they filmed the performer at work and play, and also cut their footage of Louisiana zydeco musicians Clifton Chenier and Boisec Ardoin into the pungent short films Hot Pepper and Dry Wood. The filmmakers humped their gear to gigs in Anaheim, New Orleans, and Austin, and to studio rehearsals at Bradley’s Barn in Nashville for the album Hank Wilson’s Back, the sincere and soulful 1973 country project that bewildered his core fans, essentially marking the end of Russell’s tenure as a top-flight rock attraction.

After an abortive attempt to screen A Poem is a Naked Person at the 1974 Cannes Film Festival – the print wasn’t ready – Russell and Cordell basically put the feature on semi-permanent ice, allowing it to be screened only by permission, with Blank in attendance. It remained an elusive commodity until the director’s death in 2013. At the urging of Blank’s son Harrod, Russell reconsidered the matter of its availability; a screening at this year’s South By Southwest Film Festival prefaced a national theatrical release, and a DVD from the Criterion Collection, distributor Janus Films’ home video line, is anticipated.

Russell has long been mum about his reasons for keeping the picture out of circulation; queried in recent interviews, he has glibly replied, “I don’t know,” or “I don’t remember.” But it seems obvious that the producers’ intentions and the filmmakers’ execution were widely divergent. If Russell and Cordell thought they were going to get a puffy documentary that would push their product, they were sorely disappointed.

A Poem is a Naked Person bears a striking resemblance, in style if not entirely in content, to a pair of quite radical contemporaneous films. The most obvious analog is Cocksucker Blues, Swiss-born photographer and indie filmmaker Robert Frank’s notorious backstage look at the Rolling Stones’ 1972 U.S. tour; a jumpy saturnalia of sexual escapades, heroin abuse, and hotel-room boredom, with occasional concert footage, it scandalized the band, who have enforced restrictions similar to those imposed on Blank’s movie upon its exhibition. Photographer William Eggleston’s long-gestating Stranded in Canton, which features pianist Jim Dickinson and musician/bank robber Jerry McGill among its cast of Memphis and New Orleans weirdoes and eccentrics, was shot on portable video equipment ca. 1973 and finally cut into something resembling finished form by Bluff City writer-documentarian Robert Gordon in 2005. It’s an incandescent rebel depiction of life on the distant fringes of art and music.

Frank’s and Eggleston’s highly personalized, jaggedly edited, impressionistic features, brimming with often appalling extra-musical incident, don’t fit the description of what we’ve come to call “music documentaries,” and neither do Blank’s pictures. The best-known films the director made before his encounter with Russell, though they boast musicians (Hopkins and Lipscomb) as their central figures, likewise operate well beyond the parameters of conventional music docs. Though there is a good deal of music-making and ass-shaking in them, they are at heart about the communities in which the music was made, with their indigenous landscapes, customs, cuisines, and spiritual concerns. An observer of folklife at heart, Blank was an unlikely, even incongruous, candidate to make a movie about a rock star – essentially, an industrial film for music consumers.

Like the subjects of Blank’s earlier films, Russell is witnessed at home a good deal, and the director slathers his film with super-saturated images of local color shot in and around the musician’s Oklahoma base – a pow-wow of the Tulsa Indian Club, a tractor pull, a holiday parade, a literal wild-goose chase, the implosion demolition of Tulsa’s ancient (and perfectly named) Bliss Hotel. But Russell – prematurely gray, long-haired and bearded, always bearing a glazed, slightly stoned mien -- appears before us as a man without a country, almost an alien, dislocated from his roots, ferried to his far-flung gigs in long limousines as black as hearses.

As a protagonist, Russell most resembles the central figure in a later Blank production, 1982’s Burden of Dreams. That unsettling feature follows the chaotic production of German director Werner Herzog’s film Fitzcarraldo in the heart of the Peruvian Amazon. The reckless and megalomaniacal filmmaker is seen slowly coming apart as, cut off entirely from civilization, he single-mindedly pursues his quixotic and extremely hazardous project, which entails the climactic hauling of a 20-ton boat up a steep incline; by the film’s end, Herzog appears as mad as the lunatic hero of his saga, who longs to build an opera house for Enrico Caruso in the middle of the jungle. Though Russell is never depicted in extremis, as Herzog is, Blank implies that, unlike the Southern musicians the director depicts so affectionately and respectfully, the Oklahoman is like Herzog also a man who has drifted too far from his native shore.

Music plainly is what brings Russell alive; it is at the heart of A Poem is a Naked Person, and it is often splendid, a saving grace. There are lovely cameos by George Jones (playing “Take Me” solo in Russell’s home studio) and Willie Nelson (essaying “Good Hearted Woman” at a gig in Austin, and accompanying fiddler “Sweet” Mary Egan on “Orange Blossom Special”). Several truncated yet forceful performances by Russell’s road band – augmented by a gospel-styled quartet, Blackgrass, led by Rev. Patrick Henderson – are on view. In one simple yet eloquent sequence, Russell’s deeply felt cover of Hank Williams’ “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry” plays under footage of clouds drifting across the face of the moon, as they do in Williams’ lyrics; it’s obvious, but nonetheless affecting.

