The Kinks
Dangerousminds brings the sad news that Pete Quaife, the original bass player for The Kinks, passed away yesterday. He was 66, and had been in dialysis for several years. Maybe it is time for Chamblee54 to do a post about The Kinks. This is a repost from 2010.
Battling brothers Ray and Dave Davies are the core of The Kinks. (The name is pronounced like the american Davis, as though the e did not exist). Ray was the vocalist, writer, and rhythm guitar player. Dave was the lead guitarist, and sparring partner for his brother. The fisticuffs were not restricted to the brothers. This led to the band being barred from performing in the United States between 1965 and 1969. The sixties happened anyway.
There were several hits in the early days, most notably You really got me, which became a signature tune for Van Halen. The band had numerous adventures, but never became the superstars that other British bands of that era did. Ray Davies developed as a songwriter, with many witty tunes, full of social commentary and britishness. (spell check suggestion:brutishness)
In the seventies The Kinks kept trooping on. They did an album called Preservation Act, which became the basis of a theatrical presentation. The next album was called Soap Opera, also getting the theater treatment. This is where PG got to see The Kinks.
It was sometime in the spring of 1975, at the Atlanta Municipal Auditorium. Elvin Bishop was the opening act. The Kinks had started when PG arrived, buying a $4.00 balcony seat. Alex Cooley was in the box office counting money, and broke open a roll of quarters to make change for a five.
The band was playing “Celluloid Heroes” when PG walked into the auditorium. There was no one on the door checking tickets, so PG walked onto the floor and found an empty seat on the 13th row. The next number was “Lola.”
Ray Davies introduced the song by saying ” If you are a man, sing LO. If you are a woman, sing LA. If you are not sure, clap your hands”. The next number was about demon alcohol. There were lights shining on the crowd during this number, as Ray Davies asked if there were any sinners in the audience. The band did several more songs, ending the first half of the evening with “You really got me.” Dave Davies got some spotlight time with a rave up intro to this number.
The second part of the show was a theatrical presentation of “Soap Opera”. The band wore rainbow colored wigs, and stood at the back of the stage while Ray Davies told the tale. “Soap Opera” was about a rock star who traded places with Norman, who lived a boring life. The flat Norman lived in has pictures of ducks on the wall, which drove Ray/Norman to scream “I can’t stand those f*****g ducks”. This led into a rocking ditty called, predictably, “Ducks on the Wall”.
As the show dragged on, Ray/Norman was embarrassed by the mess he was in. “You can’t say that in front of The Kinks, they are my band, and that is my audience.” The audience lights were turned on again, and the band played a medley of hits from 1964.
Finally, the real Norman came back to reclaim his wife, put the ducks back on the wall, and kick out The Kinks. The band gave up on theater before much longer, and were popular for the rest of the concert happy seventies. Ray Davies was the babydaddy for Chrissie Hynde. Eventually, the band quit performing, and continued to cash royalty checks.
Pictures are from the “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”.
The Wisdom Of William S. Burroughs
The word advice, for all the condescension implied, has a nifty composition. Ad is short for advertisement, and vice is a forbidden pleasure. Unless you are talking about Vice President, who should be forbidden, forgotten, and fornicated. The topic of discussion today is advice from William Seward Burroughs. The TV station on Peachtree Street was not named for him.
Before we reprint this *piece*, (Chamblee54 did not write the advice) we should ponder the concept of William S. Burroughs. Why anyone would ask this man for advice?
Mr. Burroughs is the namesake grandson of the man who invented the adding machine. He left his heirs a bunch of money. The young Burroughs wound up in New York, and became friends with Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg.
Mr. Burroughs was married twice (to women). The first was a platonic relationship with Ilse von Klapper, a Jew who wanted to get out of Europe. In 1936, this counted as a good deed.
The second wife, Joan Vollmer, helped make his life interesting. She is the mother of William S. Burroughs III, and was fond of speed. Mr. and Mrs. Burroughs were living in Mexico in 1951, when they decided to play William Tell. Mr. Burroughs missed the apple, and Mrs. Burroughs died.
Mr. Burroughs went on to write a few novels, including Naked Lunch. He was famous in hipster circles, and gave lie to the saying “there are no old junkies”. Mr. Burroughs settled in Lawrence KS, and lived to be 83. This leaves out a few inedible details.
Today’s entertainment is a repost, with pictures from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”. If you want to read more about Mr. Burroughs, there is always more.
“People often ask me if I have any words of advice for young people. Well here are a few simple admonitions for young and old. Never interfere in a boy-and-girl fight. Beware of whores who say they don’t want money.The hell they don’t. What they mean is they want more money. Much more. If you’re doing business with a religious son-of-a-bitch,Get it in writing. His word isn’t worth shit. Not with the good lord telling him how to fuck you on the deal.
Avoid fuck-ups. We all know the type. Anything they have anything to do with, No matter how good it sounds, Turns into a disaster. Do not offer sympathy to the mentally ill. Tell them firmly: I am not paid to listen to this drivel. You are a terminal boob.
Now some of you may encounter the Devil’s Bargain, If you get that far. Any old soul is worth saving, At least to a priest, But not every soul is worth buying. So you can take the offer as a compliment. He tries the easy ones first. You know like money, All the money there is. But who wants to be the richest guy in some cemetery? Money won’t buy. Not much left to spend it on, eh gramps?
Well time hits the hardest blows. Especially below the belt. How’s a young body grab you? Like three card monte, like pea under the shell, Now you see it, now you don’t. Haven’t you forgotten something, gramps? In order to feel something, You’ve got to be there. You have to be eighteen. You’re not eighteen. You are seventy-eight. Old fool sold his soul for a strap-on.
Well they always try the easiest ones first. How about an honorable bargain? You always wanted to be a doctor, Well now’s your chance. Why don’t you become a great healer And benefit humanity? What’s wrong with that? Just about everything. Just about everything. There are no honorable bargains Involving exchange Of qualitative merchandise Like souls For quantitative merchandise Like time and money. So piss off Satan And don’t take me for dumber than I look.
An old junk pusher told me – Watch whose money you pick up.”
Lose The Ability To Remember
PG heard a nifty quote once. “When we begin to write, we will lost the ability to remember.” It was credited to Homer, the Greek poet. The only problem is, PG could never find a source.
But Thamus replied, “Most ingenious Theuth, one man has the ability to beget arts, but the ability to judge of their usefulness or harmfulness to their users belongs to another; and now you, who are the father of letters, have been led by your affection to ascribe to them a power the opposite of that which they really possess. For this invention will produce forgetfulness in the minds of those who learn to use it, because they will not practice their memory. Their trust in writing, produced by external characters which are no part of themselves, will discourage the use of their own memory within them. You have invented an elixir not of memory, but of reminding; and you offer your pupils the appearance of wisdom, not true wisdom, for they will read many things without instruction and will therefore seem to know many things, when they are for the most part ignorant and hard to get along with, since they are not wise, but only appear wise.”
We don’t know how widespread writing was in Plato’s time. Presumably, many of the old tales were transmitted by word of mouth, from one generation to the next. This involves memory. “For this invention will produce forgetfulness in the minds of those who learn to use it, because they will not practice their memory.”
There is one more quote worth musing over. Since the invention of the first mediums, new methods have been denounced by traditionalists. Today, we live in an era of constant change. This feature will appear in a blog… state of the art in 2004, and considered obsolete in 2018. Every new medium is greeted with hand wringing over the bad effects it will have on society. Some of these misgivings have been proven false. This *text* goes into more detail about this.
Homer may, or may not, have existed. Since this was 2800 years ago, we may never know. The stories of “The Iliad” and “The Odyssey” may have been told from one generation, to the next. Maybe Homer really did say that, and was merely afraid of competition.
