THIS AND THAT - July 28, 2010
THIS HERE
Those into blues mandolin might want to check out Rich Delrosso's "Get Your Nose Outta My Bizness!" This CD is available on cdbaby. Check out www.mandolinblues.com
I found some very interesting record albums (in VGC) in a junk store a few weekends ago.
They were:
1.) BILLY VAUGHN- GREATEST BOOGIE WOOGIE HITS
(with such songs as Down the Road Apc, Beat Me daddy Eight to the Bar, Honky Tonk Train, Pinetop's Boogie Woogie and Guitar Boogie).
2.) PORTRAIT OF PATSY CLINE (a 2 LP set, with a bunch of songs I had never heard or heard of before).
3.) JOHNNY HORTON with BILLY BARTON and DON HUGHES
(This is a rock-a-Billy LP with such songs as Somebody's Rockin', Betty Lou, Rhythm baby Walk, I'm Goin', Teen Hoe Waltz, Guitar Stomp, etc.
This LP is on the Crown label CLP 5290).
4.) DAVE BRUBECK- JACKBOX (recorded Live in Las Vegas).
You'd be surprised what you can find for 25 cents or even a dollar.
I bet some folks laughed at me when I told them that the Stones version of "Little Red Rooster" was the first version I ever heard. It was interesting to me when I heard that Croatian bluesman Miroslav Evacic fashioned his first slide from a wine bottle and then immediately began working out Brian Jones' slide riffs from the Stones recording of Willie Dixon's "Little Red Rooster."
Miroslav first learned about the blues while living under Tito's Communist rule in Yugoslavia. He discovered and then began to track down such hard to find American albums by singers like Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters. The gem of his record collection was the 1969 release of Fathers and Sons, which brought together legends Otis Spann and Muddy Waters with younger bkues cats such as Paul Butterfield and Mike Bloomfield.
It was news to me that Blues Folkie Eric Von Schmidt was quite the visual artist. He illustrated Joan Baez's songbooks, did many posters for the Newport Folk Festival and Manny Greenhill's Folklore Productions, and created dozens of album covers for artists like Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie, Joan Baez, Paul Geremia and Chris Smither.
Unable to sing or play guitar anymore, because of his health (Lyme disease, strokes, and cancer of the larynx), he poured every once of passion and energy into his "Giants of the Blues" series of paintings.
Eric passed away in 2007.
The story of life is quicker than the blink of an eye.
-Jimi Hendrix, the day before he died
The whole basis of my singing is feeling. Unless I feel something, I can't sing.
-Billie Holiday
You sing the way Bix played.
-Bud Freeman to Lee Wiley
Being an 18-carat manic depressive, I have an acute capacity for sadness as well as elation.
-Frank Sinatra to Pete Hamil
Marlon Brando filed for a patent on a way of adjusting the tuning on a drum two years before he died.
The Saddlemen was the original name of Bill Haley and his Comets. Like so many other rock and blues artists, they were greatly influenced by Louis Jordan and his band.
QUAKE TOUCHES WARREN
A Canadian earthquake may have damaged a 200-year-old building in Warren, Michigan, leaving it in danger of collapsing. City officials actually evacuated a historic fire building Tuesday, more than two weeks after the magnitude 5.0 earthquake that originated northeast of Ottawa, after they discovered structural damage. The building on Chicago Road, west of Van Dyke, shifted 9 inches in one direction and 6 inches in another. A center support has moved about 2 inches. There are also cracks in the south and west sides of the building, some of which are 3 feet long. Mayor Fouts said, "The building is in danger of collapsing at any time."
130 YEARS AGO
"Cornet Prize"- Just after going to press last week the glad news reached our village that our worthy young friend and townsman, P.J. Jersey, had won first prize as a solo cornetist at the Band Tourament then in progress at Flint. There were 10 contestants, but after the playing of Mr. Jersey, six withrew. The committe awarded Mr. Jersey the first prize, $100 in gold. William Dreskell, of Lansing, the second, $80; J. F. O. Smith, of Port Huron, the third.
