Tag Archives: David Pelfrey

Dead Folks 2006 (Part 5)

A look back at the notable names and personalities who called it quits last year.

January 26, 2006

Film and TV




Virginia Mayo

Virginia Mayo

Peaches-and-cream complexion, mega-watt blonde hair, and a five-star pair of legs made Mayo a second-tier pinup gal behind Rita Hayworth and Betty Grable. Often cast as a chorus girl or a can’t-bring-her-home-to-Mom date, Mayo probably typecast herself with an excellent performance in The Best Years of Our Lives (1946). Playing the wife of a bomber pilot returning from the war, Mayo must have infuriated World War II-era viewers by registering, in no small way, her disappointment at finally seeing the flyboy out of uniform. She was not really dangerous, but never dependable, the type of gal who always stood by her man—until distracted by a diamond necklace, a shiny car, or a night on the town.

She also scored a knockout role opposite James Cagney in the insanely brutal crime thriller White Heat. She was Verna, the deceitful wife of homicidal thug Cody Jarrett. As an out-of-control hoodlum, Cagney was a blazing inferno, but audiences also noticed that the scheming blonde was no slouch at generating heat either. Did she really leap piggyback onto Cagney and ride him upstairs to the bedroom? Could you do that in 1949? —David Pelfrey

Sheree North

Bona-fide babe with a few miles on her—that’s probably the best way to describe the type of women North portrayed at the peak of her career in the late 1960s and early 1970s. North’s start in show business had something to do with her having a striking face and precisely the same “dimensions” as Marilyn Monroe. Fox studio bosses hired North as a threat to hold over an increasingly troublesome Monroe, so naturally the va-va-voom replacement got roles in such hubba-hubba foolishness as Living It Up; How to Be Very, Very Popular; and The Lieutenant Wore Skirts.

Her “look” during the 1950s was the Buxom Blonde Bombshell, but North actually looked better, and leaner, as she entered her thirties, probably because her features were better suited for the earthy, Ventura Highway, older-broad-next-door type (flowing mane, cutoff jeans, open blouse). She was in every medical, Western, and crime television drama you can name, but her best work is on the big screen in Charley Varrick, The Outfit, and other vulgar crime thrillers for which early ’70s Hollywood is notorious. That’s North, by the way, as Lou Grant’s girlfriend on The Mary Tyler Moore Show and as Kramer’s mom on Seinfeld. —D.P.

Paul Winchell

Winchell first gained notoriety as a ventriloquist behind dummies Jerry MaHoney and Knucklehead Smiff. A prolific inventor, he held 30 patents, including one for an artificial heart he designed in 1960. Winchell was also the voice of Tigger in the animated Winnie the Pooh. —Ed Reynolds

Mitch Hedberg

My friend was doing acid, and he said, “Man, the woods are really trippy, aren’t they?” And I said, “Maybe the woods aren’t trippy; it’s just our perception of them that’s trippy.” And then I realized I should have just said, “Yeah!”

That’s the quintessential Hedberg gag: drug reference, 1970s-era lingo, and stoner logic. The standup comic’s shoulder-length shag, blue-tinted shades, and platform shoes reinforced the ’70s vibe, but the soundness of his logic somehow made his jokes a lot funnier than they might be in a less elegant form. Elegance, after all, is any mathematician’s or philosopher’s goal when crafting a logic equation. Hedberg surprised audiences with the speed and concision with which he made his numerous, hilarious deductions, and because surprise is a key element of humor, Hedberg was always halfway home to cracking us up in the first place. Nonetheless, the crucial factor in Hedberg’s humor was that his logic, surprising or not, was unassailable.

Due to a confused, brink-of-disaster delivery, those loopy observations invariably sounded like pot-induced epiphanies, but in Hedberg’s case it’s as though he got so high that he bypassed stupid and came all the way back around to wickedly insightful.




	Mitch Hedberg

Sometimes my club intro is, “You may have seen this next comedian on ‘David Letterman.’ A better intro would be: “You may have seen this next comedian at the store.” The audience would go, “Why, hell yes I have! He likes kiwi fruit.”

To open one of his many Letterman gigs, Hedberg once briefly scanned a slip of paper and declared, “Okay, I’ve got 13 jokes, ready to go!” That got a big laugh. I asked him in a 2002 interview why such a straightforward statement was funny, and his response was even funnier: “Well, it is true that there were 13 jokes in that set. Maybe audiences just aren’t ready for the truth. They laughed because they were suddenly nervous. But that’s very strange, because they would not have known the absolute truth until I reached the 13th joke and then stopped.”

I also asked him why he laughed so much during his gigs. “That’s a good question, because the jokes are not cracking me up. As you may have surmised, I am already familiar with the material.”

Not enough people were familiar with Hedberg’s material, unfortunately, because apart from a few appearances on “That 70’s Show,” he was resolutely committed to the stand-up circuit, as opposed to the celebrity status that television specials and sitcoms bring comedians these days. Further hampering his rise as the Next Big Thing was his reputation as an unreliable abuser of substances. (In Hedberg’s mind, that would technically mean that he couldn’t be counted on to abuse drugs.)

That’s a shame, since he was the only genuinely innovative thinker in the comic realm of the past ten years. Jon Stewart, thanks to a team of writers, can mug for the camera and win points doing political satire. Ray Romano can be charming and amusing. Dave Chappelle is merely a one-man series of SNL skits, the punch lines of which are telegraphed far in advance. Lewis Black’s fury lasts only so long. Jimmy Kimmel is, well, he’s involved with a very hot Jewish gal who happens to be the funniest woman on earth. Chris Rock has simply updated Richard Pryor, as though both were some kind of hardcore software.

Mitch Hedberg, by way of strong contrast, stood on the stages of forlorn comedy clubs in Houston and San Diego and Birmingham, reeling off dozens of surreal, absurd, and inventive truths. There was one unassailable bit of logic that seems to have escaped Hedberg, or perhaps it was just that fourteenth joke he didn’t get around to telling until it was too late—that drug and alcohol abuse can destroy careers and kill people at a very young age. On the other hand, it could be that his jokes were not that funny, and perhaps his logic was not that sound. Maybe it was just our perception of his . . . never mind. Ponder these classics and decide.

I read that MTV’s Real World got 40,000 applications. That’s amazing, such an even number. You would have thought it would be 40,008.

I never joined the army because “at ease” was never that easy to me. It seemed rather uptight still. I don’t relax by parting my legs slightly and putting my hands behind my back. That does not equal “ease.” “At ease” was not being in the military.

This one commercial said, “Forget everything you know about slipcovers.” So I did, and it was a load off of my mind. Then the commercial tried to sell slipcovers, but I didn’t know what they were!

I got a belt on that’s holding up my pants, and the pants have belt loops that hold up the belt. What’s going on here? Who is the real hero?

A mini-bar is a machine that makes everything expensive. When I take something out of the mini-bar, I always plan to replace it before they check it off and charge me, but they make that stuff impossible to replace. I go to the store and ask, “Do you have coke in a glass harmonica? —D.P.

John Fiedler

As the voice of Piglet in the Winnie the Pooh cartoons, Feidler’s face is probably best recognized as the nervous, henpecked patient in group therapy on “The Bob Newhart Show.” Oddly, Feidler died the day after Paul Winchell, the voice of Tigger. —E.R.




	John Fiedler

Sidney Luft

There are really only two kinds of Hollywood legends: those whom everyone reveres, and those whom everyone ridicules. Sidney Luft, Judy Garland’s third husband, falls into the unhappy second category. His marriage to the movie icon led almost immediately to a series of funny, not to say cruel, one-liners, such as studio boss Jack L. Warner’s zinger that “Sid is one of those guys who promised his parents that he would never work a day in his life—and he made good on the promise.”

That’s not the meanest thing anybody ever said about Sid Luft, and it isn’t entirely fair, either. Throughout his hectic and financially troubled life, Luft could often be found busting his ass—only busting it in all the wrong ways. The tough (and volatile) amateur boxer was a test pilot for World War II aircraft, managed a fledgling custom automobile outfit in Beverly Hills, and, after dabbling in horse racing, he produced a couple of B-pictures. His big project was Judy Garland’s “comeback,” which involved, well, getting married to her. It also involved the rather savvy business of transforming the drug-addicted, emotionally unstable movie star into a world-class torch singer, which was a crucial move considering that MGM, who was responsible for Judy’s condition in the first place, had basically dumped her onto the side of the road. Luft also produced the 1954 remake of A Star is Born, Judy’s comeback picture that was art imitating life in all kinds of ways.

Touring major venues around the world and hosting television variety shows ought to have made the Garlands—er, the Lufts—a wealthy couple, but something about bad accounting, mishandled expenses, and lawsuits over contracts had the notorious pair living paycheck to paycheck. Complicating the contactual disputes was Judy’s tendency to go on a binge for a series of no-shows. Even worse, sometimes she did show up. In 1965, Garland divorced Luft and moved on to one Mark Herron, whom she divorced after learning that he was gay, unfaithful, and involved with song and dance man Peter Allen.

That tawdry fiasco isn’t actually a chapter in Luft’s story, but it does earn him the distinction, shared with composer David Rose, as one of Judy Garland’s heterosexual husbands. After all, before Luft came along, Judy was married to Vincente Minnelli (Liza’s dad), and it certainly wasn’t predicted that Minnelli would ever be anyone’s dad. The director of musicals and sensitive melodramas was, as they phrased it in those days, musical and sensitive. This leads to the wittiest thing anyone ever said about Sid Luft. Canadian writer Mark Steyn, in his disturbingly thorough obituary for the former Mr. Judy Garland, described him as “an all but unique figure: a rare friend of Judy who wasn’t a Friend of Dorothy.” —D.P.

Ismael Merchant

The BBC’s online obituary for Ismael Merchant was followed by letters from around the globe expressing sympathy, loss, and fond memories of the legendary producer. An Irishman living in Cape Town thanked Merchant for a recipe for “chicken dijon in clove sauce”; an Indian man in Sheffield recalled his interview with Merchant during which the visibly exhausted producer exhibited much patience in “the hot Calcutta sun.” Another Indian man in New York recalled Merchant’s warm praise for director Satyajit Ray at a retrospective in New York City. The tributes ran for some length. Based on that outpouring, one couldn’t help suspecting that, irrespective of the Merchant Ivory Productions’ contribution to cinema, we had lost a bona-fide gentlemen whose influence on those he met extended far past their appreciation of his work.

That may be because the aptly named Merchant—the money man on the Merchant Ivory team—was by all accounts a charmer when it came to the art of persuasion, as contrasted with the standard film industry hustler. His handsome face and ready smile (in early years, many acquaintances and contacts assumed the Bombay native was a Bollywood idol), along with a knack for conversation and considerable culinary skills, could turn a pre-production meeting into a very pleasant and memorable evening. On a more practical level, it took some time for Merchant to convey fully his daunting knowledge of production design, period costume, and his fondness for literary heavyweights such as E.M. Forster and Henry James. Having investors sit down for a five-star curry dinner that Merchant himself prepared was the producer’s version of what Donald Trump calls “the art of the deal.”

But apart from all that, Merchant loved the hands-on, collaborative process of making movies, and teaming up with director James Ivory and writer Ruth Prawa Jhabvala in 1961 for a decades-long filmmaking venture (the longest partnership in the industry) was his way of proving it. The early productions were often good-to-excellent films that had limited distribution and success, but by the time of The Europeans, Maurice, The Bostonians, and A Room With a View, the phrase “Merchant Ivory” entered the lexicon as a term that described a certain kind of film, rather than merely indicating who made it.




	Ismael Merchant

Dead Folks 2006 (Part 6)

Leave a reply

Dead Folks 2006 (Part 6)

A look back at the notable names and personalities who called it quits last year.

By Paul Brantley, Bart Grooms, David Pelfrey, Ed Reynolds, J.R. Tay

January 26, 2006

Music




Jim Capaldi (2nd from left) with Traffic. (click for larger version)

Robert Moog

We could have a discussion about Attack-Decay-Sustain-Release envelopes, waveforms, voltage-controlled oscillators, and other stuff that fellows with PhDs in engineering physics like to talk about. After all, Robert Moog (rhymes with “vogue”), creator of the Moog Synthesizer, had several degrees in physics and electrical engineering, and he certainly knew his stuff. But let’s avoid getting bogged down in technical details and consider the larger story instead, which begins just after the Bolshevik Revolution.

In 1919, mad Russian physicist Lev Sergeivich Termen, aka Leon Theremin, created a musical instrument that generated between two antennas a radio signal, the frequency and amplitude of which a “player” could control by hand, sort of like playing a violin without touching it. An ever-deluded Vladimir Lenin sent Theremin on a global tour with this minor novelty, primarily to show off the amazing avant garde technology that the new worker’s paradise was ostensibly making available to greedy, behind-the-curve capitalists. One of those capitalist outfits was RCA, who purchased manufacturing licenses for the bizarre instrument in the late 1920s. Two decades later the Theremin’s spooky sound was de rigueur in radio and film scores for mysteries, crime dramas, and—most prominently—science fiction thrillers and horror movies (see: The Day the Earth Stood Still and Forbidden Planet.)

Enter Robert Moog, a teenager light years ahead of his schoolmates and neighborhood chums, who in the early 1950s began making and selling Theremin kits as a hobby. For about 50 bucks, Moog’s astonishingly elegant sets allowed anyone with rudimentary skills in electronics to construct their very own instrument. Moog and his father sold about 1,000 kits in 1960. Building a Theremin, however, was a snap compared to playing the thing. Moog was already looking down the road for something even more elegant.

Enter Raymond Scott, a wigged-out composer, swing-band leader, electronics wizard, and studio engineer who may have been from another planet (some of those wild scores heard in Warner Bros. cartoons and “The Ren & Stimpy Show” are Scott originals). Moog and his father popped into Scott’s mammoth “lab” one afternoon and observed, among other wonders, a Moog theremin set that had been reconfigured by Scott into a type of keyboard instrument he called the Clavivox. “I have seen the future,” mused Moog, “and it is the keyboard interface.”

