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 - an exhibition with more than 125 objects entitled A Colorful Folk: Pennsylvania Germans & the Art of Everyday Life is at the Winterthur Museum in Delaware through January 3rd.
SPORTING NOTES - next Saturday will see the match to determine the professional team soccer champion of Europe - as Juventus (of Turin, Italy) takes on Barcelona, Spain in the Champions League final - and this will be on free TV: on the Fox broadcast channel (where you see NFL games) at 2:45 PM Eastern (11:45 AM Pacific). Speaking of football (soccer) ......
CHEERS to our new attorney general Loretta Lynch for orchestrating the daylight raids on the officials at FIFA - and garnering praise from those normally sensitive to US overreach, yet grateful she has gone where no World Cup power nation had. If you are unfamiliar with what has been going on: a Top Comments diary I wrote three years ago about its president .. is (sadly) still applicable, and at this link you can read it. Some one-liners:
From the BBC Online about FIFA spin-doctor Walter de Gregorio's public display of indignation: "The only thing missing from his expert impression of Captain Louis Renault's memorable shock (that gambling occurred at Rick's place in Casablanca) ... was a waiter appearing from the wings to give him his winnings".
A letter-to-the-editor to The Economist magazine once speculated that FIFA stood for ....... "a fee for this, and a fee for that".
And during Sepp Blatter's last election (for which he just broke his pledge not to seek re-election), a comment-writer named Ben Stokes (posting at The Guardian) was most depressed at what he saw as fawning, obsequious tributes to Sepp Blatter. And just who made it so depressing to him, you ask? Why, it was:
"Each lackey, sycophant and lickspittle who steps up to speak".
THURSDAY's CHILD is
Volts the Cat - a Virginia kitteh who was rescued by firefighters from the charred remains of an apartment building, four days after a devastating fire there.
IN THE EVENT that the nation of Argentina enacts a law criminalizing the practice of catcalling women - it will be joining a trend in South America: as Peru's congress enacted a law outlawing street harassment in March; Panama's is debating one, and Bolivia passed a law making harassment of politicians a crime (after abuse of female elected officials became so severe, many gave-up after one term in office).
YUK #1 for today - many years ago in Doonesbury when Uncle Duke somehow became "Governor of American Somoa": he announced "sweeping reforms" - such as releasing all political prisoners (as the previous governor who supported Hubert Humphrey .... locked-up some Mondale supporters) ... and then this:
TECHNOLOGY NOTES - the deployment of the most advanced undersea fiber-optic cable in the Caribbean and Central America was just completed, connecting the United States with the Virgin Islands, Aruba, Puerto Rico, Curacao, Colombia, Panama and Ecuador.
YUK #2 for today - I wonder if it was the end of the Mad Men series that led the National Assoc. of Rail Passengers to post this on their Facebook page at this link ........
... showing a passenger service representative helping travelers in a Metroclub car when Amtrak began in the early 1970's.
THE OTHER NIGHT yours truly hosted the Top Comments diary with a look at the Paul Butterfield Blues Band - who were recently inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame (despite having disbanded way back in 1971) for its status as a racially integrated, innovative blues band in the mid-1960's.
FRIDAY's CHILD is Jack the Hero Cat - an Ontario kitteh who awoke a woman at 5:30 AM to an overheated furnace that - due to an electrical short in the thermostat - a heating technician thought was a wonder it didn’t burn the house down.
BRAIN TEASER - try this Quiz of the Week's News from the BBC.
HAIL and FAREWELL to the veteran English musician Mac Poole - who was the drummer in a number of bands, yet turned down a chance to audition at the forming of Led Zeppelin - who has died at the age of 69 ...... and to Gus Villalta - believed to be the last surviving worker (an electrician’s assistant) who helped construct the Golden Gate Bridge - who has died at the age of 98.
TWO YEARS AGO the descendants of the legendary Delta blues guitarist Robert Johnson claimed that a third photo of him had been authenticated in 2013 (given that only two photos of him were known to previously exist) ... but now more than four dozen music historians, writers, producers and musicians are disputing the authenticity of that photograph.
UNEXPECTED FATHER-SON? - former president Gerald Ford as well as Art Garfunkel the veteran musician.
...... and finally, for a song of the week ..................... though being (largely) inactive since the 1960's made him a forgotten name to the general public, Mickey Baker did not acquire the nickname "Mickey (Guitar) Baker" for nothing. He appeared as a session musician on several legendary R&B recordings from the 1950's-60's, recorded under his own name in a short-lived but famous duo ... and despite being largely self-taught: wrote a seminal 1955 guitar book which has is still in-print today.
