Chamblee54

Q: What does “Jimmy crack corn” mean, and why does he not care?—Matt, Columbus, Ohio
PG was trolling “stupidquestion.net” when there was a convergence of stupidity. (The site does not exist in 2012.) All his life he had heard “Blue Tail Fly”, and been embarrassed. And there, in (pardon the expression) black and white, was someone who wondered the same thing.
It seems as though “Blue Tail Fly” started out as a minstrel song. For those who don’t know, minstrel shows were white people putting on black makeup, and imitating African Americans. Minstrelsy is not well thought of these days.
The story of BTF involves a slave named Jim. A fly bit the pony the old massa was riding, the pony was offended, and threw the old massa off. He was hurt landing, and died. Jim still has to crack corn, but he doesn’t care anymore, because old massa has gone away.
Dave Barry took a poll once to find out the stupidest song of all time. The overwhelming winner/loser was “MacArthur Park”. The combination of over the top show stopping, while singing about a cake left out in the rain, makes this ditty a duh classic.
In the spirit of corny convergence, the video is a karaoke version featuring Donna Summer . Miss Summer is a talented singer, who happened to connect with Giorgio Moroder. There are lots of singers who would have hit the big time if they had fronted those records, but Donna Summer hit the jackpot.
For a proper post, there needs to be a third stupid song. This is not about stupid bands, singing about being D U M B. Even though they totally don’t belong, there is a video of the Ramones included. PG saw the Ramones at the Agora Ballroom in 1983. This was after their prime, and before a homeless man caught the Ballroom on fire.
We still need a third stupid song, and PG wants to get this posted with as little research as possible. Just like some writer was once given twenty minutes to write a song, and he decided to do the worst song he could think of. The result was “Wild Thing”. PG used to have a 45 of someone who sounded like Bobby Kennedy singing “Wild Thing”.
This is a repost. Pictures are from The Library of Congress.

There was a comment at Chamblee54. “Steve Loehrer – So tell me what you know about Rose’s Cantina. I booked the music there from 1978-80 – Thorogood, Delbert, The Thunderbirds, The Fans, The Razor Boys and on and on. I was the one that did it. And I probably know you.” This blog has previously published features about the Great Southeast Music Hall, Richards, and the Georgian Terrace Ballroom. One more music venue post is not going to hurt anyone, and will be a good excuse to post some more pictures, from “The Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”.
688 Spring Street is a nondescript building, located down the hill from the Varsity. At one time, a company called Southern Tailors made wine jackets there. It is currently a Concentra Urgent Care Center. In between, it was the site of two rock and roll nightclubs, Roses Cantina and 688. One block over, at 688 West Peachtree, is a Catholic Construction management office.
House manager Rose Lynn Scott is quoted as saying “You know, we really aren’t sure exactly when it all started and ended,” Scott said. “Honest to God, we weren’t paying that close attention.”PG first knew about it around 1977, and really didn’t go very often. There is a running list for this post, and whenever a new band sinks into the mush, it is duly noted. There was some band, whose name is lost to antiquity, that did “Love Gun”, which sounds remarkably similar to “Amphetamine Annie” by Canned Heat.
The punk rock revolution did not completely pass Atlanta by. A band called the Fans said they were making the pop music of the eighties. PG saw them twice and Roses, and they might be the only time he ever paid to get in. They were an impressive outfit, doing Velvet Underground and Telstar. Later, they opened for Talking Heads at the Agora, and were pretty awful. Much, much later, PG shared an apartment with the brother, of the drummer, for the Fans. Also living there was the brothers wife, a cable guy, seven snakes, a ferret, and a cat.
Back to the words of Rose Lynn, “It was a dive bar supreme and proud of it.” The stage was in the middle of the house, with a game room behind the stage. If you liked to shoot pool and listen to bands, this was the place. As for drinking, PG might get a beer or two, but mostly got bombed at other spots.
In those days, PG would go rambling from club to club, often accompanied by his friend Dinkson. One night, they stumbled in on a three piece band. They did a song called “Madison Blues”, with the guitar playing slinging riffs, and the bass playing playing the same notes over and over, never changing the look on his face. This was George Thorogood and the Destroyers.
One other night, PG stumbled in on the last few minutes of a show by the Brains. They wrote a song called “Money Changes Everything” that Cyndi Lauper did well with. This is another great local band that never seemed to get a national audience. Another night, some old black man, possibly John Lee Hooker, was playing guitar.