“You have invented an elixir not of memory, but of reminding; and you offer your pupils the appearance of wisdom, not true wisdom, for they will read many things without instruction and will therefore seem to know many things, when they are for the most part ignorant and hard to get along with, since they are not wise, but only appear wise.” . In todays culture, the display of apparent wisdom is more impressive than actual knowledge. These things too shall pass away. Pictures are from Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library. This is a repost.
Carolyn Bryant Donham
On August 24, 1955, Emmett Louis Till (ELT) went into Bryant’s Grocery & Meat Market, in Money MS. Later, the cashier, Carolyn Bryant Donham (CBD), falsely accused ELT of making improper advances. Four days later, fourteen year old ELT was brutally murdered by Roy Bryant, the husband of CBD, and JW Milam. This is the story I had always heard, and routinely accepted as the truth.
Recently, I saw a video that told a different story. In this version, a third party told Roy Bryant about the incident. More importantly, CBD never recanted her story. When The Blood of Emmett Till came out, news that CBD had recanted her story caused a sensation. The video had a screen shot of a newspaper article, with details about the non-confession.
“Timothy Tyson’s book on Emmett Till became a bestseller thanks to the bombshell quote he attributed to Carolyn Bryant Donham — that she lied when she testified about Till accosting her. Donham’s daughter-in-law, Marsha Bryant, who was present for the two tape-recorded interviews Tyson did with Donham, said her mother-in-law “never recanted. Adding to the intrigue is the fact the quote Tyson attributed to Donham isn’t on the recordings. … “It is true that that part is not on tape because I was setting up the tape recorder,” Tyson said.”
“Davis Houck, co-author of Emmett Till and the Mississippi Press, said if Donham is saying she didn’t recant in her interview with Tyson, “we’re left with a familiar story: a predatory black ‘man’ threatened to rape her on the evening of Aug. 24. “He sees two problems with that: Her court testimony differs greatly from her initial statement, where she said Till grabbed her hand, asked for a date, said goodbye and whistled. When Till’s killers arrived at Mose Wright’s house, (where Till was abducted) they asked for “the boy who did the talking at Money.” They didn’t ask for the one who touched Donham. If she indeed recanted, he said, “we are, at long last, asked to see her as a pawn in the defense attorneys’ strategy.”
A Justice Department investigation found no proof that CBD recanted her initial accusation. “Donham denied to federal investigators that she lied in her testimony, a source with knowledge of the case said, and there were inconsistencies with statements made by Tyson. … Tyson stood by his reporting, describing Donham as unreliable in an emailed statement.” It is possible that Timothy Tyson invented the story to sell books.
So what did happen at the store in Money, MS? “Emmett was left alone in the store for a minute or so with Carolyn Bryant, the white woman working the store’s cash register. … As Carolyn Bryant would later tell the story in a Tallahatchie County courthouse, Till asked her for some candy inside a candy counter. When Bryant placed the candy on top of the counter, Till grabbed her right hand tightly and asked, “How about a date, baby?” When Bryant pulled her hand free and started to walk away, Till grabbed her by the waist near the cash register and told her, “You needn’t be afraid of me, baby I’ve [slept] with white women before.”
“Till’s cousin, Simeon Wright, writing about the incident decades later, questioned Carolyn Bryant’s account. Entering the store “less than a minute” after Till was left inside alone with Bryant, Wright saw no inappropriate behavior and heard “no lecherous conversation.” Wright said Till “paid for his items and we left the store together.”
“There is, however, general agreement about what happened next outside the store. As Carolyn Bryant left the store and headed towards a car … Emmett whistled at her. Till’s cousin described it as “a loud wolf whistle, a big city ‘whee wheeeee!'” Till’s Mississippi cousins instantly knew that Till had broken a longstanding taboo relating to social conduct between blacks and whites, and that they were in grave danger. They quickly ran to their car and sped out of Money.”
The story about the *kid* from Chicago loudly whistling at CBD was a hot item in local conversations. Three days later,“Roy Bryant, Carolyn’s husband, returns to Mississippi after working on a shrimping boat in Texas. That afternoon, at the store, an African-American teenager tells Roy about the August 24 incident at the store involving Till and his wife. When he asks Carolyn about the incident, she urges her husband to forget about it. But he doesn’t. … To do nothing after hearing the story involving his wife, Bryant later told an interviewer, would have shown himself to be “a coward and a fool.”
“Sometime on Saturday August 27, plans fell into place to kidnap the offending black teenager and “teach him a lesson.” Bryant’s half-brother, John W. Milam, readily agreed to help. … According to historian Hugh Whitaker, who interviewed dozens of Mississippians who knew Bryant and Milam, the two “were invariably referred to as ‘peckerwoods,’ ‘white trash,’ and other terms of disappropriation.”
“Within the next few hours, Bryant and Milam somehow learned that the wolf-whistler was staying at the home of “Preacher” Moses Wright. At 2:30 a.m., a vehicle with headlights off pulled up in front of Wright’s home east of Money. … When Wright went to the door, the man identified himself as Roy Bryant and said that he wanted to talk to “a fat boy” from Chicago. Standing on the porch with Bryant were Milam and a black man, hiding his face, who (according to his own later admission) was Otha Johnson, Milam’s odd-job man. The men searched the occupied beds looking for Till. Coming to Till’s bed, Milam shined a flashlight in the boy’s face and asked, “You the niggah that did the talking down at Money?” When Till answered, “Yeah,” Milam said, “Don’t say ‘yeah’ to me, niggah. I’ll blow your head off. Get your clothes on.” Warning the Wrights they’d be killed if they told anyone they had come by, Milam and Wright ushered Till out of the house and to their parked vehicle. Standing on the porch looking out into the dark, Moses Wright heard a woman’s voice–possibly Carolyn Bryant’s–from inside the vehicle tell the abductors they had found the right boy. What happened over the next three or four hours is not known for certain.”
An FBI document has conflicting details. “After deciding to kill Till, they traveled to a cotton gin at Boyle MS and picked up a discarded gin fan there. Milam is quoted as saying “When we got to that gin, it was daylight, and I was worried for the first time. Someone might see us and accuse us of stealing the fan.” … “They took Till’s body to a bridge in a secluded area, affixed the gin fan to Till and threw him off the bridge, into the Tallahatchie River” … “Two blacks, who worked for the Milams, were part of the group that beat and killed Till. One of the blacks discovered Till wasn’t dead so the two blacks killed him and helped in the disposal of his body.” At any rate, ELT was murdered, the gin fan was tied to his body, and the body was dumped in the Tallahatchie River.
One surprising detail is the participation of Black men in the crime. “Two potential key witnesses, both blacks who allegedly assisted with the abduction and murder of Till, were unavailable to the prosecution. Both Leroy “Too Tight” Collins and Henry Loggins, who prosecutors assumed only to be missing, were actually being held under false identities in a jail in Charleston, Mississippi under orders of Sheriff H. C. Strider, who had thrown the full weight of his office behind the defense efforts.”
Today is the third of June. Did Billy Joe McCallister jump into the Tallahatchie River? “Ode to Billy Joe” is a made up story. Choctaw Ridge is nowhere near the Tallahatchie River. Wikipedia does have an interesting comment about the Tallahatchie Bridge. “The wooden bridge collapsed in 1972 after being set alight by vandals. It crossed the Tallahatchie River at Money, about ten miles north of Greenwood.” Money is where Bryant’s Grocery Store is. The name changed soon after the murder, and the store is now in dilapidated shape.
“To say that Bryant “made it all up” implies that she lied about the wolf-whistle, also. It is important to point out, however, that Till’s cousins — Maurice Wright, Simeon Wright, and Wheeler Parker — who witnessed the incident, were the ones who told the press about the whistle just days after it occurred. Bryant herself said nothing about the whistle publicly until the murder trial. Thus all news reports about the whistle up to the trial came directly from Till’s cousins.”
