The legendary Gospel singer and Civil Rights activist, Mahalia Jackson was born 100 years ago today.
In a career that spanned 6 decades from 1927-1971, Jackson recorded over 30 albums, appeared in numerous films and was once described by Harry Belafonte as “the single most powerful black woman in the United States”.
With her rich contralto voice, Jackson was hailed as the “Queen of Gospel”, and her influence crossed musical genres from Rock to Pop, Jazz to Blues, and influenced Elvis Presley, Nina Simone and Aretha Franklin.
I haven’t yet read Peter Doggett’s new book The Man Who Sold The World: David Bowie And The 1970s, but as a veteran reader of many Bowie biographies who has found few of them satisfying, a short excerpt from the book published on The Quietus blog looks intriguing. Here’s an excerpt of the excerpt:
Bowie was, and has been, more candid about his drug use during this period than most of his contemporaries, and various associates have fleshed out the picture. ‘I’ve had short flirtations with smack and things,’ he told Cameron Crowe in 1975, ‘but it was only for the mystery and the enigma. I like fast drugs. I hate anything that slows me down.’ So open was his drug use that the normally bland British pop newspaper Record Mirror felt safe in 1975 to describe Bowie as ‘old vacuum-cleaner nose’. His girlfriend in 1974/75, Ava Cherry, recounted that ‘David has an extreme personality, so his capacity [for cocaine] was much greater than anyone else’s.’ ‘I’d found a soulmate in this drug,’ Bowie told Paul Du Noyer in 2002. ‘Well, speed [amphetamines] as well, actually. The combination.’ The drugs scarred his personal relationships, twisted his view of himself and the world, and sometimes delayed recording sessions, as Bowie waited for his dealer to arrive. As live tapes from 1974 demonstrated, they also had a profound effect on his vocal range. Yet the effect on his creativity was minimal: cocaine took its toll on his internal logic, not his abilities to make music.
‘Give cocaine to a man already wise,’ wrote occultist Aleister Crowley in 1917, ‘[and] if he be really master of himself, it will do him no harm. Alas! the power of the drug diminishes with fearful pace. The doses wax; the pleasures wane. Side-issues, invisible at first, arise; they are like devils with flaming pitchforks in their hands.’ Bowie’s ‘side-issues’ were rooted in his unsteady sense of identity; he talked later of being haunted by his various characters, who were threatening him with psychological oblivion. When he described the Thin White Duke of ‘Station To Station’, he was effectively condemning himself: ‘A very Aryan, fascist-type; a would-be romantic with absolutely no emotion at all but who spouted a lot of neo-romance.’ Michael Lippman, Bowie’s manager during 1975, said his client ‘can be very charming and friendly, and at the same time he can be very cold and self-centred’. Bowie, he added, wanted to rule the world.
It was not entirely helpful that a man who was bordering on cocaine psychosis should choose to immerse himself in the occult enquiries that had exerted a more intellectual fascination over him five years earlier. The sense that his soul was at stake was exacerbated by the company he kept in New York at the start of 1975: Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page, a fellow Crowley aficionado; and occult film-maker Kenneth Anger. In March that year, he moved to Los Angeles, where he was reported to be drawing pentagrams on the wall, experimenting with the pack of Tarot cards that Crowley had created, chanting spells, making hexes, and testing and investigating the powers of the devil against those of the Jewish mystical system, the Kabbalah. He managed to survive the fi lming of The Man Who Fell To Earth by assuming the emotionally removed traits of his character in the movie. But back in California, as he tried to assemble a soundtrack for the film and also create the Station To Station album, he slipped back into a state of extreme instability. Michael Lippman remembered ‘dramatically erratic behaviour’ on Bowie’s part. ‘Everywhere I looked,’ the singer explained to Angus MacKinnon in 1980, ‘demons of the future [were] on the battlegrounds of one’s emotional plane.’
Below, an alarmingly zonked Bowie presents an award at the 1975 Grammys. Wait for Aretha Franklin’s quip near the end.
After the jump, more 70s cocaine hi-jinks with the dame…
Joe Coleman’s 2010 portrait of Don Van Vliet, AKA Captain Beefheart, seems like an appropriate thing to post here on John Peel Day. You can get a better look at this detailed masterpiece in the artist’s monograph, Auto-Portrait, which accompanied last year’s Coleman show at the Dickinson Gallery in New York.
Acrylic on artist board and painted frame 24.25 x 21.5 inches. Larger online version here.
