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 - with more than 175 artworks by 100 artists from 20 countries, a retrospective of International Pop Art - from the 1950's through the early 1970's - is at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota through August 29th.
HAIL and FAREWELL to a favorite blues musician here in northern New England, 'Mighty' Sam McClain - who has died at the age of 72 .... to the New Orleans pianist, saxophonist, bandleader and educator Harold Battiste - who played piano on Sam Cooke's "A Change Is Gonna Come" and the distinctive soprano sax melody on Sonny & Cher's "I Got You, Babe" - who has died at the age of 83 .... and to Jeralean Talley - the oldest person in the world, who has died at the age of 116 ... leaving only two women who were born before the year 1900 (who have three sources of documentation that verify their date of birth).
THURSDAY's CHILD is Matilda the Cat - a kitteh with a condition called lens luxation, who has lost her sight (with no pain) .... yet will need surgery to remove her glassy eyes (which also affected others born in her litter).
PROGRAMMING NOTE - I will be travelling next weekend, and do not expect to be posting much (if at all). See you the following weekend.
BRAIN TEASER - try this Quiz of the Week's News from the BBC.
ON FATHER'S DAY here is a photo of Ed Tracey, Sr. (circa 1922-1923) whom I lost at age twenty ... and wonder how he would see the world we have today.
NOT MUCH TO SAY about the events in South Carolina that others have not said much better. Just hoping the families and community involved will find solace in what assistance that people can offer.
FRIDAY's CHILD is Moosie the Cat - a kitteh who survived 64 days (without food or water) inside a futon when his family moved from Texas to Alaska ... yet has a good prognosis.
CURRENTLY STANDING TRIAL in Japan is a female artist and sculptor seeking to mock outdated taboos. Megumi Igarashi was arrested for her images of genitalia ... that she believes would be ignored were they to come from a man.
ANNOUNCING HER BID to run for president as a former First Lady is Hilla ...... actually, Margarita Zavala - the wife of former Mexican president Felipé Calderon (who served from 2006-2012) - in the 2018 race.
FATHER-SON? - the Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony award-winning Mel Brooks as well as the Nobel Prize-winning economist Joe Stiglitz.
...... and finally, for a song of the week ....................... one of the great unanswered musical questions of the 20th Century was "What more could Otis Redding have accomplished had he not died young?" No less than Atlantic Records producer Jerry Wexler thought of him as "the single most extraordinary talent I had ever seen" and at only age 26 he had already achieved much. Still, music historians noted that, just before his death in December, 1967 he had just began to expand his range of "deep soul" (ranging from high-energy, high-emotion danceable tunes to aching ballads) to include more folk/pop music of the times, and his possibilities seemed endless. His audience, too, had grown and was already booked in 1968 for appearances at Washington’s Constitution Hall and on both the Ed Sullivan and Smothers Brothers shows. Alas, we can only imagine.
Born in Dawson, Georgia in 1941, his family moved to Macon in his youth and he grew up singing in the church and his school band. Compared to many other R&B singers of his generation, both his youth and adulthood were relatively calm; spared both family strife and substance abuse with the sole exception of his religious father disdaining his life of show business (though he became a strong supporter in time). Stylistically, 'Little Richard' Penniman (also a Macon native) was his role model, though Otis in good time developed his own style. He competed in local talent shows while in high school, being asked to leave after fifteen straight victories. He joined the band Johnny Jenkins & the Pinetoppers as a nineteen year-old and sang part-time with them, along with being the band's driver on the road.
His big break came when the Pinetoppers travelled to Memphis to record at the legendary Stax Records studio in 1962. After finishing (with mixed results) and some remaining studio time left .... Otis Redding began to sing the old song These Arms of Mine – which made a distinct impression on Booker T’s guitarist Steve Cropper:
Man, my hair stood on end. Jim [Stewart, co-owner of Stax] came running out and said, "That's it! That's it! Where is everybody? We gotta get this on tape!" So I grabbed all the musicians who hadn't left already for their night gigs, and we recorded it right there.
It became an R&B charts hit and led to a solo career for Redding, and nine months later he was asked to perform at Harlem’s legendary Apollo Theater.
While Stax later had problems that led to its demise, the family-owned, multiracial firm was a good place for Redding at that time, and he went on to release several classic tunes. His 1964 debut album saw him covering many soul music hits ("Stand By Me", "You Send Me") and which continued on his second album with Redding now starting to write some of his own material. One cover song was That's How Strong My Love Is - which led to cover versions by bands such as the Hollies and the Rolling Stones, and achieved great success on the R&B charts, along with some movement on the pop charts.
It was his late 1965 recording Otis Blue that became his breakthrough; partly featuring songs by the recently-deceased Sam Cooke ("A Change is Gonna Come" and especially Shake, which became a concert staple for Otis). It also featured some of Redding's own songs, including Respect - which reached #35 in the charts and later became a signature tune for Aretha Franklin - and a song he co-wrote with Jerry Butler, I've Been Loving You Too Long - which became the highest-charting song (#21) during his lifetime. It also featured a cover of the Rolling Stones' "Satisfaction" - complete with the Stax Records horn section of the Mar-Keys - which Keith Richards has called the best cover version of a Stones song he ever heard.
