Muddy Waters

… was born on this date in 1915. His real name was McKinley Morganfield.

The following is excerpted from Waters’ obituary written by Robert Palmer in The New York Times, May 1, 1983:

Beginning in the early 1950’s, Mr. Waters made a series of hit records for Chicago’s Chess label that made him the undisputed king of Chicago blues singers. He was the first popular bandleader to assemble and lead a truly electric band, a band that used amplification to make the music more ferociously physical instead of simply making it a little louder.

In 1958, he became the first artist to play electric blues in England, and while many British folk-blues fans recoiled in horror, his visit inspired young musicians like Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Brian Jones, who later named their band the Rolling Stones after Mr. Waters’s early hit “Rollin’ Stone.” Bob Dylan’s mid-1960’s rock hit “Like a Rolling Stone” and the leading rock newspaper Rolling Stone were also named after Mr. Waters’s original song. …

But Muddy Waters was more than a major influence in the pop music world. He was a great singer of American vernacular music, a vocal artist of astonishing power, range, depth, and subtlety. Among musicians and singers, his remarkable sense of timing, his command of inflection and pitch shading, and his vocabulary of vocal sounds and effects, from the purest falsetto to grainy moaning rasps, were all frequent topics of conversation. And he was able to duplicate many of his singing techniques on electric guitar, using a metal slider to make the instrument “speak” in a quivering, voice-like manner.

His blues sounded simple, but it was so deeply rooted in the traditions of the Mississippi Delta that other singers and guitarists found it almost impossible to imitate it convincingly. “My blues looks so simple, so easy to do, but it’s not,” Mr. Waters said in a 1978 interview. “They say my blues is the hardest blues in the world to play.”

Muddy Waters, The Chess 50th Anniversary Collection

William Henry Harrison

… died on this date in 1841 after serving 31 days as president. He was the first president to die in office. He was 68.

Harrison’s grandson, Benjamin, was president 1889-1893.

Imagine there’s no heaven/ It’s easy if you try/

In The Epic of Gilgamesh, written in Babylon 4,000 years ago, the eponymous hero travels into the gardens of the gods in an attempt to discover the secret of eternal life. His guide tells him the secret—there is no secret. This is it. This is all we’re going to get. This life. This time. Once. “Enjoy your life,” the goddess Siduri tells him. “Love the child who holds you by the hand, and give your wife pleasure in your embrace.” It’s Lennon’s dream, four millenniums ahead of schedule: Above us, only sky. Gilgamesh returns to the world and lives more intensely and truly and deeply than before, knowing there is no celestial after-party and no forever.

Johann Hari – Slate Magazine

April 3rd is the birthday

. . . of Doris Day. She’s 87 today. Day had three number one hits on her own and was the vocalist with Les Brown for one of the great hits of all-time, “Sentimental Journey.” Her most famous other single, “What Ever Will Be, Will Be (Que Sera, Sera)” was a number two song in 1956. Day was nominated for the best actress Oscar for Pillow Talk.

. . . of primatologist Jane Goodall. She’s 76.

. . . of Marsha Mason; she’s 68. Mason is a four-time Oscar nominee for best actress — Cinderella Liberty, The Goodbye Girl, Chapter Two and Only When I Laugh.

. . . of Wayne Newton and Billy Joe Royal. They’re both 68. Each had exactly one top ten hit — Newton with “Daddy Don’t You Walk So Fast” (reached number 4 in 1972) and Royal with “Down in the Boondocks” (reached number 9 in 1965). Of the two, Newton has surely done the better job of hanging on.

. . . of Tony Orlando, 66. Orlando had three number one hits in the early 70s: “Knock Three Times” as Dawn, “Tie a Yellow Ribbon Rond the Ole Oak Tree” as Dawn Featuring Tony Orlando, and “He Don’t Love You (Like I Love You)” as Tony Orlando and Dawn.

. . . of Richard Thompson. He’s 61 and he’s never had a top ten hit, however:

One of Britain’s most gifted guitarists and songwriters; Richard has been the mainstay of the folk rock scene for over 30 years. Whatever the size of his record sales, he has a reputation among his peers that is second to none. (BBC – Music)

. . . of Alec Baldwin. He’s 52. Baldwin was nominated for the best supporting actor Oscar for Cooler.

. . . of David Hyde Pierce. Frasier Crane’s brother Niles is 51.

. . . of Eddie Murphy. He’s 49. Murphy was 19 when he started with “Saturday Night Live.” Murphy was nominated recently for the best supporting actor Oscar.

Virgil “Gus” Grissom was born on this date in 1926. Grissom was the second American in space, a July 1961 suborbital flight that followed Alan Shepard’s similar flight and preceded John Glenn’s orbiting the earth in 1962. Grissom’s spacecraft sank upon landing, but after years of analysis, experts conceded it had not been due to any action or failure on Grissom’s part. Grissom flew in the first manned Gemini flight in 1965 — he was the first American to fly into space twice. He named the craft Molly Brown (as in unsinkable). When NASA objected, he renamed it Titanic. NASA relented but never used the name and stopped naming spacecraft for a time. Grissom died in the Apollo I fire in 1967.

