DIG THIS WITH BILL MESNIK AND RICH BUCKLAND- THE SPLENDID BOHEMIANS

Laura Nyro wrote this song - (a tribute to torch singer Helen Merrill) - in 1966, but, it didn’t do much for her at the time. Three years later, when The Fifth Dimension recorded it, it shot to number 1. The radiant lead vocalist, Marilyn McCoo, sang it to her betrothed, Billy Davis Jr., on the various television variety shows of the day, and audiences lapped it up. Nyro, the oddball composer-prodigy from the Bronx, consistently channeled her soulful declarations to many other artists of the time - (Three Dog Night, Blood Sweat and Tears, Barbara Streisand) before being identified as the singular genius behind the magic. 

My high school girlfriend Cindy was a 4’11’’ spitfire with an identical twin. Her dad, Hank, a long-distance truck driver with a provocative (to put it generously) sense of humor, enjoyed teasing us. He called me “Keppy” (the yiddish word for Head, because my hair was thinning). Whenever this song came on the radio, trumpeting the refrain: “Marry Me, Bill!” - and it was ubiquitous - Hank, and Cindy’s two older brothers, would give us shit mercilessly, - and I HATED IT. I hated the song and I hated them for pushing the uncomfortable question on us - because, despite the fact that Cindy hoped for the eventuality of matrimony, I didn’t, and that was painful for her. 

Today this song sustains a shining memento for me - a reminder that I have enjoyed the gift of being loved by a soul who refused to give up on me. Fiercely loyal, uncompromising in her passions,- Cindy, my first love. 

"The Cordell Jackson Story" - In Her Own Words And Music
In Honor And In Loving Memory Of  Cordell Jackson -
The Queen Of Rock and Roll And The Memphis Guitar
July 15, 1923 – October 14, 2004

1) A Queen's Tale- A CBS News Segment - 1985
 2) Cordell Jackson and The A Bones Live- Featuring Miriam Linna and Billy Miller- 1984
3) Rock and Roll Christmas- 1956
4) The Split - 1983
5 ) At Home Again
( In The Memories Of My Mind ) - 1983

Born 100 years ago, Cordell Jackson was an American guitarist thought to be the first woman to produce, engineer, arrange and promote music on her own rock and roll music label.

Jackson founded the Moon Records label in Memphis in 1956. Unable to break into the Sun label's stable of male artists, Cordell received the advice and assistance of RCA Records' Chet Atkins in forming this new label to release her music. She began releasing and promoting on the label singles she recorded in her home studio, serving as engineer, producer and arranger. The artists recorded included her and a small family of early rock and roll, rockabilly, and country music performers she recruited from several Southern states. 

Her Moon Records label was the oldest continuously operating label in Memphis at the time of her death in 2004. Her "50's Rock on the Moon of Memphis", a compilation album of the label's 1950's singles, was released on vinyl in the early 1980's and was later sold on compact disc until her death in 2004.

Cordell Jackson died in Memphis in 2004 aged 81, leaving behind the legacy of a very special Rock and Roll pioneer and human being.

"When I was in prison, I knew what it was like to have freedom taken away,” Merle  said. “Freedom is everything. During Vietnam there were all kinds of protests. Here were these [servicemen] going over there and dying for a cause – we don’t even know what it was really all about. And here are these young kids, that were free, bitching about it. There’s something wrong with that and with [disparaging] those poor guys. We were in a wonderful time in America and music was in a wonderful place. America was at its peak and what the hell did these kids have to complain about?
These soldiers were giving up their freedom and lives to make sure others could stay free. I wrote the song to support those soldiers.”

Merle Haggard

Easily misunderstood, “Okie From Muskogee” was neither redneck nor reactionary, but it did polarise opinion about an artist who, as he argued, “didn’t put the record out to reprimand or anything.

“It’s just a song,” Haggard continued. “I wrote something that I thought said something a lot of people would like to say.” Later, he told Quarter Notes magazine: “‘Okie’ made me appear to be a person who was a lot more narrow-minded, possibly, than I really am.”