What followed was the creation of the Moog Synthesizer in various forms, but at a fraction of the cost of the big non-interface synthesizers made by universities and electronics companies during the early 1960s. Integrated circuits changed all that, and pretty soon Mellotrons, Arps, and Rolands were competing with Moog’s devastatingly efficient Series 900.

Nonetheless, it was with one of the 900 Series modular systems that the world got switched on to electronic music. In 1968, pianist Walter Carlos (later Wendy Carlos, thanks to gender reassignment therapy) released an album of Bach compositions played on the Moog. Switched-On Bach, one of the best-selling classical recordings of all time, went platinum. Pretty soon everybody was switching on. The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and sundry other pop bands dabbled, but by 1970, artists such as Keith Emerson, Rick Wakeman, Stevie Wonder, and just about every member of Genesis were getting very serious. Then came the soundtrack to A Clockwork Orange (another Walter/Wendy Carlos effort), and Tangerine Dream, and Kraftwerk, and so on to digital synthesizers and computer sequencers, which the Moog synthesizer definitely is not. To get that space age, bachelor-pad sound that Stereolab is known for, you must use an analog device. Just ask Brian Eno.

This makes Robert Moog essentially the father of electronic music as it is made, purchased, and listened to today, even if he was not a composer or player; “I just make tools for others,” he often stated. He’s wrong about that, but physicists do tend to be reductionists at heart. Moog was actually a major catalyst in a quantum shift in modern culture and science. The story in which he had a key role has a parallel narrative, such that the relationship of these cosmic counterparts matches in strangeness the interplay of subatomic particles. Just as Moog and Raymond Scott and other guys in lab coats and crew cuts tinkered with waves and oscillations, so earlier did Edward Teller, Albert Einstein, Robert Oppenheimer, and colleagues manipulate previously unknown/unseen objects and energies to render forth nuclear energy.

The men in both narratives had an affinity for the new and improved, fully understanding the inevitable evolutions of the Kitchen of Tomorrow and the Car of the Future. They listened to swing, but it was the electric, atomic-age swing of the Les Paul guitar. They were squares, nerds, and horn-rimmed geeks that the girls secretly dug (recall Marilyn Monroe’s fascination with Albert Einstein). Their relationship with the enemy had its own curious waveform. Had it not been for the Soviets, Theremin might not have brought electronic music to our side of the globe. But then, without the Soviets, atomic weapon research would not have continued at its frantic pace. Without so many tests in the desert, there might not have been so many giant creatures emanating from Hollywood, but the electronic music team supplied the soundtracks just the same. There might not have been a space “race” either, in which case the space-age sounds of lounge music masters, minus the urgency, may have developed at a slower, less vulgar pace.

Either way, the research teams in both narratives were all about electrons; Raymond Scott’s most famous and instantly recognizable composition is “Powerhouse.” The business of energy entails positive and negative charges, and the two stories are charged with comparable symmetries. These mid-century brainiac physicists instigated a fascination with two things, one that we think we can’t live without and another that we can’t live with: Hi-Fis and Hydrogen Bombs. The space-age bachelor pad becomes the Home of Tomorrow, with a Philco or RCA Victor Hi-Fi in the den and a fallout shelter just south of the patio. The makers of The Bomb worked on the Manhattan Project, the key instruments of which were Uranium 238 and various synthetic elements; Robert Moog and Raymond Scott started their projects in basements in Manhattan, the end result of which was a synthetic instrument.

Polarities evolve from those symmetries. The atom bomb was a fission device; the H-bomb is a fusion device. The bachelor pad becomes a home only after the owner finds his counterpart. Robert Moog’s invention, a thoroughly modern device built for the future, reached the world only after it was used to make a best-selling record of classical compositions from the distant past. The performer on that album was a man who later became a woman.

The H-bomb geniuses and the electronics wizards invented things with properties and behaviors that modern physicists now say might not be correctly understood, if they exist at all. But until we learn for certain, let’s relish the fact that the very first nuclear events in the universe can be observed today in the form of radio signals. The term “radioactivity,” as the synthesizer band Kraftwerk pointed out decades ago, is a cosmic bit of double entendre. –David Pelfrey

Johnnie Johnson

Chuck Berry has for decades performed with no interest in whoever’s backing him on live dates. Berry simply shows up with his guitar and plays with whatever junkies have been corralled by the promoter into being his backup band for the evening. In his defense, though, Berry’s probably aware that he’ll never replicate his luck in hooking up with Johnnie Johnson. Johnson didn’t need Berry when the guitarist joined up with his Sir John Trio in 1953, but the pianist immediately saw that Berry’s tunes were future hits. Johnson’s arrangements became a vital part of developing what became Berry’s biggest songs. Johnson’s own part in rock history was revived when he joined the all-star Berry band assembled for Taylor Hackford’s concert film Hail! Hail! Rock ‘n’ Roll. Johnson would go on to perform well into the ’90s. He put on much better shows than Berry, of course. —J.R.T.

Danny Sugerman

He was the manager of The Doors, but that was after Jim Morrison’s death. Still, Danny Sugerman built himself a nice career as the ultimate Doors fan. He began answering their mail when he was just 14 and would go on to chronicle the band’s exploits in plenty of books. His own autobiography, Wonderland Avenue, would turn out to be the most interesting. At least Sugerman lived long enough to see The Doors reunite—which, in the band’s current incarnation, has probably hastened the death of many Doors fans. He was survived by wife Fawn Hall, who enjoyed some ’80s notoriety for her role in shredding documents as Oliver North’s secretary during the days of the Iran-Contra scandal. –J.R. Taylor




Johnnie Johnson (click for larger version)

R.L. Burnside

February 2 marks a decade since a capacity crowd crammed into The Nick during a snowstorm to see the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion and 69-year-old opening act R.L. Burnside. Spencer obviously dug how Burnside, a Mississippi hill-country blues man and erstwhile sharecropper, was the real deal. The next morning, the Blues Explosion headed to Holly Springs, Mississippi, to back Burnside for what became the A Ass Pocket of Whiskey album (reportedly recorded in a mere four hours). Though it received mixed reviews, the album became the best selling of Burnside’s career and paid for a new roof on his home. He had been recording since the late ’60s, and it must have had him scratching his head to see young, indie-rocker types suddenly turning up at his shows. He recorded a few more albums on the Fat Possum label, including the 1998 album Come On In. His 2001 album Wish I Was in Heaven Sitting Down was aptly named for a man who preferred to remain seated onstage. He died in Memphis. —Paul Brantley

Harold Leventhal

Anyone interested in booking prominent folk music stars 40 years ago usually rang up Harold Leventhal. He was the man responsible for Bob Dylan’s first major concert appearance in 1963 at Town Hall in New York City. Leventhal handled folk stars such as Dylan, Joan Baez, the Weavers, Woody Guthrie, and Peter, Paul, and Mary, as well as pop and rock acts such as Harry Belafonte, Johnny Cash, the Mamas and Papas, and Neil Young. He also produced the Arlo Guthrie film Alice’s Restaurant. —Ed Reynolds

Jothan Callins

A student of Amos Gordon at Jackson Olin High School, Callins went on to a career as an educator when not playing trumpet and keyboards with Stevie Wonder, The Lionel Hampton Orchestra, B.B. King, Max Roach, and many other jazz greats, most notably Sun Ra, for whom he also served a stint as music director. In 1978, Mr. Callins became the first jazz Artist in Residence for the Birmingham Public School System and helped found the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame. (He was later inducted there, as well.) He led his own Sounds of Togetherness, with which he toured internationally, founded The Birmingham Youth Jazz Ensemble, and authored more than 500 compositions. Explaining jazz improvisation to schoolchildren, Callins once put it this way: “Everybody gets to play. It’s like being at church and having testimony time. We all get a chance to say our piece.” –Bart Grooms

Ibrahim Ferrer

As a member of The Buena Vista Social Club, Cuban-born Ferrer became an international star and was featured in Wim Wenders’ documentary of the same title. –B.G.

Jim Capaldi

Drummer and lyricist for Traffic; he co-wrote most of their songs with Steve Winwood. –B.G.

Jimmy Smith

He radically redefined jazz organ in the mid-’50s, making it a bona fide solo instrument and influencing every jazz and rock player who came after him. Eschewing the tremolo typical of the organ sound of his day, Smith used the newly introduced (1955) Hammond B-3 and played lines based on the ideas of his favorite sax players (Coleman Hawkins, Don Byas), not keyboard men. He made numerous recordings, especially for Blue Note. Miles Davis, on first hearing Smith: “Man, this cat is the eighth wonder of the world!” –B.G.

Vassar Clements

Fiddler extraordinaire who played with Bill Monroe’s Blue Grass Boys and Jim and Jesse McReynolds, then later sat in with the likes of Paul McCartney, The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Johnny Cash, The Grateful Dead, Hank Williams, Jr., even Woody Herman; he can be heard on more than 2,000 albums. He combined the bluegrass of his background with jazz and seemed to fit in anywhere, even alongside Jerry Garcia and David Grisman in the hippie bluegrass quintet Old and in the Way. ––B.G.

Shirley Horn

One of jazz’s most sensual vocalists, Horn was both a protegée of and an influence on Miles Davis. Horn was also an accomplished pianist whose playing and singing meshed elegantly on her trademark ultra-slow ballads. Close Enough for Love (1989) is a fine first place to hear the woman who influenced Diana Krall and many others. –B.G.

Spencer Dryden

You’d imagine that the members of Jefferson Airplane are doing well. Some of them are still along for the ride playing as members of Starship, while fringe figures such as Jorma Kaukonen remain respected guitar masters who run their own pleasant rural empires. Property values in San Francisco stayed on the rise, too. Yes, it’s good to be a former member of Jefferson Airplane—unless you were Spencer Dryden, the veteran Airplane drummer who was living in a miserable place that hardly counted as a shack.

Not privy to publishing rights or particularly adult decisions, Dryden was a classic hippie casualty whose induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame couldn’t even rate him a cup of coffee. To be fair, the band had originally lost interest in the guy after he began carrying around a gun in the aftermath of Altamont. Not too coincidentally, Dryden had joined the Airplane as a replacement for original drummer Skip Spence, who would go on to cultish fame as another legendary acid-rock nutcase. At least Dryden benefitted from a 2004 fundraiser that was meant to help him with hip-replacement surgeries and other medical problems. It was still a bizarre end to a weird life—which included an idyllic Hollywood childhood under the auspices of his uncle, Charlie Chaplin. Most telling quote regarding Dryden, courtesy of an ex-wife: “He was so quirky, and he never intentionally hurt anyone.” —J.R.T.

Willie Hutch




	Spencer Dryden (click for larger version)

He stepped in to finish up “I’ll Be There” for the Jackson Five, and that pretty much guaranteed Willie Hutch any number of production jobs during the ’70s heyday of Motown. He was a natural purveyor of chart hits, too, having already made the adjustment from backwoods Texas soul to writing songs for The Fifth Dimension. However, Hutch would really make his pop-culture breakthrough with his film scores for The Mack and Foxy Brown—both of which were grandly intrusive experiments in funk and soul. (In the tradition of Curtis Mayfield’s work on Superfly, “Brothers Gonna Work It Out” continues to matter far more than any scene from The Mack.) Hutch was always welcome in the studio during the ’80s and ’90s, as well, and was still releasing strong work right up until 2002. Hutch also stayed around long enough to hear his “I Choose You” backing up the action in this year’s critically acclaimed pimp epic Hustle & Flow. –J.R.T.

Hasil Adkins

Wearing wraparound sunglasses and beaming a toothless grin as he danced in the audience to his own opening act (Southern Culture on the Skids), Hasil Adkins was clearly enjoying himself as he waited to go on stage. Minutes later Adkins was on stage alone with an acoustic guitar, singing in a captivating yet disturbing tenor that occasionally broke into a bad, but hypnotic, falsetto. He broke a string and smashed his guitar against the wall behind him without even bothering to turn around, then calmly asked to borrow someone else’s instrument. After the show, a roadie acquaintance told me that Adkins’ lunch routine was a pint of vodka and five cans of chicken noodle soup eaten straight from the can. He also consumed two gallons of coffee daily.

Adkins was the consummate hillbilly singer, the original madman who inspired The Cramps and other warped devotees of Johnny Cash and Jerry Lee Lewis to concoct a musical genre called “psychobilly.”

He claimed to have written more than 7,000 songs (with titles like “Boo Boo the Cat” and “Chocolate Milk Honeymoon”), and in 1970 he began mailing out thousands of tapes in an effort to secure a record deal. U.S. Senator Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia gave one of Adkins’ tapes to President Nixon; the President responded to Adkins on White House stationery: “I am very pleased by your thoughtfulness in bringing these particular selections to my attention.” Adkins was found dead at his crudely constructed West Virginia shack at age 67 of as yet undetermined reasons. Foul play was ruled out. —E.R.

Baker Knight

Knight wrote hits for Ricky Nelson (“Lonesome Town”) and Elvis Presley (“The Wonder of You”) as well for Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Perry Como, among others. Knight was born in Birmingham, spending much of his 72-year life here. In 1956, he had a strong regional following with his band Baker Knight and the Knightmares. Ricky Nelson recorded 22 of Knight’s songs. —E.R.

Bobby Short

Singer/pianist whom The New Yorker called “one of the last examples (and indubitably the best) of the supper club singer or ‘troubadour;’” he worked at the Café Carlyle on Manhattan’s Upper East Side from 1968 to 2005. –B.G.




Bobby Short (click for larger version)

Little Milton Campbell

Blues singer, guitarist and songwriter (“The Blues Is Alright,” “Your Wife Is Cheating on Us”). –B.G.

Paul Peña

Folk/blues singer; he wrote “Jet Airliner,” which was a hit for the Steve Miller Band, and was the central figure in the remarkable documentary Genghis Blues. –B.G.