Born MacHouston Baker in Louisville, Kentucky in 1925, he did not have an idyllic childhood. He believed he was the son of a teenaged prostitute, and spent his youth in various youth homes, reform schools and the like. He ran away for the last time from an orphanage at the age of 16 (when they gave up looking for him) and wound up in New York City. He was a pool shark and drifter before walking into a pawn shop at age 20, hoping to buy a trumpet (as he wanted to play jazz, avoiding the blues music of his native South). But he couldn't afford the $30 to buy one, until the pawnshop owner said he'd let him have a ramshackle guitar for $14.00 - which he did have. He turned out to have an ear for it, blending the Latin sounds he absorbed in New York during the private lessons he took.He dedicated himself so much that he was able to find session work by the end of the 1940's.
He then formed his own band but found difficulty obtaining work, and so he moved to California. He had no better luck finding work as a Charlie Parker-style player, until another fateful moment happened: attending a Pee Wee Crayton concert. Crayton's band was performing the jump-blues style made famous by Louis Jordan, and while Baker was unhappy to think about reverting to the blues he grew up with: he was impressed with the crowd reaction (and the big car Crayton was driving) and decided he needed to get on-board. He returned to New York and this time got some high-profile session work at Savoy, King and - most importantly - Atlantic Records, where he was present-at-the-creation of the R&B revolution (which spawned rock music shortly thereafter).
Even if his name is still a blank, you may have heard some of the classic songs he was a session guitarist on. These include: Ray Charles (on "Mess Around"), Big Joe Turner ("Shake, Rattle & Roll"), The Drifters ("Money Honey"), Big Maybelle ("Whole Lotta Shakin' Going On"), Amos Milburn ("One Scotch, One Bourbon, One Beer"), Ike & Tina Turner ("It's Gonna Work Out Fine") and Ruth Brown ("Mama, He Treats Your Daughter Mean"). When famed DJ Alan Freed brought his program to New York in the mid-50's, his rock & roll shows needed an orchestra, and featured Mickey Baker on guitar upon the recommendation of local record executives. He also began recording once again under his own name, this time on instrumental R&B tunes.
Earlier in the decade, he backed-up a young singer named Sylvia Vanderpool (who became a guitar student of his) and inspired by the example of Les Paul & Mary Ford - as Les had been Baker's role model as a recording musician - they formed the Mickey & Sylvia duo (center photo below). Though they recorded from 1956-1965: in reality their were a duo for only three years, when they split to make other recordings and only sporadically worked together afterwards. But as the All-Music Guide's Richie Unterberger says, "Their recordings were inconsistent, but at their best they offered a fetching blend of blues, calypso, and doo wop" and had some R&B hits in the late 1950's. Sylvia (later as Sylvia Robinson) went on to a noteworthy career as a record company CEO of Sugar Hill Records that helped pioneer hip-hop music. Mickey Baker went on to record more instrumentals (including his famous Wildest Guitar album) and some guitar instructional recordings as well.
But all along, Mickey Baker was tiring of the American music scene: especially for a black man in the civil-rights era when he was playing to sold-out shows and appearing on TV - yet had to eat at separate restaurants. And so in 1965, he joined other jazz and blues ex-patriate performers by settling in France (center photo) where he backed up singers such as Ronnie Bird and Chantal Goya for a number of years.
Meanwhile, his Mickey Baker's Guitar book series - which the future Who guitarist Pete Townshend cited as a learning tool - were first released in 1955, and last updated in 1992. They have remained in print for sixty years and still used today. If nothing else, he helped many an aspiring guitarist to learn what he mastered in less than ten years: an accomplishment in itself.
He spent the final years of his life in France writing classical fugues and teaching, and Mickey Baker died in late November, 2012 at the age of 87.
But his legacy is solid: he was named in 1999 by the Rhythm & Blues Foundation as one of its Pioneer Award winners, and by Rolling Stone as #53 of its 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time. For someone who had as awful a childhood as one could imagine: here is an Horatio Alger story of the first magnitude.
The one song of his that many people recognize (that was released under his name as part of Mickey & Sylvia) was Love is Strange which reached #11 on the Billboard charts in 1957. It was written by Bo Diddley (but credited to his then-wife, Ethel Smith) and Jody Williams, who developed the distinctive lead guitar riff (with its stark, almost tinny sound).
The song's coy dialogue (racy for its time) and Latin-influenced beat made it a popular choice for film producers: "Dirty Dancing", "Badlands" and (most irreverently) in 1972's "Deep Throat". The song also marked the first recording of drummer Bernard Purdie who went on to become one of the most recorded drummers of all time. And it has been covered by many performers, such as Buddy Holly, Sonny & Cher, Paul McCartney, Kenny Rogers/Dolly Parton and Chubby Checker. And below you can hear the original.
Love is strange
A lot of people take it for a game
Once you've get it you never wanna quit
After you've had it you're in a awful fix
Many people, don't understand
They think loving is money in their hand