Around about this time, PG decided to either grow up, or take his childhood seriously. He wound up in Seattle WA. That wore off after a while. On the greyhound bus going home, PG talked to a young lady, who said something about a punk rock club in the Roses Cantina space. This was the 688.
A few weeks later, Iggy Pop did a week at 688. Here, through the miracle of copy paste, is the story. It isn’t plagiarism when you wrote it yourself.
At any rate, by the time PG got back from Seattle, some brave investors decided to have a punk rock club at 688 Spring Street. Soon, Iggy Pop would be playing a week there. In the seventies, the bands would play for five days at the great southeast music hall or the electric ballroom, two shows a night, and if you were really cool you would go on a weeknight before it got too crowded. Soon after that, it was one night in town only, and you either saw it or you didn’t.
PG had a friend at the Martinique apartments on Buford Hiway. There was someone living in the complex known as ZenDen, who sold acid. You would go to his place, wade through the living room full of grown men listening to Suzi Quatro, and purchase the commodity.
On to the the 23 Oglethorpe bus, and downtown to 688 Spring Street. Before anyone knew it, the band was on the stage. A veteran of the Patti Smith Group, named Ivan Kral, was playing bass. Mr. Kral sneezed, and a huge cocaine booger fell across his face. He was not playing when the show ended.
There was a white wall next to the stage, and someone wrote the song list on that wall. That list of songs stayed on the wall as long as 688 was open. “I want to be your dog” was on the list, as well as the number where Iggy pulled his pants off and performed in his underwear. Supposedly, in New York the drawers came off, but the TMI police were off duty that night.
The show was loud and long, and had the feel of an endurance event…either you go or the band does. Finally, the show was over, and PG got on the 23 Oglethorpe bus. You got the northbound bus on West Peachtree Street. You could look down, from Fourth street,  and see the Coca Cola sign downtown.
Twenty years after that, PG worked in a building at that corner of Fourth and West Peachtree. If he had known about the future of working for Redo Blue, PG might have jumped under the 23 Oglethorpe bus, instead of getting on it. The Coca Cola sign was long gone by then.
There was band called Human Sexual Response in those days. PG caught their act at 688. They had three vocalists, wearing matching outfits, and sang a lot of lyric happy songs with really cool harmonies. The problem was, PG was not familiar with those oh so witty lyrics, and did not know what it was all about. At least he got out of the house.
Kevin Dunn played guitar for the Fans. (He had an ad for guitar lessons on the bulletin board at Wax and Facts. It said that raising racing turtles was more profitable than playing guitar.) One night at 688, he performed with his band The regiment of women. They opened for someone, possibly the Plastics, who we will get to in a minute. So, this guy plays guitar and sings, and a woman plays a drum machine. No skin pounding drummer, but  a lady who twisted the knobs on a machine.
The Plastics were from Japan, and did a killer version of “Last Train to Clarksville”. It was about this time that PG got a job, and decided that he liked sleeping better than hanging out downtown.
One night, about 1983 or so, PG made an exception. The band that night was Modern English. Before the show, PG ate three z burgers from the Zestos on Ponce de Leon. During the show, the singer rubbed his stomach, and said to feel the music. About this time, the z burgers were making their presence known, and PG could feel something, but it wasn’t the music.
The last show PG saw at 688 was Hüsker Dü. The best guess is February 14, 1986. There was a totem pole, made of old TV sets, in the front part of the club in 1986. Here is the story.
Hüsker Dü means “do you remember” in Danish and Norwegian. PG saw them sometime in the eighties. It might have been the metroplex, but it might have been the 688. There is a list of shows they played, and the metroplex is not on there.
PG saw a show at the Metroplex the next night. The band is forgotten. The metroplex was a dark spooky building on Marietta street near the omni. The balcony was very dark, with everything painted black. PG tripped over a bench. Funny how HD means “do you remember” and memory is letting PG down here.
688 was a different story. PG saw a bunch of shows there, both as 688 and Rose’s Cantina. HD may have been the last show PG saw before they closed. PG was well into the work/sleep lifestyle that preoccupied his life after a certain point, and just didn’t make it out much anymore. A friend won tickets to the show or he wouldn’t have made it.
