Lyndon Baines Johnson, the 36th President of the United States, was born 103 years ago today. He died, at age 64, in January 1973.
Antonia Fraser is 79
William Least Heat-Moon was born as William Trogdon 72 years ago today. He’s the author, among other works, of Blue Highways, an excellent travel memoir published in 1982. (The roads in blue on highway maps go to the out-of-way places Least Heat-Moon wrote about.)
Daryl Dragon, the Captain of the Captain and Tennille, is 69 today.
Once-upon-a-time sex kitten Tuesday Weld is 68. According to IMDb, “At nine years of age she suffered a nervous breakdown, at ten she started heavy drinking. One year later she began to have affairs, and at the age of twelve she tried to commit suicide.” Weld turned down the role of Lolita and of Bonnie in Bonnie and Clyde.
Herbert Streicher is 64 today. As Harry Reems, he was the unnoticed star of Deep Throat.
Texas football coach Mack Brown is 60. Pre-Snap Read has the Longhorns 18th going to next week’s season-opener.
Paul Reubens, Pee-Wee Herman, is 59.
Downtown Julie Brown is 52.
Chandra Wilson of Grey’s Anatomy is 42.
Jim Thome, now of the Cleveland Indians, is 41. 601 home runs.
Lester Young was born 102 years ago today. If you don’t know who Lester Young was, you really should. He was called the “Prez” (for President of Jazz).
Sweetness is what Young was all about. When he started to gain attention, the dominant style of the day was the aggressive, hard-driving saxophone of Coleman Hawkins. But Young played in the upper range of his tenor in a lyrical, relaxed style.
“He had marvelous sensitivity and taste,” says Dan Morgenstern, who wrote the book Living in Jazz. “Never played a tasteless note in his life.”
Morgenstern, who met Young in 1958, says the saxophonist always told a story in his solos, in an original way.
“He had this ‘floating’ style, where he would kind of float above the rhythm. He was like an acrobat,” Morgenstern says. “And, you know, at the same time, his melodic imagination was so marvelous. The combination of rhythm and melody — nobody else quite ever had that.”
Young was an original in other ways. Rather than holding his saxophone vertically, he held it high and to the right at a 45-degree angle. He famously wore a porkpie hat and moccasins. Young also had a flair for language: He said he had “big eyes” for the things he liked, he nicknamed Billie Holiday “Lady Day,” and he called women’s feet in open-toed shoes “nice biscuits.” He also made up new words that found their way into songs.
Young’s cachet among hipsters led to his popularizing now-common words. Everyone started using the word “cool” after they heard him say it, according to jazz historian Phil Schaap.
“But the one that really makes the most sense,” Schaap says, “you call up Lester Young for a gig, he’d say, ‘Okay, how does the bread smell?’ So he used ‘bread’ for money for the first time.”
Stevie Ray Vaughan died in a helicopter crash 21 years ago today.