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 Wyoming-based friend Irish Patti and ...... well, each of you at Cheers and Jeers. Have a fabulous weekend .... and week ahead.
ART NOTES — works by Roberto de la Selva in an exhibition entitled Modern Mexican Masterpieces in Wood are at the San Antonio, Texas Museum of Art through June 26th.
In San Antonio, TexasHAIL and FAREWELL to the German inventor extraordinaire Artur Fischer — with even more patents than Thomas Edison — who has died at the age of 96.
ATTENTION, READERS - posted a few months ago in this space was this year's quiz from King William's College (a prep school located on the UK's Isle of Man) - with said quiz known as its General Knowledge Paper officially.
At one time, students at the school were required to take it home during the winter recess and be prepared to research the answers at home - today, the quiz is optional. It consists of 18 groups of 10 questions - the first section on events 100 years ago, and the last on events of the past year (in this case, 2015).
Each group's correct answers has a common theme (though perhaps not immediately recognizable) that helps if you can answer at least one of that group's questions - which will give you hope of answering some others. It is among the most difficult general knowledge quizzes on earth (quite British literature-laden, as you might well imagine) in part to being very cryptic, and each year the Guardian newspaper has printed both the quiz (and a few weeks later, the answers) since 1951.
At this link is the 2015-16 year's quiz if you would like a chance to take it.
Either way, the answers are available at this link - and yours truly went from a sizzling 3 correct down to only 1.
THURSDAY's CHILD is named Clive the Cat— an English kitteh who went missing (for over a year) before being returned due to his microchip … who had been hiding in a pet food warehouse.
Clive the CatMERCIFULLY the new right-wing government in Poland - which modeled itself after the even more right-wing government in Hungary — is getting a good deal of pushback from its citizenry, even from mainstream conservatives.
INCREASINGLY indigenous peoples in Canada tell loggers, miners and pipeline-builders to seek permission to operate on tribal lands … or face them in court.
FRIDAY's CHILD is named Ruby the Cat— an Australian kitteh who wandered off when very young, then wound her way into an Alice Springs research center and reunited due to her microchip.
Ruby the CatBRAIN TEASER - try this Quiz of the Week's News from the BBC.
THE OTHER NIGHT yours truly hosted the Top Comments diary with a look at the world faced by those with developmental disabilities— including my nephew — with a song dedicated to those who care for them by the Irish singer Phil Coulter..
THIS COMING SUNDAY I will feature Odds & Ends - a wrap-up diary of my postings, circa noon Eastern (9 AM Pacific). I hope you'll vote in the "Who Lost the Week?!?" poll (a mirror image of the one Bill posts here). Dang, there are already bushel baskets of misfits lined-up for your review (such as the city fathers of both Cleveland, Ohio and Crystal City, Texas ... LinkedIn and Volkswagen, plus Ted Nugent) .... and the week's not over yet.
SEPARATED at BIRTH — Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL) and TV host Wink Martindale.
Senator Bill Nelson TV host Wink Martindale...... and finally, for a song of the week ...........................… in much the same way that Bill Monroe is the founding father of bluegrass, the genre of western swing was largely set by Bob Wills– and he along with his Texas Playboys helped change the course of popular music in the 1930’s and 40’s by breaking down boundaries among different types of music. The All-Music Guide’s Stephen Thomas Erlewine described them as a “dance band with a country string section that played pop songs as if they were jazz numbers”. Although the genre is no longer widely popular in our culture, it influenced many other styles of music and so Bob Wills was an important figure in American music of the 20th Century.
Born in 1905 near Kosse, Texas to a family of fiddlers: he grew up close to the African-Americans who worked at his family’s cotton farm, and from their children was exposed to spirituals and blues. The family moved to the town of Turkey in North Texas, which he came to regard as his hometown, and worked as a barber while performing in medicine shows and house dances. Eventually he settled in Fort Worth and began to lead a group of musicians that took their name from whatever company sponsored them on the radio: first the Alladin Laddies (for the Aladdin Lamp Co.) and later the Light Crust Doughboys (for Light Crust Flour). But their growing success by 1932 led to disputes with the corporate owners of Light Crust (who could restrict what Texas radio stations they could perform on) and by 1934 they wound up in Tulsa, Oklahoma – where the Texas Playboys began to be heard on the 50,000 watt station KVOO - and where they began to become a commercial success.
While the membership of the Texas Playboys always changed over the years – as many as 22 members at its peak, though 9 to 18 was more the norm – there were a few important sidemen of note. While Bob Wills might sing some ballads, Tommy Duncan was the featured vocalist on many tunes. Leon McAuliffe was not only a second vocalist, but also an early steel guitar prodigy. And another fiddler in the band was Johnny Gimble– who died just last year (and a name you may recognize from his appearances on Garrison Keillor’s radio show). Wills hired Evert Stover as an MC, but he thought he had been hired as a trumpeter – and when he used it, Wills next thought the band then needed a drummer ... and so the Playboys grew organically, with the instrumentation to play any style of music.
And Wills’ behavior on-stage (calling out soloists by name, some jive talking) was unseen in any other white band of the time; again borrowing from his dealings with African-Americans. His daughter said that Wills once rode horseback 50 miles to see Bessie Smith sing in the town of Childress, when most whites would not have walked across the street to do so.