Released on September 29, 1969, “Okie From Muskogee” entered Billboard’s country chart on October 11, and by the November 15 listing, it was starting a month at No.1. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it didn’t make a full pop crossover, stalling at No.41. But its impact was so immediate that the band travelled to Muskogee’s Civic Centre to record a live album in that very week of its chart debut. After a set featuring many of Haggard’s best-loved songs to that point, he finished with the song named after the town.

“The main message is about pride,” Haggard said of the track in 2012, speaking to The Music Hall magazine. “My father was an Okie from Muskogee when ‘Okie’ was considered a four-letter word. I think it became an anthem for people who were not being noticed or recognized in any way – the silent majority. It brought them pride. And today the song still speaks to conditions going on in this world.”

THE ROCK AND ROLL SCORECARD:

LET'S GET READY TO RUMBLE!
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Link-Wray

“Rumble” is the first song to implement the innovative use of power chords with distortion.  The unprecedented fuzz guitar tone and undulating tremolo, combined with that controversial title, is the stuff of rock and roll legend.  Even though he is the Founding Father of the rock guitar sound, and is among “Rolling Stone” Magazine's List of 100 Most Important Guitarists, Link Wray, as well as his instantly recognizable trailblazing contribution to modern rock and beyond, is not always recognized by name.  That doesn't change the fact, though, that both have continued to inspire countless would-be superstars of various musical genres for over 60 years.

Jimi Hendrix, Pete Townshend, and Jeff Beck, to name a few, have called Link Wray a definitive influence. 
Slash said, “'Rumble' was the rawest form of guitar that all of the guys that I listened to played. It's where it all started.”
Enough Said.

1966 was a banner year for The Ford Mustang, Wilson Pickett, and me. I REALLY coveted that car; it was the creme de la creme of style. Sure, I was only 13, and didn’t have my driver’s license, but that car was a teen’s wet dream. I was just starting to be interested in girls, too. Kathy Washkevich lived across the development, and I would sneak out of the house after my parents went to bed and throw pebbles at her second floor window, (which was right above the ledge of the chimney.) She’d crawl out, and ease down on to my shoulders and we’d spend the night in each other’s arms.  

My ardor didn’t just begin and end with the females - there was my passion for music, too, and The Wicked Pickett stood front and center on my list of artists that I yearned to emulate. He had that raw, yet smooth growl which emanated from deep in the guts - and, I shredded my vocal chords trying to match it.  I was the lead singer of my middle school band, The Full House, and Mustang Sally and Midnight Hour were two of our barn burners. When I would cue the audience of YMCA kids to shout with me:  “Ride, Sally, Ride…” the surge of power that I felt was cataclysmic, the aftershocks of which have resonated throughout my life. 

Full disclosure: The Young Rascal’s was the first version I heard - Felix Cavaliere was my blue-eyed soul gateway drug - and he reports that they recorded it before Pickett, but Wilson’s is the definitive recording, and it stands, solidly thrilling, to this day. 

Even in a city known for its eccentrics, Ernie K-Doe was in another dimension. The New Orleans musician always knew — and said, loudly — that he was special. And for one week in a life of wild ups and downs, he managed to pierce the national consciousness with a chart-topping hit: 1961's "Mother in Law."

The man born Ernest Kador sometimes claimed he wrote "Mother-in-Law" — but he claimed a lot of things. In fact, Allen Toussaint composed and produced the song, and, after a few unsatisfactory takes, literally threw it away. It was rescued from oblivion by one of the backup singers at the session.
"He thought it was just a delightful song, and he took it out of the trash can when I took a short break, and went over to K-Doe and said, 'Look, try this again, man,'" Toussaint says. "K-Doe did just that, and I'm so glad he did."

The song was dismissed as a danceable novelty. But Ben Sandmel, author of the new biography Ernie K-Doe: The R&B Emperor of New Orleans, says it was deeper than that: angry, and smoldering.

"In 1961, to say that your mother-in-law was 'sent from down below' was kind of pushing the standards, I guess, of what was considered to be acceptable," Sandmel says. "In a time of meaningless bubblegum lyrics, this one had an edge to it. And it was real."

It was one of four songs that Toussaint and K-Doe recorded in one three-hour session.

