And...

A belated Happy Chanukah, on this last night of the holiday...

December 25th

Merry Christmas!

Dino Danelli

Dino Danelli was a tremendous drummer, playing with one of rock and roll's best bands, The Rascals (known earlier in their career as The Young Rascals).  He died on Thursday, at age 78. 

The Rascals, as a group, had a full, rich, soulful sound.

The following is a video I enjoy very much; it is a live performance of one of the group's many hits, 1968's "A Beautiful Morning."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zewzkHBCcVM

Felix Cavaliere--an extraordinary singer and organist--sings the lead vocal in the above performance; Eddie Brigati sings, and plays the conga; Gene Cornish plays the guitar and sings; and Mr. Danelli is at the drums.  The song was co-written by Mr. Cavaliere and Mr. Brigati; the two co-wrote many of the group's best-known songs, in addition to "A Beautiful Morning"--including  "Groovin'," "I've Been Lonely Too Long," "A Girl Like You," "People Got to Be Free," and "How Can I Be Sure."  Mr. Brigati sang a beautiful lead vocal on the latter recording.

Mr. Danelli had great style as a drummer.  He was, for example, known for twirling, deftly, his drumsticks (sometimes one stick, as in the video above; sometimes both) during performances.  

I also like the following detail, in the above video: within the first several seconds of the song, Mr. Danelli, in pauses between left-handed beats, drops his left arm abruptly, a few times, his hand out of sight. I'm not sure I've seen another drummer do this, and while this is not, certainly, a matter of enormous significance, it is nonetheless eye-catching, stylistically. 

His drumming, all told, was vibrant, skilled, electric.

Here is an earlier Rascals video--from 1966--of the group performing "Good Lovin'" on Ed Sullivan's program (a song the group did not write). The odd outfits (perhaps schoolboy-like?) the group wears in the video, and which they wore on other occasions in the earlier part of their career (outfits The New York Times, in its obituary of Mr. Danelli, refers to as "foppish"), may, unfortunately, distract from the terrific performance of the song--which includes, incidentally, multiple enjoyable instances of Mr. Danelli twirling both drumsticks, simultaneously.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUNJbVFW5Pw

Here is the Times's obituary of Mr. Danelli:

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/17/arts/music/dino-danelli-dead.html

Watching the snow, 1979

The picture below, a linocut, is from late 1979, when I was living in Providence, Rhode Island.  

It was made from linoleum backed by a wooden block, and using a grooved, gouging-type tool (the only linocut I recall ever making).  I made prints of the image using a small (and rather beautiful) manual printing press, a letterpress, that I had at the time.

The picture is of my cat Moby, who was a very small kitten when she came to live with me in 1977, two years before the picture was made.  She was all-white (like Melville's whale; thus her name) and lived with me until 1994, when she died.  I loved her very much.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Image © Andrew Fielding)

Brittney Griner

It is very good news that the U.S. secured the release of Brittney Griner, held prisoner for ten months by Vladimir Putin's Russia.

One hopes that Paul Whelan, still imprisoned there--as well as other Americans held in Russia and elsewhere--will also return to the U.S., sooner rather than later.

Kanye West

Am too nauseated by Kanye 'Ye' West's latest burst of Jew-hatred, yesterday (including his repeated praising of Hitler and Nazism, and his Holocaust denial), to write, at the moment, at any length about it.  I'll be posting further about the subject at another time.

As of this writing, a day after West's appearance on conspiracist Alex Jones' program (along with West's virulently bigoted friend Nicholas Fuentes), Donald Trump (not surprisingly) has said nothing publicly about his friend West's sickening comments.

West, Fuentes, and Trump:  all three are dangerous, revolting, and morally depraved.

(This post was edited, slightly, on January 9, 2023.)

Brief thoughts, after the Mar-a-Lago dinner

Donald Trump's mind (the infinite self-obsession; the endless need for flattery and adulation--regardless of the repugnant sectors from which the flattery or adulation might emanate; the unrelenting lies, the cruelties, hatreds, bigotries--and the routine fanning of them) is profoundly disturbed. Yet really, though--it seems far too constricting, regarding Mr. Trump, to simply speak of a disturbed mind.  It is also, in the end, a deep sickness of the soul. 

Nov. 23rd newspaper

 A copy I have, folded, of The Boston Herald, from 1963:

The election

It is one of the most significant, and perilous, moments in American history: the country either turns in the direction of democracy, or Trumpism.