Chet Helms

Chet Helms produced the first psychedelic light shows at the Fillmore West in San Francisco and staged free concerts in Golden Gate Park (when not fighting with promoter Bill Graham over whether to charge admission). “Chet was a hippie,” Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart said. “We were all hippies. He hated to charge for the music.” The story goes that he traveled to Austin, Texas, where he convinced Janis Joplin to hitchhike back to the West Coast with him. Helms was managing Big Brother and the Holding Company at the time and brought Joplin in to propel the band to stardom. Helms died at 63 of Hepatitis C complications. —E.R.

Jimmy Martin

A 1950s member of Bill Monroe’s Blue Grass Boys, Martin was an ornery man with a high, lonesome whine and a distinctive, fast-strumming rhythm guitar style. He’s probably best known for giving Mother Maybelle a run for her money as the show-stopper on the immortal 1970 album Will the Circle Be Unbroken?, a record that forced rednecks to forgive hippies for long hair and compelled hippies to forgive rednecks for not liking loud music. The two polar-opposite cultures admitted that they were really quite fond of each other, despite what Merle Haggard sang.

The Grand Ole Opry was too terrified of his reputation as an unpredictable drunk to invite Martin to join. He never got over the rejection; he often drove to the backstage of the Opry in a limo he owned (the license plate read KING JIM) on Saturday nights to drunkenly demand that he be allowed to perform. Martin died of bladder cancer and congestive heart failure at age 77. —E.R.

Dead Folks 2006 (Part 7)

Leave a reply

Dead Folks 2006 (Part 7)

A look back at the notable names and personalities who called it quits last year.

By Paul Brantley, David Pelfrey, Ed Reynolds, J.R. Taylor

January 26, 2006 Authors/Illustrators




Arthur Miller

Arthur Miller

What was the difference between the McCarthy hearings and the Salem witch trials? There weren’t any witches in Salem. Ignore that, though, and maybe you can find some meaning in “The Crucible” and the other writings of Arthur Miller. He hadn’t written a successful play since 1968, but Miller’s passing was still celebrated as an important event. This wasn’t because he was an important playwright. It’s because all of today’s good leftist playwrights have to celebrate Miller for bringing his absurd politics into high schools all over America. Fellow playwright Harold Pinter even tried to pretend that Miller was some kind of blacklisted figure.

Miller’s own leftist contemporaries, unsurprisingly, never considered him to be of much importance. “Death of a Salesman” wasn’t bad, but it still can’t compete with anything by Rod Serling or Paddy Chayefsky. At least Miller could proudly claim to have married Marilyn Monroe—but that achievement was pretty much ruined in the wake of “After the Fall,” a stage chronicling the marriage that was a pioneering masterpiece in midlife self-absorption. It helps to bear in mind that Bebe Buell once attributed her lust for Elvis Costello to “Arthur Miller Syndrome.” His final play would be yet another rehashing of having sex with Marilyn, so at least Miller had an understanding of his ultimate place in pop culture. –J.R. Taylor

Stan Berenstain

Plenty of parents and former children became very nostalgic when Stan Berenstain passed away. His wife Jan had been his partner in almost 40 years of Berenstain Bears books, as the clan’s illustrated adventures showed kids how to clean around the house and get ready for trips to the dentist—along with weirder stuff, as the Berenstains began to address issues such as drug abuse over the decades. The Berenstain Bears also made the inevitable transition to animated adventures and a bigger world of merchandising. However, all of this was pretty baffling to kids who’d first stumbled across the Berenstains’ hilarious early work as chroniclers of suburban angst. Racy paperback collections such as Baby Makes Four suggest that they could have been Erma Bombeck for those parents who’d just missed living by the Playboy Philosophy. —J.R.T.

Ed McBain

Fans of detective novels and mysteries are familiar with the 50-odd novels in Ed McBain’s 87th Precinct series. Fans of Hill Street Blues, Law & Order, Homicide, Police Story, and dozens of other television detective series are indirectly acquainted with McBain; his novels were the blueprints for a now well-established genre—the ensemble detective story. Ed McBain is a pseudonym, among others, for Evan Hunter, an amazingly successful mystery writer whose first novel was the controversial Blackboard Jungle. Based on Hunter’s experiences teaching at a vocational school in a rough urban environment, the book was adapted for a sensational motion picture starring Glenn Ford and Sidney Poitier. His screenplays for the “Alfred Hitchcock Presents” television series led to Hunter’s screenplay for Hitchcock’s The Birds. —David Pelfrey

Frank Kelly Freas

Anyone who so much as passed by a bookstore or newsstand in the last 50 years has seen an illustration by Kelly Freas. That’s his work on the covers of countless Ballantine, Avon, Signet, or DAW publications. From 1957 to 1962 Freas drew many of those hilarious, but amazingly realistic, fake ads for MAD Magazine, and provided Alfred E. Neumann’s moronic visage for their covers. Freas’ regular gig was creating otherworldly illustrations for works by such science-fiction legends as Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, and Arthur C. Clarke. The insanely prolific Freas earned 10 Hugo Awards for his work in the science fiction and fantasy field. He did real science, too; his illustrations for NASA missions hang in the Smithsonian. The cover illustration for the October, 1953, issue of Astounding Science Fiction (for whom Freas worked for 50 years) depicts a very troubled and puzzled giant robot holding a mortally wounded human in his hand. This legendary image became the album cover art for Queen’s News of the World. –D.P.

Inventors/Pioneers

Leo Sternbach

In the 1950s, pharmaceutical prospects for relieving anxiety were few: Barbiturates were highly addictive and easily overdosed on; “major tranquilizers” such as Thorazine had emptied mental hospitals but were instruments too blunt for everyday anxiety; and the only “minor tranquilizer,” Miltown, was weak in regular doses and toxic in high ones. What was needed was a drug that relieved anxiety safely and without overt sedation.

Austrian-born Jewish chemist Leo Sternbach, working with a couple of other chemists at Hoffman-La Roche Labs, serendipitously concocted just such a substance in the compound chlordiazepoxide, marketed under the name Librium in 1960. Librium was the first benzodiazepine, but its more potent successor, Valium, would change the face of American culture. It ultimately proved to be addictive, but Valium’s ability to take the edge off of daily stresses with surgical precision, plus its relative safety (you’d have a hard time killing yourself with Valium alone) made it the most-prescribed drug from 1969 to 1982. It was even immortalized in The Rolling Stones’ hit “Mother’s Little Helper.” Such a level of popularity can probably be explained in part by the fact that, for some, it was a readily concealable alternative to alcohol abuse. Sternbach also invented the drugs Dalmane, Mogadon, and Klonopin. –Paul Brantley

Robert Kearns

Robert Kearns invented intermittent windshield wipers, which allowed pauses between swipes during light rain. Ford and Chrysler implemented Kearns’ idea, and Kearns, often acting as his own attorney, successfully sued the automobile corporations in 1978 and 1982, respectively, for nearly $20 million. He had previously shopped the idea to automakers but could never reach a licensing deal. Lawsuits against General Motors and foreign automakers were dismissed. Kearns died of cancer at 77. —Ed Reynolds

Charlie Muse

Half a century ago, baseball players were real men who didn’t bother with helmets when batting. In 1952, a Pittsburgh Pirates executive named Charlie Muse forced his team to wear batting helmets despite taunts from opponents that the Pirates were “sissy.” Slowly, opposing teams began to adapt, and in 1954 the Braves’ Joe Adcock credited the helmet with saving his life after being knocked unconscious while batting against the Brooklyn Dodgers. The next day, the Dodgers began wearing helmets. —E.R.

George Mikan

The first “big man” to dominate the game of basketball, the 6-foot, 10-inch Mikan would simply stand beneath the basketball goal of opponents and swat their shots out of the rim. Mikan’s advantage forced the sport to outlaw “goaltending,” where a ball is deflected away once it begins its downward trajectory to the basketball goal. —E.R.

John Ebstein




	George Mikan (click for larger version)

In 1962 John Ebstein created the first airbrushed rendering of Studebaker’s ridiculous-looking Avanti, the ugliest sports car ever. With its extended underbite front end, the Avanti appeared to have lost the futuristic design war that the Corvette Sting Ray had easily won. Hideous though it may have appeared, the Avanti nevertheless turned heads just as the DeLorean once did. Ebstein also designed the Lucky Strike cigarette package and Greyhound buses. —E.R.

George Atkinson

A former Hollywood stuntman and occasional actor, George Atkinson didn’t need Grauman’s Chinese Theater to leave his imprint on the film history. Atkinson pioneered the home video rental industry. In 1979 he turned a 600-square-foot store into a goldmine called Video Station by charging $50 for a membership card and a $10-per-day rental fee for any of 50 available titles. Scoffing at earlier entrepreneurial notions that people would buy movies, Atkinson summed up his business philosophy: “You listen to Beethoven or The Beatles over and over again. You don’t watch Burt Reynolds over and over.” Currently there are more than 24,000 video stores around the nation. Atkinson died at 69 of emphysema. —E.R.

Joseph Owades

Weight-conscious beer drinkers can thank Joseph L. Owades for inventing the first low-calorie beer. Miller Brewing Co. acquired the rights to the process Owades invented and launched Miller Lite in 1975, spawning the phrase “you might as well drink horse piss,” which was almost as popular a slogan as “tastes great, less filling.” —E.R.

Dead Folks 2006 (Part 8)

Leave a reply

By Paul Brantley, Ed Reynolds, David Pelfrey , J.R. Taylor

January 26, 2006

Politics/World Affairs




Joe T. Smitherman (click for larger version)

Simon Wiesenthal

There are militant Jews, and then there are insanely militant Jews—the latter of which were probably best represented by the NYC group that loved to dismiss Simon Wiesenthal as “Weaselthal” for using legal channels to pursue former Nazis. (They didn’t like his support of Kurt Waldheim, either.) To normal human beings, though, Wiesenthal was a dashing figure as the Holocaust survivor who understood the importance of ensuring that no German monsters got to enjoy their forced retirement. His work in the aftermath of the Nuremberg trials facilitated the capturing of many notorious creeps, and the Simon Wiesenthal Center continued to extradite Nazis while also stopping the pensions of former SS officers. He was also father to a slew of ’70s paperback thrillers that drew upon his pursuits. The covers for a lot of these depicted the White House with a swastika in the background. —J.R. Taylor

Joe T. Smitherman

For years my mother refused to vote for Joe Smitherman, mayor of Selma from 1964 to 2000, because his quick-draw tongue flippantly and all too frequently tossed off racial slurs. (Smitherman can be seen in a 1960s Civil Rights documentary referring to “Martin Luther Coon.”) Nevertheless, our family continued to buy washing machines from his appliance store on Broad Street. He was quite a charmer, a good-looking guy who sort of resembled Johnny Carson.

Smitherman finally accepted that segregation had been declared illegal in Selma—except for the churches and country club. Despite his loose tongue around the neighborhood, as a city councilor he broke ties with white opinion and supported paving the dirt roads on which most of Selma’s black residents lived. He was re-elected every four years for 36 years by wooing black voters. It was never lost on Joe T. Smitherman that Selma’s black population was increasingly outnumbering the whites.

The town’s (whites only) public swimming pool that Mayor Smitherman closed to prevent blacks from swimming with whites became a symbol of Selma’s stubbornness and stupidity. There the pool sat unused for years, filthy and creeping with algae, the water a dismal blend of green and brown slime. Smitherman’s closing of the pool, however, launched a minor boom in the swimming pool industry in Selma. White residents combined resources to construct neighborhood “members only” pools. The one in our neighborhood was less than a hundred feet from Smitherman’s back door. He lived two blocks from our house (as kids we’d yell “Citizens’ arrest!” every time Joe T. ran the stop sign on our corner), and his home was often the target of Civil Rights marches during the mid-1960s. As my parents scowled, my siblings and I would cheer wildly whenever our house appeared on NBC’s “Huntley-Brinkley Report.”

Several years ago, I was in Joe Smitherman’s office, where a Confederate battle flag flanked his desk. He bragged about Selma’s then-recently appointed first black police chief, told me that the city had a couple of Jewish mayors in its history, and then pointed to a photo of himself sporting bright red wax lips once made at Selma’s now-defunct American Candy Company factory. Laughing, he quipped, “I look like a damn New Orleans queer, don’t I?” —Ed Reynolds

James Stockdale

It’s a shame that Admiral James Stockdale, who was Ross Perot’s 1992 running mate, is remembered for opening the vice-presidential debate by asking, “Who am I? Why am I here?” These words were seized upon by the media as possible evidence of senility (Phil Hartman parodied Stockdale on “Saturday Night Live” with Dana Carvey as Perot), but they in fact reflected Stockdale’s deep philosophical bent. His study of the Stoic philosopher Epictetus helped Stockdale endure repeated torture at the hands of the North Vietnamese throughout his seven and a half years of captivity as a P.O.W. His stoicism was resolute: He mutilated his face to foil his captors’ efforts to have him appear on camera for propaganda purposes and slit his wrists to demonstrate that he’d rather die than give in to their demands. These acts of defiance earned him several decorations and brought about better treatment of P.O.W.s by the North Vietnamese. —Paul Brantley

Rosemary Kennedy

Need further proof of how the Kennedy Empire has fallen? Consider that there was a time when Rosemary Kennedy was regarded as the most embarrassing member of the clan. As the retarded sister of JFK and RFK, Rosemary was hidden away after patriarch Joseph P. Kennedy decided that she was best dealt with by administering a lobotomy. The adoring media obligingly ignored Rosemary’s existence for decades. She lived to a ripe old age, too, most likely because she was blissfully unaware of how her brother Teddy had ruined the family name. —J.R.T.

Shirley Chisholm

Emilio Estevez once mistook a poster of Angela Davis for Shirley Chisholm. That’s okay, though. A guy from Mötley Crüe thought it was a poster of Clarence Williams, III. At least Emilio’s mistake was the result of a good leftist upbringing where Shirley Chisholm was an important feminist icon. She made history as the first black female ever elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1968. She promised fireworks and quickly rebelled once the Brooklyn gal found herself being shuffled off to the Agricultural Committee.

