I post a weekly diary of historical notes, arts & science items, foreign news (often receiving little notice in the US) and whimsical pieces from the outside world that I often feature in "Cheers & Jeers".
OK, you've been warned - here is this week's tomfoolery material that I posted.
CHEERS to Bill and Michael in PWM, our Laramie, 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 on the 1890 massacre of Lakotas at Wounded Knee entitled Takuwe is at the South Dakota Art Museum in Brookings to February 6th.
South Dakota State UniversityFILM NOTES — earlier this decade, Boris Karloff’s daughter Sara met the (now-deceased) Academy Award winner George Kennedy…. and told him that he was the only actor whose craft her father ever specifically mentioned to her:
“It brought tears to his eyes,” she said.
Kennedy told her that he’d once seen Karloff coming out of a stage door on Broadway and had wanted to talk to him, but didn’t “have the nerve.”
“You know, I’ve always regretted not doing that,” the tough guy actor told her.
“I wish you had, it would have meant so much to my father,” she told Kennedy.
“And the tears got bigger,” she said.
HAIL and FAREWELL to a native American who appears (as an ally) in an important civil rights photo from 1963, John Hunter Gray— who later became a university professor and also taught classes on UFO research— who has died at the age of eighty-four …. and also a veteran of television, film and stage, Verna Bloom— best remembered as the wife of the beleaguered Dean Wormer from the film “Animal House” of forty years ago — who has died at the age of eighty.
IT IS RATHER LENGTHY — but you can either listen to Rachel Maddow’s podcast about Spiro Agnew’s prosecution for free — or one can read the transcripts — at the above link. I was a senior in high school when it was announced … and was caught-by-surprise (albeit a happy one). But while most remember Spiro’s barb about nattering nabobs of negativism … the other line that William Safire wrote for him that is my favorite was this:
We have more than our share of the nattering nabobs of negativism. They have formed their own 4-H Club—the hopeless, hysterical hypochondriacs of history.
THURSDAY's CHILD is named Daisy Duck Bandit the Cat— a Michigan kitteh who somehow wound-up in Tampa, Florida, identified by her microchip …. now being sent home via a GoFundMe campaign.
Daisy Duck Bandit the CatBOOK NOTES — a previously unpublished story written by Sylvia Plath— when she was 20 years-old, attending Smith College and was rejected by Mademoiselle magazine in 1953 — entitled Mary Ventura and the Ninth Kingdom has been released by Faber in Britain, fifty-five years after her death.
THE REAL TEST as to whether the proposed steel border wall can be easily cut open (or not) will be if we were to borrow (from “Saudi A”) … their bone saw.
FRIDAY's CHILD is the late Sergei the Bookstore Cat— a Maine kitteh who felt lonely at home, then was brought by his family to their bookstore, where he soaked-up affection for the last few years of life.
Sergei the Bookstore CatBRAIN TEASER - try this Quiz of the Week's News from the BBC.
THE OTHER NIGHT yours truly hosted the Top Comments diary with an (updated) look at the NPR foreign correspondent Sylvia Poggioli…. and an essay she wrote for the New York Review of Books about how her parents had to flee Italy in 1938 due to someone who informed on them to the Mussolini regime, and the parallels she sees from Fascist Italy to present-day Poland and Hungary …. and more.
OLDER-YOUNGER BROTHERS? — two old TV character actors: David White (the boss of Darrin Stephens on Bewitched) and Joseph Maher (from Chicago Hope and “The Dog” episode of Seinfeld).
David White (1916-1990) Joseph Maher (1933-1988)...... and finally, for a song of the week ...........................… she had some large shoes to fill when her musician father died, but Shemekia Copeland has been up to the task. The blues circuit may not be what it once was, but this energetic singer has already been a headliner at festivals around the world, and even at the White House in recent years.
