CHEERS to Bill and Michael in PWM, our Wyoming-based friend Irish Patti and ...... well, each of you at Cheers and Jeers. Have a fabulous weekend .... and week ahead.
ART NOTES — an exhibition commemorating the state bicentennial entitled Picturing Mississippi is at the Jackson, Mississippi Museum of Art through July 8th.
Bob Dylan in MississippiTV NOTES — the actor Mark Wahlberg revealed to Ellen DeGeneres that he plans to revive an icon from my childhood, Captain Kangaroo in the future.
CAN’T SAY that I am a fan … but it appears that France will have trouble keeping up production levels for rosé wine— with global demand up 31% in recent years.
THURSDAY's CHILD is named Mr. Boo the Hero Cat— an Ohio kitteh who alerted his family to a carbon monoxide leak from a gas boiler, enabling them to escape.
Mr. Boo the Hero CatTHE OTHER NIGHT yours truly hosted the Top Comments diary with a look at Random Musings— everything from “Democrats need a message!” to “The far-left is gaining, oh my!” to the Stanley Cup finals.
BUSINESS NOTES — an otherwise ordinary business story (Sony buying a controlling interest in a music publishing company— reminds me this company dropped the Sex Pistols in the 1970’s (after only three months) and whose name was etched in my brain by this tune sung by John “Johnny Rotten” Lydon:
They only did it 'cause of fame — who? …. EMI !!! … EMI !!! … EMI !!!!FRIDAY's CHILD is nicknamed the Fried Chicken Cat— an Indiana kitteh whose photo was taken three years ago with this booty … and hasn’t been seen again.
Indiana’s Fried Chicken CatFIFTEEN YEARS after leaving the British Commonwealth, the African nation of Zimbabwe has formally applied to re-join it, in the post Robert Mugabe era.
Note to Readers — am travelling as this is being posted; hopefully does so on time and I may not get to respond to any inquiries today.
BRAIN TEASER - try this Quiz of the Week's News from the BBC.
FATHER-SON? — the recently-deceased Italian film director and screenwriter Ermanno Olmi and Microsoft founder Bill Gates.
Ermanno Olmi (1931-2018) Bill Gates (born in 1955)......and finally, for a song of the week ............... someone who was an important part of the 1960's folk revival was born with the last name Holmes ... but everyone simply knew as Odetta - an influence to many, and someone always part of the civil rights as well as peace movements; always willing to lend a hand to her fellow musicians and missed by many, approaching ten years after her death.
The Birmingham, Alabama native moved with her family to Los Angeles at age six and began voice lessons at age thirteen. Her mother hoped she would be able to follow in the footsteps of singer Marion Anderson, but she first began performing publicly a year later with Hollywood's Turnabout Puppet Theater where she worked alongside Elsa Lanchester and whose marionette designer (Harry Burnette) later helped subsidize Odetta's voice lessons when her mother was struggling financially.
At age 19 she began a stage acting career, touring first with a Los Angeles production of Finian's Rainbow - and when she performed in San Francisco in a 1950 version of "Guys and Dolls", she discovered folk music as well as the acoustic blues of Sonny Terry, leading to her career change.
For a time she worked as a live-in housekeeper, while performing evenings as an opening act for stars such as Paul Robeson. After honing her stage performance and repertoire, her big break came in 1953: when she performed at New York's Blue Angel club (where Barbra Streisand later came to fame as well). Both Pete Seeger and Harry Belafonte became big supporters, leading to her recording her first album - playing such traditional tunes as "He's Got the Whole World In His Hands" and "John Henry". Frequently, she was accompanied on double-bass by Bill Lee - the father of filmmaker Spike Lee - who also accompanied Bob Dylan on "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue."
Her music career began to build slowly, while her acting career continued: as she performed in 1955's Cinerama Holiday plus the 1961 adaptation of William Faulkner's Sanctuary - although her most noted film came later in 1974 - in the Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman starring Cicely Tyson.
After a 1959 TV appearance with Harry Belafonte, her music career (dovetailing nicely with the folk music revival) took off: as she released a total of sixteen albums during the 1960's. Her material ranged from traditional material ("Battle Hymn of the Republic", "Take this Hammer" and "She Moved through the Fair") to Woody Guthrie tunes ("Rambling Round Your City") to the blues (with Leadbelly songs "Midnight Special" and "Cotton Fields", plus LeRoy Carr's "How Long Blues"). And she was one of the performers at the 1963 civil rights march in Washington.
But she also sang contemporary songs by her colleagues: including one of the earliest Bob Dylan tribute albums. She also recorded songs by Lennon/McCartney, Jagger/Richards, Elton John, James Taylor and even some originals.
By the dawn of the 1970's, while she still could draw a concert audience, the folk music audience had dwindled in terms of record buying. Her decision to emulate Bob Dylan in using full back-up electronic instruments also contributed to the decline.
With that, she began shifting more towards jazz and blues into the 1970's. Over time, her voice changed as well: when she began, she was considered a coloratura soprano - in maturity, she became more of a mezzo-soprano. After 1977, she released only two albums over the next twenty years, as the disco era affected her as well as many other performers.
In 1999 she released Blues Everywhere I Go - her first studio album in fifteen years, and her best-selling (and critically received) in longer than that, for which she toured world-wide in support of the album. Her last recording, 2005's Gonna Let It Shine was an album of spirituals recorded at Fordham University, which received a Grammy nomination.
She had always been a sister to her fellow folk musicians: performing at the 1968 Woody Guthrie memorial concert (and were she still alive, I know she'd be at a 100th anniversary show for him) plus a memorial show for the Irish musician Liam Clancy in June, 2008 (whom she had befriended decades earlier). Fortunately, many performers gave her a tribute concert while she was around to see it in March, 2007. By this time she was performing in a wheelchair but still touring into her 70's.
Odetta died on December 2, 2008 - four weeks short of her 78th birthday and seven weeks before she hoped to perform at the Barack Obama inaugural. She received several awards in her lifetime: in 1999, Bill Clinton presented her the National Endowment for the Arts medal, she received the Kennedy Center honors in 2004 plus a Library of Congress award in 2005. And in Martin Scorsese's 2005 Bob Dylan documentary No Direction Home - Odetta has an important place in the film.
Odetta was an influence to many (Harry Belafonte, Janis Joplin, Joan Baez, Maya Angelou and Carly Simon, for starters) ... and let's leave the last word for Bob Dylan - who had begun performing rock music in Minnesota in the late 1950's:
The first thing that turned me on to folk singing was Odetta. I heard a record of hers in a record store, back when you could listen to records right there in the store. That was in '58 or something like that. Right then and there, I went out and traded my electric guitar and amplifier for an acoustic guitar, a flat-top Gibson. Odetta Holmes in her youth ……. and in her later yearsOne song by Leadbelly that Odetta made her own was the song Gallows Pole (that was made even more popular when Led Zeppelin III was released in the autumn of 1970). It is representative of her 1960's folk songs, and below you can hear it.
Hangman, hangman, slack your rope Slack it for a while I think I see my mother coming Riding many a mileMama, did you bring me silver? Mama, did you bring me gold? Or did you come to see me hanging By the gallows pole?
I didn't bring no silver I didn't bring no gold I came to see you hanging By the gallows pole
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