(Montcalm County)
125 YEARS AGO
"Skeleton Found" - The skeleton of an Indian was recently unearthed on Pine River, near St. Louis. Metal epaulets, silver buckles, bead wristlets, earings and other ornaments, also a spear, knife, tomahawk, a tin pail and other articles were found with the remains.
-Stanton Weekly Clipper
A grocer knows dills
A druggist knows pills
Tubes tested by experts
make smaller repair bills
-TV/Radio Service Dealer booklet, 1950s
I had the blues so bad it hurt my feet to walk
I said I had the blues so bad it hurt my feet to walk
I had the blues so bad it hurt my tongue to talk
-Memphis Slim
SELF DEFENCE
You get into a fight, first thing you do is whang yourself over the head with a fryin' pan or somethin'. Usually, your opponent will then run away, figgerin' that if you were willing to do that to yourself, then what was you fixin' to do to him!
-Anon.
COMMERCIAL RADIO
At first, the radio airwaves were considered a public trust that must be kept from the pollution of commercialism. An advertisers trade journal declared, "Any attempt to make the radio an advertising medium would, we think, prove positively offensive to great numbers of people." But that was 1922, the same year the first sponsered program was broadcast over New York station WEAF. A real-estate corporation was the advertiser and merely announced itself as the sponsor without breathing a word of praise of it's houses for sale. This innocent precedent opened up the floodgates.
The above piece made me think of this short poem by Charles A. galt:
THE COMMERCIAL
We thought our needs were well supplied;
No want the year could bring.
We listened to the radio
and found we needed everything.
DANCE MARATHONS
"Of all the competitions ever invented the dancing marathon wins by a considerable margin of lunacy"
-New York World, 1923
The history of the dance marathon is a subject that deserves study. The object was to see which couple could outdance- or outlive- the others. It is said that after 7 or 8 days of dancing the dancers would start acting "peculiar." I bet. In 1930 a Chicago dance marathon went on for 119 days!
One of the few contestants who never suffered aching feet or mental problems was Mary "Hercules" Promitis of Pittsburgh. She never shared how she kept her sanity but she did share how she kept her dancing feet in shape. She had learned that bare-fisted prize-fighters often pickled their hands. Mary soaked her feet in brine and vinegar for three weeks before a 1928 Madison Square Garden marathon. So successful was her method that when the New York health commisioner finally put an end to the dance, after three weeks, Mary was still feeling no pain.
FLAGPOLE SITTING
Now we will move on from marathon dancing, passing by goldfish eating, and ponder (ever so breifly) a comment made by Baltimore Mayor William F. Broening concerning flagpole sitting:
"The grit and stamina evidenced by your endurance from July 20th to 30th, a period of 10 days, 10 hours, 10 minutes and 10 seconds atop of the 22 foot pole in the rear of your home shows that the old pioneer spirit of America is being kept alive by the youth of today."
THAT THERE
Wake up and see the coffee pot.
Ken Baker, Art News
The political and commercial morals of the United States are not merely food for laughter; they are an entire banquet.
-Mark Twain
The blues had more race record releases and sales in the 1920s than jazz and gospel combined.
All I need is my guitar in my hands and I can face a barrel of rattlesnakes.
-Byther Smith
On January 15, 1919, a steel tank holding two million gallons of molasses exploded in Boston and killed 21 people! It also knocked over several buildings and damaged the overhead train tracks. Fermentation was to blame.
A hundred and twenty-five lawsuits were filed against the vats owner, the United States Industrial Alcohol Company.
EASY & LOWER FAT BLINTZES
I know many will think it horrendous to do blintzes without the sour cream, cottage cheese filling & whipped cream (and some of you go way off the deep end with a cream cheese filling) but by using a high quality/brand name strawberry yogurt instead you lower the fat and get plenty of flavor. Just make sure you have plenty of strawberries to throw in.
3 simple ingrediants:
1.) Crepes (or pancakes)
2.) Brand name strawberry yogurt
3.) Strawberries, sweetened
2 VERY IMPORTANT INDIAN SPICE MIXES:
CURRY POWDER
Mix together the following and keep in a screw topjar in a cool place.