Chisholm would go on to co-found the National Organization of Women, which today might very well have less members than the total number of women who’ve ever posed for Playboy. Chisholm’s run for the 1972 presidency was pure showmanship, but she paved the way for genuinely legitimate contenders such as Barbara Jordan. —J.R.T.




Shirley Chisholm

Personalities

Domino Harvey

The amazing movie star Laurence Harvey left a bizarre legacy, what with sickly sophisticated turns in films such as Walk on the Wild Side and A Dandy in Aspic—not to mention a creepy turn as a “Columbo” villain. Still, Domino Harvey almost topped all of her father’s incredible excesses. She initially took over the international scene as a stunning model, which seemed natural enough for the offspring of Harvey and model Paulene Stone. Then, however, Domino had to become a genuine character by ditching her glamorous world to become a bona fide bounty hunter. She tossed in the added allure of being a lesbian, although that fact was pretty much ignored when director Tony Scott made the big-screen adaptation of her life. Keira Knightley made for a nice Domino in Domino, but the film itself was a hyper-stylized mess—with its storyline further complicated when Domino died of a drug overdose before the 2005 production was even released. —J.R.T.

Ray Holmes




	Domino Harvey (click for larger version)

In an incident that was reportedly caught on film, British Royal Air Force pilot Ray Holmes saved Buckingham Palace from almost certain destruction in 1940. The Hurricane fighter plane he was flying had run out of ammunition, so Holmes rammed into a German bomber, slicing off the tail as it headed towards the Palace. Holmes parachuted to safety. —E.R.

Philip Klass

With an exacting, detail-obsessed mind and the skeptical outlook of an unwavering empiricist, it was inevitable that electrical engineer and aviation expert Philip Klass would occasionally irritate his peers. He didn’t merely know everything about aviation technology; he usually knew it first. During the 1950s, he wrote the very first articles on secret inertial guidance technology, infrared missile guidance and detection, and microelectronics. Klass’s book, Secret Sentries in Space (1971), was the first to deal with spy satellite technology. He coined the term “avionics” and in the process created his 34-year position as senior avionics editor of Aviation Week and Space Technology.

But if his colleagues were sometimes miffed, his opponents were constantly infuriated. That’s because a sideline of his research led to Klass becoming the foremost debunker of UFO reports. Klass always offered an unassailable rationale for his investigations: “My sole objective is to either find a credible, prosaic explanation for a UFO report, or, if that isn’t possible, then to write the most important story of my life—about a visitor from another planet—and win a Pulitzer Prize.”

What galled the UFOlogists, “abduction” victims, and conspiracy theorists is that Klass consistently found a credible explanation. Apparently, a lot of amazing things take place in the atmosphere (plasma formations, radar temperature inversions), but the truth about such phenomena is here on Earth, not “out there.” Throw in a few elaborate hoaxes and pretty soon the X-files are rudely supplanted by the ABCs of basic scientific inquiry. That’s no fun.

His research was made public at the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP), which Klass helped establish in the mid 1970s, and at SUN (Skeptics UFO Newsletter), a bimonthly publication that Klass operated himself. This information in turn formed the basis of what are generally considered to be the best books on the subject: UFOs Identified, UFOs Explained, and The Real Roswell Crashed-Saucer Coverup.

That last title placed him on the enemies list of major UFOlogists, many of whom describe Klass as a “disinformer” probably working for the government. The book had turned the tables on one of the world’s most durable conspiracy theories. According to Klass, it wasn’t the U.S. government that was involved in a coverup at Roswell and Area 51. It was the pseudo-scientists and tourist attractions who were “lining their pockets” by maintaining a popular myth. —David Pelfrey

John DeLorean

Let’s note that he was acquitted—but John DeLorean still became a major ’70s icon while being videotaped by the FBI discussing how cocaine was going to be the savior of his automobile empire. It wasn’t just excess that he represented with his car line, although those stainless steel cars with the elevating doors would certainly go down in history as a pre-yuppie status symbol. DeLorean the Man was even more of a spectacle with his three-piece suits and aging good looks worthy of a model in a J.C. Penney layout. He would later be usurped by Moammar Gaddafi in the annals of stylish creepiness.




	John DeLorean (click for larger version)

In his defense, DeLorean had created the Pontiac GTO, and his jet-set ways allowed him to raise money from the likes of Sammy Davis, Jr. (There would be a Pontiac GTO named “The Judge,” in tribute to Davis’ routine from “Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In.”) DeLorean even had the hot wife who was ready to ditch him once the going got tough. Anyway, DeLorean’s alleged big drug deal never happened, but he still staved off bankruptcy until 1999—and certainly was far from the flophouse when he suffered a fatal stroke in early 2005. —J.R.T

Also Dead . . .

Ed Masry, partner of Erin Brockovich, played by Albert Finney in the film; Eddie Bunker, Mr. Blue in Reservoir Dogs, and real-life criminal; screenwriter Ernest Lehman; Henry Corden, voice of Fred Flintstone; Elmer “Len” Dresslar, voice of the Jolly Green Giant; Thurl Ravenscroft, voice of Tony the Tiger; Musicians Chris LeDoux, Chris Whitley, Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown, Luther Vandross, Justin Hinds, Laurel Aitken, Paul “Wine” Jones, Son Seals, Lucky Thompson, Percy Heath, Tyrone Davis, Link Wray, and Martin Denny; Senator Howell Heflin; O.J. lawyer Johnnie Cochran; architect Philip Johnson; Actors Barbara Bel-Geddes, Mason Adams, and Sir John Mills; Authors John Fowles, M. Scott Peck, Saul Bellow, Hunter S. Thompson, and Shelby Foote; Myron Floren, Lawrence Welk’s “Happy Norwegian”; Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist; Gen. William Westmoreland; feminist Andrea Dworkin; Eugene McCarthy; anchorman Peter Jennings; Prince Ranier; TV host Ralph Edwards (“This is Your Life”) &

The Black & White Gift Guide 2005

Leave a reply

The Black & White Gift Guide 2005

By Christina Crowe Paul, Brantley David Pelfrey, Christina Crowe, Paul Brantley, David Pelfrey, Ed Reynolds

December 15, 2005

Each Christmas season Black & White‘s elite shopping team gets a big kick out of finding unique items, a few bargains, and the latest top gear. For example, not only have we found some very good ice cream, we tracked down the perfect scoop. We figure that the best of everything is good enough for you, our readers. We also like toys, gadgets, and pretty much any device that launches marshmallows across the room. Largely speaking, then, we’ve already done all the heavy lifting this year. You merely have to write the check and wrap the box.

Food, For Goodness Sake

For the foodies on your gift list, or for those who just love tasty treats, here are a few ideas for something different.

O&H Danish Bakery’s kringles are the perfect pastries to have on hand for a big breakfast on Christmas morning. This Wisconsin-based bakery, run by the Oleson family, turns out the thin, flaky, frosted rings filled with flavors such as pecan, raspberry, almond, cherry, and even turtle. At $8.85 or $9.85 per 1-pound, 8-ounce pastry, they’re a steal. The company also makes decadent tortes, coffee cakes, and other Danish delights. Order online at www.ohdanishbakery.com or call, 800-709-4009.

For the cooks you know—amateur, aspiring, or otherwise—several new cookbooks would make great additions to their kitchen libraries. Francophile and author of A Year in Provence Peter Mayle and renowned baker Gerard Auzet have teamed up to publish Confessions of a French Baker: Breadmaking Secrets, Tips, and Recipes (Knopf; $16.95/hardcover, www.randomhouse.com), a guide to baking the delectable (but seemingly impossible to replicate) French breads known the world over. Auzet includes recipes and tips for making traditional baguettes, boules, and batards, as simply as is possible—but the process is still time-consuming and precise. Inspired by the famous American chef of all things French is Julie & Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen. This is the printed result of blogger Julie Powell’s online chronicle of her attempts to cook every recipe in Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Reading the book is like peeking into the diary of a woman obsessed with finishing something she started—a process that includes slaughtering lobsters and murdering mussels, often late into the night. ($23.95/hardcover; Little, Brown; www.twbookmark.com). For a little Asian flair, sushi chef extraordinaire Nobuyuki Matsuhisa offers his second title, Nobu Now (Clarkson Potter; $45/hardcover; www.randomhouse.com/crown/clarksonpotter), featuring recipes that range from haute cuisine—like king crab white soufflé with octopus carpaccio—to his take on old favorites, like fish and chips made with sea eel. The book includes recipes for poultry and meat dishes, as well as desserts. These are accented by beautiful full-color, full-page photographs that also make the book a great addition to any coffee-table collection. And finally, what’s being touted as “Italy’s Joy of Cooking,” The Silver Spoon, published by Phaidon Press ($39.95/hardcover; www.phaidon.com), is the book Italian home cooks have considered their bible for the past 50 years. Translated into English for the first time, Il cucchiaio d’argento contains more than 2,000 recipes and 200 full-color photographs covering everything from sauces and antipasti to desserts.

One recipe that surely must appear in the Italian food bible for pizzelles, the thin, round, crispy cookies baked in an iron that resembles a waffle maker. These addictive delights are found in virtually every Italian home at Christmas, and many Americans have made this tradition their own. Buy a holiday cookie–making friend the chrome Prima Pizzelle Baker from VillaWare, and start them on a new annual tradition ($54.99 plus shipping at www.villaware.jardendirect.com).




	Graeter’s Ice Cream

With 135 years’ experience, Graeter’s Ice Cream churns out rich, handmade delights in traditional flavors such as butter pecan and chocolate chip, holiday flavors like peppermint and pumpkin, and variations like their best seller, black raspberry chip. (Graeter’s “chips” are enormous hunks of real dark chocolate.) The closest Graeter’s parlor to Birmingham is in Louisville, Kentucky, but you can order the ice cream online at www.graeters.com, or by calling 800-721-3323. The cost is $70 for six pints or $110 for a dozen pints (plus shipping); if you’re ordering for yourself (or for someone with whom you share a freezer), go for a dozen; you’ll be glad you did.

For a fun twist in ice cream tastes, send a friend a batch of mochi ice creams. These Asian ice creams, a variation of Japanese mochi pastries made of rice paste and eaten to celebrate winter holidays and the New Year, are made of bite-sized balls of ice cream covered in the chewy rice dough, in

flavors such as mocha, green tea, mango, and red bean. Order them online in 16-, 36-, or 48-flavor packs from Hawaii-based Bubbies Ice Cream (http://bubbiesicecream.gourmetfoodmall.com) for $43, $59, or $68 (plus shipping), respectively.

Batteries Required

Remote-control toys mesmerize everyone, regardless of age. From the Ancient Mariner comes a variety of remote control boats. The New York City Fireboat is a radio-controlled, electric-powered replica of the city’s Dicky Fireboat that squirts water from onboard cannons just like they do in the real world. The Fireboat is 23 inches long and 14 inches tall ($132; www.seagifts.com) . . . The Sea Tiger Submarine is a radio-controlled submarine that can dive to 24 inches, resurfacing upon command. Should the batteries fail, the sub will automatically return to the surface. Have hours of fun by the pool on Christmas morning, regardless of the temperature ($50; www.seagifts.com) . . . The Remote- Control Shark is the perfect complement to your armada of toy boats. This two-foot rubber-skinned shark has a tail that flips left and right to propel it through the water. It can swim down to three feet below the surface ($40; www.iwantoneofthose.com).
Tools and Tech Treats

Many of this year’s tech gifts involve ways to amp up your iPod or other portable MP3 player, cell phone, or PDA. But without battery power, each is rendered useless. That’s where the solar iPod charger comes in. This 6-ounce, 4-inch-long device has three wings that fan out to catch sunlight, then transfer it to your music player via an included cable (works with iPod Mini and third- and fourth-generation iPods; an adapter kit for mobile phones is sold separately for $20). It’s waterproof and portable ($99; www.redenvelope.com or 877-733-3683).




Oakley RAZRWire (click for larger version)

Another great way to make the most of your personal music player is with the digital sound bag, a boring name for what is essentially the modern-day version of the boom box. This simple, elegant messenger bag (in royal blue, white, or bright orange) is outfitted with a pair of speakers. Just slip the player into the bag’s inside pocket, plug in the speakers, and hit play to access all your digital tunes and share them with the rest of the neighborhood ($70; www.redenvelope.com or 877-733-3683).

Of course, you’ll need the songs uploaded to your player before you can enjoy either of these gadgets, so why not buy a Napster 15-song download card for $14.85 (www.napster.com/shop.htm or at stores like Best Buy, Target, and Rite Aid) or an iTunes gift card or certificate, available in a range of amounts starting at $15 (www.apple.com/itunes/give).

For your more aquatic friends, a unique way to listen to digital tunes comes in the form of the SwiMP3, a goggle attachment with 128MB of memory that can play up to four hours’ worth of tunes through cheek pads that send sound waves through your skull bones (really) and into your inner ears ($199; www.finisinc.com).

Another device that takes a hands-free approach to technology is the Oakley RAZRWire, a tiny, titanium Motorola headset with both a microphone and speaker attached to the frame of Oakley shades that allows you to take calls discreetly. The sunglasses and phone attachment are available in platinum, pewter, or mercury ($295; http://oakley.com or 800-431-1439).

The Slingbox, which resembles a big silver candy bar, connects to a cable or satellite box and transmits whatever’s on TV at home to your laptop or PC (Wi-Fi required), all for $250 with no monthly fees. Buy at www.slingmedia.com or in electronics stores such as Best Buy and Circuit City.




	WordLock

Sometimes the coolest gadgets stem from the simplest of ideas. The WordLock is one such invention—born of an engineer’s frustration with trying to remember the combinations to three locks on his home swimming pool, the WordLock is a padlock that uses letters instead of numbers. Choose a (memorable) five-letter word, and change it as many times as you like. The inventor won a contest and production deal at Staples, where you can buy the lock for just $6, or order it online at www.wordlock.com.