“But it was at the trial where Bryant added some sensational details that seemed to come out of nowhere, and this is where she lied. … Just five days after the murder, with her husband and brother-in-law sitting in jail, she told defense attorney Sidney Carlton a different story than the one she would tell in court three weeks later. Carlton’s hand-written notes make no mention of the more salacious parts. “Wednesday Aug. 24 about 7:30 or 8 P.M. (dark) boy came to candy counter & I waited on him & when I went to take money he grabbed my hand & said ‘how about a date’ and I walked away from him and he said ‘what’s the matter Baby can’t you take it?’ He went out door and said ‘goodbye’ and I went out to car & got pistol and when I came back he whistled at me—this whistle while I was going after pistol—didn’t do anything further after he saw pistol.’”
“Because Bryant’s story developed after Till’s death, it is clear the lies she told on the stand did not lead to murder but came later for the benefit of the jury in order to guarantee an acquittal. Also, Carolyn Bryant is not the one who told her husband about the store incident in the first place. He was out of town at the time but heard it three days after the fact from one of the young teens who was present at the store the night of the incident. … Carolyn only confirmed the incident to Roy after he confronted her. … Tyson told another detail about Bryant’s false story in a paper leaked online in 2014, saying it was concocted for her to use by defense attorneys and Bryant family members. For whatever reason, Tyson did not include this detail in his book. It is not on the notepad and presumably, is not on tape either.”
@GavinNewsom “His physical mannerisms are aggressive…I feel threatened by him.”-Marjorie Taylor Greene describing Rep. Bowman This is the kind of dangerous rhetoric that led to Emmett Till’s death. Everyone should call this out for what it is: blatant racism.” This type of overheated rhetoric is becoming common. It is based on a cynical version of a tragic history. It does not honor the memory of Emmett Till. “Everyone should call this out for what it is: blatant racism.” Pictures today are from Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library
Buying Water In Kenya
This is a repost from 2012. Some details may have changed. … One part of life taken for granted in America is indoor running water. You turn on a faucet, and get what you need. There are concerns about the future, and fussing about water rights. What does happen here is a person walking to a water vendor to buy a 20 liter supply of water. In Kenya, that is a way of life.
Kibera is euphemistically known as an informal settlement. It is located in Nairobi, Kenya. A land mass 75% the size of New York’s Central Park is home to a lot of people. “More accurately, Kibera turned into an unauthorized settlement after Kenya gained independence in 1963 and the new government made illegal certain forms of housing. Nonetheless, landlords rented out cheap properties to impoverished Kenyans who could not afford legal housing, and has since earned the reputation of being one of Africa’s largest urban slums. Importantly, the precise population of Kibera is hotly debated and remains uncertain. Some estimates are as high as one million and others as low as 170,000 (e.g, 2009 Kenya Census). Estimates are difficult because Kibera is made up of residents who are extremely mobile, and often prefer to remain in the shadow of the law.”
Very few of the residents have running water. Every day, people have to carry a 20 liter jerrycan to a water vendor. Often, there are shortages, and the price goes up. The water is often contaminated. There are water mafias, which create artificial shortages to boost the price.
“If the root of water problems in Kibera centered on price and supply it may be more manageable, but issues of water quality substantially complicate clean water delivery systems. Most water pipes in Kibera run above ground and are made of plastic (due to issues with theft of steel pipes), which are highly fragile and easily manipulated. These pipes will often crack or break (either accidentally due to traffic or intentionally by competitors), allowing sewage to seep into drinking water. Indeed, water sources that are generally clean can easily become contaminated without notice. This is reflected in public health data—infant mortality rates and bloody diarrheal infection rates in Kibera are more than three times the average of Nairobi as a whole (UNDP 2006).”
Stanford University is setting up a program to use mobile telephones to help people find water. Evidently, mobile phones are more common is the slums of Kenya than clean water. The program is called M-Maji, which is Swahili for mobile water. A database will have information about who has water for sale, the price, and the quality of the water. This information will be available to water users via mobile phones.
HT to Bloggingheads.tv. Pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”. The spell check suggestion for Kibera is Liberace.
The Great Southeast Music Hall
The Great Southeast Music Hall was an important part of life in Atlanta during the seventies. It was located in the elbow of a shopping center, Broadview Plaza. A bowling alley was downstairs, a two level K mart next door, and Atlanta’s first hispanic neighborhood across the street. Like almost everything else here, Broadview Plaza was torn down, and replaced by a more uppity set of stores.
When you went into the lobby of the Music Hall, you noticed the walls. Performers were given a magic marker, and encouraged to leave a message. John Mayall found the ladies room, and said he likes to be near the ladies. The late Phil Ochs said “Impeach Nixon and Agnew.” What happened to those boards is a good question.
The auditorium held about 500 people. The stage was only three feet or so above the floor. There was an empty space in front of the stage, and a few rows of bench backs behind that. When the place opened, there were lots of pillows on this floor, with the Music Hall logo. The carpet in this front area was fresh when the place opened, and got progressively grosser as the years went by. Beer was served in aluminum buckets, and inevitably some wound up on the carpet.
The show the Music Hall is most famous for is the US debut of the Sex Pistols. PG didn’t make it that night, but has heard from a few who did. The performance was said to be horrible. There are stories of Sid Vicious wandering through the apartments around Broadview trying to find heroin. Years later, PG was reading about that night in Please Kill Me, when the train he was riding pulled into the Lindberg Marta station. This is across the street from Broadview Plaza, still standing at the time.
These days, the intersection of Lindbergh Drive and Piedmont Road (about a mile north of the park) is next to Hiway 400. When the Music Hall was in it’s prime, the land for the Highway was owned by the State of Georgia, which was fighting legal battles over the highway. The land had a network of dirt roads, one of which connected Buford Hiway to Lindbergh Drive. When you went from Chamblee to the Music Hall, the most direct route was over this dirt road. This dirt road is where Sidney Marcus Boulevard is today. Broadview Plaza was torn down, and replaced by a Home Depot.
Eventually, the business model for the Music Hall did not work, and the facility moved to Cherokee Plaza. This Music Hall was in a movie theater. The Cherokee Plaza Theater was the scene for the world premiere of Son of Dracula. This move did not work, for a number of reasons. The parking lot was too small, and people who wanted a loaf of bread from the A&P were blocked out during shows. Cherokee Plaza is just outside the city limits, on Peachtree Road. In the late seventies, DeKalb county was aggressively fighting drunk driving, and had roadblocks. Many of these roadblocks were outside the Music Hall, which kept many people from attending. Before long, this Music Hall closed.
Many years later, PG bought a second hand typewriter, and needed a ribbon. (Younger readers should ask an older person about this.) He went into an office supply store in Broadview Plaza, and soon realized that he was standing on the site of the Music Hall. He asked the clerk if he could have a bucket of beer, and got a very strange look in return.
One industrious afternoon during this era, PG made a list of shows he saw at the Music Hall. The memory cells are already protesting, but we are going to try and remember as much as possible about these shows. A big thank you to Wikipedia for help with spelling and names.
New York Rock Ensemble – PG walked into the auditorium during the last part of the first show, as the band played “A whiter shade of pale.” The bass player wore lace up boots, with the pants legs tucked into them. Before long, the second show came on stage. Keyboard player Michael Kamen was the central focus, acting out the lyrics to “Anaconda”.
Silverman Deborah McCollfronted this drummerless band
Al Kooper PG has written about an unfortunate incident involving Al Kooper during this show. This would have never happened in “The Catcher in the Rye”…the kids always knew what time it was in that story. Mr. Kooper did a solo show, including “Sam Stone” by John Prine.
Ellen McIlwaine/ James Cotton Blues Band Ms. McIlwaine was pregnant, and played slide guitar. Mr. Cotton played harmonica. One of his players started to fan him with a towel, because he was hot.
Breakfast Special/ Doc and Merle Watson Breakfast Special was a local bluegrass crew, who did “The coming down song.” The Watsons did “Deep River Blues” and “Thats All,” among other things. PG had a copy of their latest LP, and asked Merle to autograph it. He wrote his name on one side, turned it over, and signed Doc’s name on the other side.
