I post a weekly diary of historical notes, arts & science items, foreign news (often receiving little notice in the US) and whimsical pieces from the outside world that I often feature in "Cheers & Jeers".
OK, you've been warned - here is this week's tomfoolery material that I posted.
CHEERS to Bill and Michael in PWM, our Wyoming-based friend Irish Patti and ...... well, each of you at Cheers and Jeers. Have a fabulous weekend.
ART NOTES - a photography exhibit featuring the regional rulers of modern-day monarchies in an exhibition entitled Royals & Regalia: Inside the Palaces of Nigeria’s Monarchs is at the Newark, New Jersey museum through August 9th.
HAIL and FAREWELL to several figures from the music world: Wayne Carson - the songwriter noted for "The Letter" (Box Tops, Joe Cocker) and "Always On my Mind" (Elvis Presley, Willie Nelson) - who has died at the age of 72 ...... the English keyboard player Eddie Hardin - best known for his time in the Spencer Davis Group (following the departure of Steve Winwood) - who has died at the age of 66 ...... and the bassist Howard Rumsey - considered the founding father of West Coast jazz, and who was the last surviving member of Stan Kenton's original 1941 band - who has died at the age of 97.
THURSDAY's CHILD is named Pops the Cat - Britain's oldest shelter kitteh, whose striking eyes give a ghoulish appearance that puts off potential adopters.
ANIMAL NOTES - due to its many civil wars, nations on the African continent are experimenting with using elephants to detect landmines and TNT in the soil.
FILM NOTES - the BBC polled 62 international film critics to determine the 100 Greatest American films of all time.
FRIDAY's CHILD is a New Orleans kitteh who survived a kitchen fire, then brought back to life by firefighters via an oxygen mask ... finally returned to its family and is now in good health.
BRAIN TEASER - try this Quiz of the Week's News from the BBC.
THE OTHER NIGHT yours truly hosted the Top Comments diary with a look at three landmark albums from 1959 ..... which changed the lives of Miles Davis, Dave Brubeck and Charles Mingus.
YOUNGER-OLDER BROTHERS? - presidential candidate Jeb Bush as well as the retired newsman and author Tom Brokaw.
...... and finally, for a song of the week .............................. unless you've looked to see his name in a songwriter's credit, chances are you may not be familiar with John D. Loudermilk - indeed, the All-Music Guide's Richie Unterberger considers him an 'erratic, weird performer' of popular music - and he spent a good deal of the 80's-90's studying ethno-musicology, for example. Yet as a songwriter: he has left an indelible mark on rock, country and rockabilly and you have undoubtedly heard his work performed by others.
Born in 1934 in Durham, North Carolina to a musical family, his cousins Ira and Charlie Loudermilk became country music Hall of Famers under the stage name of the Louvin Brothers - and whose tune The Christian Life was recorded by The Byrds for their 1968 Sweetheart of the Rodeo album. John's career began - after graduating from Campbell College - in the 1950's while working at a local TV station as a handyman. They allowed him to perform solo a song he had written, A Rose and a Baby Ruth - and after releasing it as a single, his label received a letter from Curtis Candy demanding the song be pulled for copyright infringement of its popular candy bar. But after their sales shot up 500% - Curtis Candy sent the label another letter, advising them ...... ummm .... well, to disregard the previous letter.
This led him to a recording career as a pop/rockabilly singer with a stage name of Johnny Dee. Some early recordings of his found their way into other hands, and his first hit - at #38 in 1957 - was Sittin' in the Balcony which became the first hit for Eddie Cochran (that reached the Top Twenty).
Signing with Columbia in 1958, he decided to use his given name Loudermilk - and had several minor hits in the late 50's/early 60's such as "Language of Love" (#32), "Thou Shalt Not Steal" (#73), "Calling Dr. Casey" (#83) and "Road Hog" (#65). But though he had a pleasant voice: his concert material varied widely, with some novelty songs that missed-the-mark. Below is the album cover of his 1969 Open Mind of John D. Loudermilk that would seem perfect for a rock band of that era ...... yet not his hybrid sort of music.
And while he never became a producer, he did have one of those fateful musical discoveries: walking into a Nashville bar in 1966 and seeing a band led by a pair of brothers (on guitar and vocals) whom he recommended to the head of Dial Records to record. But Dial never realized what they had in those tapes of the Allman Joys Band and so Duane & Gregg Allman (that's Duane w/John D. Loudermilk in the above right photo) would have to make their mark later in the 1960's. Gregg Allman did say later that he learned a lot about songwriting from John D. during their brief time together.
He branched into his calling: writing songs for Chet Atkins at RCA (although not limited to country material, nor limited to American performers) and which increasingly became his livelihood over time. Here are some of his tunes that were recorded by others: "Break My Mind" (Glen Campbell, Linda Ronstadt and Gram Parsons), "Ebony Eyes" (Everly Brothers), "This Little Bird" (Marianne Faithfull), "Waterloo" (Stonewall Jackson) and the very topical "You Call it Jogging (I Call it Running Around)" performed by Mose Allison.
Perhaps his last high-charted song was the social-conscious Indian Reservation - (with the chorus "Cherokee people, Cherokee tribe") - first recorded by British singer Don Fardon but which Paul Revere and the Raiders brought to #1 in 1971.
As mentioned, John D. Loudermilk has been largely inactive (as a performer) since the 1960's and (as a songwriter) since the 1980's. But at age 81, his legacy is strong: a charter member of the Country Music Association plus more than two dozen awards from the performing rights organization BMI, a 1968 Grammy Award for - interestingly - album notes and was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1976. Though he is largely out of sight: his songs are definitely not out-of-mind.
Easily his most famous song is his 1960 tale of hardship entitled Tobacco Road - a stark contrast to his novelty tunes and which he claims to be semi-autobiographical (though he has been known to let his imagination get the best of him). His own recording was a minor hit only in Australia - but the song became famous due to a 1964 cover version by a band that - despite being called the Nashville Teens - was in reality a British band. As the All-Music Guide notes, "If (Loudermilk) had written nothing else, he would have been worth a footnote in an history of popular music".
It has been subsequently recorded by a wide, wide array of performers. Some examples - from country music: Bobbie Gentry, George Jones, Kitty Wells and Hank Williams, Jr. From rock: Edgar Winter, Eric Burdon, Spooky Tooth, Status Quo and a (notably) different version by the early Jefferson Airplane in a folk-rock style. From jazz: Ramsey Lewis and organists Richard 'Groove' Holmes as well as Jack McDuff - and from R&B: James Brown, Nina Simone and a version by Lou Rawls that is quite famous. The lyrics seem to change with each performer who interprets it, but below you can hear John D. Loudermilk perform it himself at the BBC in 1984.
I was born in a dump,
Mamma died and daddy got drunk
Left me here to die or grow
In the middle of Tobacco Road
Grew up in a rusty shack
All I owned was hanging on my back
Only you know how I loathe
This place called Tobacco Road
Because it's home
The only life I've ever known
Only you know how I loathe
Tobacco Road