Odds & Ends: News/Humor (with a "Who Lost the Week?" poll)

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.

ART NOTES — as he was a noted engraver and silversmith in addition to famed nighttime messenger: an exhibition of engravings, luxurious silver tea-sets and other artifacts entitled Beyond Midnight: Paul Revere— will be at the New York City Historical Society to January 12th.

  The Bloody Massacre Perpetrated on King Street

PROGRAMMING NOTE — as I will be away the next two long weekends at reunions (high school one weekend, then the next one is family along with the Drinking Liberally annual chapter host conference, all of which I love) — there will not be an Odds & Ends the next two weekends (nor a Friday Cheers & Jeers). I will be posting on the next two Thursday evenings a long-form Top Comments essay, and will return to Odds & Ends at the start of October. 

TRAVEL NOTES — visitors to Venice, Italy (where pick-pocketing can be rampant, particularly in the summer) have one unexpected resource  — a volunteer group of sixty residents calling themselves Undistracted Citizens who are behind more than 1/3 of the arrests made by police.

THURSDAY's CHILD is named Coco the Cat— a Minnesota kitteh whose family built her and her sister a catio — an outdoor enclosed area for them to run and get fresh air while unable to wander around outdoors.

Coco the Cat — in a catio

AS WE NOTE the annual observation of 9/11, the excellent journalist Garrett Graff (whose father Chris is a retired Vermont AP journalist) has written a new book that is a comprehensive account from the various people who lived it. In addition, he has published a gripping excerpt of it in the Atlantic — how so many people’s lives were lost/spared by pure luck, decisions to do ‘x’ instead of ‘y’ …. including the woman laid-off at financial services firm Cantor Fitzgerald the day before the attacks (and works for them again today). Do have a read of it at this link.

MUSIC NOTES — after its limited theatrical run, a documentary on the 80th anniversary of the legendary music label Blue Note— featuring everyone from Herbie Hancock to Norah Jones — is set for video release.

FRIDAY's CHILD is named Apollo the Cat— a South Carolina kitteh whom two college students feared was lost in a house fire (started by lightning) … but luckily was quickly found by two firefighters.

     Apollo the Cat

IN MY MIS-SPENT YOUTH I assumed that fundie preachers' sex lives were like the title of the 1979 Devo album, "Duty Now for the Future". (Dang, was I ever wrong).

HAIL and FAREWELL to the rock singer Eddie Money— with several hits in the late 70’s through the 1980’s — who has died at the age of seventy.

BRAIN TEASER - try this Quiz of the Week's News from the BBC.

YOUNGER-OLDER SISTERS? —  plus-sized model Ashley Graham and film star Eva Mendes (Training Day, Stuck on You).

  Ashley Graham (born 1987) - Eva Mendes (born 1974)

...... and finally, for a song of the week ...........................… someone who is not a household name but who (over a twenty-five year period) became a four-time Grammy winner in the popular music field is the guitarist/singer Keb’ Mo’— and he seems to be a first-call musician for many other performers. At first glance a blues performer — as the go-to choice for any portrayals of the Delta bluesman Robert Johnson —  he has numerous other influences (Gospel, soul, rock and country) and lives in Nashville. So whatever is happening in the music world: he will take its pulse.

Born in south central Los Angeles as Kevin Moore (the slang adaptation given to him by his first drummer) he absorbed the music of his parents (from Louisiana and Texas) and became a guitarist in an R&B band. For those of you who recall the late violinist who performed in both Hot Tuna and the Jefferson Starship of the early-mid 70’s:‘Papa’ John Creach hired this group to be his back-up band on a tour. At age twenty-one, Moore later performed on three of Creach’s solo albums and co-wrote with Creach the song Git Fiddler on the 1975 Starship album Red Octopus— the first gold album Keb Mo was associated with (#1 in the charts).

He released a 1980 solo album (under his legal name) on Casablanca Records — which went nowhere and the label soon folded soon after being acquired. Moore became a staff writer for A&M Records and performed in several local R&B bands (including the vocal group Rose Brothers) and in 1990 first portrayed a Delta bluesman in a local play — which has been a sidelight to his music career.

In 1994, at age forty-three: he felt ready to try again as a solo performer (this time as Keb’ Mo’) and released a self-titled album that won critical praise (and resulted in his being invited to outdoor music festivals). And as a signal: he wrote most of the material, along with two Robert Johnson blues classics.

1996 saw the release of Just Like You— a more rock-soul recording, with guest appearances by Bonnie Raitt and Jackson Browne — winning his first Grammy. He repeated this Grammy success two years later with Slow Down— with a tribute to blues legend Muddy Waters.

Also among his fourteen albums: a 2001 family album— the opening track of which (Everybody Be Yoself) he performed with the Muppets on Sesame Street. His 2004 album Keep it Simple garnered his third Grammy (with the opening track France co-written with the Grateful Dead’s Bob Weir and Mickey Hart). And a 2017 duet album with Taj Mahal was his fourth Grammy.

As noted, he has also done some acting: he has appeared as “Guitar Man” in the Zora Neale Hurston play Spunk, and as Robert Johnson (in re-enactments) in the 1998 documentary Can’t You Hear the Wind Howl? Besides Sesame Street: he has appeared on TV on the 2006 series finale of The West Wing (singing at the inauguration of Matt Santos), appeared three times on the show Touched by an Angel, wrote the theme song for the TV show Mike & Molly and participated in the 2012 televised celebration of the blues at the White House (where President Obama was coaxed into singing “Sweet Home Chicago”).   

More than his own career: what stands-out most about Keb’ Mo’ is that he seems to be on everyone’s speed-dial list for guest appearances. He has appeared at Eric Clapton’s Crossroads concert series often (even played two songs with former Blues Brother Dan Aykroyd in 2013) and co-wrote the song I Hope with the Dixie Chicks (for their first album after the George W fallout). And he has been involved in campaigns such as Vote for Change and No Nukes.

Among those who have recorded his songs: B.B. King, Buddy Guy, the Dixie Chicks, Joe Cocker, Tom Jones and Robert Palmer. Among others he has also recorded/performed with: Amy Grant, Dr. John, James Burton, Sheryl Crow, Keith Richards, James Taylor, Vince Gill, Earl Klugh, B. J. Thomas, Garth Brooks and Solomon Burke.

Earlier this year he released the album Oklahoma, is in the midst of a solo tour through October … and will resume touring with a December tour to celebrate the upcoming release of his first Christmas album. With his sixty-eighth birthday coming up in three weeks: it sounds as if he is as busy as ever.

Keb Mo in the 1990’s ……...

…. and earlier this summer

Of all of his work, my favorite has always been the title track of his 1996 Grammy-winning album Just Like You — and below you can hear it.

Hello my friend, it's been awhile All our old clothes are back in style We went our separate ways only to return To face a lesson we failed to learn

We didn't understand the truth We were blinded by the eyes of youth But time kept on moving and a change has come And you think that I don't know where you're coming from

You gave your love and your innocence And they took away your confidence Well I'm not those women and I'm not those men Put your arms around me, I am your friend

Well I feel just like you And I cry just like you But I heal just like you And under my skin I'm just like you

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However…..…. I must also post a song from his most recent album … the quite self-explanatory Put a Woman in Charge— with Rosanne Cash in a duet.

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