Below, seldom-seen clip of “When Big Joan Sets Up” from the local Detroit music show, Tubeworks. Recorded at WABX TV on January 15, 1971.
As mainstream radio in the UK gets steadily worse, as exposure opportunities for the genuinely interesting and different quickly disappear, and as lowest common denominator fodder like X Factor begins to limit the power of music in the popular imagination, he is missed now more than ever.
In the absence of one unifying national media platform it’s unlikely that we will ever see his like again, though I feel that through his influence, and the proliferation of music websites and blogs, we are all a bit Peelie now. Proof of the man’s legacy is that the anniversary of his passing has become an annual day of celebration, with gigs, radio shows, record fairs and even specific releases happening in his honor, every 25th of October. And this is a good thing, a very good thing.
So in memoriam, here’s a clip from a 2005 BBC program where various artists and radio djs posthumously rifle through his (typically eclectic) record box:
John Peel’s Record Box
After the jump, John Peel’s ‘Sound of the Suburbs’, Jimi Hendrix playing a Radio 1 jingle for Peel’s show in the late 60s, Peel on the assassination of JFK (which he reported on from Dallas for the Liverpool Echo), and an interview where Peel talks about the influence of punk, how its natural home is in the suburbs, and how scenes get co-opted by a jaded music press…
01. “A Question of Temperature” - Balloon Farm
02. “Emaretta” - Deep Purple
03. “I’ll Give You More” - Erik And The Smoke Ponies
04. “Primitive” - The Groupies
05. “Lucy” - Crabby Appleton
06. “Whatcha Gonna Do About It” - Evil
07. “Soul Shakin’ Psychedelic Sally” - The Hallmarks
08. “Where You Gonna Go” - Art Guy
09. “Better Man Than I” - Terry Knight And The Pack
10. “Suicidal Flowers” - Crystal Chandelier
11. “Somebody’s Girl” - Deepest Blue
12. “I Will Lose My Mind” - The Counts
13. “Questions” - Bang
14. “My Generation” - Human Beingz
15. “Optical Sound” - The Human Expression
16. “Strawberry Children” - The Hobbits
17. “Gates Of Eden” - Myddle Class
18. “Roll With It” - The Steve Miller Band
19. “It’s A Happening” - Magic Mushrooms
20. “Would You Believe” - Chris Morgan And The Togas
21. “Night Of Fear” - The Move
22. “Mr. Grey” - Stone Circus
23. St. James Infirmary” - The Graham Bond Organization
One solid hour of psychedelic stomp and grind, pulsating liquid lights and old skool strippers from the days when shedding your clothes was an art. Dedicated to the late great Lux Interior who would have been 65 years this past Friday.
Ace musician, producer, founding member of The Dictators and Dangerous Minds’ friend Andy Shernoff has a new Youtube video and it’s a winner.
Andy shared with DM the history and inspiration behind the making of Are You Ready To Rapture:
I grew up in New York City so the only people I knew who believed that Jesus was actually going to fly down from the sky were mentally ill preachers screaming their lungs out in what was then a very seedy Times Square. I had no idea how widespread this revenge fantasy called the Rapture was until a few years ago.
I had the phrase Jewish Zombie rolling through my brain and wanted to incorporate it into a song. I developed a fascination with Christian eschatology and researched it extensively. I wanted everything in the song to accurately represent what these knuckleheads believe. It took a few months and I probably wrote 25 verses until I had three with the right combination of drama, truth and sarcasm.
I felt the best way to communicate the song was with a cartoon. I met Brian Musikoff through a mutual friend and he was the only person considered after I saw his animation for a Patton Oswalt’s comedy routine, ‘Christmas Shoes’. I liked his visual style and felt he made a great bit even funnier.
Animation is very labor intensive so it took most of 2011 to finish it off. I busted Brian’s ass to get it done by October 21st the projected date of the Rapture and we posted it to YouTube on October 20th just in time to catch a little wave of Rapture publicity.
I find it terrifying that many Republican candidates for President not only believes that Jesus will return to earth in their lifetime, but that the ensuing destruction would be a good thing. They’re just so confident that they will be raptured while every person who has not let Jesus into their life will burn in the eternal flames of hell….. It is our patriotic duty as Americans to mock such irrationality.