If you’re looking to splurge a bit, the latest GPS (global positioning system) digital navigation systems are pretty nifty now that they’ve had a few years to improve. For just under $700, Garmin offers the StreetPilot 340c Portable GPS Navigation system, which finds your location by tracking up to 12 satellites simultaneously. It features a full-color, 3.5-inch diagonal touch-screen interface with automatic route calculation that’ll tell you turn-by-turn directions along the way. With FM traffic alerts, 2- or 3-D map perspectives, and up to eight hours of battery life, it’s going to be tough for this gift’s recipient to explain ever being late or lost. Check it out at www.garmin.com, and buy it locally at Circuit City and other electronics stores. For those who are very confident of their driving skills, or simply not distracted by what is essentially a mini entertainment system running on their dashboard, Pioneer’s In-Dash DVD Multimedia AV Navigation system is the perfect gift. The 6.5-inch, touch-panel, full-color screen mounts in the dash and offers detailed maps, as well as the ability to play CDs and DVDs. For a little extra, the system will deliver detailed traffic information for major cities in conjunction with the XM NavTraffic service and an optional XM Radio tuner ($1,999; www.pioneerelectronics or locally at electronics stores).

For an unique way to get around town that’s also GPS compatible, test drive a Segway. Our very own retailer here in Birmingham is offering a holiday special where buying a Segway Human Transporter (HT) will get you a free, handheld Garmin eTrex Legend GPS, complete with a custom mount and maps preloaded (worth $400). In addition to the original i180 model, Segway now comes in a Cross-Terrain (XT) model, with all-terrain tires; a Golf Terrain (GT) model, with extended-range batteries, a golf bag carrier rack, and enhanced-traction tires; and the p133 model, designed to navigate in congested pedestrian environments and be taken on a train or subway. The weight limits on these range from 210 to 260 pounds, so try to go easy on the eggnog and cookies. Prices range from $4,495 to around $5,300. Visit the local dealer in downtown Birmingham at 1516 20th Street South, 939-5574.




	Manly Stocking (click for larger version)

The Tradesman’s Christmas Stocking, from Duluth Trading Company, is a hearty alternative to the embroidered, bedazzled standard socks out there: made of Duluth’s “near bulletproof Fire Hose” cotton canvas material, it features leather trim, two outside pockets for tucking in tools, and a loop for hanging a hammer or screwdriver you may need for quick toy assembly on Christmas morning. Hang it by the red suspender loops, and there will be no mistaking this “stocking” on the mantle ($19.50 plus shipping; www.DuluthTrading.com or 800-505-8888).

Dead Folks 2005, Music

Leave a reply

2005-02-24 Features

Dead Folks 2005, Music

A look back at the notable names and personalities who called it quits last year.

By David Pelfrey, Ed Reynolds, J.R. Taylor

February 24, 2005

Artie Shaw




	Artie Shaw (click for larger version)

Music fans, especially big band enthusiasts, love and respect Benny Goodman and Glenn Miller. But if any were forced to take just one bandleader’s work to a desert island, or place the same CD or vinyl album in a time capsule, they might very well choose one by Artie Shaw (94). The clarinet-playing bandleader, in at least three recordings, offered definitive tracks of the swing era: the lilting “Frenesi” (a Shaw original last used to great effect in Woody Allen’s Radio Days), a flowing, magnificent arrangement of Cole Porter’s “Begin the Beguine,” which practically blew Benny Goodman off the charts, and a stunning rendition of Hoagy Carmichael’s “Stardust,” one of the most instantly recognizable recordings in popular music. Another of Shaw’s compositions, “Nightmare,” is a sultry, gloomy three minutes that evolved into the distinctive sound of films noir, as the scores for countless detective thrillers and crime melodramas all hearken, in some way, to Shaw’s 1938 recording. Throw in the fact that Shaw was a virtuoso clarinetist with looks that made all the girls cry, and it’s understandable that in 1939 there wasn’t a bigger star in the music galaxy.

Shaw’s musical ability was not matched by an ability to win friends or influence people; he broke up bands almost as soon as they made the big time. He wasn’t an egotist, but as a pathological perfectionist he was often devoid of patience with anything or anybody. Oddly enough, that in no way prevented the exceedingly handsome musician from being a ladies’ man (Lana Turner and Ava Gardner are numbered among his many brides), nor did Shaw’s irascibility imply insensitivity. It was Shaw’s idea to work publicly with black composers and players (Billie Holiday was the band’s lead vocalist for a short while), and he was an outspoken advocate for black musicians throughout his career.

Nonetheless, he wasn’t called “the reluctant king of swing” for nothing. Shaw regarded celebrity as an impediment to creative excellence, so his public performances temporarily came to a halt just before 1940. He organized several other groups during the war years and began performing again, but he was never completely comfortable with touring. Although he was approaching new heights in the 1940s and 50s by moving away from swing and into jazz, in 1954 he simply walked away from the music scene to take up a number of other pursuits. —D.P.

Elmer Bernstein

Speaking of his collaboration with Bernstein (82), Martin Scorcese said, “It’s one thing to write music that reinforces a film, underscores it. It’s entirely another to write music that graces a film. That’s what Elmer Bernstein does, and that, for me, is his greatest gift.”

The gifted composer didn’t just create marvelous, memorable films scores; he elevated the lyric quality of incidental music in movies. Bernstein’s legacy includes more than 200 movie scores, 50 years in the film industry, and an inestimable influence on three generations of film composers. So engaging and appropriate were his best works that it is difficult to imagine certain films without their scores. The rousing theme to The Magnificent Seven (later the “Marlboro man” theme until cigarettes ads were banned from television) is a textbook example, being cowboy music par excellence; its distinct “great American West” motif derives from Aaron Copland, under whom Bernstein studied. The martial, upbeat march from The Great Escape (1963) is another instance where melody and tone perfectly suit subject and style. Yet if ever there was a movie score that defined a film’s style, it must be the pure jazz score (a first for a Hollywood film) for The Man With the Golden Arm (1955), a downbeat, gritty melodrama starring Frank Sinatra that dared to explore drug addiction. The first minutes of Bernstein’s gripping score pretty much establish that things aren’t going to go well.

Indeed, the composer had a natural ability to convey urban angst and mean-street sensibility, as the jazzy, sleazy themes for Sweet Smell of Success, Walk on the Wild Side, and Some Came Running indicate. Yet for minimal orchestration and gentle, lyric passages, Bernstein also displayed an innate skillfulness; the tender, wistful score for To Kill a Mockingbird is exhibit A in that regard. His music is also associated with Hollywood actors and icons, most obviously John Wayne, for whom Bernstein provided scores for The Sons of Katie Elder, True Grit, and several others. He worked with Martin Scorcese on seven projects, notably The Age of Innocence and The Grifters, the latter being an example of Bernstein’s interest in various offbeat and independent productions such as Rambling Rose, Far From Heaven, My Left Foot, and The Field.

Bernstein’s stunning versatility is apparent from this partial list of compositions: Hud, The World of Henry Orient, Animal House, The Gypsy Moths, An American Werewolf in London, The Carpetbaggers, The Great Santini, the ballet music for Oklahoma and Peter Pan, Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” video, “The Films of Ray and Charles Eames,” and themes for “The Rookies,” “S.W.A.T.,” and “Ellery Queen.” —David Pelfrey

Jerry Goldsmith

Last year when the record label Varese Sarabande announced the release of a series of film scores entitled “Jerry Goldsmith at 20th Century Fox,” orders started coming in the next day. The first run of the boxed set sold out nine days later. Put another way, everybody digs Jerry Goldsmith (75). His name might not ring a bell, but the motion picture scores and television themes Goldsmith arranged or composed for more than half a century certainly do. A deadly serious student of music since the age of six, Goldsmith learned classical piano and absorbed music theory before taking a film music class at the University of Southern California (under legendary composer Miklos Rosza, no less). Afterwards he landed a pretty good gig at CBS, where he scored several episodes of a show that was getting a lot of attention called “The Twilight Zone.” Dozens more television commissions came, but Goldsmith’s acquaintance with another famous film composer, Alfred Newman, led to his long career in motion pictures. He began as a contract composer for 20th Century Fox, and then basically established himself as the sound of the movies. Even a partial list of his film scores and television themes is daunting: Alien, L.A. Confidential, Planet of the Apes, Chinatown, Patton, Seconds, Logan’s Run, In Like Flint, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, The Omen, Papillon, Basic Instinct, The Boys From Brazil, Poltergeist, “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.,” and “The Waltons.” —D.P.

John McGeogh

Like any founding guitarist who’d been in classic—and still listenable—bands such as Siouxsie & The Banshees, Public Image, and Magazine, John McGeogh (48) had both gotten a day job (as a nurse) and was trying to record dance music by the end of the ’90s. That’s kind of a shame since McGeogh was probably one of the rare punks who really had the versatility to thrive as a session man. It’s certainly no secret that he was a huge influence on subsequent generations. At least to those funky punks who don’t try to get away with citing old blues guys as their heroes. —J.R.T.

Johnny Ramone




	Johnny Ramone’s headstone (click for larger version)

He didn’t have many songwriting credits, and that’s probably not even him playing guitar on some of your later favorite Ramones songs. Still, Johnny Ramone (55) got to retire as the wealthiest member of the band because he had 100 percent of the merchandising rights. How did that happen? It’s a long story that certain people can’t wait to tell if certain long-awaited books don’t reveal the whole story. Suffice to say that Johnny benefited from being one of rock ‘n’ roll’s proud conservatives, cashing in on the hypocritical peacenik attitude of certain other band members. The greatest testimony to Johnny, however, is that he was always well-loved in the music community, even after expressing his support for President Bush while being inducted into the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame. We lost him to prostate cancer, which leaves C.J. and Marky to helm various tribute nights in the future. Jeffrey’s somewhere out there, too. —J.R.T.

Elvin Jones

The younger brother of pianist Hank and trumpeter/bandleader Thad was a drummer who changed the way we hear jazz. Jones (77) played with major figures like Sonny Rollins and J. J. Johnson in the ’50s, but it was with the iconoclastic quartet of John Coltrane (1960-66) that Jones’ fluid, polyrhythmic blankets of sound found their ideal setting. Jones’ beat was implied more than defined, and although one always knew where it was, the surrounding percussive accents and colors were endlessly fascinating, opening up the rhythmic options for the other players unlike what any drummer had done before, even since. Coltrane greatly appreciated Jones: “I especially like his ability to mix and juggle rhythms. He’s always aware of everything else that’s happening. I guess you could say he has the ability to be in three places at the same time.” Jones played on Coltrane’s classic albums My Favorite Things and A Love Supreme; he led his own bands from 1967 until his death, incubating such talent as Joe Farrell, Dave Liebman, Nicholas Payton, Joshua Redman, and Ravi Coltrane early in their careers. His unique approach, seemingly limitless ideas, and sheer power led many to regard Jones as the world’s greatest drummer, and following a much-ballyhooed “battle” with Cream’s Ginger Baker in the early ’70s, Jones became something of a celebrity, even appearing in the cult film Zachariah. It’s hard to imagine anyone ever sounding like him again. —B.G.

Rick James




	Rick James (click for larger version)

The guy would’ve made an interesting footnote just for signing to Motown with bandmate Neil Young as the Mynah Birds back in the ’60s. Of course, Rick James (54) had to take a stranger path to fortune and disgrace. He finally got to make a record for Motown in 1978 and was a popular R&B star until the release of Street Songs in 1981. “Give It To Me Baby” and “Super Freak” were huge hits that made James briefly seem like another Prince in the rock-crossover sweepstakes. He was a steady performer through 1989—following his move to the Reprise label—but it still felt like nostalgia to the masses when MC Hammer sampled James for “U Can’t Touch This.” By then, James’ drug problems had plunged him into several embarrassing legal situations. He spent the ’90s with critics hoping for a comeback, but James’ last high profile moment was as a punch line in sketches on “The Dave Chappelle Show.” He was probably pretty happy with that, but any future opportunities—say, on VH1′s “The Surreal Life”—were lost after James’ death from a heart attack. At least he got to date Linda Blair. —J.R.T.

Illinois Jacquet

Tenor sax man Illinois Jacquet (82) was one of the jazz piledrivers: he typically hit his solos full throttle, with clearly developed musical phrases based in the sophisticated vocabulary of the great Lester Young, but run through a rough-edged dialect of Jacquet’s own creation. The latter included “honking,” later to be overdone by a multitude of R&B and rock horn players, and squealing in the altissimo range (i. e., above where the tenor is normally supposed to sound), an effect that was also subsequently overdone by lesser players. He became a star at 19 when he recorded a rousing solo on Lionel Hampton’s “Flying Home” (1942), and was a featured player in the Jazz at the Philharmonic concerts in the ’40s and ’50s. He also led a septet in that era that featured the likes of Fats Navarro and J. J. Johnson. After becoming the first jazz musician to serve a long-term residency at Harvard in the early 80s, Jacquet formed a his first big band, which had a big success, recording the irresistible Jacquet’s Got It (1987, Label M). Almost everyone who plays the tenor sax owes something to this guy. —B.G.

Robert Quine

Lefty hipsters were pissed off that Ronald Reagan’s death overshadowed not only the death of Ray Charles but that Robert Quine’s death was completely squeezed out of all the NYC newspapers. To be fair, Quine (61) was an innovative guitarist and overaged punk who—while unable to make Richard Hell & The Voidoids sound interesting—went on to a stellar career enhancing (and occasionally saving) the work of artists such as Lou Reed and Marianne Faithfull. Quine was depressed over the recent death of his wife, but don’t believe anyone who called his heroin overdose a suicide. If you want to see Quine in action, track down the 1983 concert DVD A Night with Lou Reed. —J.R.T.