1 tablespoon turmeric powder
2 tablespoons cumin powder
2 tablespoons red chili powder
1 cup coriander powder
GARAM MASALA (powdered)
Grind together the following in a spice or coffee grinder. Keep refrigerated in a screw top jar.
1 teaspoon black peppercorns
1 taespoon cloves
2-inch cinnamon stick
1 teaspoon green cardamoms
2 black cardamoms
1 teaspoon black cumin seeds
CHICKPEAS WITH MANGO AND COCONUT
This Indian dish is actually called sundal mundal. Venders on the Marina Beach in Madras would sell this in small paper cones. This is a treat even the kids will love.
You need:
1 lb (about a heaping cup) dried chickpeas
1 teaspoon turmeric powdersalt to taste
1 fresh hot green chili pepper
2 tablespoons oil
1 teaspoon mustard seeds
a few curry leaves
2 tablespoons shredded fresh or dried coconut
1 tablespoon chopped green mago
1.) Soak the chickpeas overnight in cold water. Drain them and hold the sieve or colander under cold running water for a few seconds. Place the chickpeas in a heavy saucepan with the turmeric and salt and enough water to cover them. Simmer until tender, then drain. Or cook the chickpeas in a pressure cooker for speed.
2.) Finely chop the green chili pepper. Heat the oil in a saucepan and add the chili pepper, with the mustard seeds and curry leaves. Add the chickpeas and cook for a few minutes, stirring thoroughly.
3.) remove from the heat and stir in the shredded coconut and mango. Serve on a paper plate or in a paper cone, whichever you prefer!
Live each day until bedtime.
-Shelley Irwin
THE HOUSE OF TRIBULATION
In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.
-Albert Einstein
The things I had to do to survive back then have made me what I am
-Doug Kershaw, Cajun Fiddler
He has seen but half of the universe who has never been shown the house of pain.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents, which in prosperous circumstances would have lain dormant.
-Horace
I thought I was a real gone cat, I thought I was bon fire hot
I thought I was a real cool cat, I thought I was bon fire hot
I wanted candy apple red, but burnt sienna is what I got
-No Stranger to Sapphire, R. W. Noom (c) 2007
Those into blues mandolin might want to check out Rich Delrosso's "Get Your Nose Outta My Bizness!" This CD is available on cdbaby. Check out www.mandolinblues.com
I found some very interesting record albums (in VGC) in a junk store a few weekends ago.
They were:
1.) BILLY VAUGHN- GREATEST BOOGIE WOOGIE HITS
(with such songs as Down the Road Apc, Beat Me daddy Eight to the Bar, Honky Tonk Train, Pinetop's Boogie Woogie and Guitar Boogie).
2.) PORTRAIT OF PATSY CLINE (a 2 LP set, with a bunch of songs I had never heard or heard of before).
3.) JOHNNY HORTON with BILLY BARTON and DON HUGHES
(This is a rock-a-Billy LP with such songs as Somebody's Rockin', Betty Lou, Rhythm baby Walk, I'm Goin', Teen Hoe Waltz, Guitar Stomp, etc.
This LP is on the Crown label CLP 5290).
4.) DAVE BRUBECK- JACKBOX (recorded Live in Las Vegas).
You'd be surprised what you can find for 25 cents or even a dollar.
I bet some folks laughed at me when I told them that the Stones version of "Little Red Rooster" was the first version I ever heard. It was interesting to me when I heard that Croatian bluesman Miroslav Evacic fashioned his first slide from a wine bottle and then immediately began working out Brian Jones' slide riffs from the Stones recording of Willie Dixon's "Little Red Rooster."
Miroslav first learned about the blues while living under Tito's Communist rule in Yugoslavia. He discovered and then began to track down such hard to find American albums by singers like Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters. The gem of his record collection was the 1969 release of Fathers and Sons, which brought together legends Otis Spann and Muddy Waters with younger bkues cats such as Paul Butterfield and Mike Bloomfield.
It was news to me that Blues Folkie Eric Von Schmidt was quite the visual artist. He illustrated Joan Baez's songbooks, did many posters for the Newport Folk Festival and Manny Greenhill's Folklore Productions, and created dozens of album covers for artists like Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie, Joan Baez, Paul Geremia and Chris Smither.