PG didn’t get into the show very much. HD was a trio, with the later outed Bob Mould as the guitar g-d. For all of his musical skills, Mould is not much for onstage charisma. PG felt that if he had been more familiar with their music, he would have enjoyed it more. Some bands you can see without hearing their records and get into it right away, where others need a bit of familiarity.

Colorful Russian rockers Pussy Riot remain in captivity, months after the incident which got them in trouble. Al Jazeera takes a break from jihads to tell the story, with the delicately titled Russian punk rockers denied bail. “Members of the all-female punk rock band Pussy Riot were denied bail on Monday after being arrested for a controversial act of political protest. The group faces up to seven years in jail for “hooliganism” when they stormed Moscow’s main cathedral to perform a song critical of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Band members later claimed their performance was staged in protest of the Russian Orthodox Church’s support of Putin. During his latest election campaign, Patriarch Kirill, the head of the church, praised Putin’s twelve year rule as “a miracle of God”.
It is a long time since the days of “G-dless Communism”. Today, the Russian Orthodox Church supports the Kleptocracy of Vladimir Putin. Huffington Post chips in : “Many say Putin, who returned to the presidency last week, has used the church as a potent tool in his command structure, allowing it to amass vast riches in return for unquestioning support of his policies and spiritual blessing for his leadership. … Under the atheist Soviet regime, the church suffered persecution, with tens of thousands of its faithful purged, jailed or executed. The 1991 fall of communism opened the way for a renaissance that many celebrated as bringing Russia back to its spiritual roots.”
Pure Film Creative gleefully uses the P word in a headline. Pussy Outrage names the three arrested rockers. “In yet another move that shows how totalitarianism is alive and well and living inside Vladimir Putin, Russian all-girl punk bank Pussy Riot have been denied the release from prison that was promised to take place earlier this week. Three members of the group— Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Yekaterina Samutsevich and Maria Alekhina—were arrested for so-called “hooliganism” after they burst into Moscow’s cathedral of Christ the Savior in March and, we imagine, disrupted one of those endless, droning Russian Orthodox hymns with a kickass rendition of their song “Holy Shit.”
The International Fashion Police are also calling for their release. The Pussy Rioters wear colorful masks, and balaclavas. Their colorful presence is missed. “Kot: We have nothing to worry about, because if the repressive Putinist police crooks throw one of us in prison, five, ten, 15 more girls will put on colorful balaclavas and continue the fight against their symbols of power.” Apparently, the masks allow the players to remain anonymous, which allows for a great freedom to change the personnel at will. This is another innovation few have tried, except for Kiss and professional wrestlers.
Youtube commenter Като Брафикус does not mince words.  “Психически больные люди со своими мифическими героями, учинили расправу, беззаконие над невиновными девушками Pyssi Riot. Сектантская зараза насаждается обществу. Инквизиция и террор над мирными гражданами в России является сегодня нормой. Общество и народ России отвергает отморозков. Свободу Pyssi Riot!!! Free Pyssi Riot!!!”
Vice magazine had an interview with the band, a few days before the fateful Cathedral show. The interview has a header ad from Dominoes Pizza. The entire interview is worth reading, but these quotes are too good not to use here.
“VICE: Why “Pussy Riot”? Garadzha: A female sex organ, which is supposed to be receiving and shapeless, suddenly starts a radical rebellion against the cultural order, which tries to constantly define it and show its appropriate place. Sexists have certain ideas about how a woman should behave, and Putin, by the way, also has a couple thoughts on how Russians should live. Fighting against all that—that’s Pussy Riot. Kot: You shouldn’t have answered that question, Garadzha, because usually we don’t. When cops and FSB agents interrogate us and ask, “What the hell do these English letters on your banner stand for” (we put out a banner during some of our illegal performances and hardly any of these jerks speak any foreign language)—then we usually say something like “Oh well, Mr. Secret Policeman, it’s nothing special, those words just stand for “Pussycat rebellion.” But, of course that’s a brutal lie. In Russia you should never tell the truth to a cop or to any agent of the Putinist regime. …  VICE: Do you have any plans to stage shows at public appearances by Medyved or Putin? Tyurya: Putin is too scared to do any real public appearances—all his “public meetings” are heavily guarded shows with Kremlin loyalists cheering and blowing kisses. But one day we’ll hunt him down for sure! Serafima: So he better leave before we catch him. Putin would never want to meet Pussy Riot face to face!”
Amnesty International has taken up the Pussy Riot cause. Free Pussy Riot! is a petition calling for the release of the rock stars.