He followed-up in 1966 with two more recordings of both his own tunes and hits from other R&B stars, The Soul Album and Complete and Unbelievable - with a cover of the Beatles' "Day Tripper" and a spirited version of the 1933 song Try a Little Tenderness - which became his signature concert-ending tune. In late 1966, music promoter Bill Graham booked him at the Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco ... so successful that the legendary impresario Graham declared, "That was the best gig I ever put on in my entire life."
As mentioned, Otis Redding was spared many of the travails that befall musicians of the 60's: he owned his own publishing rights and wrote some of his best-loved hits (a few with Steve Cropper) and was in solid financial shape. He had a white manager, Phil Walden - who later founded Capricorn Records, the label of the Allman Brothers and other Southern Rock bands - and so he not only had (luckily) a reputable partner, but one who also introduced Redding to other musical sources, which he readily adapted.
If 1965 was a break-out year, 1967 became his landmark year. The month of March saw the release of his duet album King & Queen - with Stax label-mate Carla Thomas - that featured spirited covers of R&B classics such as When Something is Wrong with My Baby and the Lowell Fulson song Tramp. That same year saw the release of Live in Europe - which was the first album appearance of his hit single I Can't Turn You Loose - co-written with guitarist Steve Cropper .... and years later, Cropper brought an instrumental version of that song with him as a member of the Blues Brothers back-up band (which you may recall was their entrance tune).
And then that summer, he appeared at the legendary 1967 Monterey Pop Festival - and now he acknowledged his expanding audiences (at the largely-white festival) by referring to them as the "love crowd". They returned the love freely, and after his death, a recording of his and Jimi Hendrix's performances was a best-seller. For white audiences who had never seen Otis Redding, this show made him a superstar across the popular music world.
He went into the studio in late 1967 and began recording what many hoped would be a landmark recording. While at the waterside in San Francisco, he had been avidly listening to the Beatles' recent Sgt. Pepper release .... and along with Steve Cropper, wrote (Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay which reflected some new directions he wanted to take; the first song recorded for the new album.
Four days later, he was travelling to a show in Madison, Wisconsin when the plane he and his back-up band the Bar-Kays crashed into an icy lake short of the runway in Madison. Otis Redding was only 26 and all members of his band also perished (with one exception) with another band member not on that flight due to a lack of space on board. "Dock of the Bay" became a posthumous #1 single as well as the #6 most-played radio song of the 20th Century.
Here now is his legacy (just in part) ... and wotta legacy:
In his hometown of Macon, Georgia there is a statue, bridge and library named after him, a 1993 postage stamp was dedicated to him, and he was posthumously inducted into several halls of fame: the Georgia Music Hall, Rock & Roll in 1989, for Songwriters in 1994, a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1999, a Rhythm & Blues Pioneer Award in 2006 and in the inaugural ceremony of the Rhythm & Blues Music Hall of Fame in 2013.
In its list of the 500 Songs that Shaped Rock & Roll, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame listed three Otis Redding recordings ("Shake", "Dock of the Bay" and "Try a Little Tenderness"). And Rolling Stone lists five of his LP's in its 500 Greatest Albums of All Time - including Dock of the Bay at #161 and Otis Blue at #78. Finally, the magazine named him as #8 in its 100 Greatest Singers of All Time and as #21 in its 100 Greatest Artists of All Time list.
Otis Redding would be age 73 were he still alive, and hopefully would still be performing. We do have a Rhino compilation album of his work, and there is a new biography entitled Dreams to Remember that explains his impact on the world of soul music. His life was summed-up by Booker T. Jones - the bandleader on many of his recordings:
"It wasn’t the size of his voice — we knew lots of people with vocal powers like that. It was the intent with which he sang. He was all emotion. It was like, 'This guy is definitely not singing for the money' ..... I don’t think he ever did."
Of all of his considerable body of work, my favorite is still Hard to Handle - which was co-written with Stax Records executives Al Bell and Allen Jones - that was not released until after his death. It reached #38 on the Billboard R&B charts and #51 on the pop charts.
There have been numerous cover versions; most notably by the Black Crowes in 1990 ... and perhaps the most infamous was sung by Mae West in the film Myra Breckinridge in 1970. But my favorite cover was when it was sung (albeit only in live shows) by Ron 'Pigpen' McKernan of the Grateful Dead.
Below you can the original Otis Redding version.
Baby, here I am
I'm a man upon the scene
I can give you what you want
but you gotta go home with me
I got a load of good old loving
and I got some in store
When I get through throwing it on
you got to come back for more
Actions speak louder than words
and I'm a man with great experience
I know you've got another man
but I can love you better than him
Take my hand and don't be afraid,
I want to prove every word I say
I'm advertising love-for-free
so won't you place your ad with me?
Boys and things will come by the dozen
That ain't nothing but drug-store loving
Pretty little thing: let me light your candle
'Cause mama, I'm sure hard to handle