Unable to sing or play guitar anymore, because of his health (Lyme disease, strokes, and cancer of the larynx), he poured every once of passion and energy into his "Giants of the Blues" series of paintings.
Eric passed away in 2007.
The story of life is quicker than the blink of an eye.
-Jimi Hendrix, the day before he died
The whole basis of my singing is feeling. Unless I feel something, I can't sing.
-Billie Holiday
You sing the way Bix played.
-Bud Freeman to Lee Wiley
Being an 18-carat manic depressive, I have an acute capacity for sadness as well as elation.
-Frank Sinatra to Pete Hamil
Marlon Brando filed for a patent on a way of adjusting the tuning on a drum two years before he died.
The Saddlemen was the original name of Bill Haley and his Comets. Like so many other rock and blues artists, they were greatly influenced by Louis Jordan and his band.
QUAKE TOUCHES WARREN
A Canadian earthquake may have damaged a 200-year-old building in Warren, Michigan, leaving it in danger of collapsing. City officials actually evacuated a historic fire building Tuesday, more than two weeks after the magnitude 5.0 earthquake that originated northeast of Ottawa, after they discovered structural damage. The building on Chicago Road, west of Van Dyke, shifted 9 inches in one direction and 6 inches in another. A center support has moved about 2 inches. There are also cracks in the south and west sides of the building, some of which are 3 feet long. Mayor Fouts said, "The building is in danger of collapsing at any time."
130 YEARS AGO
"Cornet Prize"- Just after going to press last week the glad news reached our village that our worthy young friend and townsman, P.J. Jersey, had won first prize as a solo cornetist at the Band Tourament then in progress at Flint. There were 10 contestants, but after the playing of Mr. Jersey, six withrew. The committe awarded Mr. Jersey the first prize, $100 in gold. William Dreskell, of Lansing, the second, $80; J. F. O. Smith, of Port Huron, the third.
(Montcalm County)
125 YEARS AGO
"Skeleton Found" - The skeleton of an Indian was recently unearthed on Pine River, near St. Louis. Metal epaulets, silver buckles, bead wristlets, earings and other ornaments, also a spear, knife, tomahawk, a tin pail and other articles were found with the remains.
-Stanton Weekly Clipper
A grocer knows dills
A druggist knows pills
Tubes tested by experts
make smaller repair bills
-TV/Radio Service Dealer booklet, 1950s
I had the blues so bad it hurt my feet to walk
I said I had the blues so bad it hurt my feet to walk
I had the blues so bad it hurt my tongue to talk
-Memphis Slim
SELF DEFENCE
You get into a fight, first thing you do is whang yourself over the head with a fryin' pan or somethin'. Usually, your opponent will then run away, figgerin' that if you were willing to do that to yourself, then what was you fixin' to do to him!
-Anon.
COMMERCIAL RADIO
At first, the radio airwaves were considered a public trust that must be kept from the pollution of commercialism. An advertisers trade journal declared, "Any attempt to make the radio an advertising medium would, we think, prove positively offensive to great numbers of people." But that was 1922, the same year the first sponsered program was broadcast over New York station WEAF. A real-estate corporation was the advertiser and merely announced itself as the sponsor without breathing a word of praise of it's houses for sale. This innocent precedent opened up the floodgates.
The above piece made me think of this short poem by Charles A. galt:
THE COMMERCIAL
We thought our needs were well supplied;
No want the year could bring.
We listened to the radio
and found we needed everything.
DANCE MARATHONS
"Of all the competitions ever invented the dancing marathon wins by a considerable margin of lunacy"
-New York World, 1923
The history of the dance marathon is a subject that deserves study. The object was to see which couple could outdance- or outlive- the others. It is said that after 7 or 8 days of dancing the dancers would start acting "peculiar." I bet. In 1930 a Chicago dance marathon went on for 119 days!
One of the few contestants who never suffered aching feet or mental problems was Mary "Hercules" Promitis of Pittsburgh. She never shared how she kept her sanity but she did share how she kept her dancing feet in shape. She had learned that bare-fisted prize-fighters often pickled their hands. Mary soaked her feet in brine and vinegar for three weeks before a 1928 Madison Square Garden marathon. So successful was her method that when the New York health commisioner finally put an end to the dance, after three weeks, Mary was still feeling no pain.
