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 of works by Dr. Charles Smith from his African-American Heritage Museum + Black Veterans Archive will be at the Kohler Arts Center in Sheboygan, Wisconsin to June 21st, 2020.
150+ works are on displayWHILE IT IS the second-poorest state in Mexico, the government of Oaxaca is trying to attract more upscale tourists — drawn by ideal surfing conditions, the local spirit Mezcal, and magic mushrooms which sprout on hillsides each June.
THURSDAY's CHILD is named Tina the Cat— an Ontario kitteh left inside a taped bin, but who recovered at a local Humane Society and will soon be adoptable.
Tina the CatCONCERT NOTES — while buying tickets to hear big-name bands is always fraught with ticket re-sellers buying in bulk to sell at hefty mark-ups — it was only this month that Billboard revealed (publicly) that bands themselves are often complicit … as concerts (which used to be loss-leaders to sell albums) are now their main source of income.
FRIDAY's CHILD is named Jack the Cat— a Washington state kitteh who was abducted from his home seven weeks ago, then found by a homeless woman in a field … enabling him to be returned home.
Jack the CatBRAIN TEASER - try this Quiz of the Week's News from the BBC.
RECENTLY when I saw the name John Paul Jones trending on Twitter .... I was relieved that it was about a Bachelorette star, and was not this fellow dying:
Led Zeppelin bass/mandolinYOUNGER-OLDER BROTHERS? — two guys named Ben: Benjamin Singleton, director of analytics for the NYPD detectives bureau (and great-great-great-great-grandson of its top officer in 1845) and right-wing pundit Ben Shapiro.
Ben Singleton (born 1991) Ben Shapiro (born 1984)...... and finally, for a song of the week ...........................… someone who had his spot in the limelight from 1945-1955 yet never lost his career was the blues singer Charles Brown— who had an easy-going blues style that fell out of mass appeal in the rock era, yet who never went out of style. Uncommon for his era in the music world, he had both classical piano training as well as a university degree in science. And while most of his hits were decades ago, he has two hits that surface each year seasonally … so he never disappears from the radio altogether.
Born as Tony Russell Brown in Texas City in 1922, he attended nearby Galveston High School and (as noted) had classical piano training. He graduated from Prairie View A&M with a degree in chemistry and taught that subject in high school before relocating to Los Angeles in 1943, playing in its Central Avenue R&B clubs. The prevailing West Coast style then was the smooth sound of Nat King Cole.
When Cole left to become a national performer, filling its void was Johnny Moore’s Three Blazers— with the bandleader on guitar, and Charles Brown becoming its pianist. From 1945-1948, they had a mellow yet more bluesier style, landing thirteen songs in the Top Ten of the R&B charts. Driftin’ Blues spent twenty-three weeks in the charts — and was later noted by the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame among its 500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll— along with “More Than You Know” as well as a 1947 single that Charles Brown reprised on his own ... a bit later.
Leaving the Blazers to form his own Charles Brown Trio in 1948, he landed another ten songs on the R&B Top Ten from just 1948-1952. Among these were Black Night (which was #1 for fourteen weeks), the first recording of the Leiber & Stoller-written Hard Times (since recorded by many musicians) and the aforementioned re-recording of a song that you can hear every December: Merry Christmas, Baby. Although credited to Andrew Griffith and Johnny Moore, it is now believed that Charles Brown actually wrote the song (based upon a Griffith earlier work).
“Hard Times” in 1952 was his last hit for several years, as his “cocktail blues” style began to fade in popularity in favor of the up-tempo, more raucous jump blues that led to the rock & roll era. He traveled to New Orleans in 1956, to record an album with studio owner Cosimo Matassa’s studio band, yet this did not prove to be a hit. While he never stopped performing, he did have to find work as a janitor to make ends meet. He reverted to a more local audience, inspiring John Lee Hooker and Lowell Fulson.
He had his last enduring hit in 1960 — another seasonal favorite, Please Come Home for Christmas— which by 1968 had enough cumulative sales to receive a gold record (and has been covered by The Eagles, Bon Jovi, Mariah Carey, Pat Benatar, James Brown, Etta James and others). But Charles Brown remained largely unnoticed for the next twenty years.
His star began to rise in the 1980’s, when Bonnie Raitt asked him to be her opening act on several tours. He began to record again, featuring his old saxophonist Clifford Solomon (who had recorded with John Mayall in the early 1970’s). His 1989 One More for the Road (a collection of ballads and standards) garnered favorable reviews and his 1990 All My Life— a more blues-oriented album — made him a popular performer again.
In 1995, a compilation Christmas album was released, and that same year Driftin' Blues: The Best of Charles Brown became an excellent compilation of his general 1945-1956 hits.
He began to receive belated recognition in the 1990’s: earning three Grammy Award nominations, induction into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1996 and receiving a Nat’l Endowment for the Arts 1997 Heritage Fellowship at a White House ceremony. In late 1998, he was voted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame (in the Early Influences category) but the March, 1999 induction ceremony would turn out to be posthumous …. as he died in January, 1999 at the age of seventy-six.
Charles Brown in the 1950’s ……. and later in the 1990’sOf all of his work: perhaps his most representative song is one from seventy years ago, Trouble Blues— which stayed at #1 on the R&B charts for fifteen weeks in 1949. It was covered in later years by Sam Cooke, Buddy Guy and John Lee Hooker ... and below you can hear the Charles Brown Trio perform it.
So many days Since you went away I always thought of you Each night and dayTrouble, trouble And its misery Is about to get The best of me
I told you my story I've sung my song About your leaving You know that's wrong
Someday, someday, my darling I won't be troubled no more
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