It has been a long time since rock and roll was dangerous in the west. Masked Women playing punk rock in Cathedrals takes the game to a new level. The carefully crafted faux rebellion of Lady Gaga, and the corporate pablum of Beyonce’, seem very tame by comparison. Maybe Justin Bieber should wear a mask, and get arrested in a Cathedral.
Pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library.”

PG heard facebook rumors about a series of dance performances. The one closest to Brookhaven was the Lindbergh MARTA station. The walls of the house were caving in, so PG decided to go see things.
The turf of the Lindbergh Station is the story of Atlanta in a nutshell. Lindbergh Drive was named for aviator Charles Lindbergh. The Lindy Hop was possibly incorporated into the performance.
When PG was a kid, he saw the cartoon 101 Dalmatians at the drive in movie theater there. In the late sixties, a department store named Arlan’s was built on the site. When it went belly up, the first indoor fleamarket in the area went in it’s place. The MARTA facility came in the eighties, and the surrounding land was largely vacant for years. Lately, that has changed. The blocks around the station are totally rebuilt, with office buildings and condos.
At one point, the parking garage started to charge. The deal is, you can get your ticket validated inside the train station, and not have to pay. By the time PG figured this all out, it was too late to back out, and he wound up having to pay to park. Otherwise, it would have been a free show.
The train station is an open air affair, with gates and fences surrounding a downstairs area where the trains pull up. There are two such enclosures, with a plaza in between. When PG arrived, he went to the south part of the station, and did not see any dance action. The bf of a dancer told PG that the talent was downstairs, and would be coming up soon. He did not know where the performance would be.
After a few minutes, a crowd gathered around the north platform. PG walked around, until he found a good spot to look in. Three dancers were performing, while the rest of the troupe stood in a double file line. All this time, the rush hour crowd poured out of the train platform below. This was a seamless performance, with everyone on site a part of the show. The train passengers, the police, the crowd, the photographers, and the dancers all played a role.
Soon, the players danced through a turnstile. Three went north, followed by PG, who took lots of pictures and felt like a stalker. The dancers never lost concentration, or gave in to the temptation to slap that dern fool with the camera.
The company soon reunited in the plaza between the platforms. They would run in circles, and break into groups to dance little dramas. The lady that PG stalked went around the crowd giving away origami. She was the last one to leave the plaza.

PG read Fire and Rain: The Beatles, Simon and Garfunkel, James Taylor, CSNY, and the Lost Story of 1970. The long form title sums up the book. 1970 was the year PG turned 16, and heard some of these stories as they happened. It was fun to hear them again, with a few details added.
This is a fun book. The only problem is the finger wagging attitude about drug use. There was plenty of that… none of these eleven men liked to say no. And if amplifiers could run on attitude, then rock promoters would never pay a power bill.
The biggest names, to fall the furthest, would be John, Paul, George, and Ringo. It was obvious, to those who wanted to see, that the fab four were finished. The Let it be sessions, and the movie that resulted, had been highly unpleasant. On December 31, the men Paul paid to do things sent out lawyer letters to the men John, George, and Ringo paid to do things. The lawyers had lots of billable hours in the next few years.
Simon and Garfunkel never really liked each other, but had a good working relationship. Bridge over troubled water was the last time they could stomach being in the studio together. In 1970, Arthur played in movies, while Paul sulked and planned a solo album. The breakup was never formally announced. The pair got together for select concerts, but never was the force they had been in 1967.
Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young had an exciting year. They played a show in Denver, which Neil walked out of. The band nearly broke up, only to be revived by management threatening lawsuits. CSNY made big money from shows, which their drug dealers appreciated. This was not a band so much as an all star act. It was always a struggle to balance the egos. They played again after 1970, and may indeed do more shows together. The fact they are all alive in 2012 is a miracle.
James Taylor is a solo act, and cannot have a breakup. Unless you count the pieces of his personality, in which case the band unity is as remarkable as the three other acts. Mr. Taylor made a movie, courted Joni Mitchell, and took heroin. He wrote the song which graced the title of this book. The runner up was “Why don’t we do it in the road”?
This book is fun to read, and will keep your mind off how long you have been waiting to see the doctor. PG got it at the library, so that price was right. It should make a good gift for someone who is not embarrassed to admit he knows these artists. Pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”

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 was first posted in 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.