Her father was the renowned Houston, Texas blues guitarist Johnny Copelandwho moved around 1975 to New York when his career was at a lull. Shemekia was born in Harlem in 1979, and her father must have seen something in her: since he brought her on-stage at Harlem's famed Cotton Club at only age 8.
Then at age 15, her father's battles with heart disease were taking their toll, and he began taking Shemekia on tour as his opening act. She sensed that this would become her calling saying "It was like a switch went off in my head, and I wanted to sing. It became a want and a need. I had to do it."
She graduated from Teaneck (NJ) High School, and was offered a contract by Alligator Records, the noted Chicago blues label. Her first album Turn the Heat Up! came out in 1998 when she was only 19 years old - alas, her father did not live to see this, as Johnny Copeland died a year earlier.
Her style of singing is definitely influenced by veteran female blues singers (such as Koko Taylor, Etta James and especially Ruth Brown). But one also hears rock influences in her sound, as she notes Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan and John Hiatt as influences.
In an blog post no longer available, she mentioned her delight in meeting Bonnie Raitt (noting the two of them had famous musical fathers named John; John Raitt being a Broadway musical theater star) and said she had a wonderful one-hour conversation. About what? "Chick singer stuff", of course.
Meanwhile, she had opened for the Rolling Stones and began to build a recording career. Her second album Wicked - released in 2000 - featured several tunes written by her longtime songwriter John Hahn, then 2002's Talking to Strangers featured songs and accompaniment by Dr. John (who also produced it) and then in 2005 she recorded The Soul Truth - now veering into Memphis soul - with production work by Steve Cropper and guest performances by Felix Cavaliere (of the Young Rascals) and the late singer Dobie Gray. Finally, 2009 saw the release of Never Going Back - produced by Oliver Wood (the brother of Chris Wood, the bassist of Medeski, Martin & Wood).
The result is a sound that fits any blues festival yet always has new twists. She points out that her father was the first blues guitarist to travel to Africa and work with African musicians in making a record.
The year of 2012 was quite active for her: releasing the 33 1/3 - an ode to the old vinyl LP as well as her age - and featuring songs by Bob Dylan and Sam Cooke as well as her own material. She joined an all-star cast at the Apollo Theater in New York to pay homage to the late blues guitarist Hubert Sumlin and she was part of the band (along with BB King, Buddy Guy, Mick Jagger and Jeff Beck, among others) who performed at the White House - when President Obama was nudged into singing the chorus of "Sweet Home Chicago".
Her most recent album (from last summer) is America’s Child— with guest performers John Prine, Emmylou Harris and Steve Cropper (from Booker T & the MG’s) and with its theme of societal inclusion amplified by songs such as “Ain’t Got Time for Hate” and Ray Davies’ “I’m Not Like Everybody Else”.
She has won several W.C. Handy Blues Awards (for best album and female artist of the year), there is a 2011 compilation album from some of her earlier work and that same year at the Chicago Blues Festival the daughter of the Chicago blues singer Koko Taylor (who had died two years earlier) presented Shemekia with her mother's tiara as the new "Queen of the Blues".
She will turn age forty this coming April, has a sporadic touring schedule for the next few weeks, has sung with Eric Clapton, Bonnie Raitt, Keith Richards, Carlos Santana, James Cotton … and you sense that she is just hitting her stride.
In her youth (w/father Johnny) …. and in more recent yearsHer 2012 album has some pointed social commentary: one song, "Somebody Else's Jesus," challenges religious hypocrisy, urging the faithful to re-examine whether their actions match their deeply held beliefs. Another such song is Lemon Pie - which you can hear below.
The train left the station I didn’t climb aboard The price of the ticket Was too much to afford I saw that politician I know you know his name Waving from the window of that gravy trainLife is just a coal mine You’re shafted every day The boss man must have never heard That Lincoln freed the slaves So you keep on working Your face against the stone While others get the steak You get the bone
Lemon pie for the poor That’s what we’re working for I hope you weren’t expecting more Than lemon pie for the poor
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