I post a weekly diary of historical notes, arts & science items, foreign news (often receiving little notice in the US) and whimsical pieces from the outside world that I often feature in "Cheers & Jeers".
OK, you've been warned - here is this week's tomfoolery material that I posted.
ART NOTES - works from the last twenty years of the Spanish artist Joan Miro are at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina through February 22nd.
AFTER A SERIES of journalistic mistakes, conservatives in Japan have pounced upon the center-left newspaper Asahi Shimbun - hoping to shame it into pulling-its-punches about covering political scandals and the use of wartime 'comfort women' by the imperial army.
DEVELOPING A SYSTEM of street addresses is now a priority for many developing nations - and never having used zip codes before, Ireland will soon institute an advanced system designed for the GPS world.
THURSDAY's CHILD is Sylvester the Cat - a Manitoba kitteh who escaped unscathed (other than some smoke inhalation) from a hotel collapse after a fire, caught on video.
CONGRATULATIONS to the classical flutist James Galway - who has been presented with a lifetime achievement prize at the Gramophone Awards in London.
FILM NOTES - the British actor Jack Huston is expected to take the lead role in a remake of the 1959 film Ben-Hur - which will also star Morgan Freeman - scheduled for release in 2016.
FRIDAY's CHILD is Oreo the Cat - a kitteh who escaped just as her family moved from Nova Scotia to Alberta .... and when located a few weeks later, a trucking firm arranged for a tag-team delivery of Oreo to her family's new home.
BRAIN TEASER - try this Quiz of the Week's News from the BBC.
HAIL and FAREWELL to the English conductor Christopher Hogwood - founder of the Academy of Ancient Music, taking a scholarly approach to early-music and Baroque repertoires - who has died at the age of 73.
International SEPARATED at BIRTH - Food Network host Giada De Laurentiis (born in Rome) and Academy Award winner Natalie Portman (born in Jerusalem).
...... and finally, for a song of the week ....................... today, a look at two songs that I did not care for in my youth: one was a #1 hit in the USA, the other a #2, so I was in the minority. Many years later (in 1998) I came across them - in one case, performed by a different singer - and then had a new-found appreciation for them. In a real sense, I heard them again ..... for the first time.
I was in college when up the charts rose Gordon Lightfoot's tune Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald - one reason why I heard it so much was listening to the radio during night study. I sensed it was about a Great Lakes nautical disaster, yet didn't cotton to it because (a) as a Top Ten hit, it was overplayed, (b) Lightfoot sang and performed it in far too jaunty a style (to me) for such a tune, and (c) its whiny, pedal steel guitar accent got on my nerves.
Gordon Lightfoot had followed the story of the disaster on the CBC and avidly read-up on it, due in no small part to living in the Great Lakes region. Yet it was a November 1975 Newsweek cover story (entitled "The Cruelest Month") that prompted him into songwriting mode. He modeled the music after an Irish folk song, which may have led to the song's bounciness: not what I cared for yet may well have helped the song become popular. I liked his music, just not this tune.
The ship was named Edmund Fitzgerald after a former president of Northwestern Mutual Life, who was active in civic affairs in Wisconsin. His son Edmund B. Fitzgerald, incidentally, was a co-founder of the Milwaukee Brewers along with Bud Selig (the soon-to-be outgoing baseball commissioner). The basic story of the ill-fated ship can be read here - suffice it to say that its sinking during a storm is surpassed in folklore only by the Titanic.
Yet it was not until 1998 that I heard a folksinger (whose name is lost to my memory) who recorded a live version that I heard on a radio folk show that I reconsidered the song. He sang it just with a solo guitar and less sang the song than told a story with it. Along with the absence of the pedal steel guitar, I now could follow the ill-fated crew's story much better (plus, being an older person surely played a role). And so when I saw Gordon Lightfoot perform in Northampton, Massachusetts a few years later, the song sounded much better to me. Still can't say it's a favorite (I like other Gordon Lightfoot songs better) ..... yet now I appreciate the song much better.
The original single release was denied the #1 spot on the charts by Rod Stewart's "Tonight's the Night", and from the "Song of the Year" Grammy award due to "I Write the Songs" by Barry Manilow.
One relatively recent footnote: the original song had the line "At 7:00 PM, a main hatchway gave-in" - reflecting the initial investigation's belief that the crew had not fully secured the ship's hatches. However, a 2010 Canadian documentary came to the conclusion that the crew had not committed any error that led (or contributed) to the ship's demise. Gordon Lightfoot was grateful for this finding and - while he decided not to change the song's copyrighted lyrics - those who have attended his concerts since then have heard him sing instead, "At 7:00 PM, it grew dark, it was then".
A few weeks later in 1998 - after I heard the aforementioned solo folksinger radio performance - the mini-series about The Temptations appeared on TV. I had enjoyed their music in my mis-spent youth, and it was interesting to learn the back-story of the band (albeit told largely via the perspective of Otis Williams, the surviving member of the 'classic' line-up). Yet even if the series had not been good, it was worth watching for one thing alone: getting a fresh perspective on their 1972 hit single Papa Was a Rolling Stone - which I had not cared for originally.
Back then, I would have heard it in less-than-ideal conditions: either on a transistor radio or at school. My high school did not have 'study halls', for those who had a free period. Instead, we just were able to visit the library or cafeteria – especially in the morning, where coffee and pastries were sold … and music was piped-in. It wasn’t loud, one had to hear it over the general din of the cafeteria (even when it was fairly un-crowded, compared to lunchtime) ... and so it served more as background music. This wasn’t a problem for most songs .... but for Papa it sure was. I could not hear the lyrics clearly, there was no video of the singers and - especially in the full-length 11-minute version - the bass line never changed; the song remained in a B-flat minor chord throughout. As someone who was a bass player in a band at the time: playing the same line for eleven minutes seemed dreary, a task rather than a challenge.
The song was written by two future members of the Songwriters Hall of Fame who were at Motown - composer Norman Whitfield and lyricist Barrett Strong - and was first recorded by a different band on the label (The Undisputed Truth) which was not a success in 1971.
The next year it was recorded as part of the Temptations album All Directions and turned out to be the last hit single recorded in Motown's Studio A in Detroit (before the label decamped to Los Angeles). The album version ran nearly twelve minutes; even the shorter seven-minute single release was one of the longer Top 100 hits in history (although Don McLean’s American Pie of that same year ran 1-1/2 minutes longer). The remaining instrumental-only portion was released as the single’s b-side.
Watching the song performed on the 1998 television mini-series made it plain what I had missed years earlier: (a) Now, I could hear the lyrics as clear as a bell, (b) it was crucial to be able to watch the back-up singers (who were not dancing, but emoting) and (c) having lost my own father just two years after I graduated from high school ... now I could relate a bit better.
The song is sung as an ensemble: with four different band members singing a verse (asking their mother pointed questions about their late father) and their mother’s response being the song’s notable chorus. One legend had it that band member Dennis Edwards was upset about the song’s first line (citing the 3rd of September as the date of the father in question's death) since his own father had died on that day. Untrue: his own father had died on October 3rd, and had been a minister and devoted family man. Edwards was upset, though, about the number of takes he had been asked to perform (which strained his relations with the band).
Either way, I now understood the song in a way I had not twenty-five years earlier … and in telling the story, I realized the bass line had to be a constant, mood-setting sound … it would have been counter-productive, otherwise.
The song reached #1 and won three Grammys: the a-side for Best R&B vocals, the b-side for best R&B instrumental, and Norman Whitfield/Barrett Strong won for Best R&B song (as its composers). And it was ranked as #169 by Rolling Stone in its 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.