There were several hits in the early days, most notably “You really got me”. (This later 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, with a theater like production. 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 ” Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”

PG decided, at next to the last minute, to hang out with friends, and see a trash movie. The flick was Voodoo Academy. It is decorated with shots of  pretty bois writhing in designer underwear.
A young man is led into upstairs. Some wine is poured on him, by a man wearing a clerical collar. The boi wiggles with emotion, lights start to flash on his chest, and his shrunken head is grafted onto a voodoo doll. The other students are told that he has been expelled.
The action takes place at Carmichael Bible College. There are six students, all impossibly gorgeous. The Carmicheal dude ain’t bad either. Headmadame Mrs. Bouvier wears Frederick”s of Hollywood drag. (Mrs. is her first name.) There are dozens of candles, which are always lit and never burn down.
Whoever is responsible for this nonsense is probably a veteran of the Roman Church. That institution has a ceremony of ritual cannibalism, where wine stands in for the blood of Jboi. At Carmichael Bible College, this wine is poured on the body of a wayward student. Bad things happen.
The next morning, PG was listening to a discussion with T. M. Luhrmann. She was flogging a new book, When God Talks Back: Understanding the American Evangelical Relationship with God. There was an incident, where a person had a mystical experience, realizing that Jesus loves them. This made PG remember the afternoon when he learned that Jesus hates him. Religious imagery is very powerful, even wearing designer underwear.

There is a form letter floating through the intercourse now. It is a letter that Steve Martin used to send to his fans. (The letter was recently immortalized at Letters of Note ).
He …that is Stephen Glenn “Steve” Martin (born August 14, 1945) … has moved up in correspondence with his adoring fans. Mr. Martin now gives out business cards, with the message “This card certifies that the holder had met Steve Martin and found him genuinely friendly”. What a wild and crazy guy!
This is becoming one of those really really modern days here. Listening to a djmix with a Lady Gaga song, drinking coffee out of a Mcdonalds plastic cup, and writing a tribute to Steve Martin. What a day! Oh, before we forget, there is the story about the drive in theater on I85 that was showing “Father of the Bride”. One day, the h fell off the marquee, and the title of the movie became “Fater of the Bride”. Good times.
The story of Steve Martin and PG began one night at the Great Southeast Music Hall. PG got tired of hearing how great the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band was, and decided to see a show. The show started when some guy in a white suit came out with a banjo. John McEuen stood next to him, and kept falling into the microphone stand and saying ” this guy cracks me up”. Soon, MeEuen left the stage, and the guy in the white suit comediated.
Mr. Martin said that he paid somebody five thousand dollars for a joke. He then took this arrow, with a coat hanger wire attached to it, with a shape for his head to fit in, and put it on. That got a laugh, but not worth five thousand dollars. There was another gag…”do you mind if i smoke, no do you mind if i fart”. That got a slightly bigger laugh.
In those days, you could not sell alcohol in public on sunday night in Georgia. To compensate, the Music Hall sold children’s tickets for the sunday night shows. Mr. Martin was not used to having children in the audience. “Hey kid I gotta joke for you. There were these two lesbians…”
The show went over well with the Nitty Gritty crowd. However, it is doubtful that anyone thought, this is the beloved entertainer of our generation.
Mr. Martin was not through for the night. At one point, the NGDB moved to the back of the stage, and a smarmy lounge lizard, in a white suit, came on stage. While the band played “The girl from Ipanema”, Mr. Martin sang about the girl with diarrhea.
This was one of the last shows that Steve Martin did as an opening act. ( He did return to the Great Southeast Music Hall. Once, he did a week with Martin Mull, called the Steve Martin Mull Revue.) Within two years, he was a guest host on Saturday Night Live, and a certified wild and crazy guy. A couple of years later, he was famous again as “The Jerk”. Steve Martin had arrived.
The historic pictures today are from The Library of Congress. The animated dentures are from chattering teeth. The check is in the mail. This is a repost.

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 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 one.
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, which is where we are today.
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.
These days, not everyone knows who Bob Dylan is. Auto tuned automated canned music is the next big thing. If auto tune had been around in 1963, we would never had known how badly Mr. Dylan sings. In an age where rappers pay ghost writers to compose their tweets, being able to write songs is not valued. There is just no telling. And so it goes.