Mason/Atlanta Rythym Section This show was the night Led Zeppelin played Atlanta Stadium.
New Riders of the Purple Sage When the Music Hall opened, a performer would typically play from Tuesday to Sunday. NRPS was a one night show. They worked well in the packed hall, and shined on “Glenville Train”. The next year, they did a tour with Commander Cody and The Lost Planet Airmen. Commander Cody opened, and raised hell. NRPS followed with a mellow rock show, and before long people were getting bored and leaving.
David Buskin / Loudon Wainwright III Chamblee 54 has written about this show before. Mr. Buskin talked about doing a show at Max’s Kansas City, the person sitting next to PG said “Gross”.
Steve Martin / Nitty Gritty Dirt Band Chamblee54 has written about the show by Mr. Martin. This was his last tour as an opening act. Nitty Gritty was a sight to behold. John McEuen played fiddle, and recited a poem about life.
Martin Mull / Melissa Manchester PG went to see Mr. Mull, who opened the show with a three piece band. (After the show, Mr. Mull said the name of the band was the (your name) (draws a blank with his fingers) orchestra.) The headliner was Ms. Manchester, little known at the time. She was a knockout. While standup comedy has it’s place, for emotional impact there is nothing like a singer.
Texas Gary Bennett / Weather Report Mr. Bennett played acoustic guitar, and sang, as an opener for a packed house of jazz rockers. It did not go well. At one point, trying to get some rapport with the crowd, he said “has anyone here been busted at the Omni?” (The authorities had begun arresting people for smoking pot at the major concerts.)
Weather Report was amazing. Josef Zawinul had the loud keyboard sound, Wayne Shorter played his leads on soprano sax, and there was a drummer and percussion player. There was tons of rythym, to go with the electronic jazz sounds. When it was over, PG went up to Mr. Zawinul, shook his hand and, and said thank you. He was pouring a glass of beer from a pitcher, and looked a bit startled.
David Pomerance / Rahsaan Roland Kirk Chamblee54 has written about this show before. Mr. Kirk was a force of nature, the modern miracle of the tenor saxophone. He did not suffer from false modesty. This was the night Richard Nixon resigned, which pleased Mr. Kirk no end. The blind Rahsaan said that he did not want to see his audience, because we were too ugly. At one point, his band had been jamming for about ten minutes, when PG realized that Mr. Kirk had been holding a single note the entire time. The three saxophones at one time thing was a visual shocker, but he got sounds that way that you cannot get from a single instrument. At one point, Mr. Kirk pulled his sunglasses off, and made a face at the crowd. It was an amazing evening.
Chic Corea / Return to Forever This was a disappointment. Tickets were $4.50, which may be the most PG ever paid at the Music Hall. The band only played about an hour. It was all electric, ignoring the acoustic instruments set up on stage. RTF was a four piece, all star band. They had Chic Corea on keyboards, Stanley Clarke on bass, Al Demeola on guitar, and Lenny White on drums. That sounds like a great show, but it turned out to be four solo artists jamming. There was no cohesion, and the overall sound was less than the sum of the individual parts. Corea leaned over his keyboard, twisted knobs, and made faces, as if to say “look at how intense this is”. It wasn’t.
Mccoy Tyner The former Coltrane sideman played a very nice show. He had a percussion man, with several tables covered in exotic instruments. PG took a break after to first show to hang out at a neighborhood disco. When he got back, there was no doorman checking tickets, and anyone could walk in for free. PG took advantage of this discovery many times over the next few years.
Bill Crystal / Jean Luc Ponty Former Frank Zappa player Jean Luc Ponty played at the Music Hall, with a bass player who was a fellow Zappa alumni. The surprise of the evening was then-unknown Bill Crystal. A few weeks after this show, “Soap” would premiere, and make him a star. Mr. Crystal did a killer impersonation of a gila monster.
Between shows, Mr. Crystal had been entertained by a local musician. During the second show, he held his finger to his nose, made a snorting sound, and said thank you. PG heard this, and yelled “Locker Room”, the name of a “deooderizer” that some liked to get a buzz sniffing. Mr. Crystal said “Locker room. Jeez, I need to get the hecklers rosetta stone to know what he means”. Good times.
Keith Jarrett This is another show that might have been better than PG’s enjoyment. At one point early in the show, PG moved over to the front of the stage, to look at Mr. Jarrett’s hands. After the show, people told PG that the player had been giving him dirty looks when he did that. PG asked Mr. Jarrett about it, and he said that PG had interfered with his concentration.
This show featured a quartet, instead of a solo piano. The bass player was Charley Haden, who seemed a bit puffy faced. PG later learned that he had been addicted to heroin at the time.
Melissa Manchester Ms. Manchester came back for another week at the Music Hall, about a year after her first appearance. At one point, she asked the band if they were ready to do a new song, and then performed “I got eyes” for the first time in public. This was later the b side to “Midnight Blue”. One of the players in her band was a man named James Newton Howard. Part of the deal for touring with her was that he could play a solo number on piano, called “Newton’s Ego”. He later played with Elton John, and became wealthy writing film scores.
Flora Purim /Airto Moreira On PG’s 23rd birthday, Flora Purim played at the Music Hall. At the time, PG had a profound appreciation of her albums. The band had a nice sound, and was the equal of her records. The Chic Corea tune “Light as a Feather” was a standout. Her husband, Airto Moreira (eye, ear, toe) fronted the band on some of the numbers, and had some funny routines. Ms. Purim held two microphones throughout the show, with one connected to some audio filters. PG found holding two microphones to be visually distracting. PG had known of the Jewish ancestry of Ms. Purim, but had not thought much about it. Then he saw her live, and realized that she does, indeed, look Jewish. A Piedmont Park show in 1987 was rained out.
Hot Tuna Hot Tuna is a dependable, though not spectacular, band. On a previous show in Atlanta, they went on stage at 10:55, and played without a break until 2:50. This night, a fried of a friend was working at the Music Hall, and PG got in before the crowds, to get a prime spot, in the first row of benchbacks. At one point, PG was rocking back and forth against the benchback, and a neighbor asked him to quit. Those buckets of beer were influential.
Shakti This was an acoustic, Hindu oriented band fronted by guitar superman John McLaughlin. The numbers seemed to go on forever.
David Manion / Mark Almond This was a long awaited Atlanta performance by Mark Almond. (This is a jazz/blues band, totally different from the Soft Cell vocalist with a similar name.) They played two sets, which were only an hour or so long. This was disappointing to the people who could not wait for the second show. In the second show, they “took the shackles off” saxophone player Johnny Almond, and he played a wild solo during “The city”.
The incident we are about to describe may or may not have involved David Manion. What happened was, a small portable radio was playing on the edge of the stage. The spotlight was on the radio, which sounded like gibberish to most of the audience. Gradually, the chattering audience got quiet, and tried to listen to the radio. After a few minutes, a man came out, and stood in darkness behind the radio. The PA speaker announced “The new force of rock in Atlanta”. The man then dropped a large piece of granite on the radio, smashing it into bits.
Laurie Chapman / Stomu Yamashta Laurie Chapman was a singer/piano player, with some good stories. She told of a trucker, driving beside her and talking to her on a cb radio. “You better get that drink out from between your legs before it gets too hot to handle.”
Stomu Yamashta is somewhat of a star in Japan. The show here was filmed for showing on TV there. His band, Go, was an all star collection, including Ava Cherry. She was a backup vocalist, and girlfriend, with David Bowie. After the show, PG was introduced to Spencer Davis in the lobby.
The next few shows were at Cherokee Plaza.
Martin Mull Mr. Mull was a solo star this time. He did a song about doing nothing, adding that dead people can do it too. The parking lot was packed, which was a major problem at the new location.