By the way the song is available as a vinyl 45 from your favorite local record store with an unreleased Joey Ramone track as the B-side”
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Are You Ready To Rapture manages to do two things really well at the same time: it makes a timely political statement and it’s a terrific rock song. That’s hard to pull off and we haven’t seen much of it since The Clash and The Sex Pistols. Andy Shernoff, as punk as he ever was, reminds us that the history of rock and roll is also the history of cultural change and subversion - a revolution you can dance to. Nicely done Shernoff!
Unofficial video for “Frustration” from the Lou Reed/ Metallica album Lulu.
The pain shoots through my body
A sword between my thighs
I wish that I could kill you
But I too love your eyes
You’re feeling less whore but you stimulate
The hatred smolders in your eyes
I’d drop to my knees in a second
To salivate in your thighs
But all I do is fall over
I don’t have the strength I once had
In you and your prickless lover
And his easel in his eyes
I feel the pain creep up my leg
Blood runs from my nose
I puke my guts out at your feet
You’re more man than I
To be dead to have no feeling
To be dry and spermless like a girl
Captain Beefheart and The Tragic Band, recorded live H.E.C., HEC Jouy-en-Josas, Paris, France May 24, 1974
01. “Mirror Man”
02. “Upon The My-O-My”
03. “Full Moon, Hot Sun”
04. “Crazy Little Thing”
05. “Improvisation”
06. “Peaches”
07. “Who Will Be Next?” (Chester Burnett)
08. “You’re Gonna Need Somebody On Yer Bond” (Traditional)
Bonus:
Captain Beefheart and The Tragic Band, recorded live at the Cowtown Ballroom, Kansas City, Missouri, April 22, 1974
“Tragic Live Band”
Captain Beefheart Don Van Vliet vocals, harmonica, saxophone, clarinet
Fuzzy Fuscaldo guitar
Ty Grimes drums
Del Simmons tenor saxophone, flute
Dean Smith guitar
Michael Smotherman keyboards
Paul Uhrig bass
01. “Mirror Man” (0:00)
02. “Upon The My-O-My” (7:31)
03. “Crazy Little Thing” (10:48)
04. “Full Moon, Hot Sun” (15:56)
05. “Sugar Bowl” (20:17)
06. “This Is The Day” (23:19)
07. “It’s Mighty Crazy aka Keep On Rubbing Lightnin’ Slim” (31:17)
08. “Be Your Dog” (36:14)
09. “Sweet Georgia Brown” (43:32)
10. “Abba Zaba” (47:18)
11. “Peaches” (50:46)
In the 1980s every home in Glasgow had a copy of a Blue Nile album - either Walk Across the Rooftops, or Hats. Or so it seemed. Paul Buchanan (vocals, guitar), Robert Bell (bass), Paul Joseph Moore (keyboards), achieved a level of worship amongst their followers that it was almost religious.
Formed in 1981, The Blue Nile formed their own label, Peppermint Records, through which they and released their first single, “I Love This Life”. Though picked-up by RSO, it disappeared after that company was taken-over by Polygram. Undeterred, the trio kept writing and working on new material. When an engineer at the hi-fi firm Linn Electronics heard their music, he offered to finance the band to record a track - intended to showcase the quality of Linn’s hi-fi systems. The result so pleased Linn that an album Walk Across the Rooftops was recorded and released in 1984. It was a local hit, and cult everywhere else, but attracted allegiance from Rickie Lee Jones, Robbie Roberston and Annie Lennox.
It took 5 years for the follow-up Hats, but was well worth the wait, as it show-cased a 5-star album of adult love songs, which undoubtedly led to a population increase. Since then, it’s been slow and far between, with Peace at Last in 1996, and High in 2004.
In 1990, the film-maker Bernard Rudden made this documentary Flags and Fences, which followed The Blue Nile on their tour of America. It’s long been thought “lost”, but writer, adventurer and all-round-gentleman, Trevor Ward, located and forwarded this copy, which captures Blue Nile as they seemed on the cusp of world success.
Dutch designers Merel Slootheer, Pieter Frank de Jong and Liat Azulay have created a bike that plays music. Feats Per Minute (fiets is Dutch for bicycle) was designed using a basic $90 bike and with a few changes converted into a record player on wheels.
Simple alterations to the bike’s structure makes it easy to change records, and a few tweaks to the “crank of the bike and the chain” ensures records don’t skip. The record screws onto the bike frame with a small cap, and the needle is spring-loaded to keep it steady. To allow (or force?) pedestrians to hear your tunes as you zoom by, the designers installed a megaphone-style amplifier made out of plumbing materials.
In order for the records to sound as intended, you need to be a real steady peddler.