"We certainly had a good time together. I wrote so much for him, and I was highly inspired," Toussaint says. "He was [good at] promoting himself. He would get out there; he wouldn't watch the grass grow."

When Toussaint went into the army, K-Doe continued recording, without much success. The two got back together in the early 1970s, but none of the songs they produced became hits outside of New Orleans. Within their hometown, however, many of their tunes have become standards. Guitarist Ernie Vincent, who has played them in his own band and others, got to know K-Doe in the '70s.

"He was strictly positive about his self-ability," Vincent says. "He always said, 'I'm cocky, but I'm good.' And believe me, he was good."

But he also had some tough times. The British invasion's version of R&B became more popular than homegrown music, and by the mid-'70s, K-Doe had pretty much dropped out. He drank a lot, and many people remember seeing the once-dapper musician living on the streets.

K-Doe made a comeback in the 1980s on the New Orleans station WWOZ. David Freedman is now the station's general manager.

"You never knew what the next thing was going to be out of this guy's mouth. It was like he was in a trance state," Freedman says. "You had to kind of enter into it, and then as you began to enter into that crazy universe, you'd just kind of surrender to it [and] it all made sense."

K-Doe's run on the radio ended in the late '80s, though cassette tapes of his shows continued to be collected and played around the world. In the early 1990s, his life took another turn when an old friend, Antoinette Dorsey Fox, took him in. They got married, and she created a new look for her husband, replete with capes, shiny suits and feathered hats. And she created the Mother-in-Law Lounge, where K-Doe would perform once again.

"I forget how many people it holds, but it used to be wall-to-wall — it was packed," says Eva Perry, who sang backup for K-Doe during that era. "He had people coming from everywhere to hear him, since he was back his second time around."

Ernie K-Doe died in 2001 at the age of 65, but he didn't exactly leave: His wife commissioned a likeness, fashioned from a department-store mannequin, that she installed in the loung

The sweltering summer of 2023 is almost over, and all over the world folks are digging themselves out from under the epic disasters of the past months. Listening to this psych-soul ditty from 1969, one may be momentarily transported back to a cozier time of blotter acid and beach coolers. 

The carefree tone of the record, however, belies the fact that at the same time that he was jamming on this anthem, an ever-increasingly paranoid Sly Stone was starting to hole himself up in his mansion with bowls of cocaine and a drum machine - from which he would emerge 2 years later with THERE’S A RIOT GOIN’ ON - transmitting a wholly different vibe. And, also, let’s not forget the murderous Altamont concert of 1969 (documented in the Rolling Stone’s film GIMME SHELTER), along with the concurrent killings carried out by the Manson kids - and you realize that everywhere you looked there were emblems of a time when chaos reigned, symbolizing an era of psychic climate change in America.

Well, nostalgic or not, music has powers to soothe and direct our minds to kinder, gentler regions. It gives us a moment to meditate and reflect - a time out before we have to brave the cacophony once again. Some say “nostalgia” is defined as a sickness - homesickness. We’re urged to be forward looking and adapt to whatever the future holds. But, it’s ok to take a moment to remember and savor the joys of summers past. Just don’t forget to wear your sunblock.

It can be assumed that Hendrix wrote the music for "Angel" as early as 1967, as it first appeared in the form of a demo with the title "Little Wing".
The song became "Angel" not long after this, when the first recording under the name "Sweet Angel" took place just one month later.

The lyrics for "Angel" were written early in 1968,  being completed on January 14. 
They were somewhat different from those used on the final version, though similar to the "Sweet Angel" recording of 1967. The title written by Hendrix for the lyrics was "My Angel Catherina (Return of Little Wing)", suggesting that the metaphorical female subject of "Little Wing" is the same as that of "Angel".

The next version of "Angel" was recorded by Hendrix alone, on guitar and vocals, in a hotel room in early February, 1968.

