Flyin' Through the Stars
“You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you odd.”― Flannery O'Connor
This is a big weekend for us, with Kaya playing Dorothy in the community performance of The Wizard of Oz. Kaya decided to forgo sports this semester so she could dedicate her time to acting and singing…and she went for it, having two big roles in two musicals over the next two weeks. We have relatives coming in town for the event, and many friends of Kayas are coming to see her. With much to do to prepare for our guests and manage logistics along with my wife, I will keep this short except to say:
Happy Birthday Aretha Franklin. You were the queen of soul and your voice is so very much missed. I made a mixtape of some of my favorite lesser-known numbers of hers a while back, enjoy it on this day she would have been 80. Gone. Too. Soon. (and while we are at it, tomorrow would have been the 105th birthday of the great Rufus Thomas! From his DJing on Memphis’ historic WDIA to his incredible funky funky records for Stax and Chess and others…there was NO ONE like Rufus.
"I'm young, I'm loose, I'm full of juice, I got the goose so what's the use. We're feeling gay though we ain't got a dollar, Rufus is here, so hoot and holler."
And finally, today—67 years ago—the Feds confiscated hundreds of copies of HOWL as they were coming into the US, a lit fuse that ended later with the arrest of publisher Lawrence Ferlinghetti. The power of the written word…of art….is real and can change the world. Why else would someone get arrested over a book.
Shabbes! And…we’re off to see the wizard….
Priscilla Presley, Mavis Staples, Booker T. among Memphis Music Hall of Fame class of 2022
Now that is a hall-of-fame class I can get my head around….and it also includes Ronnie Milsap, studio wizard Jim Gaines (St. Dominic’s Preview, Fly Like an Eagle), Elvis Sun-contemporary Billy Lee Riley, drummer/producer J.M. Van Eaton (Whole Lotta Shakin’ Going On, Breathless, Guess Things Happen That Way) and saxman Fred Ford (who “reportedly provided the dog noises heard on Big Mama Thornton's original 1952 recording of "Hound Dog.")
The title says it all.
My dear friend Luther talked about the new North Mississippi All-Star record, his guitar tone and the meaning of everything (ie The Blues).
Memories of Khazente Perele Feig
My friend Jeremiah Lockwood has been doing a lot of writing of prime movers in the field of Jewish music in the mid 20th century…artists that are not well known yet have incredible stories and who created new sounds mixing traditional Jewish melodies with the sounds of a new country: “Perele Feig (1910-1987) was among the great voices of the mid-twentieth century singing khazones. Khazones is the Yiddish term for the cantorial art music style that attained the status of pop culture among Jewish immigrants of Eastern European descent…the mass popularity of cantorial music as a technologically mediated style outside of synagogues created opportunities for women performers to work as cantors, usually in the context of recordings, radio and stage performance.”
MARIUPOL’S KUINDZHI ART MUSEUM REPORTED DESTROYED IN RUSSIAN AIR STRIKE
“The museum kept works by famous Ukrainian artists, including Ivan Aivazovsky, Mykola Glushchenko, and Tatiana Yablonska! And also Mykhailo Deregus, Andriy Kotska, Mykola Bendryk, Leonid Gadi. Contemporary painters Vasyl Korenchuk, Oleksandr Bondarenko, Lyudmyla Masalska, Oleg Kovalyov, Volodymyr Kharakoz, Serhiy Barannyk.” Meanwhile, Brewster Kale and the archive are trying to archive as many Ukraine websites as they can…
Good Country People by Flannery O'Conner
No reason NOT to take some time over the weekend and celebrate the birthday of Flannery O’Conner by reading one of her best short stories….
Depressed By A Book Of Bad Poetry, I Walk Toward An Unused Pasture And Invite The Insects To Join Me
By: James Wright
Relieved, I let the book fall behind a stone.
I climb a slight rise of grass.
I do not want to disturb the ants
Who are walking single file up the fence post,
Carrying small white petals,
Casting shadows so frail that I can see through them.
I close my eyes for a moment and listen.
The old grasshoppers
Are tired, they leap heavily now,
Their thighs are burdened.
I want to hear them, they have clear sounds to make.
Then lovely, far off, a dark cricket begins
In the maple trees.
I see you snuck a little Grease into that Aretha playlist...