The actor Leslie Howard was born on this date in 1893. Most famous as Ashley Wilkes in Gone with the Wind, Howard was nominated for two best acting Oscars earlier in his career. Wilkes’ was killed when his plane was shot down by German fighters during World War II.

Union troops

. . . entered Richmond, the capital of the Confederacy, on this date in 1865. The Confederate government and army had fled the night before. According to historian James M. McPherson, “Southerners burned more of their own capital than the enemy had burned of Atlanta or Columbia.”

The following day, April 4, President Lincoln, who had been “vacationing” at City Point, Virginia, near the front since March 24, toured Richmond (much of it on foot) with his 12-year-old son Tad (it was Tad’s birthday). At the capitol, Lincoln sat in Jefferson Davis’ chair.

Lincoln returned to Washington on April 9th (the date of Lee’s surrender). He was assassinated just five days later.

‘Wanted: Young, skinny, wiry fellows not over 18. Must be expert riders willing to risk death daily. Orphans preferred.’

Pony Express Station

Starting on April 3, 1860, the Pony Express ran through parts of Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, and California. On an average day, a rider covered 75 to 100 miles. He changed horses at relay stations, set about 10 or 15 miles apart, transferring himself and his mochila (a saddle cover with four pockets or cantinas for mail) to the new mount, all in one leap.

The first mail by Pony Express via the central route from St. Joseph to Sacramento took 10 1/2 days, cutting the Overland Stage time via the southern route by more than half. The fastest delivery was in March 1861, when President Abraham Lincoln’s inaugural address was carried in 7 days and 17 hours.

From April 1860 through June 1861, the Pony Express operated as a private enterprise. From July 1, 1861, it operated under contract as a mail route until October 24, 1861, when the transcontinental telegraph line was completed, and the Pony Express became a legend.

History of the United States Postal Service 1775-1993

Title of this post taken from want ad placed in March 1860 for riders.

Idle thought

When I was a kid in Michigan, fall and the new automobile model year was a very big deal. Celebrities (ballplayers and such) were at dealers, searchlights panned the sky, music and free food.

But that’s nothing compared to the marketing of Steve Jobs and Apple. All this buzz.

And remember when people complained about planned obsolescence in cars — gotta have the latest tail fins? Ha, the auto manufacturers were small town hucksters compared to the computer industry.

Yeah, I’m wondering how long the line is, too

From The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs, an excerpt from “An open letter to the people of the world.”

The truth is, all over the world, across every culture, there exists a sense of yearning. A kind of malaise. An emptiness. At the risk of sounding like Dr. Seuss: There is a hole in your soul. That is what we’re addressing at Apple. That is the hole we aim to fill. Sadly, as you may have begun to suspect, that hole can never really be filled. The truth is that modernity, the condition of living in our modern world, has inflicted terrible wounds on your inner self. These wounds can never be healed. They can only be treated. At best we provide palliative care. Not a cure. Because, my dear fellow human beings, there is no cure for what ails you. The products we create provide only temporary relief. Their magic eventually wears off. The sense of childlike wonder they impart will, over time, begin to fade. And then you need a new product. Think back to July 29, 2007. Do you remember the rapture? The wonder of iPhone? The magic? Now that is gone, but here we come with another shot of digital Dilaudid. Sleep well, my friends. Sleep deeply and rest, cradled in the arms of my electronic medicine.

April 2nd is the birthday

. . . of Leon Russell. He’s 68.

The ultimate rock & roll session man, Leon Russell’s long and storied career includes collaborations with a virtual who’s who of music icons spanning from Jerry Lee Lewis to Phil Spector to the Rolling Stones. A similar eclecticism and scope also surfaced in his solo work, which couched his charmingly gravelly voice in a rustic yet rich swamp pop fusion of country, blues and gospel. . . . As a member of Spector’s renowned studio group, Russell played on many of the finest pop singles of the 1960s, also arranging classics like Ike & Tina Turner’s monumental “River Deep, Mountain High”; other hits bearing his input include the Byrds’ “Mr. Tambourine Man,” Gary Lewis & the Playboys’ “This Diamond Ring,” and Herb Alpert’s “A Taste of Honey.”

allmusic

. . . of jazz-rock guitarist of Larry Coryell. He’s 67.

. . . of Linda Hunt. The actress won an Oscar for playing a man in The Year of Living Dangerously. She did not play a woman posing as a man, like Barbra Streisand in Yentl. She actually played a male part. Ms. Hunt is 65. NewMexiKen liked Hunt particularly as the barkeep/saloon-owner in Silverardo.

. . . of baseball hall-of-famer Don Sutton. He, too, is 65. Sutton had 324 victories, 3,574 strikeouts (fifth best all-time) and a career ERA of 3.26. Sutton never lost a turn in the starting rotation due to illness or injury. (That’s impressive.)