Barney Kessel

One of the greats of jazz guitar, Kessell (80) was one of the first generation of guitarists influenced by Charlie Christian, and as an Okie from Muskogee (literally), the sole white member of local jazz bands. It was in that setting that he met Christian, perhaps the most influential jazz guitarist of all, and his direction was set. Kessell played in big bands (Artie Shaw’s, Charlie Barnet’s, and even Chico Marx’s), when Gjon Mili made the short film Jammin’ the Blues in 1944, Kessell was again the only white face, but since an integrated ensemble was not to be shown on the screen, he remained in shadow or silhouette.

Kessel became famous after recording with Charlie Parker (1947) and touring with Oscar Peterson (1952-1953), but it’s likely that many more people heard his studio recordings with pop artists, from Julie London’s “Cry Me a River” to his work with Elvis, Rick Nelson, and the Beach Boys, to numerous movies and TV shows. Phil Spector was his student and protégé; Kessel advised the young man to get into record production and later played on almost all of Spector’s big hits (“You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling,” et al.). He introduced Brian Wilson to the theremin that was used on “Good Vibrations” and Pete Townshend wrote a song in honor of Kessel after the latter’s 1969-70 residency in London. Throughout, Kessel found time to make numerous jazz recordings, and from 1976 on toured with Herb Ellis and Charlie Byrd as The Great Guitars. —Bart Grooms

Randy VanWarmer

There was a brief window of opportunity in the late ’70s when lite-pop songwriters discovered they could put on a skinny tie and seem vaguely cool while turning out mellow sounds. Randy VanWarmer was able to break through with the modest hit “Just When I Needed You Most”—modest in its humble wimpiness, that is. The song still made it to number four on the Billboard charts. The solo career went downhill from there, but VanWarmer (48) was already establishing himself as a hit songwriter for country acts. The band Alabama scored with “I’m in a Hurry (And Don’t Know Why),” one of VanWarmer’s earliest compositions. VanWarmer would spend most of his subsequent career in Nashville—including a brief comeback as a solo artist in 1988—although he was settled in Seattle when he finally succumbed to leukemia. —J.R.T.

Jerry Scoggins

Jerry Scoggins’ (93) rendition of “The Ballad of Jed Clampett,” the theme song from “The Beverly Hillbillies,” is one of the best known musical motifs in television history. The show originally ran from 1962 to 1971, with 60 million viewers at one point. Accompanying Scoggins on the theme were bluegrass legends Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs. —E.R.

Hank Garland

As king of the Nashville studio guitarists, Hank Garland (74) was in constant demand. Switching effortlessly between jazz and country, he played with an impressive list of performers ranging from Elvis Presley to Roy Orbison to Patsy Cline to Charlie Parker. He pioneered the use of the electric guitar at the Grand Ole Opry. A 1961 car wreck left Garland in a coma for months. When he regained consciousness, he received more than 100 electroshock treatments that forced him to relearn not only how to play the guitar, but also how to walk and talk again. —E.R.

Terry Melcher

Many people wanted to kill Terry Melcher (62) for co-writing “Kokomo” with the Beach Boys, but Charles Manson had a personal grudge against Doris Day’s son. As an A&R man in the wake of his early days guiding The Byrds, Melcher passed on Manson as a recording artist. Charlie was also still pissed about the Beach Boys altering his song “Cease to Exist,” so Melcher’s association with the band didn’t help matters. Anyway, Melcher moved out of the house he was renting, Roman Polanski and Sharon Tate moved in, and the speculation continues about how things might have changed if Charlie had kept his address book up-to-date. Melcher kept working with some of the great pop acts of the era, and the ’60s lost a key figure when the California icon passed away from cancer. —J.R. Taylor

Billy May

He could have retired in 1942 as a brilliant arranger, but Billy May (87) was lured away from his staff position at Capitol Records to provide Frank Sinatra with some of his most unforgettable and brassy settings. The association began with “Come Fly With Me” in 1957 and continued to the end of the ’70s. —J.R.T.

Ernie Ball

Every would-be star who has attempted to play a screaming guitar solo is intimately familiar with Ernie Ball Slinky guitar strings and their neon-colored packages. Endorsed by the Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, and a million other rock stars, Ernie Ball strings are sold in more than 5,500 music stores in the United States and 75 other countries. They were made to be stretched, but, inevitably, they do break, thereby simultaneously rendering them the most revered and cursed guitar string in the world. Ball was 74. —Ed Reynolds.

Jan Berry

As one half of the duo Jan and Dean, Jan Berry (62) and partner Dean Torrence pioneered the surf music sound with hits such as “Dead Man’s Curve,” “Surf City,” and “The Little Old Lady (From Pasadena).” Berry had been in poor health for much of his life after suffering brain damage in a car crash in 1966. —E.R.

Al Dvorin

Al Dvorin was the concert emcee who made the phrase “Elvis has left the building” a staple of pop culture. The 81-year-old Dvorin was thrown from his car following an accident on a California desert highway after delivering his famous line at the conclusion of an Elvis impersonator contest. —E.R.

Estelle Axton

Estelle Axton (85) was the “ax” in Stax Records, which she started with her brother James Stewart (he was the “St”). Otis Redding, Sam and Dave, Wilson Pickett, Isaac Hayes, and the Staple Singers were just a few on the Stax roster of hitmakers. Her son Packy Axton was saxophonist for the Mar-Keys, an instrumental group on the label that often accompanied the singers. She later took over her son’s record label Fretone Records, whose only hit was in 1976 with the novelty “Disco Duck” by Rick Dees. —E.R.

Johnny Bragg

Leader of The Prisonaires, a singing group composed of black Tennessee State Penitentiary inmates that put Sun Records on the map with the hit “Just Walkin’ in the Rain,” Johnny Bragg (79) and his fellow convicts traveled under heavy guard to Memphis to record in 1953. In 1961, Elvis Presley visited Bragg (who had been convicted of rape in 1943), in prison. The Prisonaires were among the first rhythm and blues groups to have hit records in the South. —E.R.

Alvino Rey

As a bandleader who made the steel guitar popular during the swing era, Rey (95) billed himself as “King of the Guitar.” Rey had a hit in 1942 with “Deep in the Heart of Texas.” —E.R.

John Peel

To discerning music fans, John Peel (65) was best known as the legendary BBC radio DJ who promoted any number of really forgettable ’80s acts via assorted live “Peel Sessions” releases. There’s certainly no denying that Peel got really excited about way too many forgettable art/punk/new-wave/grunge acts over the years. In his defense, though, Peel would often just as easily lose interest in the struggling acts that he would grace with needed airplay. At least he was always interested in new acts, which was pretty good for a guy who’d been spinning discs since 1965. Peel could legitimately claim much credit for breaking acts ranging from David Bowie to The Smiths. —J.R.T.

Lacy Van Zant

He couldn’t match the output of Olivia Osmond, but Lacy Van Zant (89) made an impressive musical contribution through his rockin’ DNA. This ultimate band parent oversaw the Southern Rock dynasty of Ronnie, Johnny, and Donnie—which covers two Lynyrd Skynyrd vocalists (one, sadly, deceased) and a member of the underrated .38 Special. Van Zant worked hard to help out his kids in their early musical years, and his home also served as a museum. Lacy looked the role, too, with a long white beard and a penchant for overalls. If his image hasn’t been put on an album cover, it should be. —J.R.T.

Timi Yuro

She was pretty much forgotten at the time of her death, but Timi Yuro (63) cast a striking figure while ruling the early ’60s charts with gloriously overwrought tunes such as “Hurt” and “I Apologize.” Despite the exotic name, she was pure American pop. Still, it didn’t even help her career when Morrissey singled her out as his favorite vocalist in the 1984 tour program for the Smiths’ Meat is Murder tour. While the subject matter helped, Morrissey might have also been influenced by Yuro’s bizarre ability to look androgynous even when dolled up in evening gowns. —J.R.T.

Lizzy Mercier Descloux

She made some forgettable Parisian punk, but Lizzy Mercier Descloux (47) went out as a goddess to French hipsters. The very young gal was hanging out in NYC during the days of the New York Dolls, and she made it back to Paris in time to start up a pioneering punk clothing boutique. Descloux eventually went into the studio with her musician pals to record two fairly useless albums at the end of the ’70s. (This past year’s CD reissues reminded us why she was promoted mainly as a moody sex symbol.) Nobody was paying much attention to Descloux when she suddenly came up with an international chart hit in 1984. “Mais où sont passées les gazelles” was recorded with South African musicians about two years before Paul Simon got the idea, and the World Music genre was suddenly off and running. Descloux didn’t benefit much, though. Her major-label career was over by the ’90s, and she had moved on to a successful career as a painter before succumbing to cancer. —J.R.T

Alf Bicknell

From 1964 to 1966, Alfred George Bicknell (75) chauffeured The Beatles to concerts and other appearances. The inspiration for the song “Drive My Car,” Bicknell wrote the 1999 autobiography Ticket to Ride: The Ultimate Beatles Tour Diary!, in which he recalled the moment John Lennon reportedly snatched his chauffeur’s cap from his head and declared, “You don’t need that anymore, Alf. You are one of us now.” After The Beatles ceased touring, the former circus clown began driving business executives. A chainsaw accident ended his driving career in 1980, and he joined a Beatles convention circuit giving speeches and selling memorabilia. —E.R.

Skeeter Davis

One of the few women who serve as both a footnote and a legend, Skeeter Davis (72) spent her very long career skirting the pop and country markets. She started out as a rockabilly pioneer with her partner Betty Jack Davis, in 1953, before the duo ended up in an automobile accident that left her as a solo act. It took another decade before she finally became a huge solo star with “The End of the World.” Her public profile would later be that of a one-hit wonder. Within the Nashville scene, though, Davis was much admired and often sought out for duets. She aged pretty well, too, as NRBQ bassist Joey Spampinato noticed when he began courting her back in the ’80s. —J.R.T.

Arthur Kane

You can find at least two CD booklets from the ’90s that refer to the late Arthur Kane, while others believed that the New York Dolls’ bass player had simply disappeared after a jilted groupie cut off his thumbs. The only person who seemed willing to insist that Kane (55) was still alive was Keith Richards, and everybody probably thought that was just a hallucination. Anyway, Kane made a triumphant reemergence with his old band in 2004, after Morrissey invited the Dolls to perform at a UK music festival he was curating. Sadly, Kane succumbed to leukemia before the Dolls could follow up with any American dates. —J.R.T

Dead Folks 2005, Television part 2

Leave a reply

2005-02-24 Features

Dead Folks 2005, Television part 2

A look back at the notable names and personalities who called it quits last year.

By Danielle McClure, David Pelfrey, Ed Reynolds, J.R. Taylor

February 24, 2005Bob Keeshan




Bob Keeshan, aka Captain Kangaroo (click for larger version)

Far sillier (and better dressed) than Mr. Rogers could ever be, Bob Keeshan, otherwise known as the walrus-faced Captain Kangaroo, ruled children’s television programming on CBS from 1955 to 1984. The “Captain Kangaroo” show, which finished its run at PBS in the early ’90s, followed the Captain and his ragtag cast of puppets and characters, including Mr. Moose, Bunny Rabbit, Dancing Bear, and Mr. Green Jeans (who, despite rumors, was not the father of Frank Zappa) throughout their adventures at Treasure House. Keeshan entertained his audience with cartoons, the mysterious Magic Drawing Board, and sundry other gags. When Mr. Moose told one of his ridiculous knock-knock jokes, a shower of ping-pong balls was inevitable.

Keeshan (76), who started his career armed with a pair of horns and a bottle of seltzer water as Clarabell the Clown on “The Howdy Doody Show” in the late 1940s, couldn’t dance, sing, or even play an instrument, but he always had an eye-popping outfit and a knack for making funny faces. —D.M.

Robert Pastorelli




	Robert Pastorelli

He enjoyed a fine career as the housepainter Eldin on seven seasons of “Murphy Brown,” plus successful big-screen turns in Michael and Eraser. However, it seems Robert Pastorelli (49) was speaking a little too soon when proclaiming himself to be a former druggie in recent interviews he gave. In his defense, though, Pastorelli’s heroin overdose may not have been an accident. It turns out the cops were very eager to question the actor about the increasingly questionable “suicide” of his live-in girlfriend back in 1999. —J.R. Taylor.

Jan Miner

Madge: “You’re soaking in it.”

Customer getting manicure: “Dishwashing liquid?!”

Madge: “Relax. It’s Palmolive.”

Viewers who recall those television advertisements, which ran for a stunning 27 years, are all too familiar with stage actress Jan Miner (82). She played Madge the Manicurist, a wise broad (of a certain age) whose mission in life was to alarm customers before spreading the good news about Palmolive dish detergent, those green suds that “soften hands while you do the dishes.” —D.P.

Mary-Ellis Bunim

The next time you witness a drunken hook-up on “The Real World,” thank Mary-Ellis Bunim (57), one of the founding producers of MTV’s original reality series—or just turn off the television. Bunim, a TV “pioneer,” is responsible for changing the face of television in 1992. Bunim/Murray Productions bypassed actors and selected seven real unemployed post-graduates, er, strangers, to get real (eat, sleep, get wasted) while hanging out in a posh pad together for three months—without television—as the cameras rolled 24 hours a day to catch every droll, er, dramatic act.

