I post a weekly diary of the historical notes, arts & science items, foreign news (often receiving little notice in the US) and whimsical pieces from the outside world that I featured this past week in "Cheers & Jeers". For example .....
SEPARATED at BIRTH - perhaps not the first place you've seen this montage (and yes, there was a little photo-shopping done): accused murderer Jared Lee Loughner and your-friend-and-mine Glenn Beck.
OK, you've been warned - here is this week's tomfoolery material that I posted.
ART NOTES - the photography exhibit Save the Indian and Kill the Man is at the Seattle, Washington Art Museum through August 14th.
FOOD NOTES - this past Monday saw 2,000 restaurants in over 40 countries celebrate Pesto Day and - in trying to preserve its roots in Genoa - that region is seeking a European Union specialty mark in meeting strict criteria for genuine ingredients.
CRIME NOTES - a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police has been suspended after being caught-on-video kicking a British Columbia man in the face - in what may yet wind up as Canada's version of the Rodney King affair.
MONDAY's CHILD was caught in an apartment fire in Cambridge, Massachusetts and suffered from smoke inhalation - until a firefighter used his air mask to revive him.
LAST WEEK it was noted here that the French racist Le Front National leader Jean-Marie Le Pen was to hand over leadership of his party to his daughter Marine at this past weekend's party convention in the city of Tours. Well, Le Pen didn't go quietly: France 24 reporter Mickael Szames said he was beaten, kicked, knocked to the ground and racially abused by Le Pen's security team. When he and France 24 had made a formal complaint to the police, Le Pen ended his reign by saying, "He complained it was because he was Jewish he was thrown out. You couldn't tell by looking at his identity card .... nor at his nose".
ART NOTES - photos by the Belgium-born Johan Grimonprez are at the Blaffer Art Museum at the University of Houston, Texas through April 2nd.
BUSINESS NOTES - a major purchase of beer fermenting tanks from Germany placed Molson Breweries in Toronto in a bit of a quandry. The tanks were far too large to fit on any cargo plane, so they needed to come by boat - but would not fit under the city's cross-river bridges. So they were shipped to the city of Hamilton and had to be trucked by a 40-vehicle convoy through five municipalities.
MUSIC NOTES - first there was the 2009 opening of a Beatles museum in Hamburg, Germany (where the band came-of-age in the early 1960's). Now - even though the Beatles never performed there - the opening of a Beatles museum in Buenos Aires, Argentina is the first such exhibit in Latin America.
TUESDAY's CHILD is Busterfur Jones the Cat - whose cries awoke a Tennessee woman whose malfunctioning hair dryer began to fill her house with smoke.
ART NOTES #2 - following the recent front-page diary about an exhibit of Van Gogh, Gauguin & Cézanne in San Francisco: a Gaugin exhibit which just closed at London's Tate Modern museum left patrons with a sense of gallery rage due to immense over-crowding.
THIS PAST MONDAY was not only the Martin Luther King holiday (for which the activist Ruby Sales honors the memory of activist Jonathan Daniels of Keene, New Hampshire who saved her life) but also the 50th anniversary of President Eisenhower's 'military-industrial complex' speech and the 50th anniversary of the assassination by the US and Belgium of Patrice Lumumba - the first legally elected prime minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
ART NOTES - the exhibition Millet and Rural France is at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Massachusetts through May 30th.
AFTER BEING TOLD by a waitress "I never met anyone your age named Jennifer before!" - a 48 year-old essayist looks at the rise-and-fall of her name.
HISTORY NOTES - Argentina's founding father Julio Argentino Roca appeared on banknotes and was a name to inspire schoolchildren. Today he is being recast as a villain who exterminated indigenous communities and their culture from much of South America.
WEDNESDAY's CHILD is Possum the Cat - one of the 2010 Texas Animal Hall of Fame inductees - whose constant pawing and cries kept an injured, severely diabetic woman from losing consciousness (enabling her to eventually call her husband for help).
POLITICAL NOTES - the French finance minister Christine Lagarde - who became the first female chair of the American law firm Baker & McKenzie - remains one of the most popular ministers in President Nicolas Sarkozy's government.
DEBAUCHERY CENTRAL - an Australian couple (both 19) decided to make the best of the recent flooding by sailing on a pair of .... inflatable sex dolls down the flood-swollen Yarra River. But when the woman had to be rescued (after losing her 'raft' in turbulent water) police had to issue a warning that blow-up sex toys .... "are not recognized flotation devices".
