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 City on Fire: Chicago 1871— setting the record straight one hundred fifty years later, that blaming “Mrs. O’Leary’s cow” was most likely an incident of anti-immigrant, anti-Catholic prejudice— has opened at the at the Chicago, Illinois History Museum.
YOUR WEEKEND READ#1 is this essay in The Atlantic by Adam Serwer — who was name-checked by Sam Alito in a speech — with Serwer writing that (by doing that), Alito proved his point: “If Alito wants the public to see the Court as apolitical, he should try meeting that standard, instead of lecturing others for not blinding themselves to the obvious”.
THURSDAY's CHILD is named Draco the Cat— an Alberta kitteh who went missing in the Rockies, yet was found after fifty days when lured w/treats into a humane trap (that Parks Canada allowed in a national park by an exception).
YOUR WEEKEND READ#2 is this essay (from this past March) in Jacobin on the path that Kyrsten Sinema trod …. from Green Party activist to Republican Light.
FRIDAY's CHILD is named WonTon the Cat— a Virginia kitteh who is the mascot of Chop Suey Bookstore in Richmond, which is being sold …. yet WonTon will be retained as mascot by the new store owners.
LAST NIGHT yours truly hosted the Top Comments diary with an update of earlier stories of mine in that space (the 2005 Cream reunion concerts and the late restaurateur Jimmy Neary), plus a walking tour through my old hometown of fifty-plus years ago.
BRAIN TEASER— try this Quiz of the Week's News from the BBC ...… and the usually easier, less UK-centered New York Times quiz.
Reader Suggested SEPARATED at BIRTH (from Elwood Dowd) — the former Beach Boy member Al Jardine and Gov. Mike DeWine (R-OH) — whaddya think?
...... and finally, for two songs of the week ...........................… ones that I did not care for in my youth (from 1972 and 1976) — one was a #1 hit in the USA, the other a #2, so I was in the minority. Many years later (in 1998) I came across them - in one case, performed by a different singer - and then had a new-found appreciation for them. In a real sense, I heard them again ..... for the first time.
I was in college when up the charts rose Gordon Lightfoot's tune Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald - one reason why I heard it so much was listening to the radio during night study. I sensed it was about a Great Lakes nautical disaster, yet didn't cotton to it because (a) as a Top Ten hit, it was overplayed, (b) Lightfoot sang and performed it in far too jaunty a style (to me) for such a tune, and (c) its whiny, pedal steel guitar accent … got on my nerves.
Gordon Lightfoot had followed the story of the disaster on the CBC and avidly read-up on it, due in no small part to living in the Great Lakes region. Yet it was a November 1975 Newsweek cover story (entitled "The Cruelest Month") that prompted him into songwriting mode. He modeled the music after an Irish folk song, which may have led to the song's bounciness: not what I cared for yet may well have helped the song become popular. I liked his music, just not this tune.
The ship was named Edmund Fitzgerald after a former president of Northwestern Mutual Life, who was active in civic affairs in Wisconsin. His son Edmund B. Fitzgerald, incidentally, was a co-founder of the Milwaukee Brewers along with Bud Selig (the former baseball commissioner). The basic story of the ill-fated ship can be read here - suffice it to say that its sinking during a storm is surpassed in folklore only by the Titanic. While its ultimate destination was Detroit (and not Cleveland) - it was trying to make an interim port in Michigan ... and fell seventeen nautical miles short.
Yet it was not until 1998 that I heard a folksinger (whose name is lost to my memory) who recorded a live version that I heard on a radio folk show that I reconsidered the song. He sang it just with a solo guitar and less sang the song than told a story with it. Along with the absence of the pedal steel guitar, I now could follow the ill-fated crew's story much better (plus, being an older person surely played a role). And so when I saw Gordon Lightfoot perform in Northampton, Massachusetts a few years later, the song sounded much better to me. Still can't say it's a favorite (I like other Gordon Lightfoot songs better) ..... yet now I appreciate the song much better.
The original single release was denied the #1 spot on the charts by Rod Stewart's "Tonight's the Night", and from the "Song of the Year" Grammy award due to "I Write the Songs" by Barry Manilow.
One relatively recent footnote: the original song had the line "At 7:00 PM, a main hatchway gave-in" - reflecting the initial investigation's belief that the crew had not fully secured the ship's hatches. However, a 2010 Canadian documentary came to the conclusion that the crew had not committed any error that led (or contributed) to the ship's demise. Gordon Lightfoot was grateful for this finding and - while he decided not to change the song's copyrighted lyrics - those who have attended his concerts since then have heard him sing instead, "At 7:00 PM, it grew dark, it was then".
A few weeks later in 1998 - after I heard the aforementioned solo folksinger radio performance - the mini-series about The Temptations appeared on TV. I had enjoyed their music in my mis-spent youth, and it was interesting to learn the back-story of the band (albeit told largely via the perspective of Otis Williams, the surviving member of the 'classic' line-up). Yet even if the series had not been good, it was worth watching for one thing alone: getting a fresh perspective on their 1972 hit single Papa Was a Rolling Stone - which I had not cared for originally.
Back then, I would have heard it in less-than-ideal conditions: either on a transistor radio or at school. My high school did not have 'study halls', for those who had a free period. Instead, we just were able to visit the library or cafeteria – especially in the morning, where coffee and pastries were sold … and music was piped-in. It wasn’t loud, nor was heard via a good speaker — in fact, one had to hear it over the general din of the cafeteria (even when it was fairly un-crowded, compared to lunchtime) ... and so it served more as background music.
This wasn’t a problem for most songs .... but for Papa it sure was. I could not hear the lyrics clearly, there was no video of the singers and - especially in the full-length 11-minute version - the bass line never changed; the song remained in a B-flat minor chord throughout. As someone who was a bass player in a band at the time: playing the same line for eleven minutes seemed dreary, a task rather than a challenge.
The song was written by two future members of the Songwriters Hall of Fame who were at Motown - composer Norman Whitfield and lyricist Barrett Strong - and was first recorded by a different band on the label (The Undisputed Truth) which was not a success in 1971.
The next year it was recorded as part of the Temptations album All Directions and turned out to be the last hit single recorded in Motown's Studio A in Detroit (before the label decamped to Los Angeles). The album version ran nearly twelve minutes; even the shorter seven-minute single release was one of the longer Top 100 hits in history (although Don McLean’s American Pie of that same year ran 1-1/2 minutes longer). The remaining instrumental-only portion was released as the single’s b-side.
Watching the song performed on the 1998 television mini-series made it plain what I had missed years earlier: (a) Now, I could hear the lyrics as clear as a bell, (b) it was crucial to be able to watch the back-up singers (who were not dancing, but emoting) and (c) having lost my own father just two years after I graduated from high school ... now I could relate a bit better.
The song is sung as an ensemble: with four different band members singing a verse (asking their mother pointed questions about their late father) and their mother’s response being the song’s notable chorus. One legend had it that band member Dennis Edwards was upset about the song’s first line (citing the 3rd of September as the date of the father in question's death) since his own father had died on that day. Untrue: his own father had died on October 3rd, and had been a minister and devoted family man. Edwards was upset, though, about the number of takes he had been asked to perform (which strained his relations with the band).
Either way, I now understood the song in a way I had not twenty-five years earlier … and in telling the story, I realized the bass line had to be a constant, mood-setting sound … it would have been counter-productive, otherwise.
The song reached #1 and won three Grammys: the a-side for Best R&B vocals, the b-side for best R&B instrumental, and Norman Whitfield/Barrett Strong won for Best R&B song (as its composers). And it was ranked as #169 by Rolling Stone in its 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.