FLAGPOLE SITTING
Now we will move on from marathon dancing, passing by goldfish eating, and ponder (ever so breifly) a comment made by Baltimore Mayor William F. Broening concerning flagpole sitting:
"The grit and stamina evidenced by your endurance from July 20th to 30th, a period of 10 days, 10 hours, 10 minutes and 10 seconds atop of the 22 foot pole in the rear of your home shows that the old pioneer spirit of America is being kept alive by the youth of today."
THAT THERE
Wake up and see the coffee pot.
Ken Baker, Art News
The political and commercial morals of the United States are not merely food for laughter; they are an entire banquet.
-Mark Twain
The blues had more race record releases and sales in the 1920s than jazz and gospel combined.
All I need is my guitar in my hands and I can face a barrel of rattlesnakes.
-Byther Smith
On January 15, 1919, a steel tank holding two million gallons of molasses exploded in Boston and killed 21 people! It also knocked over several buildings and damaged the overhead train tracks. Fermentation was to blame.
A hundred and twenty-five lawsuits were filed against the vats owner, the United States Industrial Alcohol Company.
EASY & LOWER FAT BLINTZES
I know many will think it horrendous to do blintzes without the sour cream, cottage cheese filling & whipped cream (and some of you go way off the deep end with a cream cheese filling) but by using a high quality/brand name strawberry yogurt instead you lower the fat and get plenty of flavor. Just make sure you have plenty of strawberries to throw in.
3 simple ingrediants:
1.) Crepes (or pancakes)
2.) Brand name strawberry yogurt
3.) Strawberries, sweetened
2 VERY IMPORTANT INDIAN SPICE MIXES:
CURRY POWDER
Mix together the following and keep in a screw topjar in a cool place.
1 tablespoon turmeric powder
2 tablespoons cumin powder
2 tablespoons red chili powder
1 cup coriander powder
GARAM MASALA (powdered)
Grind together the following in a spice or coffee grinder. Keep refrigerated in a screw top jar.
1 teaspoon black peppercorns
1 taespoon cloves
2-inch cinnamon stick
1 teaspoon green cardamoms
2 black cardamoms
1 teaspoon black cumin seeds
CHICKPEAS WITH MANGO AND COCONUT
This Indian dish is actually called sundal mundal. Venders on the Marina Beach in Madras would sell this in small paper cones. This is a treat even the kids will love.
You need:
1 lb (about a heaping cup) dried chickpeas
1 teaspoon turmeric powdersalt to taste
1 fresh hot green chili pepper
2 tablespoons oil
1 teaspoon mustard seeds
a few curry leaves
2 tablespoons shredded fresh or dried coconut
1 tablespoon chopped green mago
1.) Soak the chickpeas overnight in cold water. Drain them and hold the sieve or colander under cold running water for a few seconds. Place the chickpeas in a heavy saucepan with the turmeric and salt and enough water to cover them. Simmer until tender, then drain. Or cook the chickpeas in a pressure cooker for speed.
2.) Finely chop the green chili pepper. Heat the oil in a saucepan and add the chili pepper, with the mustard seeds and curry leaves. Add the chickpeas and cook for a few minutes, stirring thoroughly.
3.) remove from the heat and stir in the shredded coconut and mango. Serve on a paper plate or in a paper cone, whichever you prefer!
Live each day until bedtime.
-Shelley Irwin
THE HOUSE OF TRIBULATION
In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.
-Albert Einstein
The things I had to do to survive back then have made me what I am
-Doug Kershaw, Cajun Fiddler
He has seen but half of the universe who has never been shown the house of pain.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents, which in prosperous circumstances would have lain dormant.
-Horace
I thought I was a real gone cat, I thought I was bon fire hot
I thought I was a real cool cat, I thought I was bon fire hot
I wanted candy apple red, but burnt sienna is what I got
-No Stranger to Sapphire, R. W. Noom (c) 2007