The week before the Super Bowl in 1994, Mr. Mull filmed a Comedy Central show in Woodruff Park. The Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders were kicking field goals. After the filming PG stood a few feet away from Mr. Mull, but could not think of anything to say.
Sun Ra PG went to a wedding, and a bunch of people from there went to see Sun Ra. This was an entertaining spectacle, with a big band and dancers. After the show, PG asked Sun Ra how he could afford to take a band like that on the road. He said he was doing it for beauty.
David Bromberg This was another big band production. PG showed within a few minutes of the gateman leaving his post, and saw about 45 minutes without buying a ticket.
Lester Flatt/John Hartford One boring Saturday night, PG walked up to the Music Hall, and saw the two fiddle players jamming. A few weeks later, Lester Flatt passed away. This is a repost. Pictures today are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”. As a bonus to the reader(s) here, we are reposting Great Southeast Music Hall Stories. It is a collection of comments from an earlier posting of this feature.
Chamblee54 posted a tribute to The Great Southeast Music Hall a few years ago. This was a concert venue, with no hard liquor and a 500 person capacity, next door to a bowling alley on Piedmont Road. It was about a mile north of Piedmont Park, and in front of the dirt road that became Sidney Marcus Boulevard. GSEMH hosted some great shows. This was when record companies would invest in new bands by putting them on promotional tours, and Atlanta was a popular stop.
The chamblee54 post attracted 85 comments. This is a slow day for Matt Walsh, but is a record for chamblee54. Most of the comments were boring … great place to play, I saw Steve Martin there and drank too many buckets of beer. A few of these comments tell stories. This post puts the best of the GSEMH comments in one place. Pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”. See if you can guess which one was taken at GSEMH.
Neal B. – Som Records June 10, 2012 at 5:18 pm Great reading! Brought back some memories. I saw three shows at the Music Hall – The Dixie Dregs, Elvin Bishop and David Allan Coe. I saw Coe the night before my SATs in 1978 or ’79 and it was (and still is) the most bikers I’ve ever seen in once place. Elvin Bishop just tore it up, really good.
jake lamb May 17, 2011 at 11:34 am Great stories of our past. I can’t remember the shows I went to, but after reading your post it certainly helps clear the fog. As I went thru the list I noted, “Yep I was with CG at that show, that one too, oh yeah, I remember Al saying to you what time it was but didn’t you delete the expletives? Odetta blasting the audience for not showing her the proper respect…what a crybaby! The autographed Marc Almond Album, meeting them backstage to learn how the finger was ripped from Jon’s hand after a tree limb caught on his ring finger when he jumped out of a tree during a photo shoot, resulting in having to learn how to play the saxaphone with one less digit ala Jerry Garcia, and the Hot Tuna Show with Papa John Screech. Flora and Eye Ear Toes logo on his equipment. Was it there that we went on Halloween, me dressed as a bagman for Nixon (A paper sack over my head) and you going as a Bee-keeper (a vegetable strainer over your head)? God we were hilarious! It’s all beginning to come back, but what never went away was remembering the great friend I went with.
Eugene Gray June 24, 2012 at 11:30 am I grew up in Atlanta so thanks for the memories about the shows at The Great Southeast Music Hall. I attended numerous shows between the years 1974 and 1977. From what I can remember (I do have “70s Memory” after all), here’s some highlights: Kinky Friedman — Smoked a huge cigar throughout the show and tipped his ashes in an ash tray attached to his microphone stand. Brought the house down with ‘Sold American.’ David Allan Coe — Played the first half of the show in his “Country Crooner” persona wearing a white suit and white cowboy hat; then played the second half as The Mysterious Rhinestone Cowboy complete with rhinestone jacket and black mask. Played a hard-rockin’ version of ‘Bossier City’ to close out the show. Best memory: New Riders of the Purple Sage Show opened late with only John Dawson (acoustic guitar) and Buddy Cage (pedal steel) taking the stage. Seems their limo made the right exit off of 285 but the other limo kept going. After Dawson telling us that, he said, “Well, you might not have all of us but you do have two.” He and Cage then played a short set together including a beautiful version of ‘Gypsy Cowboy.’ The other members trickled in and started playing, all having a good time with the audience about their site-seeing tour of Atlanta via 285. Fantastic show and my best memory of The Hall. Weirdest experience: For lack of something to do, went to see the New Zealand group Split Enz. A fun but bizarre show with a group outside my typical taste. Sort of a cross between Devo and Bowie and the Bay City Rollers. Truly a strange show. Worst experience: Pure Prairie League — I was always, always let in and served beer before I turned 18 in ’76. Except for one time. Missed Pure Prairie League because we were all carded; the only time I was ever asked for my ID here. Always regretted missing them since the original band broke up right after this tour. Damn. Thanks again for a spot to remember one of the best concert venues (ever) in Atlanta.
Anonymous July 11, 2012 at 3:03 pm Saw many great shows at the Music Hall; Leon Redbone, Don McLean, Bruce Cogburn, but the funniest thing was at Darryl Rhoads show. My girlfriend (now wife of 30 years) went missing when she left to go make the parent check-in phone call. I found her coming around the corner in the hallway, mad at some guy who wouldn’t get off the phone in the lobby. The “guy” was Darryl and he made a few comments to her from the stage during the show just to keep her pissed. It’s funny now, but I could have died then…
Pharmacist Jim April 28, 2013 at 12:01 pm How about when Jimmy Buffett opened for Billy Joel there in 1974. I was a Pharmacist at Eckerd Drugs in the plaza at the time when Jimmy called me and asked me to call his physician in Key West for a prescription–a musician who wanted to get a legitimate prescription, unheard of!!! I was already a Buffett fan, but this just made me respect him that much more and I’ve been a “Parrot Head” since, now so more than ever since I live in Florida.
Anonymous October 23, 2013 at 8:29 am My best friend and I moved to Atlanta (on purpose) for just the summer of ’73 and attended MANY MANY great shows at the Music Hall. It was SO awesome. Saw Billy Joel right around the Captain Jack release time and he asked me out after the show. Of course, I answered with a resounding “NO! Thank You!!” (you see, I was ABSOLUTELY too cute for him…hehe — not to mention, I thought his nose was entirely too big.) Also, saw Jimmy Buffett who talked to us from the stage because we were from Hattiesburg, MS and he had gone to school there at the University of Southern Mississippi. SOOO COOL!!!
Rod Pearman May 28, 2015 at 10:00 am Couldn’t help but have a smile on my face as I read all these comments. THE Great Southeast Music Hall and Emporium………man, the memories. Sometimes I think I could write a book. My roommate and I lived at Bordeaux Apts. on Buford Hwy, which was just a hop skip and jump over to The Hall via the dirt road which is now Sidney Marcus……..we lived there from 1972 to early 1980, which might be a record for two dudes that were party animals to have survived that long in one apartment complex. Anyhow, we frequented GSEMH about once a month when an act we wanted to see was to play there. A couple of my fondest memories now that I’m in my mid 60’s is, it had to be sometime in ’75. We went to see The Dirt Band (one my favorites of all time) The opening act was this guy named Steve Martin, who at that time, no one on the planet had ever heard of him. Well he comes out, and within 30 seconds he has us so cracked up we’re shooting beer out our noses from his comedy. Really funny stuff, and had no idea it was coming. Well, he does his gig, then the Dirt Band comes out. They play a great set, take a little break, and when they came back out on stage, here comes Steve Martin with a banjo over his shoulder. So we’re all thinking this will be something funny, this guy with a banjo. This guy took off on his “ban-jer” and everybody’s jaw hit the floor. He really tore it up. Then the Dirt Band joined in and he played a few tunes with the band. The guy was incredible on the banjo. Then a few months later, Saturday Night Live did their first show, and there’s Steve Martin on TV. I look over at my roommate as he’s looking at me, and we’re both saying in unison, hey, that’s the guy from The Great Southeast Music Hall. Pretty neat that we got to see him when nobody had a clue of his talent. … I got home later that night, and my roommate (yeah, the same guy I mentioned in earlier chapters of this book….) said he saw something on TV that I wouldn’t believe. Turns out, one of the local TV stations (2, 5, or 11) had sent a reporter over to cover the final show of The Great Southeast Music Hall, and while reporting out front of the establishment, there were about a dozen folks standing there sorta behind the reporter. Well, this one fair lady decided to nonchalantly pull a boob out of her tank top and display it for all the world to see, right there on live TV. My roommate said it was something he’d never forget, and we tell the story often. (I wonder who that young lady was sometimes……) but I digress……..