. . . of Emmylou Harris. She’s 63 today.

Though other performers sold more records and earned greater fame, few left as profound an impact on contemporary music as Emmylou Harris. Blessed with a crystalline voice, a remarkable gift for phrasing, and a restless creative spirit, she traveled a singular artistic path, proudly carrying the torch of “Cosmic American music” passed down by her mentor, Gram Parsons. With the exception of only Neil Young — not surprisingly an occasional collaborator — no other mainstream star established a similarly large body of work as consistently iconoclastic, eclectic, or daring; even more than three decades into her career, Harris’ latter-day music remained as heartfelt, visionary, and vital as her earliest recordings.

allmusic

. . . of SVU Detective Elliot Stabler. Actor Christopher Meloni is 49.

The French sculptor Frederic Auguste Bartholdi was born on April 2 in 1834. He is the creator of the Statue of Liberty. The statue’s face is said to be that of Bartholdi’s mother.

Walter Chrysler was born on this date in 1875.

After a successful career in the railroad industry that began as a sweeper, then a skilled machinist and finally the plant manager of the American Locomotive Company, Chrysler switched gears to enter the auto industry as the plant manager for Buick. After rising to the presidency of Buick, Chrysler moved to Willys-Overland in 1920, reorganizing and saving the company. While still at Willys-Overland, Chrysler was recruited to salvage the foundering Maxwell-Chalmers Company. After taking control of Maxwell’s assets and liabilities in June 1925, Chrysler became president of the company that bore his name, as did the automobiles manufactured by it. He remained as president until 1935, and served as chairman until his death in 1940.

Walter P. Chrysler Museum

In 1928 Chrysler was Time’s second-ever Person of the Year, following Lindbergh.

Making the world safe for democracy

From The New York Times report on President Woodrow Wilson’s call for a declaration of war — 93 years ago today:

Before an audience that cheered him as he has never been cheered in the Capitol in his life, the President cast in the lot of American unreservedly with the Allies and declared for a war that must not end until the issue between autocracy and democracy has been fought out. He recited our injuries at Germany’s hands, but he did not rest our cause on those; he went on from that point to range us with the Allies as a factor in an irrepressible conflict between the autocrat and the people. He showed that peace was impossible for the democracies of the world while this power remained on earth. “The world,” he said, “must be made safe for democracy.”

March 24th

Today is the birthday

… of Annabella Sciorra. The actress is 46.

… of Peyton Manning. Number 18 is 34.

… of Keisha Castle-Hughes. The Oscar-nominated actress (Whale Rider) is 20.

Clyde Barrow was born 101 years ago today. He lived until 1934.

Ub Iwerks was born on this date in 1901.

Iwerks was Disney’s right hand man in the creation of the early Mickey Mouse cartoons. Disney would come up with the ideas, stories, and motivations, then Iwerks would bring it to life. Bringing Mickey Mouse to life, however, was no easy task and it required Iwerks to spit out 600 drawings every single day. Iwerks dedication, however, would soon payoff for him and Disney. The third Mickey Mouse cartoon that Disney directed and Iwerks animated, “Steamboat Willie,” would be the one that would catapult Mickey and Disney into stardom and household names.

Though Iwerks and Disney were colleagues since age 18, they spliit in 1930 after Iwerks signed a deal with a distributor that had failed to pay Disney. Walt and Roy Disney bought out Iwerks’ 20% ownership in Disney Brothers Productions. After attempting to establish his own studio, Iwerks returned to Disney in 1940. He is credited with combining live action with animation.

Source: An online essay, Ub Iwerks – The Early Disney Years.

Two-time presidential candidate and loser (1944, 1948) Thomas E. Dewey was born on this date in 1902.

One of the most successful silent film actors, Roscoe Arbuckle was born on this date in 1887. In fact, Fatty Arbuckle had the first million dollar deal in Hollywood. Arbuckle died of a heart attack at age 46 just as his career was recovering from a scandal and trial in 1921 that had echoes in the recent Duke case. Charged with rape that lead to a woman’s death, he was acquitted in a third trial after two hung juries, but he had been convicted by the press and his career was slow to resume.

Houdini.jpgEric Weiss was born on this date in 1874.

Whatever the methods by which Harry Houdini deceived a large part of the world for nearly four decades, his career stamped him as one of the greatest showmen of modern times. In his special field of entertainment he stood alone. With a few minor exceptions, he invented all his tricks and illusions, and in certain instances only his four intimate helpers knew the solution. In one or two very important cases Houdini, himself, alone knew the whole secret.

Houdini was born on March 24, 1874. His name originally was Eric Weiss and he was the son of a rabbi. He did not take the name Harry Houdini until he had been a performer for many years. Legend has it that he opened his first lock when he wanted a piece of pie in the kitchen closet. It is certain that when scarcely more than a baby he showed skill as an acrobat and contortionist, and both these talents helped his start in the show business and his later development as an “escape king.”

The New York Times

The Times’ obituary is really quite interesting.