FATHER-SON? - the late musician Tim Hardin (composer of "If I Were a Carpenter") ...
..... and blogger Duncan 'Atrios' Black - a/k/a the Baby Blue Cherub.
IF YOU HAVE NOT yet read last weekend's Paul Krugman essay on the Euro, do so despite its length. He is a strong supporter of the European social safety net, which is why his critique is not your traditional European-basher exercise.
ART NOTES - the exhibit Henry Ossawa Tanner and his Contemporaries is at the Des Moines, Iowa Art Center through February 27th.
AN ENGLISH CORRESPONDENT for the Guardian newspaper based in America reveals that he bought a home in Tucson - and is certain the city will find its own special way to heal.
DEBAUCHERY CENTRAL - a 29-year-old woman was uninhibited in her use of a vibrator during a train trip between Bad Kissingen and Würzburg in Germany, leading passengers to complain to the conductor.
THURSDAY's CHILD is Freddy The Cat - a resident at the village hall of Sharon, Wisconsin and known as its 'mayor' - who was discovered in a local shelter after going missing for four months.
EMERGENCY SERVICES near Stockholm, Sweden had to be summoned when several people suffered from carbon monoxide poisoning after lighting ... a barbeque indoors.
SIGN of the TIMES - numerous coffee shops in Split, Croatia - who traditionally offered free newspapers to its patrons - are now switching to the use of iPads (with a sensor to prevent people from bringing them home).
SEPARATED at BIRTH - former Top Chef television contestant Jamie Lauren ...
.......... and TV star Amy Poehler (SNL and "Parks & Recreation").
ENVIRONMENTAL NOTES - after destroying millions of oaks in California, the infection sudden oak death spread to Britain – then suddenly jumped species
POLITICAL NOTES - the right-wing member of the Chilean Congress Alberto Cardemil has finally acknowledged responsibility for not preventing human rights violations as Undersecretary for the Interior during General Augusto Pinochet’s mlitary dictatorship.
FRIDAY's CHILD somehow got stuck in between decorative panels and a wall along an elevated expressway in Japan - but was rescued unharemed after more than 24 hours of efforts.
......and finally (repeated for the west coasters) for a song of the week ............... while not a household name like that of rockabilly pioneer Ricky Nelson, nor prominently amongst rockers-who-died-young such as Buddy Holly: the name Eddie Cochran belongs prominently for his influence in the music that was soon to follow. In his short twenty-one years on this planet, he had some hit songs and a guitar style that many musicians who are household names cite as an inspiration.
Born as Ray Edward Cochran in Albert Lea, Minnesota in the autumn of 1938 (although he often said he was born in Oklahoma where his parents hailed from) - either way, his family wound up in California when he was twelve, where he played in the school band. At the age of 17 in 1955, he made two friends who would help launch his career. One was singer Hank Cochran with whom he formed the "Cochran Brothers Band" for a while (even though they were not related) that garnered attention in Southern California. The other he met at a record store: the twenty-six year-old lyricist Jerry Capehart who had some success as a songwriter previously and would (eventually) become Eddie Cochran's manager.
Hank Cochran in time headed out on his own, while Jerry Capehart was convinced he had found a star in Eddie Cochran and was able to land a contract for him at Liberty Records (when every label sought a 'new Elvis' to sign). His big break came when director Boris Petroff decided to use Cochran in his 1956 musical comedy film The Girl Can't Help It starring Jayne Mansfield. The film had numerous musicians (Little Richard, jazz singers Julie London and Abbey Lincoln) and Cochran became a star singing Twenty Flight Rock which has an interesting postscript. A year later, a 16 year-old John Lennon was quite impressed by another young lad's ability to play and sing this song just like Eddie Cochran did, who turned out to be one .... James Paul McCartney.
Eddie's first solo single was "Sittin' in the Balcony" and he went on to record prolifically for Liberty Records. Although he only released one album during his lifetime - and many tunes were crooning ballads that the label wanted - he excelled in up-tempo rocking numbers which he became known for. 1958 saw several songs of his reach the charts, including C'mon Everybody as well as Somethin' Else - both of which are now considered classics. He also had minor hits with "Weekend", "Teenage Heaven" and "Nervous Breakdown".