alun v September 23, 2014 at 11:54 am As the Audio Engineer and last guy to walk out the door @ the Lindbergh (and Cherokee Plaza) locations, the walls, painted and autographed by many of the acts, were destroyed; (legal issues I guess). I still have the door to the tech room, signed by Cowboy, a personal favorite. BTW, I saw the concrete sidewalk @ Peaches, with hand / foot prints and signatures, also destroyed and hauled off………lawyers.
julia guthrie November 26, 2015 at 10:38 pm I just caught the 50th anniversary! of Alice’s restaurant masacree on pbs. Brought back the memory of seeing Arlo at the Great Southeast Music Hall. I was drunk(and maybe other) and it was my birthday, so my bf said I should try to talk to Arlo because my name is Guthrie! I was just drunk and young enough to do just that. I finagled my way to the tourbus door(was pretty good at talking my way into things back then), announced that I was a cousin, and ended up sitting at the little bus table, smoking and talking with Arlo and fam. Pretty sure all I added to the conversation was a shit-eating grin, but it was one of the highlights of my youthful escapades. Loved going to the Music Hall! Ah…youth and happy times. I also lived at Bordeaux apts for a while! Peace:)
Rod November 27, 2015 at 11:06 am You can’t beat Alice’s Restaurant on Thanksgiving Day. I used to have an annual tradition of listening to that song on my Technic’s turntable for probably 30+ years, but somehow that tradition faded out a few years ago. (Maybe because my turntable is sitting on a shelf in my closet Definitely great memories at the Hall. Hard to believe it’s been 40 years ago, give or take. I lived at Bordeaux for 7 years through the ’70’s, which might be a record. We were in G building, and had some of the best parties in NE Atlanta. It was standing room only, kegs on the deck, music crankin’ just below distortion level. Those were the days!
BRIAN HOLCOMB June 19, 2015 at 6:00 pm I was a freshman student a GSU in 74 After one of the shows (can’t remember who) I was standing outside in the corridor waiting on some friends. When out the door came my General Chemistry Professor Dr Sears arm in arm with the best looking girl in my class. They turned beet red turned and got away from me as quick as they could. I often wonder if I could have went and bribed an A out of him. LOL
SideShow Bennie December 1, 2015 at 5:24 pm I just stumbled across this article when I Googled GSMH. I lived in Atlanta in 1972-73 and attended a lot of shows at the Broadview Plaza location. I was at one of the Howdy Doody Revival shows that is on the poster pictured in the article. I remember Bob Smith hitting a bad note on the piano, reaching inside and pulling out a pack of ZigZag rolling papers saying, “Clarabelle leaves these things everywhere.” Other shows I remember seeing were Johnny Nash with Sons of The Jungle (The first actual Jamacian Reggae band I ever saw) John Hartford, The Earl Scruggs Revue, Joe Walsh with Barnstorm, Jim Croce, Harry Chapin, Doc Watson, The Hahavishnu Orchestra, Martin Mull, Doug Kershaw. I am pretty sure I was at the Ellen McIllwain and the Breakfast Special shows you mentioned but there were show where a lot of beer buckets were emptied so a lot of those shows are a little hazy. I still have a bucket or two around the house here somewhere. Thanks for the memories!!
chamblee54 May 20, 2018 at 12:31 pm There was a facebook meme. The idea was to say 10 things about yourself, 9 of which were true. Facebook nation was supposed to guess which one was false. PG posted a GSEMH version. He listed 10 acts, 9 of which he saw at the Music Hall. (PG never said Great Southeast, just *the music hall*). The 10 acts listed: Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Steve Martin, Martin Mull, Weather Report, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Sex Pistols, Melissa Manchester, New Riders of the Purple Sage, Doc and Merle Watson, Atlanta Rythym Section. You will have to read the post to see what act is the lie, and the 9 acts that PG did see.
David Manion May 20, 2018 at 12:54pm Yes I smashed a transistor radio just before my opening set for Marc almond.
Doug DeLoach May 23 2018 at 4:20 pm “The performance [by the Sex Pistols] was said to be horrible.” You must have exclusively heard either from people who weren’t there or scene trolls who hated punk rock in the first place. The show was about as awesomely punk as punk can get.
Lizejane May 21, 2020 at 5:15 pm Deborah McCall played and Silverman with Ron Norris and Carl Cuzio. Deborah went on to play with Jimmy Buffett Coral reefer band.Ron played with at least one touring group, did studio work in Atlanta and I think he played with Ron Kimble at some point. I knew them from The Bistro days before the Music Hall opened ~ Silverman was a 3 piece group w Debra McColl, Ron Norris and Carl Cuzio. Debra played in Jimmy Buffet’ s Coral Reefer Band and Ron played. With at least one national touring band, did studio work and I think he played w Ron Kimble I knew them from the Bistro days.
Laurel Pike May 26, 2023 7:25 AM I loved the music hall! Moved here in 71 but lived out in East point near my husband’s employer, the US army band at Ft Mac. Don’t know how we found it but some very memorable shows were: Laura Nyro, Weather report, Chuck mangione, Lily Tomlin, Cheech & Chong. We saw Flora and Airto, Shakti and Return to Forever too. My musician husband didn’t care for rock music at the time though he does appreciate it now. I remember seeing the sign in the lobby advertising a double bill with Steve Martin and Martin Mull! And the beer specials at the Emporium that started at noon and went up 50 cents an hour. That’s where we were when we heard that Elvis had died…
Lene Lovich
Lene Lovich was born Lili-Marlene Premilovich in Detroit, Michigan, March 30, 1949. She moved to England as a teenager, and met Les Chappell. He who played guitar in her band, and was her man.
As an art school student, she started to tie her long hair in plaits to keep it out of the clay while studying sculpture. Her recording debut was as part of an audience, when Chuck Berry recorded “My ding a ling”. This may have been the inspiration for “Lucky Number.”
Miss Lovich played in several bands, before winding up on the Stiff label. She put out two albums that became popular in the USA, and did a tour. After a while, she retired from music to raise a family. Miss Lovich has made a slight comeback in recent years.
PG had the privilege of seeing Lene Lovich at the Agora Ballroom, Atlanta GA, in the winter of 1980. The opening act was The Romantics. The show was taped for broadcast on the NBC radio network, and Don Pardo was on hand to introduce the bands.
The Romantics were unknown to the crowd at the Agora that night. They came on stage wearing costumes that looked like the Beatles of 1963. Every song they did was a bit better than the one before, and they got a big round of applause when the set ended.
Don Pardo had quite a career. He was the house announcer on November 22, 1963, and was the voice of NBC when he interrupted a soap opera to announce that John Kennedy had been “cut down with assassin’s bullets”. During his career as a TV announcer, Mr. Pardo could not use profanity. That night at the Agora, he made up for lost time…every other word he said was a cuss word. Dominick George “Don” Pardo, born February 22, 1918, passed away August 18, 2014.
Soon, Lene Lovich (spell check suggestion:lovechild) and her band came on stage. She was not the typical sexpot rock chanteuse… A bit chubby, with her long hair tied in plaits. Wearing a long sleeve black dress, probably stolen from a convent, she provides fantasy for only the kinkiest. Les Chappell was there, with his shaved head, to stop any trouble before it started, and play guitar.