After apparently leaving the song for over two years, Hendrix, Mitch Mitchell and Billy Cox recorded the final version of "Angel" on July 23, 1970.[

A few days after the session, Hendrix recited the song as a piece of poetry to friend Freddie Mae Gautier during a conversation about his mother Lucille. In an interview for Electric Gypsy.
Jimi imparted the inspiration behind the song to Mae by detailing a dream he had about Lucille:
"My mother was bein' carried away on this camel. And there was a big caravan, she's sayin', 'Well, I'm gonna see you now,' and she's goin' under these trees, you could see the shade, you know, the leaf patterns across her face when she was goin' under ... She's sayin', 'Well, I won't be seein' you too much anymore, you know. I'll see you.' And then about two years after that she dies, you know. And I said, 'Yeah, but where are you goin'?' and all that, you know. I remember that. I will always remember that. I never did forget ... there are some dreams you never forget."

Mae described "Angel" as "very deep. 
"It was what was in him" she stated.

"Angel" was mixed for Hendrix's First Rays of the New Rising Sun project over August 20 and 21, 1970  which included the overdubbing of a second guitar part. When Hendrix passed away, Mae took it upon herself to read the poem — as well as Hendrix's liner notes to the Buddy Miles Express album Expressway to Your Skull — at the musician's funeral on October 1, 1970.

James Hohmann
Washington Post

Ned Beatty, who died June 13, 2021 at the age of 83, appeared in more than 160 movies and television shows, mostly in minor but memorable roles — none more enduring than his bravura performance in “Network,” the 1976 film that earned him an Oscar nomination for best supporting actor.

Beatty was hired a week before filming, his scene was shot in a day and he appears on screen for just six minutes near the end of a two-hour movie. But his boardroom rant as Arthur Jensen, the chairman of an over-leveraged conglomerate that owns a television network, captured the zeitgeist not only of that time, but of ours as well, laying bare the undercurrents that pit nationalism and populism against globalism and corporatism.

Beatty as Jensen rages at his network’s anchorman, Howard Beale, for thwarting an acquisition by the Saudis. More than four decades later, it remains one of the greatest and most resonant monologues in the history of American cinema.

“You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, and you will atone,” Jensen roars at Beale, the mentally ill, mad-as-hell TV host played by Peter Finch. “You get up on your little 21-inch screen and howl about America and democracy. . . . We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies, Mr. Beale. . . . The world is a business.”

The movie was intended as a cultural critique amid the fallout from Watergate, Vietnam and stagflation. With its dark satire of TV culture, “Network” is mostly remembered as an indictment of the corrupting temptations of chasing ratings. The film presciently anticipates the rise of reality TV, as well as cable news programming that focuses more on entertaining — and agitating — than informing. Watching it 45 years later, the movie feels like a harbinger of two men who once hosted their own shows — Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump — becoming president.

Beatty’s six-minute turn in “Network” remains his masterpiece, and its message is just as sharp now, if not sharper. “The nations of the world today,” he rails, are IBM, ITT, AT&T, DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide and Exxon. If that corporate roster sounds a bit dated, it is difficult to consider its 21st-century version, studded with social media and Internet giants such as Facebook, Google and Amazon, and conclude that Beatty’s message is any less relevant.

“The Pompatus of Love,” a nonsense phrase that Steve Miller cribbed from “The Letter,” a doo-wop song by the Medallions from 1958, entered the popular culture lexicon in 1973, when this Apostle of guitar consistency applied it to spread his Joker gospel, and ascended to Rock n Roll Godhead. It’s been used for the title of a movie starring Jon Cryer, and is included in the writings of Dave Barry, Steven King, and Michael Ondaatje - even though its meaning remains obscure.

We all sang along knowingly with: “I’m a Joker, I’m a smoker, I’m a midnight toker…”, and when the leering slide goes “Woop Woo,” we all played air guitar right along.  It’s a rudimentary 1-4-5 chord sequence like thousands of other songs, and it’s filled with references from other tunes, such as Ahmet Ertegun’s Lovey Dovey, and Miller’s own Space Cowboy and Gangster of Love, but no matter - The Joker is original gold and unforgettable. 

The guy is ornery, and has a right to be. I think Miller, a blues man since his teens, is underrated because of all the pop records he sold. I saw him twice - 50 years apart - and he’s still as rock solid on his axe and voice as he was back then - a master at his craft. And, although he was inducted into the Rock n Roll hall, they only gave him one ticket to attend, and he rightfully blasted the institution to the press. Respect must be paid to The Joker.