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 entitled Manet and Modern Beauty— with ninety of his later works — is at the Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois to September 8th.
Manet — final three weeksHAIL and FAREWELL to the veteran blues/rock bassist Larry “The Mole” Taylor— who began as a session player (performing on some Monkees hits) and later was in the bands of John Mayall and Tom Waits, but is most famous for his two long stints in Canned Heat (including at Woodstock) — who has died at the age of seventy-seven.
CHEERS to learning that with the three-year anniversary of the last documented case of polio in Nigeria — the entire continent of Africa is now officially polio-free.
THURSDAY's CHILD is named Lola the Cat— a Florida kitteh who is being returned home after a three-year absence … to be reunited with her old feline companion, Mister Kitty.
Lola the Cat reunited via microchipMY SISTER often refers to me as a Cat Whisperer — and the other night, this was borne out.
I was out for a walk in the early evening, down some side streets (with very little traffic). At times there are some kittehs ….. but who are laying down usually near their house (or under a vehicle) and if you make eye contact, you can sense the fear.
This black cat was on a lawn near the street, and so I came not-too-close to it, squatted down and in a soft voice beckoned it to come over.
This one did not flinch and — after two minutes — got up and walked over, then away …. then back to rub against my leg, then got some chin skritches … then walked away for a few feet ... then returned and repeated the previous process, two times over.
Just before I was going to walk on, the front door to the house opened, and a woman walked out. I thought she might yell at me … but instead said, “David never lets anyone pet him like that!”. And we had a nice five-minute conversation — her telling me how he got his name, that she used to volunteer at the Humane Society where I had a temp job four years ago, et al.
That’s not the first kitteh I have been able to pet that way, but a most satisfying end to my walk.
xDonald Trump is a threat to liberty in America. He has grown government, centralized power, and undermined rights. He has promoted division and contempt. He appears increasingly unstable. In 2020, we must elect someone who will restore respect for our Constitution and each other.
— Justin Amash (@justinamash) August 23, 2019FRIDAY's CHILD is named Tiger the Cat— a suburban New York kitteh who went missing eleven years ago and (as a stray) would go by an animal shelter employee’s house, but only after three years would allow her to get close … when on a hunch she used a microchip scanner, enabling a reunion with his family.
Tiger the CatTHE OTHER NIGHT yours truly hosted the Top Comments diary, which noted the death of the syndicated chess columnist Shelby Lyman (at age eighty-two) — but who achieved fame in 1972, hosting the studio analysis coverage of the legendary Bobby Fischer-Boris Spassky Match of the Century… an ad-hoc broadcast (run on a shoestring) that endeared itself to US viewers … with patrons in bars asking to switch the TV from baseball to chess and was (at the time) the highest-rated series that PBS ever had.
BRAIN TEASER - try this Quiz of the Week's News from the BBC.
SEPARATED at BIRTH — recording star Taylor Swift and Kansas cos-play artist April Gloria.
Taylor Swift (born 1989) and April Gloria (?)...... and finally, for a song of the week ...........................… although there are other rock musicians who made Detroit famous (Iggy Pop, Alice Cooper and the MC5 to name a few) my favorite was Mitch Ryder— who is still performing, though he falls into the great What If? category of rock and roll stardom. Still, he has influenced many younger musicians and deserves a second look.
Born as William Levise in Hamtramck, Michigan in 1945, he was recruited to sing back-up harmony as a teen for an African-American vocal group called The Peps, but animosities towards anything interracial in the early 60’s forced him to leave. He then fronted a band called Billy Lee & the Rivieras, who would often appear on the same bill as the just-emerging Motown bands. He then auditioned for Motown (which was eager to recruit white bands and did sign some) but was rejected because he had little original material then.
His fate changed when the Rivieras opened-up for the visiting Dave Clark Five, when they were heard by the producer of the Four Seasons, Bob Crewe. He signed the band, changed William Levise’s name to one that (supposedly) saw in a phone book and re-named his back-up band as the Detroit Wheels — in part, because there could be an action taken by The Rivieras (of “California Sun” fame).