A.J. Weberman has made a life out of going through Bob Dylan’s garbage. He wrote a book, “The Devil and Bob Dylan”. “THIS BOOK CHALLENGES ALL PREVIOUS CONVENTIONAL THINKING ABOUT BOB DYLAN. DYLAN IS JUST THE OPPOSITE OF WHAT YOU BELIEVE HIM TO BE. BUT WHAT PURPOSE DOES IT SERVE EXPOSING HIM AS A RACIST, HIV POSITIVE EX-JUNKIE AND HOLOCAUST DENIER? NONE EXCEPT THAT OF TRUTH, AND THE TRUTH WILL SET YOU FREE. $17 INCLUDING POSTAGE! THE BOOK IS 500 PAGES AND FULLY ILLUSTRATED. Selling this book is like selling a book to Catholics entitled Why The Pope Sucks. The pope might such but no one wants to hear it.
This chamblee 54  birthday tribute is composed primarily of three previously published pieces of work. . The pictures are from ” Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”
There was a comment on the Bob Dylan webpage… Everybody knows by now that there’s a gazillion books on me either out or coming out in the near future. So I’m encouraging anybody who’s ever met me, heard me or even seen me, to get in on the action and scribble their own book. You never know, somebody might have a great book in them. PG doesn’t write books. He did grow up in America, and has a few opinions about Bob Dylan. It ought to be good for a few hundred words here. (HT to dangerous minds ) (Chamblee54 has posted about Mr. Dylan before.)
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 he would want to run for President.
As the Seventies went me me meing 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 or being circumcised again.
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, by Bob Dylan. It only happened once.
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, and sold that contract for a nice piece of change.
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.)
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?

Donna Summer passed away today. Breast cancer claimed another soul.
LaDonna Adrian Gaines was born December 31, 1948, in Boston MA. As a young lady, she moved to Germany, and performed in a production of Hair. She married Helmuth Sommer in 1972, and kept the name, with a vowel adjustment, after the divorce. At some point, she met Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte. Lightning was about to strike.
Wikipedia tells the tale. “In 1975, Summer approached Moroder with an idea for a song she and Bellotte were working on for another singer. She had come up with the lyric “love to love you, baby”. Moroder was interested in developing the new sound that was becoming popular and used Summer’s lyric to develop the song. Moroder persuaded Summer to record what was to be a demo track for another performer. She later said that she had thought of how the song might sound if Marilyn Monroe had sung it and began cooing the lyrics. To get into the mood of recording the song, she requested Moroder turn off the lights while they sat on a sofa with him inducing her moans and groans. After hearing playback of the song, Moroder felt Summer’s version should actually be released. Although some radio stations refused to play it due to its suggestive style, “Love to Love You” found chart success in several European countries, and made the Top 5 in the United Kingdom.
The song was then sent to Casablanca Records president Neil Bogart in hopes of getting an American release. Bogart informed Summer and Moroder he would release the song (now called “Love to Love You Baby”) but requested that Moroder produce a longer version for discothèques. Moroder, Bellotte, and Summer returned with a 17 minute version and Casablanca signed Summer and released the single in November 1975. The shorter version of the single was promoted to radio stations whilst clubs (mostly gay) regularly played the 17 minute version (the longer version would also appear on the album). Casablanca became one of the first record labels to popularize the 12″ single format. By early 1976, “Love To Love You Baby” had reached #2 on the US Billboard Hot 100, while the parent album of the same name sold over a million copies. The song generated controversy due to Summer’s moans and groans and some American radio stations, like several in Europe, refused to play it. Time magazine would report that 22 orgasms were simulated in the making of the song.”
Miss Summer was the right voice, at the right time, and the right place. Disco music was a snowball rolling downhill, gaining recruits every Saturday night. Mr. Moroder was an electronic wizard, creating a compelling sound. Whether another singer could have created the magic that Donna Summer did is a good question. One thing is not in doubt: the Summer-Moroder team was a disco hit machine.
It was more than just the music. As JoemyG-d notes: “Donna Summer came to fame at a magical time in the development of popular gay culture. No longer were our bars exclusively confined to unlit, unsigned, shabby doorways on shadowy streets. Those places still existed, to be sure. But in the bigger cities, often to the tune of Donna Summer records, gay men, many for the first ever, proudly crowded into giant, glittery, celebratory, and gleefully unrestrained discos.”