One of the bleaker streaks in the film can be found in some of the sequences shot during the sessions for Hank Wilson’s Back in Nashville. These scenes are not totally bereft of a certain joy: Russell takes obvious delight in the expertise of his A-Team accompanists. One delicious scene finds him in an awed duet with Charlie McCoy, a secret hero of Bob Dylan’s Nashville-based albums from Blonde On Blonde to Self Portrait; the bespectacled McCoy looks like an accountant on his way to a tee time, and he plays and sings his ass off. But some of the other Music City studio gunslingers’ envy of and contempt for their contractor – like themselves a session guy, but one who has hit the jackpot – is scarcely concealed. Hotshot pianist David Briggs – whose obscene rendition of the Beatles’ “Lady Madonna” was expurgated in later prints of the film at Russell’s insistence – says at one juncture, in a blatant dig at his session boss, “I’m the guy they call when you can’t do your own fucking piano work.”

There is also an ugly confrontation in the Nashville studio with folk singer-songwriter Eric Andersen, who was apparently barred from entering the facility for his own session by Russell’s security staff. Russell belittles and insults Andersen with an arrogant rocker’s noblesse oblige, drily telling him, “You write some very beautiful goddamn songs,” which prompts the reply, “You’re jiving.” For his part, Andersen voices skepticism about the legitimacy of Russell’s onstage thunder: “I couldn’t tell if you’re a revivalist man, trying to put something over, where it was coming from.” You find yourself asking if Blank may not harbor the same doubt.

Blank ladles further darkness, grotesquerie, and bile over the proceedings throughout. Using non-linear, densely layering techniques pioneered in the ‘60s by French New Wave director Jean-Luc Godard – whose ironic quote, “The day of the director is dead,” is seen on the film’s concluding title card, below Blank’s credit – the filmmaker atomizes the action, or comments on it, using a vocabulary of startling jump cuts, head-spinning juxtapositions, and dialog rendered as on-screen legends (“GET THOSE GOD DAMN CAMERAS OFF US”).

Thus, in one extraordinary sequence, footage of a wasted concertgoer being ejected from one of Russell’s gigs is intercut with shocking shots of a boa constrictor killing and devouring a baby chick. (The snake is the “pet” of artist Jim Franklin, who is seen elsewhere adorning the bottom of Russell’s swimming pool, after coolly collecting scorpions off its walls.) In another scene, a snippet of fiddler Johnny Gimble improvising a lively solo in the studio is abruptly interrupted by the screaming freakout of a bare-chested young man on a very bad acid trip in an unidentified hotel room.

Blank seems to imply that for all the tambourine shaking and Chautauqua-tent fervor of his sound, Russell makes music that only mimes the spiritual core of its sources. Nowhere is this more apparent than in a ragged jump cut from minister-musician Henderson playing at a Pentecostal church service to his group Blackgrass rocking the praise at one of Russell’s shows. The first performance, Blank suggests, is about true religion of the most devout order – the real thing, as it were -- while the second is no more than entertainment.

In the end, Blank says without a flinch, this music is about the dollars. At one point he trains his camera on a teenage hitchhiker outside one of Russell’s shows; with a guitar slung on his back and a cardboard sign reading, “Oklahoma City” in his hand, the deluded kid says, “I wanna make it in Hollywood like Leon does – make a million dollars playin’ gee-tah.” The most damning exchange in the entire picture comes when an acquaintance poses a question to Russell after his performance at a friend’s wedding. Russell repeats the question – “If I didn’t get paid for singing, wouldn’t I sing?” – and leaves it hanging in the air, unanswered.

One can easily understand why Russell and Cordell were mortified, even horrified, by Blank’s film and sat on it for four decades. A Poem is a Naked Person used the language of cinema to subvert the film’s intended purpose as a self-glorifying sales tool. Instead, it ended up being a probing and dialectical work that used Russell’s music much as Godard himself employed the Rolling Stones’ music (far less effectively or coherently) in his Sympathy For the Devil. As it often has over the course of time, great art – and Blank’s movie definitely qualifies as such – operates at cross-purposes to a patron’s wishes.