MTV plans to air five more seasons of the show, carrying “Real World” through its unnecessary 20th season. If being solely remembered for producing the show that married Pedro, kicked off Puck, and let Coral rule as queen bitch wasn’t enough, Bunim/Murray Productions can also be blamed for the Fox Network’s “The Simple Life,” starring Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie. That’s hot. —Danielle McClure

Ed Kemmer

Ed Kemmer (84) appeared as Commander Buzz Corry in the popular science fiction television program “Space Patrol,” broadcast live each week on the ABC network from 1950 to 1955. Kemmer switched from portraying heroes to villains when appearing on “Perry Mason,” “Gunsmoke,” and “Maverick.” He was also featured in daytime dramas “The Edge of Night” and “All My Children.” Lampert once said that of all his roles, he was most proud of “Space Patrol” because engineers told him they were inspired to careers at NASA after watching the sci-fi series as children. A German POW for a year in 1944, Kemmer staged plays in prison camp. —Ed Reynolds

Art James/Gene Wood

It’s sad when a creative voice is stilled, but we’re also losing far too many non-creative voices—specifically, those legendary figures of game shows who didn’t even get to cash in on the genre’s short-lived recent revival. Art James (74) was certainly unique in his field, having served as both an actual host (Concentration and Blank Check) and announcer for shows including The Joker’s Wild and Tic Tac Dough. Gene Wood’s (78) long association with Mark Goodson Productions allowed the legendary announcer to achieve two cultural milestones. His rave-up intro to Family Feud would later be appropriated by the World Wresting Federation, and that was his voice whispering the secret word on variations of the popular Password series. —J.R.T.

Isabel Sanford

As a not-so-young character actress, Isabel Sanford (86) built a fairly amazing filmography, including Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, The New Centurions, and Lady Sings the Blues. The real fame for the former stage actress began in 1971, though, when she made her first appearance as Archie Bunker’s neighbor on “All In The Family.” A quick recast of her husband, and the groundwork was laid for “The Jeffersons.” She invested her money much more wisely than co-star Sherman Hemsley, so it was probably just a good sense of humor that kept Sanford repeating her role long after the series had ended in 1985—including in Denny’s commercials, a “Tonight Show” cameo, and a turn in the big-screen comedy Mafia! —J.R.Taylor

Dead Folks 2005, Politics and Sports

Leave a reply

2005-02-24 Features

Dead Folks 2005, Politics and Sports

A look back at the notable names and personalities who called it quits last year.

By David Pelfrey, Ed Reynolds, J.R. Taylor

February 24, 2005Politics/News

Pierre Salinger

As one of the lesser lights of John F. Kennedy’s Camelot, Pierre Salinger (79) worked hard to maintain his fame after serving as Presidential Press Secretary to JFK and Lyndon Johnson. He rushed the book A Tribute to John F. Kennedy into bookstores after the Kennedy assassination and would later be appointed as a Senator in 1964 after the death of a California incumbent. Then he was promptly voted out of office when he sought legitimate election, partly because he didn’t really live in California. After that, Salinger showed up as an attorney in an episode of “Batman,” and was a panelist on two episodes of “What’s My Line?” The former ABC news correspondent finally went away for good after making an ass out of himself in 1997. Salinger held plenty of news conferences proclaiming that he had absolute proof that the U.S. Navy had shot down TWA Flight 800, which had crashed with no survivors off of Long Island in 1996. It turned out Salinger had found all of his revealing documents on this new thing called the Internet, and nobody had explained to him that any crackpot could put together a collection of conspiracy theories and post it on a web site. Not surprisingly, Salinger passed away in France. —J.R.T.




	Pierre Salinger (click for larger version)

Charles Woods

Perennial political candidate and Dothan media and real estate tycoon Charles Woods (83) was the butt of many a cruel grade-school joke. Severely disfigured after a fiery World War II B-17 crash, Woods ran for governor of Alabama several times during the 1960s and ’70s, and even launched a bid for the U.S. presidency that once landed him a guest spot on David Letterman’s show. His bald, earless head, which sported an eyepatch, inspired children across Alabama to stylishly transform their thumbs into the head of Woods, complete with the eyepatch courtesy of a ballpoint pen. —E.R.

Mary McGrory

An outspoken liberal reporter on the Washington, D.C., political scene for 50 years, Mary McGrory (85) won the Pulitzer Prize in 1975 for her columns on Watergate. McGrory first made a name for herself reporting on the Army-McCarthy hearings in 1954 (“an Irish bully” was her assessment of Senator Joseph McCarthy). Her final pieces criticized the Bush administration for invading Iraq. McGrory often referred to Congress as the “federal entertainment center.” Among her accomplishments was inclusion on President Nixon’s famous enemies list. —E.R.

David Dellinger

Often described as a “radical pacifist,” David Dellinger (88) was a leading organizer of nonviolent antiwar protests in the 1960s; it was Dellinger who created the encirclement of the Pentagon immortalized by Norman Mailer in his 1967 account, “Armies of the Night.” His close contact with North Vietnamese officials allowed him to escort several American airmen held as prisoners back to the United States. Civil disobedience was his game. He got the harshest sentence in the political conspiracy trial of the Chicago Seven: five years and a $5,000 fine. Dellinger was a devoted follower of Rev. A. J. Muste’s movement supporting pacifism during World War II. He went to prison for a year in 1943 for draft evasion. Upon his release, he refused to report for his military physical, though he was exempt from actual induction because he was a seminary student. This got him locked up for two more years at a maximum security prison. —E.R.

Archibald Cox and Samuel Dash

Former President Richard Nixon shocked more than a few folks when he fired Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox. Oddly enough, Cox, (92) died the same day as 79-year-old Samuel Dash, the chief counsel to the U.S. Senate committee that investigated the Watergate scandal. It was Dash who urged a White House aide to reveal that Nixon was taping conversations with officials. Cox subpoenaed the recordings while investigating the burglary and subsequent cover-up. When Cox refused edited versions of the tapes, Nixon fired him. The former president resigned in 1974. Samuel Dash, an ethics adviser to Kenneth Starr, who investigated former President Bill Clinton, resigned from that position when he felt Starr was abusing his powers as an investigator by advocating Clinton’s impeachment. —E.R.

Yasser Arafat

The celebrity buzz in Hell right now is that Arafat and Hitler are sharing an apartment. That’s not so shocking; the two are both known for their “let’s kill all the Jews” world view. Yet one wonders what else they could possibly have in common. (A deep and abiding fondness for denial and subterfuge? Not much to build a marriage on.) Anyway, one also wonders just who is making whom wear the shiny boots. —D.P.

Abu Abbas

Abu Abbas (55) was the Palestinian Liberation Front (PLO) terrorist behind the 1985 hijacking of the Italian passenger ship Achille Lauro. An elderly, wheelchair-bound Jewish American tourist was pushed overboard during the seige. A 1995 peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians included immunity for PLO members for any terrorist activity committed before September 1993, the month the two sides established a mutual recognition agreement. As a result, Abbas made his first visit to Gaza in 1996 after Israel declared that he was no longer a threat. Abbas was captured by American forces in Iraq in April 2004. He died in U.S. custody. —E.R.

Sports

Tug McGraw




	Tug McGraw (click for larger version)

Nowadays, a wacky sports figure is somebody who runs over a nun while eluding the cops in the aftermath of a drug bust. Tug McGraw (59) represented a more genial age. He would’ve been eccentric enough as a left-handed pitcher leading the New York Mets and Philadelphia Phillies to their first World Series. McGraw pretty much summed up the quotable ’70s when—asked for his preference between grass and Astroturf—he responded that he’d never actually smoked the latter. McGraw also knew how to stage a photo op, as when he arranged for fellow Phillie Mike Schmidt to jump into his arms after winning the 1980 World Series. After his retirement in 1985, McGraw made appearances in a custom suit that combined his Mets and Phillies uniforms. He died in the home of country star Tim McGraw, who only discovered Tug was his real father after finding his birth certificate at the age of 11. The father had originally agreed to pay for Tim’s education as a condition for no further contact, but apparently he was just too damn lovable to leave it at that. —J.R. Taylor

Larry Ponza

Lorenzo “Larry” Ponza perfected the modern pitching machine, a marvelous invention that has entertained many a drunken tourist as they swat at baseballs in batting cages up and down the Florida coastline. Ponza (86) created the prototype for pitching machines with his “Power Pitcher” in 1952. In 1974 he built “The Hummer,” an invaluable tool used for batting instruction by both Little Leaguers and major leaguers. The inventor kept improving on his work with the “Casey” in 1983, the “Ponza Swing King” in 1987, and the “Rookie” in 1988. —E.R.

John H. Williams

As the son of legendary baseball icon Ted Williams, John Williams (35) got his name in the history books after a much-publicized bout with his sister over whether their father’s body should be cremated or cryogenically preserved for future resurrection. The male Williams prevailed, and his father’s head was removed and frozen. However, the cryogenics company later threatened to thaw out the late slugger’s head for disposal unless the younger Williams paid the laboratory $111,000 it was owed. No word on what was done with the younger Williams’ noggin upon death. —Ed Reynolds

John Kelley

John Kelley (97) ran in 61 Boston Marathons, finishing 58 and winning two. Running in his first in 1928, he finally won in 1935, and completed his last in 1992 at age 84, running the entire 26 miles. At age 65 he said his motivation to continue competing was “to try to beat the girls.” —E.R.

Brian Maxwell

One of the top marathoners in the world in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Brian Maxwell (51) made a fortune after he and his wife created the Powerbar, a sports energy snack, in their kitchen in 1986. Maxwell died of a heart attack at age 51 while waiting in line at the post office. Former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Steve Young was an early customer who began eating the Powerbar when they were still being made in the Maxwells’ apartment. Young credited the Powerbar for revolutionizing the sports world’s approach to healthy living. “[Before the Powerbar], players smoked at halftime in the locker room,” said Young. —E.R.

Joe Gold

Joe Gold (82) was an early bodybuilding pioneer. He opened Gold’s Gym in the Venice section of Los Angeles in 1965 and sold it in the early 1970s. They were subsequently franchised across the country. In 1977, Gold started World Gym, the setting for Arnold Schwarzenegger’s film Pumping Iron. As a teen, Gold discovered California’s “Muscle Beach,” which set in place his devotion to bodybuilding. He often worked out with railroad ties and buckets of hardened concrete. —E.R.

Sidney James

In 1954 Sidney James became the founding editor of Sports Illustrated. The first issue sold for 25 cents. James, who had coordinated the first televised coverage of the Republican and Democratic conventions in 1948, convinced William Faulkner, Robert Frost, Ernest Hemingway, and John Steinbeck to contribute pieces to the magazine. —E.R.

Walter F. Riker, Jr.

As drug adviser for the NFL, Riker was an expert on the effects of drugs on muscular and neuromuscular systems. Riker advised professional football in the early 1970s when amphetamine use by pro athletes was booming. In the 1980s, he addressed the escalation of cocaine among players and warned that steroids would one day be a major dilemma. —E.R.

Marge Schott

Anybody who thinks racism isn’t funny never saw Marge Schott (75) in action. The outspoken former owner of the Cincinnati Reds constantly made headlines with her idiocy, and got the occasional fine for racial slurs. That’s what happens when a trashy broad inherits an empire after her husband dies. Schott had been best known in Cincinnati for her dopey TV ads for her car dealership—in which she co-starred with a dog—but she spent the ’90s as the spokeswoman for privileged obliviousness. Reds owner Carl Lindner said, “She will be remembered for her love of baseball and for her passion for the Cincinnati Reds.” There’s some wishful thinking. It’ll be hard to top the memory of Schott proclaiming, “Everybody knows [Adolf Hitler] was good at the beginning, but he just went too far.” —J.R.T.

The Set List — 9-09-2004

Leave a reply

2004-09-09 Music

By J.R. Taylor, Ed Reynolds, and David Pelfrey

September 09, 2004

Janis Ian

Janis Ian was the first musical guest to appear on “Saturday Night Live,” where she sang her ode to lonely, unattractive teenage girls, “At Seventeen.” With its verses about “ugly duckling girls like me” and “inventing lovers on the phone,” one could almost hear the universal sobs emanating from the bedrooms of acne-plagued adolescents. It’s rather odd that she found such a natural connection singing about the younger set, because her teenage years were anything but normal. She had her first hit at 15 with “Society’s Child,” a tale of interracial teen love. Needless to say, she had parents drenched in cold sweat as they perused their children’s albums to find out what other mischief their kids might be getting into. (Friday and Saturday, September 10 and 11, at the Hoover Library Theater; 8 p.m. $20) — Ed Reynolds

The Damnwells

You’d be enjoying a proper interview with The Damnwells if they weren’t the most publicity-averse band in New York City. I used to blame the Epic label for trying to bury this Brooklyn band’s Bastards of the Beat—despite the album being loaded with earnest plainspoken tunes whose lack of pretension is their biggest charm. Smooth and sparse tracks are contrasted with others that work up convincing heads of steam, all brimming with stylistic atmosphere and sheer musical invention.

And if any of those descriptions sound reliably dull, it’s because I lifted a bunch of misleading praise from the Trouser Press reviews for BoDeans and Grant Lee Buffalo. The difference is that you won’t be embarrassed to someday still own a Damnwells album.

The guys in The Damnwells won’t mind that gag, either. They’ve already had to endure plenty of more insulting comparisons—although the real high point was when the indie mag No Depression accused them of sounding like “poor man’s Americana.” It was a bad review, too, which should leave all of us wondering exactly what’s missing from the logic there.

Most likely, what’s missing is the $20 that certain No Depression critics charge for providing positive reviews. Anyway, The Damnwells have recorded one of those Albums of the Year that you’ve never heard of. Actually, it’s kind of refreshing how that’s their own damn fault. (Wednesday, September 15, at The Nick, $7) —J.R. Taylor

Paul “Wine” Jones

Listening to Paul Jones’ raucous, haphazard vocals and runaway train guitar licks, it’s easy to start wondering how he got the nickname. Make that stop wondering. This isn’t juke joint or front porch blues so much as falling-off-the-porch blues, egged on by adult doses of getting-tossed-out-of-the-joint, Mississippi back-roads skronk. It’s a glorious mess, but Jones’ lack of technical proficiency is matched by an appealing lack of pretense; song titles such as “Roll That Woman” and “Guess I Just Fu**ed It All Up” suggest that this artist is what is sometimes referred to as “the genuine article.” If it were possible to isolate the basic elements of Delta and Memphis music, toss them into the trunk of a big ’78 Bonneville, and then get liquored up for an all-night drive to Memphis, you might not recreate Jones’ sound, but you could get dangerously close to his style.

