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.

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 Portraits of the World: Denmark will be at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. through October 12th.

FOR YEARS the Rand Club in Johannesburg, South Africa was not only all-white, but all-male: the haunt of the wealthy and (with a 100-foot bar, the longest in Africa) the bawdy. Although it admitted blacks and women in the 1990’s, it has only now returned to profitability by hosting weddings, parties and concerts and gaining a much-more mixed clientele (replacing a portrait of Queen Elizabeth with Nelson Mandela).

THURSDAY's CHILD is named Ivan the Cat— who showed up at an Idaho shelter and his microchip reads he is from Russia ... yet his chip has not been registered, so they were unable to find his family … until someone presented papers.

I KNOW THERE WAS some controversy over this in other DK diaries (and in newspaper analyses, about its accuracy) but I am glad that I went to see the film Bombshell— the downfall of Roger Ailes — despite the feeling of shame for my gender watching it (there was also ... not a dull moment). Years ago, an old girlfriend told me that I was wrong to dismiss outright a supermodel being cast in a leading dramatic role … and Susan was right, as Charlize Theron won an Oscar as Aileen Wuornos. Now, she had me believing that she was Megyn Kelly. And my image of John Lithgow was a smiling chap from Third Rock, or on-stage in The Front Page … certainly not in this role.

FRIDAY's CHILD is named Tinsel the Cat— an English kitteh who was found in a car engine 130 miles from home … with a search to find her home. Until …. a woman who is not in social media was alerted, and has now reclaimed her.

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

OLDER-YOUNGER BROTHERS? — Rock & Roll Hall of Fame keyboardist Steve Winwood and Bill Gates.

...... and finally, for a song of the week ...........................… speaking of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame: next week it will announce its inductees for 2020. In addition to the rock-era performers, sidemen, businessmen ….. there are also Early Influences: people of the pre-rock era who laid the groundwork for what was to come.

And two of them would seem to have little in common: a country musician and an African-American blues singer. Yet they did have several commonalities: both were pioneers in their genre, children of the South, made their way to fame in the 1920’s via medicine and minstrel shows, the careers of both were affected by the Depression and (for different reasons) left the music field in 1933, blended different other types of music (making them unique) and both worked with jazz orchestras. Let’s have a look at Jimmie Rodgers and Ma Rainey.

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Jimmie Rodgers was the first musician inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame, deemed as the “Father of Country Music” who “started it all”, and helped make the genre viable commercially.

Born in Meridian, Mississippi in 1897, he brought his years as a railroad brakeman (being the son of a railroad man) into his musical storytelling, and being the first to incorporate yodeling as an integral part of his singing (not a garnish). He also added to the existing mountain/folk music traces of Gospel, blues and pop music.

Between various railroad jobs, he sang at travelling minstrel and medicine shows. In 1924, he developed TB but never truly took care of it (wanting to perform). In 1927, he had several songs recorded by an RCA Victor talent scout, and “Blue Yodel” became a smash hit, leading to major tours and stardom. And yet he did not restrict himself to working with country musicians: performing with Louis Armstrong and a Hawaiian band on records. His railroad songs such as Waiting for a Train and Train Whistle Blues were forged during his days as a brakeman.

The Depression put a large dent in his career, and was forced to revert to being in vaudeville shows (not his own more lucrative concerts) plus selling fewer records. And his TB became worse, with him having to cut short shows and rest in between songs at recording sessions.

Jimmie Rodgers died in May, 1933 of a lung hemorrhage at only age thirty-five. Fittingly, his body was returned to Meridian on a train, and he laid in state when thousands came to pay respect.

As noted, he was the first musician inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1961 … and twenty-five years later, as an Early Influence in the first year of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, with the idea that he was one of “rock’s great-grandfathers”.

While many of the early African-American blues singers were vaudeville acts that later became full-time singers, someone who was a pioneer in the field was Gertrude Pridgett, who in 1904 married William “Pa” Rainey … and who as “Ma” Rainey became a singing duo at circuses and tent shows. Born in Columbus, Georgia in 1886, she was not the first blues singer on records, but the most influential: with twenty years experience before her first recording in 1923.

Reportedly she gave a young Bessie Smith some vocal lessons, and Bessie went on to become the “Queen of the Blues” with her unmatched voice and delivery. Yet it was Ma Rainey who could be called the “Mother of the Blues”.

She was signed to Paramount Records in 1923 and — although her recording career lasted only six years — she recorded over 100 songs in the pre-LP days, with classic tunes such as C.C. Rider and “Bo Weavil Blues”. And like Jimmie Rodgers, she also recorded with Louis Armstrong … plus Fletcher Henderson and other orchestra leaders.

And like Jimmie Rodgers, the depression brought an end to her heyday, retiring in 1933 to return to her hometown of Columbus. She died there on December 22, 1939 — just over eighty years ago — at the age of fifty-three. She was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1983 … and seven years later, as an Early Influence in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

I’ll close with a song from each of them.

For Jimmie Rodgers: it was his adaptation of a traditional tune In the Jailhouse Now that helped make the song popular and is the model for later versions (although he probably did not create the song all by himself).

Among those who Ma Rainey worked with was Cora “Lovie” Austin (1887-1972), one of the most accomplished female pianists, composers and bandleaders of her generation, who wrote my favorite Ma Rainey song, Jealous Hearted Blues.