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nuclearblastuk · 5 years ago

Video

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NILE | RELEASE LYRIC VIDEO FOR 'SNAKE PIT MATING FRENZY', 'VILE NILOTIC RITES' OUT NOW, CURRENTLY ON US TOUR W/ TERRORIZER

Technical death metal Egyptologists NILE are proud to release their ninth album, 'Vile Nilotic Rites,' today via Nuclear Blast. In celebration of the release the band offer fans the lyric video for the song, 'Snake Pit Mating Frenzy.' Watch here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jt29cBn9ppk Karl Sanders comments, "The arrival of the release day of 'Vile Nilotic Rites' is the long-awaited culmination of not only years of passionate, dedicated work from everyone involved, but also the sweeping realization, the promised land of the collective hopes and expectations of our fans. In truth, this day of deliverance is also their day, not just ours. NILE fans have always been loyal and supportive through the years, and evidenced themselves particularly so over and over during the long wait while we slaved over this album. Their eternal metal faith and encouragement were a continuous source of inspiration for us to push ourselves to make this the best NILE record we possibly could. This album has been a long time coming; but it is here at last, here at last. Thank the metal gods almighty, 'Vile Nilotic Rites' is here at last." Order 'Vile Nilotic Rites' now, here: www.nuclearblast.com/nile-vnr Listen to 'Snake Pit Mating Frenzy' and other tracks in the NB New Releases Playlists: http://nblast.de/SpotifyNewReleases / http://nblast.de/AppleMusicNewReleases More on 'Vile Nilotic Rites': 'Long Shadows Of Dread' OFFICIAL LYRIC VIDEO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXZvLIN75Fs 'Vile Nilotic Rites' OFFICIAL LYRIC VIDEO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KV3VvBBL6gI 'Vile Nilotic Rites' tracklisting: 01. Long Shadows of Dread 02. Oxford Handbook of Savage Genocidal Warfare 03. Vile Nilotic Rites 04. Seven Horns of War 05. That Which is Forbidden 06. Snake Pit Mating Frenzy 07. Revel in their Suffering 08. Thus Sayeth the Parasites of the Mind 09. Where is the Wrathful Sky 10. The Imperishable Stars are Sickened 11. We are Cursed 'Vile Nilotic Rites' was recorded and produced by Karl Sanders at Serpent Headed Studios in Greenville, South Carolina with the exception of the drums which were recorded at Esoteron Music Studios in Athens, Greece with engineering handled by Jim Touras and George Dovolos. The album was mixed and mastered by Mark Lewis at MRL Studios. For the album artwork, the band returned to artist Michał "Xaay" Loranc who has worked with the band for over 10 years.

NILE live: 'A Vile Caustic Attack Tour' w/ TERRORIZER 01.11. USA Atlanta, GA - Mass Destruction Metal Fest 02.11. USA Charlotte, NC - The Fillmore 03.11. USA Durham, NC - Motorco Music Hall 04.11. USA New York, NY - Gramercy Theatre 05.11. USA Baltimore, MD - Soundstage 06.11. USA Richmond, VA - The Canal Club 07.11. USA Philadelphia, PA - Theatre of Living Arts 08.11. USA Poughkeepsie, NY - The Chance Theater 09.11. USA Worcester, MA - Palladium 11.11. USA Pittsburgh, PA - The Crafthouse Stage & Grill 12.11. USA Westland, MI - The Token Lounge 13.11. USA Joliet, IL - The Forge 14.11. USA Milwaukee, WI - Turner Hall Ballroom 15.11. USA Minneapolis, MN - The Cabooze 16.11. USA Iowa City, IA - Wildwood BB & Saloon 17.11. USA Lincoln, NE - The Royal Grove 18.11. USA Denver, CO - Herman’s Hideway 19.11. USA Salt Lake City, UT - Liquid Joe’s 21.11. USA Seattle, WA - El Corazon 22.11. USA Portland, OR - Hawthorne Theatre 23.11. USA Sacramento, CA - Holy Diver 24.11. USA Oakland, CA - Metro Operahouse 25.11. USA Fresno, CA - Strummer’s Bar & Grill 26.11. USA West Hollywood, CA - Whisky a Go-Go 27.11. USA San Diego, CA - Brick By Brick 29.11. USA Las Vegas, NV - Backstage Bar & Billiards 30.11. USA Tempe, AZ - Club Red 01.12. USA Tuczon, AZ - The Rock 03.12. USA Albuquerque, NM - Sunshine Theater 04.12. USA Colorado Springs, CO - Sunshine Studios Live 05.12. USA Oklahoma City, OK - 89th Street 06.12. USA Dallas, TX - Trees 07.12. USA Austin, TX - Come and Take It Live 08.12. USA San Antonio, TX - The Rock Box 10.12. USA New Orleans, FL - Southport Hall 11.12. USA Orlando, FL - SoundBar 12.12. USA Lake Park, FL - The Kelsey Theater 13.12. USA Tampa, FL - The Orpheum 14.12. USA Greenville, SC - The Firmament

NILE is:

Karl Sanders | guitar, vocals

Brian Kingsland | guitar, vocals

George Kollias | drums

Brad Parris | bass

NILE online:

www.facebook.com/nilecatacombs

www.instagram.com/nile_official

www.twitter.com/nilecatacombs

www.nuclearblast.de/nile

#Nile #Vile Nilotic Rites #Snake Pit Mating Frenzy #Death Metal #Nuclear Blast

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