The band received its first record contract in 1935 (which was limited to 78’s back then) and their first hit was 1936’s Steel Guitar Rag– featuring Leon McAuliffe, of course. And Right or Wrong established Tommy Duncan as the band’s lead vocalist. As the big band swing era became more popular, Wills opportunistically hired arranger/guitarist Eldon Shamblin to write charts that fused country and big band music: the definitive sound of Western swing. They became one of the most popular touring bands from across the South to California, and in 1940 released the song New San Antonio Rose– which became their signature song.
Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys appeared in the 1940 Tex Ritter film Take Me Back to Oklahoma and their lineups were now approaching eighteen members, drawing big box office receipts far and wide. And then – like many bands – the outbreak of WW-II affected their lineups, with members either drafted (or volunteering) for war service. Wills himself enlisted but after receiving a medical discharge in 1943, reorganized the Playboys and began to out-draw many swing bands. In addition, Wills appeared in over a dozen other wartime films (keeping his name in the public spotlight) and moved the band to Fresno, California.
The band regrouped after the war and played to packed houses in the west (Clint Eastwood recalled seeing them as an eighteen year-old) and they were the first band appearing at the Grand Ole Opry ever allowed to use drums. The rise of electric guitars in country music is also due in part to the Texas Playboys. At this time, they made a series of transcription recordings at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco – available on CD today – which are the only recordings of the band in their heyday not limited to 3-minute 78’s; where one could hear what they sounded like in concert (with extended improvisations). But they were still selling 78's well, with hits such as "Bubbles in my Beer" and the New Spanish Two-Step– their best-seller of all time.
But by the late 1940’s, the band had peaked on was on its way down, for numerous reasons. One was the economics of carrying large bands (which happened to swing bands, as well). Western swing had been innovative in fusing different types of music together, but tastes were changing – and now distinct genres (such as Nashville country) were emerging (although the expression “country and western” would remain popular for several more decades). In the 1950’s, it would be the advent of both television and rock music that ate Western swing’s lunch – in fact, Wills himself went on to say, "Rock and Roll? Why, man, that's the same kind of music we've been playin' since 1928!"
However, several reasons had to do with Bob Wills himself: he had a drinking problem that caused him to miss some shows, he fired the very popular singer Tommy Duncan and also lost money on two dance clubs he owned which – along with his free-spending ways – forced him to move the band back to Oklahoma. The dawn of the 1960’s saw a mini-revival of Western swing, as a new lineup with both first-rate musicians as well as the return of Tommy Duncan helped boost record sales, and touring dates became more plentiful.
But from 1962-1964, a pair of heart attacks sidelined Bob Wills and he broke-up the Texas Playboys after a 30 year-run. He became a solo artist and - while he had decent concert ticket sales - he never regained his old popularity on recordings. He suffered a massive stroke in 1969 (the day after appearing at a Texas Legislature tribute) which sidelined him for a few more years. He did recover in time for some Texas Playboy reunion shows in 1972, and in December of 1973 gathered for a Texas Playboys recording entitled For the Last Time– but suffered another stroke on the second day of recording and never regained consciousness. Bob Wills died a year-and-a-half later in May 1973 at the age of 70.
His legacy is immense: one of ten performers in both the Country Music as well as the Rock & Roll Halls of Fame. He was also inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame and was awarded a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2007.
While Western swing has only a fraction today of its former popularity: there are many in country music who keep its flame alive, such as George Strait, Carrie Underwood, the late Waylon Jennings (with his Bob Wills is Still the King song) and especially the band Asleep at the Wheel– who wrote a musical entitled A Ride with Bob in his honor. And perhaps no individuals have done more to promote Bob Wills than Merle Haggard and Willie Nelson: who credit Wills with being the antecedent of the Bakersfield Sound and Haggard recorded a tribute album - back when Bob was still alive to hear it.
Yet Bob Wills is saluted by musicians from other fields, as well. Chuck Berry’s Maybelline was modeled after Bob Wills’ 1938 song "Ida Red", Fats Domino has said that he patterned his rhythm section after the Texas Playboys, the late Jimi Hendrix spoke in a 1968 Guitar Player issue of his admiration for the band’s guitarists when he saw them on TV, and Waylon Jennings’ "Bob Wills is Still the King" was performed by the Rolling Stones live in Austin, Texas for their The Biggest Bang DVD from 2006.
And while Bob Wills is buried in Tulsa, Oklahoma– where his career took off, and with a headstone inscription "Deep Within My Heart Lies a Melody" – it is his hometown of Turkey, Texas that hosts the annual Bob Wills Day on the last Saturday each April – and celebration #45 takes place in two months.
Bob Wills (1905-1973)Of all of his works, it’s the ballad he wrote called Faded Love– about the timeless subject of lost love – that is my favorite. It was a major 1950 hit for the Texas Playboys and was later recorded by Elvis Presley, Jackie DeShannon, Patsy Cline, Dottie West and Willie Nelson. And below you can listen to it.
As I look at the letters that you wrote to me It's you that I am thinking of As I read the lines that to me were so sweet I remember our faded love
As I think of the past and all the pleasures we had As I watch the mating of the dove It was in the springtime when you said goodbye I remember our faded love
I miss you darling more and more every day As heaven would miss the stars above With every heartbeat I still think of you And remember our faded love
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