The material came mostly from the first two albums on Stiff records. (At some point in the evening, someone…maybe Lovich, maybe Pardo…said “Be stiff”.) She introduced “Lucky Number” by saying “We have a song that goes ah oh aih oh”. During an instrumental jam in that song, she cried out “We have an American on keyboards”. The American was Thomas Dolby, who would soon go solo. He did not appear to be blinded by science.
The first encore was ” I think we’re alone now”, which had been a hit for Tommy James and the Shondells (spell check suggestions: shoulders, shovelfuls). Soon the night was over. Pictures are from the “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”. This is a repost.
UPDATE: This comment was left on facebook “Those first two albums are GREAT. I probably saw her on this same tour; Dolby was with her. I was a club on South Street in Philly. She looked like a freaked-out Teutonic barmaid, the St. Pauli girl gone goth (before there was goth). Somehow, the sight of her playing sax was hilarious, and the concert was a blast. I bought a recent Thomas Dolby CD a couple months ago. Sucked, as, alas, did Lene’s last one.
Bob Dylan Lives
Today is Bob Dylan’s eighty second birthday. This tribute is composed primarily of three previously published pieces of work. Some people think Bob Dylan is a piece of work. Pictures are from Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library
This compendium was assembled in 2016. On David Bowie’s in 2016, PG created a computer playlist, and assembled a few blog posts into a birthday celebration. Three days later, David Bowie was dead. PG decided to do the same thing to Bob Dylan on his birthday. Instead of dying, Bob Dylan won the Nobel prize. A similar effort on RuPaul’s birthday had no effect on the performer.
It was a late may morning in Atlanta GA, and a slack blogger was searching his archives. Yes, Issac Asinov never got writers block, and when he wasn’t going to the bathroom he was typing, but that is a lifestyle choice. Easy writing makes tough reading. So, anyway, in the may archive for 2011 there was a post about Bob Dylan’s seventieth birthday. People were taking bets on whether he would make it to thirty, and here he is at seventy nine.
Hibbing MN is a cold place. At least it can claim to be the birthplace of Robert Allen Zimmerman. That’s Allen, with an e, and double L, just like hell. The original initials were RAZ, which might be a good trivia question, or, with a silent W in front, radio station call letters. The problem is, he legally changed his name to Bob Dylan, with no known middle name. Those initial are BD.
On May 24, 1941, the curly haired wonder boi arrived. The world was a different place. Europe was in flames, and eyeing the young men of America as fresh cannon fodder. This was twelve years, eleven months, and eighteen days before PG graced the planet. A twelve year old in Hibbing MN would have no reason to think of a newborn baby in Atlanta GA.
The first time PG heard of Bob Dylan was probably at the record rack of Zippy’s dime store in Cherokee Plaza. There was an album of his greatest hits, and it came with a poster. The poster had a drawing of the man, with psychedelic waves of hair cascading in multi colored glory to the edges. PG never did buy the LP.
The former Mr. Zimmerman was never big on top 40 am radio. Somebody somewhere was getting a headache over those lyrics, but Atlanta GA was not somewhere in those days. By this time, Mr. Dylan had crashed his motorcycle, and gone into hiding. As the counter culture exploded (if only someone had disinfected that counter) the curly haired poet was in hiding, the subject of much speculation. At one point, people were stealing his garbage, and claiming to find evidence of investment in munitions firms. The neoscience of Dylanology continues to this day.
As PG got older and stupider, he heard more and more Bob Dylan music. In the summer of 1972, there was a performance at the Concert for Bangladesh. A couple of albums released during this era sucked, and some people stopped caring about Bob Dylan.
At the start of 1974, a tour was announced. The Band was to be the backing group. The circus came to the Omni, and PG got some of the mail order tickets. He couldn’t find anyone to use the second ticket, and sold it to a stranger outside the arena.
The show was nothing special. Bob Dylan excels at writing, is ok in the studio, and blah on stage. Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter was at the show, and was said to look bored. Mr. Dylan was invited to the Governor’s mansion after the show, and talked to the Governor. A lot of people in Georgia were surprised that Jimmy would want to run for President.
As the Seventies went me-me-me-ing into sex and drugs oblivion, Bob Dylan regained both his writing touch, and love of the spotlight. The Rolling Thunder tour happened, he got back together with Joan Baez, divorced his wife, became born again, became more Jewish, counted money, and generally lived the life. PG did his own version of all that, without Joan Baez.
In the winter of 1991, America was consumed by war fever. Saddam Hussein had been elevated to next Hitler status, and had to be taught a lesson. One night, Bob Dylan played on a music awards show, and performed “Masters of War”. He played a discordant version of that ditty, with the result that few understood what he had said. By this time, Mr. Dylan had assembled a band, and gone out on the “Never Ending Tour”. A Bob Dylan concert had gone from being a special event, to being another name on the festival roster. Overexposure will do that.
On the last night of the Olympics in 1996, Bob Dylan played the House of Blues downtown. PG won a pair of the $80 tickets in a radio station contest. It was his only trip downtown during the games, and had to wait in a security line to get into Centennial Olympic Park.
The only celebrity, other than Mr. Dylan, seen at the House of Blues that night was Bill Walton. The band was competent…they impressed PG as being like a bar band that did a lot of Dylan songs, with a strangely authentic lead vocalist. The sound in the room was not good, at least in the spot where PG stood. The only song he recognized was “All along the Watchtower”, the Jimi Hendrix classic. Mr. Dylan got a cheer when he put his harmonica appliance on.
The aptly named dangerousminds has a link to a story about the recording of Blonde on Blonde. Bob Dylan was 24 years old, newly married, and had “sold out” i.e. started to play electric guitar. A bunch of Canadians known as The Hawks (later The Band) was touring with him. Barely a month after the release of “Highway 61 Revisited”, sessions started at a New York studio.
The New York sessions did not work, so a decision was made to go to Nashville. Al Kooper played organ, and served as a music director. A crew of Nashville players was recruited. A bass player named Joseph Souter, Jr. would become famous a few years later using the name Joe South. Kris Kristofferson was the janitor at the studio.
Most studios have bafflers, or sound proof room dividers, splitting the studio into cubicles. For these sessions, the bafflers were taken down, and the band played together as a unit.
The second session in Nashville started at 6pm and lasted until 530 the next morning. Mr. Dylan was working on the lyrics to “Sad eyed lady of the lowlands”, and the recording could not start until he was ready. The musicians played ping pong and waited. At 4am, the song was ready, and the record was finished in two takes.
PG had marginal encounters with two of the players on this album. He met a lady once, who worked in an insurance office. One of the customers was Joe South. His driving record file was an inch thick.
Al Kooper had a prosperous career after his association with Bob Dylan. The former Alan Peter Kuperschmidt produced the first three Lynyrd Skynyrd albums, sold that contract for a nice piece of change, and lived happily ever after.
One night, Mr. Kooper was playing a show at the Great Southeast Music Hall, and PG sat in front of the stage. During a break between songs, PG asked his friend “what time is it?”. Mr. Kooper heard him on stage, and said it was 11:30.
If it ever quits raining, PG is going to walk to the Chamblee library and return a book, and a cd. The cd is by Bob Dylan, and is a work of genius. The book is about the former Mr. Zimmerman, and is a piece of garbage. (BTW, Dylan is not the only Zimmerman to hit the big time. Ethel Merman was born Ethel Agnes Zimmerman.The Zimmerman telegram got us into World War I. The less said about George Zimmerman, the better)
When returning cd’s to a library, you need to get a check in receipt. Once, PG returned a stack of cd’s to the Brookhaven library. When checking them in, one was missed by the scanner. A few days later, there was a note in the mail about an overdue cd.
The good news was, the cd was on the shelf when PG went back to investigate, and the matter was quickly settled. It did not help that the cd was a collection of disco music called “Shake your booty”.