They had immediate success in early 1966 with Jenny Take a Ride— referencing both Little Richard’s “Jenny Jenny” and Chuck Willis’ “C.C. Rider” — which was the first rock band single to ever reach #1 on the R&B charts (beating out the Young Rascals by several months). Thereafter, they did a cover version of the Righteous Brothers song Little Latin Lupe Lu (the best-selling version of this tune, reaching #17 on the charts).
Their next hit was destined to be their most memorable — a cover of a song by Shorty Long, who recorded for Motown’s minor Soul label (for less commercial blues singers) and whose best-selling song was Her Comes The Judge (which comic Pigmeat Markham made famous).
Devil With a Blue Dress reached #5 in the charts and became the band’s signature tune. They followed-up in 1967 with “Sock It to Me, Baby”— with some risqué lyrics slurred to make them less obvious. Mitch Ryder was the last person to perform with Otis Redding and his band — singing “Knock on Wood” in Cleveland in December 1967 — only to have Redding and several members of his band perish in a plane crash the following day. Still, the Detroit Wheels were spinning.
Then fate intervened again in the person of producer Bob Crewe.
Bob Crewe (193-2014) had a very successful career, writing/and or producing for the Four Seasons, LaBelle, Freddy Cannon, Lesley Gore and Roberta Flack. Yet he made the fateful decision to persuade Mitch Ryder to drop The Detroit Wheels and pursue a solo career as a more pop singer. His one hit during this experiment was a #30 cover of What Now, My Love— yes, really — and performed in Las Vegas with an orchestra. It made his career go into a tailspin.
He tried to regain his footing in 1969 by going to Memphis to record an album with Booker T & the MG’s entitled The Detroit-Memphis Experiment— and then in 1971, he re-surfaced with his original drummer John Bandanjek and a young guitarist named Steve Hunter and had a critically acclaimed album simply titled Detroit. However, both albums were issued by the Paramount Records label (owned by the Gulf & Western conglomerate) and thus received little in the way of marketing and promotion. And then, all the years on the road (coupled with substance abuse and a strained voice) led him to abandon music for several years.
He issued some minor label comeback albums later on, one of which was a major label recording from 1983, Never Kick a Sleeping Dog— produced by a long-time fan of his, John Mellencamp — which had a minor hit with a cover of the Prince tune When You Were Mine — but which also failed to regain a large audience. He found a larger audience in in Europe (and especially Germany) than in the USA, and other than a 1987 novelty satire of Iran-Contra (“Good Golly, Ask Ollie”) he has spent most of his touring in Europe since.
In more recent years, he released a Don Was-produced album The Promise in 2012 — his first US release in nearly thirty years — and his most recent album is 2018’s Detroit Breakout!— a re-working some of his old songs along with other classics — with guest appearances by fellow Motor City alumni James Williamson (of the Stooges) and Wayne Kramer (of MC5), as well as blues artists Joe Louis Walker and Arthur Adams, plus the New York Dolls’ Sylvain Sylvain, the Runaways’ Cherie Currie, Shirley King (the daughter of B.B. King).
Neither have returned him to headliner status in the US (although he is in Europe). But he remains an idol to Bruce Springsteen, Bob Seger, John Mellencamp and others, and Winona Horowitz became film star Winona Ryder as a fan of his music.
In 2005 Mitch Ryder & the Detroit Wheels were inducted into the Michigan Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and he as a solo artist four years later. And in 2011, he released his autobiography— where he revealed that John Lennon talked him down from a suicidal bad acid trip.
Mitch Ryder in the 1960’s …. and in more recent yearsMy favorite song of his is also one that he did not write: instead, a song written by Lou Reed when he was still a member of the Velvet Underground, Rock & Roll— recorded on that 1971 album Detroit — and his then-guitarist Steve Hunter later became a guitarist for Lou Reed. Mitch Ryder altered the lyrics somewhat (substituting Detroit for NYC) and below you can hear it.
Jenny said when she was five years old There was nothing going on at all Every time she turns on the radio There was nothing going down at allThen one day she finds a Detroit station She couldn't believe what she heard at all She started listening to that fine, fine music Her life was saved by rock 'n 'roll
Despite all the computations You can just listen to that rock 'n' roll station And it was all right
x xYouTube Video