Eddie Cochran was, for someone of that era (and for a young musician, in particular) considered not only one of the first technically proficient guitar heroes - as he is considered one of the earliest power chord and string bending proponents in rock, and his Gretsch 6120 Chet Atkins model helped make it a top-selling model - but he also used overdubs at a time when it was utilized mostly by the likes of Les Paul, not young pop stars.
In the early months of 1960 he toured Great Britain for ten weeks along with fellow rocker Gene Vincent as well as songwriter Sharon Sheeley - Eddie Cochran's fiancée. At that time, kids in the UK rarely had a chance to see their heroes from the US, and the tour proved to be a huge success - one reason why Cochran is a much bigger name in Britain today than the US. After one show, Cochran handed his guitar to a thirteen year-old boy named Mark Feld, allowing him to carry it to the singer’s waiting limousine (who later became Marc Bolan of the band T-Rex).
Eddie and Gene enjoyed their time so much, they agreed to extend the tour by several weeks (after allowing for a two-week break to return to the US) following their last show in Bristol. But during their taxi ride back to London for their flight, the car smashed into a lamp post. Sharon Sheeley suffered a broken pelvis and Gene Vincent sustained injuries that would (eventually) shorten his career. But it was Eddie Cochran who was thrown through the windshield and died a day later, six months short of his twenty-second birthday. The driver was convicted of dangerous driving and spent six months in prison. Eerily, a song Cochran recorded shortly before his death was Three Steps to Heaven - a big hit in Britain when it was released posthumously.
Interestingly, one of the police cadets at the local constabulary (who was first on the scene of the crash) was named Dave Harmon, who says he first learned to play guitar by playing Eddie Cochran's guitar in the station the next few nights (before it was returned to Cochran's family). Harmon abandoned law enforcement, becoming the lead singer of the band Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich - and adopting the stage name Dave Dee.
Eddie Cochran has been cited as an influence by many musicians, besides the aforementioned ones: Pete Townshend of The Who, the Irish blues guitarist Rory Gallagher ... and most obviously in the Stray Cat guitarist Brian Setzer - who in the 1987 film La Bamba portrayed Eddie Cochran in a cameo role. Eddie Cochran songs have been performed by the likes of The Clash, Rolling Stones, Rod Stewart, Beach Boys, Buck Owens, Dion DeMucci, Tom Petty and Motorhead to name just a few.
His associates also went on to noted careers: old partner Hank Cochran became a premiere Nashville songwriter who passed away just this past summer, fiancée Sharon Sheeley wrote songs for Mac Davis and Jackie DeShannon before her death in 2002 and his lyricist/manager Jerry Capehart later managed Glen Campbell as well as the actor Frank Gorshin before his death in 1998.
Eddie Cochran's nephew Bobby wrote a biography of the star's life in 2003, and there is a nice one-disc Somethin' Else compilation album of his music available. Eddie Cochran's "C'mon Everybody" was listed by Rolling Stone as #403 in its 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, and Cochran was named as #84 in its 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time. He was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1987 ... only its second year of existence.
Eddie Cochran's only Top Ten song in the US is also the one most performed by others. 1958's Summertime Blues is a succinct 2-minute song about teenage angst - as Jerry Capehart explained, "There had been a lot of songs about summer, but none about the hardships of summer." It was named #74 in Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, and below you can hear Eddie's original version.
There have been several noted cover versions: Blue Cheer had the highest-selling version and others included the Beach Boys and country singer Alan Jackson. But perhaps the most notably different arrangement was by The Who on their 1970 Live at Leeds - with its famous "Crackling noises OK, do not correct" album label warning. Below you can listen to the re-mastered version, which today reads, "Crackling noises ... have been corrected!"
I'm a-gonna raise a fuss
I'm a-gonna raise a holler
About working all summer
just to try and earn a dollar
Everytime I call my baby
to try to get a date
My boss says, "No dice, son:
you gotta work late"
My mom and papa told me
"Son, you gotta make some money
If you wanna use the car
to go riding next Sunday"
Well I didn't go to work,
I told the boss I was sick
"Now you can't use the car
cause you didn't work a lick"
I'm gonna take two weeks
gonna have a fine vacation
I'm gonna take my problem
to the United Nations
Well, I called my congressman
and he said, ~quote~:
"I'd like to help you, son:
but you're too young to vote"
Sometimes I wonder
what I'm a-gonna do?
'Cause there ain't no cure
for the summertime blues