Getting back to Wikipedia , “Summer had often talked about her early successful years as a period of confusion and anxiety. By mid-1977, struggling with the media’s titles of her as the first lady of love, she began suffering from depression and started having anxiety attacks. Summer has written in her memoirs that she had attempted suicide a few times. Her rapid rise to success, combined with some serious regrets about mistakes in her personal life, began to take its toll. During this time, she self-medicated on prescription medication resulting in an addiction. Following a nervous breakdown at her home in 1979, Summer went to a local church attended with her sister Dara and declared herself a born again Christian.”
It is probable that Miss Summer was part of a hit machine, and had little control over the direction that it took. Keep this in mind when you read the next part of this story. Remember all the happy times that her studio songs gave people.
On Easter Sunday 1978, Donna Summer gave a show at the Atlanta Civic Center. PG was in the audience. Someone had the idea to present Miss Summer as a Las Vegas style revue. There was a horn section, backup singers, and a big band sound. The punchy electronic sound of the records was not there. PG was disappointed.
There was a song, “Try Me, I Know We Can Make It.” In the studio version, Miss Summer hits a high note, and holds it for a while. In concert, her backup singers sang that part. Looking back, that just means that it was real. Today, they would play a tape, and no one would know the difference.
Pictures are from The Library of Congress.

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”.
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, and 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.
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 provided 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.
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 ” 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.

Ted Nugent went on a “Journey to the center of the mind”. When he got there, the lights were on, but no one was home. (Spell check suggestions: Gent, Nugget)
Theodore Anthony Nugent has had quite a career. The Amboy Dukes were leaders in music, and vocalist fashion. The “motor city madman” enjoyed a prosperous solo career. He has also become a “right wing” spokesman, expressing opinions on a variety of subjects. Some comments recently earned him a private meeting with the Secret Service. That agency has it’s own PR problems. The fly on the wall, at the Nugent – USSS meeting, is not talking.
In the comments to a report on the TAN-USSS conference, PG found this: “Ted Nugent doesn’t have any right to salute flag draped coffins. He’s nothing but a coward. // How so? // he is a taxpayer,citizen.he has his rights // He literally shat his pants at a recruiting station just to avoid serving in Vietnam, for one.”
One thing Mr. Nugent likes to talk about is hunting. There is a difference between deer season and the Vietnam war… Charlie shot back. Mr. Nugent was born in 1948, making him the perfect age for the party. A copy of his draft record is available. Radio show notes discusses the codes.
1-In February 1967, Nugent was classified as 1-S (Deferment to complete high school).
2-In December 1967, Nugent was classified as 1-A (Available for unrestricted service)
3-In February 1968, Nugent was reclassified as 2-S (Deferment for college study)
4-In February 1969, Nugeent was reclassified as 1-A (Available for unrestricted service)
5-In August, 1969, Nugent was given an armed forces physical exam Two months later, Nugent was reclassified as 1-Y (A designation usually given to those with limiting medical conditions. He was eligible for military service, but only in case of war or National Emergency)
6-In December 1972, reclassified again. Hard to read on the document, but it may say 4-F. (Most former 1-Y registrants were reclassified 4-F, not acceptable for military service, when the 1-Y classification was abolished in late 1971)
In April of 1968, Journey to the Center of the Mind, the second album by the Amboy Dukes, was released. The title track, fueled by lead guitarist Ted Nugent, became a hit. The band toured endlessly, playing 300 shows a year. This was when Ted Nugent enjoyed a 2-S student deferment.
One show was at the Atlanta Municipal Auditorium. The headliner was Jimi Hendrix. The legend is that Mr. Nugent was playing a Hendrix song. Jimi came on stage, and told him not to play his song.
If you are eating, don’t read the rest of this post. Skip ahead and enjoy the pictures, which are from The Library of Congress . Ok, here is the best part of the story. The Rutland Herald quotes an interview Ted Nugent gave The Detroit Free Press, July 15, 1990. “He claims that 30 days before his Draft Board Physical, he stopped all forms of personal hygiene. The last 10 days he ingested nothing but junk food and Pepsi, and a week before his physical, he stopped using the bathroom altogether, virtually living inside his pants caked with excrement and urine. That spectacle won Nugent a deferment.” In the embedded video, no one in the band wants to stand next to Mr. Nugent.
The fact that Mr. Nugent did not go to ‘Nam did not prevent him from saying what he would have done. “… if I would have gone over there, I’d have been killed, or I’d have killed, or I’d kill all the hippies in the foxholes … I would have killed everybody,”