“The freewheelin’ Bob Dylan” was released in the early sixties, when the man was barely old enough to buy a drink. There is not a bad song on it, and several are classic rock staples. At a time when mindless pop dominated pop music, here were thoughtful, moving lyrics.
In 1991, with America in a war frenzy, Mr. Dylan appeared on a music awards show. He performed “Masters of War”, at a time when the majority would be appalled if they could understand what he was singing. Mr. Dylan has been reinvented many times, and often the lyrics get gargled.
Five years later, PG won tickets to a Bob Dylan concert. It was the last night of the Olympics, and the man was appearing at the House of Blues. (Tickets were $80, so the radio contest is the only reason PG went). It was like hearing a good bar band, that did nothing but Dylan songs, with the man as the vocalist. Due to the mix of the sound, PG could not recognize many of the songs.
The book is Bob Dylan: Prophet, Mystic, Poet by Seth Rogovoy. It tells the Dylan tale as a story of Jewish prophecy. PG got to page 16, where the author claims that “Like a Rolling Stone” “almost single handedly revolutionized rock’n roll music”. Huh?
PG was eating dinner, and did not have anything else to read. He got to page 38. Nothing in the next 22 pages changed his mind away from ditching the book. How does nonsense like this get published?
Facts
@Atheist_Bot “Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. – Aldous Huxley.” I was stumbling through my morning, when I saw this. Other than reading The Doors of Perception many years ago, I don’t know Aldous Leonard Huxley. The quote is plausible. This is a repost.
Atheist Quote Bot 💉💉💉 is part of the problem. “@Atheist_Bot Challenging beliefs, while respecting the believer. It’s difficult sometimes. Numbered tweets are automatic, replies are from my programmer. I don’t feed trolls” A robot, in a server, dispensing commodity wisdom on schedule. This is what passes for learning in Post-Obama America.
The Huxley wikiquote shows 14 results for “facts.” The money quote appears to be legitimate. It is from a book, published in 1927, ”Proper Studies.” “The proper study of mankind is man” The text appears to be academic and difficult. This researcher will make no effort to identify the context.
Time Must Have a Stop (1944) has another ALH fact-quote. This one may be more true than the coffee mug. “Facts are ventriloquists’ dummies. Sitting on a wise man’s knee they may be made to utter words of wisdom; elsewhere, they say nothing, or talk nonsense, or indulge in sheer diabolism.”
Time Must Have a Stop “Sebastian Barnack, a handsome English schoolboy, goes to Italy for the summer, and there his real education begins. His teachers are two quite different men: Bruno Rontini, the saintly bookseller, who teaches him about things spiritual; and Uncle Eustace, who introduces him to life’s profane pleasures.”
”The novel that Aldous Huxley himself thought was his most successful at “fusing idea with story,” Time Must Have A Stop is part of Huxley’s lifelong attempt to explore the dilemmas of twentieth-century man and to create characters who, though ill-equipped to solve the dilemmas, all go stumbling on in their painfully serious comedies (in this novel we have the dead atheist who returns in a seance to reveal what he has learned after death but is stuck with a second-rate medium who garbles his messages).” Is TMHAS about facts, or about dummies?
Bruno Rontini is the character who said the comment about facts. We do not know the context. Is this how Huxley feels, or is a foolish character speaking nonsense? The only way to know is to read Time Must Have a Stop. This sort of scholarship is too much to expect of chamblee54, or Atheist Quote Bot. Pictures today are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library.”
Killing Contest Score
This is a repost from 2018. We don’t know what the corresponding numbers are for 2023. … This year has been deadlier for American students than American military members The headline at the New York Daily News is all over facebook. So far in 2018, “… 31 people … have been killed at schools since Jan. 1, according to data compiled by the Washington Post. Twenty-nine U.S. service members have been killed in the same time frame, including both combat and noncombat deaths, according to the Pentagon.” There was no link given to the Pentagon source.
There was another incident last week that produced a lot of dead people. People gathered at the Gaza border, and were killed by the I.D.F. PG was curious how many people were killed, and how this compares to American students. He googled how many Palestinians killed by israel in 2018. The best answer, at least for last Monday, is 62, or twice the number of American students.
There were two headlines listed as “top stories.” Hamas official: 50 of the 62 Gazans killed in border violence were our members ~ Top IDF spokesperson tells U.S. Jews: Israel failed to minimize Gaza casualties, Hamas won PR war by knockout. Israel is very good at media.
The Times of Israel article was based on reporting by The Middle East Media Research Institute. “Hamas Political Bureau Member Salah Al-Bardawil said that of the 62 people killed in clashes along the Gaza border on May 14, 50 were from Hamas. Al-Bardawil, speaking on May 16 on Baladna TV, which broadcasts from Gaza, stressed that this was the official figure. Interviewer: “Many people are saying that the children… I’m telling you what people are saying. It’s not that I believe this. People are saying that children are dying and that Hamas is reaping the fruits.” Salah Al-Bardawil: “In the last round, there were 62 martyrs.” Interviewer: “Right.” Salah Al-Bardawil: “50 of the martyrs were from Hamas, and the other 12 were regular people. So how can anyone claim that Hamas is reaping the fruits, when it paid such a steep price? What did Hamas gain? 50 martyrs…”
It is not known what language this interview took place. When you translate Mid-Eastern languages into English, you can put words in someone’s mouth with impunity. Even if the people killed were Hamas members, does that justify Israel killing them? Is anyone naive enough to think that Human Lives Matter? The paywall protected Haaretz says that Hamas won PR war by knockout. The Times of Israel counters with Confident Hamas planned victory rallies for its leaders inside Israel.
The bottom line: twice as many people were killed at the Gaza border in one day, than in American schools all year. Good luck getting the NYDN to print that headline. Pictures today are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”.
May 10
May 10 is roughly halfway between the Spring Equinox and the Summer Solstice. May 10 is often Mother’s Day. In fact, the first Mother’s Day celebration was May 10, 1908 in Grafton WV. Other noteworthy events have occurred on this day.
1774 – Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette become King and Queen of France.
1924 – J. Edgar Hoover is appointed first Director of the FBI.
1933 – In Germany, Nazis stage massive public book burnings.
1940 – Winston Churchill is appointed Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
Germany invades France, The Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg.
As with all days, there are notable births and deaths. Births include:
John Wilkes Booth (1838) Fred Astaire (1899) Mac McKinnon (1956) Sid Vicious (1957)
If people are born, then other people have to die. Notable departures include:
Stonewall Jackson (1863) Joan Crawford (1977) John Wayne Gacy (1994)
Pictures are from Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library
#NationalDayofPrayer
Good Morning God. Please give me the slack I need to make it through this life. I have a birthday soon, and am getting older. Please give me less pain, both above and below the neck. Thank you for letting me get this far. Thank you for the gift of sobriety, and the memory of inebrience. The gift of moderation would have been helpful. Help me to overcome body chemistry telling me to be unhappy. If this doesn’t work, help me hide it better.
Please tell Christians to make less noise, joyful or otherwise. Please help me forgive Christians for their good intentions. Please give Christians the gift of humility. Let us know that a real man keeps control of his temper. Please tell those praying today that it is better to listen than to talk.
Please find a happy medium for Atlanta water. Let us have neither drought nor flood. It would help if the developers would move to North Carolina, and the politicians would develop a conscience.
God, please try to get along better with Allah. Please help White people and Black people to show kindness and respect for one another. Please be good to the people who have already lived, and are now deceased. Please understand that I am not in a hurry to join them.
Please help Mr. Biden with the mess this country is in. Please help Israel get along with her neighbors, and live within her borders. Please help the world resolve the carbon dioxide problem.
Thank you for the birds that sing. Thank you for dogs, and dog owners who clean up. Thank you for earth, air, fire, and water. Thank you for people who enjoy this prayer. Please help those who are offended to get over it. Namaste, amen, all my relations, Good Bye.
Today is the #NationalDayofPrayer. This is a repost. Pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”.
leave a comment