In one respect, someone actually has isolated the elements of Jones’ particular style. A remix of his song “Goin’ Back Home” adds jazz samples and electronic flourishes to Jones’ gritty number, sounding like The Fall and Gang of Four covering Canned Heat, with John Lee Hooker’s vocals. That won’t happen at the live show, but this stunning track can be heard on Jones’ 1999 Fat Possum gem Pucker up Buttercup. (Wednesday, September 15, at Club XS, Tuscaloosa and Tuesday, September 21, at The Nick; $6) —David Pelfrey

The Pierces

It was a strange day when the mail brought The Pierces’ debut CD in 2000. I’d never seen ballerinas from Birmingham who’d grown up to be anything but waitresses and/or heroin addicts. It certainly wasn’t their fault that gorgeous harmonies and ethereal beauty were about to become old hat. The record was pretty impressive, but it was kinda obvious that it wouldn’t age any better than your average Christina Ricci performance.




	The Pierces (click for larger version)

And nobody could’ve complained if The Pierces’ long-delayed follow-up was a commercial contrivance. Instead, Light of the Moon is even more unrepentantly gorgeous than the first album, with producer Brian Sperber carefully anchoring their languid sound to a true heart of darkness. Maybe everyone in Birmingham has been enjoying this maturation, but idiots in NYC didn’t have any idea what the gals have been doing lately. Oh, wait—the Strokes guitarist, right? (Wednesday, September 15, at Workplay; 8 p.m. $8) —J.R. Taylor

Billy Joe Shaver

Perhaps the greatest country music outlaw since Johnny Paycheck, Billy Joe Shaver has never strayed far from the working-man ethic embraced by his more famous buddies Kris Kristofferson, Willie Nelson, and the late Waylon Jennings. Shaver played Zydeco several years ago in a quartet that featured his son Eddy assaulting patrons’ ears with a bulldozer guitar attack. Despite his son’s electrified licks, the elder Shaver’s songs retained their stark lyrical and melodic charms. After the show, the band immediately hit the bar to drink and carry on with unattached women. Not Billy Joe. Having been sober for quite a few years after a lifetime of hard drinking and drugging, the ever humble, unpretentious Shaver carried on with business as usual as he broke down and packed up everyone’s gear, including the drummer’s equipment. And he didn’t mind chatting with a stranger while he worked, talking endlessly about how much he missed his dog back home.

Billy Joe Shaver found a way to whip his demons. Unfortunately, his son never did. Eddy Shaver died of a heroin overdose on New Year’s Eve 2001. Devastated, the elder Shaver found solace that night by enlisting Willie Nelson to take his son’s spot in the band at an Austin club in what must have been the most emotional performance of his career.

In a world of boring, generic singer/songwriters too numerous to list, Billy Joe Shaver is the last of a dying breed. Widely regarded as a cowboy poet laureate after Waylon Jennings recorded an entire album of Shaver songs (except for one) on Honky Tonk Heroes, Shaver nevertheless continues to labor in virtual obscurity. And he does it his own way. Who else would record a song written after Kurt Cobain’s suicide and end it with a shotgun blast? (Wednesday, September 22, at Workplay; 7 p.m., $20) — Ed Reynolds

Gene Watson

Like musical legend George Jones, Gene Watson is admired throughout the country music industry as a “singer’s singer” for his smooth but unique vocal delivery. It’s country in the truest sense. Watson spent a decade touring Texas honky tonks before hitting the charts with “Bad Water” in 1975. His only number-one record was the catchy “Fourteen Carat Mind.” But the real diamond in his repertoire is the tearjerker “Farewell Party,” the greatest funeral dirge since the Carter Family sang “Will the Circle Be Unbroken?” It’s the ultimate song of self-absorption and self-pity, as Watson sings from the perspective of a corpse peering from his casket, watching his friends bringing him flowers one last time while his true love has the time of her life “at my farewell party.” More creepy than tragic. (Thursday, September 23, at the Cullman County Fair, Cullman) — Ed Reynolds

Marc Broussard




	Marc Broussard (click for larger version)

Remember when we used to complain about bands whose soulful roots were as deep as the theme-park camps of Orlando, Florida? At least those kids had an excuse. Marc Broussard is genuinely depressing as the product of both a fine musical heritage and an industry that was supposed to spare us from pop pap. This guy grew up surrounded by some of the best musicians in Louisiana. He was also helped along by the same crappy Americana industry that’s hyped soulless acts such as Ryan Adams. The result has been a major-label career that’s left Broussard fitting in perfectly on bills with Maroon 5 and Gavin DeGraw. The new album’s called Carencro, and it’s just more of a beautiful R&B voice singing useless crap. (Thursday, September 23, at Workplay; 9 p.m. $12) —J.R. Taylor

Music

The Young Person’s Guide To The Record Store

Bobby Bare, Jr.

Get More Music

E-Mail

e-mail this article link to a friend

Larger | Smaller

Dead Folks 2005, Cinema part 1

Leave a reply

2005-02-24 Features

Dead Folks 2005, Cinema part 1

A look back at the notable names and personalities who called it quits last year.

By David Pelfrey, Ed Reynolds, J.R. Taylor

February 24, 2005

Janet Leigh

The shower scene in Psycho must be one of the top five most recognized moments in cinema history. For the uninitiated, it is certainly one of the most disturbing. Leigh herself was not troubled by the scene during its production, which called for some 50 setups. Yet after seeing the final result on screen, the actress chose never to take a shower again (apparently a bath makes the bather less vulnerable). Leigh (77) had some excellent turns in Orson Welles’ quirky thriller Touch of Evil (another film in which she is menaced in a hotel room) and opposite Frank Sinatra in The Manchurian Candidate. Daughter Jamie Lee Curtis enjoyed status as a scream queen during the 1970s and early ’80s, most famously in Halloween, in which Jamie was basically following in Mom’s footsteps. An older generation of film fans remember Janet Leigh as one of the dolls in MGM’s mid-1950s stable of buxom gals, as well as her much publicized marriage to screen idol Tony Curtis. Their short-lived domestic bliss was detailed, ad nauseam, in brilliant Kodachrome for all the screen tabloids. —D.P.




	Janet Leigh (click for larger version)

Carlo DiPalma

There is an immediately recognizable visual style in Woody Allen’s films made after the mid-1980s, most notably in Hannah and Her Sisters, Shadows and Fog, Radio Days, Alice, and Deconstructing Harry. Several characters may be in a living room, a hotel lobby, or on a Manhattan sidewalk while a scene continues with almost imperceptible zooms, few if any edits, cuts, close-ups, or shifts in camera angle. Because Allen is uniquely adept at staging entire scenes for such “master shots,” and because Carlo DiPalma (79) understood how to capture those scenes without rendering dull, static images, DiPalma’s colleagues often referred to him as the “master of the master shot.” The pair collaborated on 12 films, most of which also boast a trademark honeyed glow that DiPalma achieved without filters, making him a master of lighting in the bargain.

The cinematographer acquired these skills during the Italian neo-realist heyday of the 1940s and early 1950s, but refined his craft, to much acclaim, during the 1960s with Michelangelo Antonioni and Bernardo Bertolucci. In fact, DiPalma was behind the camera for Blowup, Antonioni’s stylized, enigmatic mystery that became an internationally recognized symbol of the swinging ’60s. —D.P.

Rodney Dangerfield

“When I started in show business, I played one club that was so far out that my act was reviewed in Field and Stream,” went one Rodney Dangerfield (82) joke about his life without respect. It took him until age 42—his second attempt at making a living as a comic—to parlay his many years of failure into a staple of pop culture. “I get no respect” was a mantra that would be his ticket to stardom. No comic has ever been more successful mining the same concept over and over. With one hand constantly loosening his necktie as if it were a noose, Rodney Dangerfield’s bulging eyes, sweat-drenched face, and natural delivery of one-liners landed him on “The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson” more than 70 times. He starred in the films Caddyshack, Easy Money, and Back to School, among others. In 1995, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences rejected Dangerfield’s application for membership. Outcry from fans forced the Academy to change its mind, but Dangerfield declined the offer. —E.R.

Fay Wray

Fans of Femme Fatale or Fangoria magazine appreciate the type of actress (phenomenal babe) who spends her career in B-to-Z horror films and thrillers, most of which go directly to video or the cable movie channels. Occasionally one of these dolls breaks into the mainstream, but most of them enjoy being almost famous strictly for their killer bodies and their screams. Now that she’s passed on, perhaps Fay Wray (96) will become the patron saint of these gals, considering that she started the whole thing more than 70 years ago.




	Fay Wray (click for larger version)

Yes, that’s Wray, circa 1933, in the hands of a giant gorilla named Kong as he makes his way through Manhattan and up the side of the Empire State building. During the long production of that epic thriller, Wray was loaned out to other studios for such obscure movies as Doctor X, The Vampire Bat, and a mean little action-adventure film with Joel McCrea called The Most Dangerous Game. By the time she was perched with the big guy atop the world’s tallest skyscraper, Wray was known as “the scream queen.” One might argue that she helped make the building famous. Someone thinks so, because the lights on the building were dimmed for 15 minutes last summer to honor Wray’s passing. The actress (actually an extremely fetching brunette in her other roles) maintained a sense of humor about her association with the New York landmark, remarking in 1993, “Every time I’m in New York I say a little prayer when passing the Empire State Building. A good friend of mine died up there.” —D.P.

John Randolph

The balding character actor with a beaming smile and thoughtful eyes seems to have been middle-aged his entire screen career, but that’s because his work was stalled in the 1950s after he was blacklisted. An original member of the Actors Studio, Randolph (88) distinguished himself on stage before making his motion picture debut in 1955 in The Naked City. A decade later John Frankenheimer cast him in the science fiction film Seconds, and Randolph’s career as a character player on television and in motion pictures took off. He was outstanding as Jack Nicholson’s mobster father in Prizzi’s Honor and as the bookstore tycoon in You’ve Got Mail. Randolph also made brief appearances in almost every television series ever made, but he may be remembered for his recurring role as the dad on “Roseanne.” An unrepentant socialist, Randolph was active in leftist causes most of his life, eventually chairing the Council of Soviet-American Friendship, which arguably casts the blacklisting matter in an entirely different light. —D.P.

Russ Meyer




A scene from Russ Meyer’s Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (click for larger version)

Only Western civilization could produce savages like Russ Meyer, who truly understood the course of conflict in the wild. As the world’s greatest director of (human) nature films—including Supervixens and Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!, Meyer (82) spent the ’60s and ’70s making fantastic soap operas in which large-breasted women romance, fornicate, and engage in mortal combat with white-trash men. His instincts as an outdoor filmmaker were guided by far more than inexpensive sets; granted a big Hollywood budget with Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, Meyer simply had his warring tribes fighting in the arenas of Beverly Hills mansions. Like any auteur towards the end of his career, Meyer recognized the fulfillment of his vision, working towards a complete overview of his lifelong obsession with the female animal: a multimedia project entitled The Breast of Russ Meyer. When you’re the Marlin Perkins of mammaries, being witty is a secondary concern.

And on a personal note: The above was written in the present tense for a 1994 series of trading cards entitled Crackpots & Visionaries. The cartoonist assigned to illustrate the card was a friend of Meyer’s, and was concerned that my bio was disrespectful. He sent it off to Meyer who gave his approval. I met Meyer the next year, and we talked so much about his military years and Alabama—where he kept a fishing cabin—that his films barely got mentioned. A truly great guy, and what a shame to lose him to Alzheimer’s this past year. —J.R.T.

Ron O’Neal

Go and watch Superfly again—it’s pretty impressive how Curtis Mayfield’s score actually says more than any dialogue in the actual movie. Ron O’Neal (66) really saved film in his amazing turn as the titular drug dealer. Too bad that he was facing the same studio system as Pam Grier. There was no place for a black leading man with that kind of charisma, so O’Neal was stuck in the lousy sequel Superfly T.N.T. His complex villainy also couldn’t save The Master Gunfighter, which was heavily hyped as Tom Laughlin’s bid to expand his empire beyond the Billy Jack franchise. O’Neal survived the ’70s, though, and would go on to steal plenty of scenes as a dashing character actor in films such as Red Dawn and The Final Countdown. —J.R.T.

Paul Winfield

As another sign of Hollywood cluelessness in the ’70s, Paul Winfield (62) was regularly cast as a salt-o’-the-earth black man in rural films such as Sounder. In truth, Winfield was more like a black Christopher Walken than a male Cicely Tyson. His rich, fruity voice was put to its best use as the gloating narrator providing sordid details about various nice towns on the A&E Channel’s “City Confidential” crime documentary series. Winfield’s weird presence had also been put to better use in the ’70s with Trouble Man and Conrack, while the ’80s provided him with a turn as a cunning record executive in a Wiseguy story arc. He never quite got the defining role that he deserved, but Winfield made a lot of mediocre films suddenly seem dangerous just by his mere presence. —J.R.T.

Mercedes McCambridge

The old National Lampoon gag went basically like this: how to tell Mercedes McCambridge from Barbara Stanwyck? Barbara carries a whip; Mercedes is named after a car. The joke is a mild allusion to Stanwyck’s rather butch role in the television western series “The Big Valley,” as well as to McCambridge’s minor cult status as, well, a screen dyke. To understand how McCambridge (85) might have established herself as an icon of the celluloid closet, simply witness her roles in Giant and Johnny Guitar. Those turns as the toughest old broads in the west can make Charles Bronson look swishy. If those roles fail to convince, then her leather-clad villainess in Touch of Evil should remove any doubts.

McCambridge was one of the original members of Orson Welles’ Mercury Theater, justifiably so because the actress was a phenomenal voice talent. She was familiar to listeners tuning into “Inner Sanctum Ford Theater,” “I Love a Mystery,” and other programs from the radio era. Her most unique job in that capacity came many years later when McCambridge provided the voice of demon-possessed Linda Blair in The Exorcist. —David Pelfrey