The accidents of live television

On August 30th, in this space, I wrote about Buddy Holly and the Crickets--and about the death, in August, of the group's drummer, Jerry Allison. 

In the post, I included two videos from a December 1, 1957 appearance Mr. Holly and the Crickets made on Ed Sullivan's Sunday night program.  One of the videos featured the group performing "That'll Be the Day"; the other was a performance of "Peggy Sue." 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This week,  I happened upon a brief additional video from the same appearance; it is of Buddy Holly being interviewed by Ed Sullivan.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwIf6l4kMAg

Early in the video, one sees Mr. Sullivan in an awkwardly-framed medium close-up shot; the positioning of the camera appears to have been an attempt to obscure a stagehand, who is seen for a moment in the background.  

Then, as another camera shows Mr. Sullivan and Mr. Holly together, one sees the stagehand, at the right of the screen.  He is clearly trying to get himself (and something on the floor of the stage) out of camera range, quickly--and is successful at doing both. The entire incident lasts a handful of seconds. 

(I'm guessing that the stagehand is pushing, out of view, the low platform--see first image, above--on which Jerry Allison and his drums were situated, during the group's performances that evening.)

I obviously don't know the reason for the on-camera error.  One wonders, though: was there a miscommunication between Mr. Sullivan and his technical staff?  Perhaps, for example, the interview with Mr. Holly was unplanned, a spur-of-the-moment decision by Mr. Sullivan--catching his staff off guard.

The brief video is, in any event, a reminder of the accidents (some minor, some amusing, some of them consequential, program-altering) that were a part of the period of live television.

(Images from The Ed Sullivan Show, December 1957 © SOFA Entertainment Inc.)

Dorothy Collins, of "Your Hit Parade"

This is a follow-up to the prior post, which concerned a 1954 TV Guide photo of Your Hit Parade singer Snooky Lanson. 

The picture was from a single-page feature--a "TV Guide Singer Album"--which appeared, for a time, in the magazine.

Shown here--as part of the same feature--is a photo of  Hit Parade singer Dorothy Collins.

The photo is from a December 1953 issue of the magazine.

Ms. Collins starred on the Hit Parade--as did Mr. Lanson--from 1950 to 1957, on NBC.  

In the fall of 1957, a new group of singers was brought in to star on the program. They appeared for one season.

In October of 1958, a revamped version of the show began airing on CBS. The CBS program, which was telecast until April of 1959, starred Ms. Collins and singer Johnny Desmond.

Snooky Lanson, of "Your Hit Parade"

Here is a photograph of singer Snooky Lanson--from a January of 1954 issue of TV Guide. 

As suggested at the bottom left corner of the page ("TV Guide Singer Album"), the picture was part of a series the magazine ran at the time, featuring photos of television vocalists.

From 1950 to 1957, Mr. Lanson was one of the stars of the NBC program Your Hit Parade.

Ken Burns; a follow-up

Since its airing last month, over three nights on PBS, I have continued to think about the very fine Ken Burns documentary, The U.S. and the Holocaust.

The film (co-directed by Lynn Novick and Sarah Botstein) was wrenching, deeply moving, illuminating.

The documentary is, most certainly, a significant addition to the body of works about the Holocaust.

October 7th, NBC-TV

On this date, in 1950, the musical program Your Hit Parade began its regular weekly broadcasts on NBC Television.  The show aired on Saturday nights, from 10:30 to 11:00, following Your Show of Shows. The program's original starring singers were Eileen Wilson, Snooky Lanson, and Dorothy Collins; the show's Lucky Strike Orchestra was led by Raymond Scott.

The Hit Parade had aired on radio since 1935. During the summer of 1950, there were four experimental television broadcasts of the show, originating from New York's International Theatre, at Columbus Circle. The experimental TV shows were successful, and the program became a permanent part of the NBC schedule in October. It was telecast, for its first few years, from New York's Center Theatre, at Rockefeller Center--aside from a brief period, in 1951, when the program moved to NBC's famed Studio 8-H, at 30 Rockefeller Plaza. 

A recent column

From a Sept. 24th piece by New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd:

Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump, long entwined, continue on vile parallel paths: They would rather destroy their countries than admit they have lost.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/24/opinion/putin-trump-ukraine.html

Bill Plante, of CBS News

I always admired, and enjoyed, the reporting of Bill Plante, of CBS News.  Mr. Plante died on Wednesday at age 84.

He joined CBS in 1964, and retired from the network in 2016.

In the 1960s he covered the civil rights movement in the American South, reported from Vietnam in the 1960s and 1970s, and served for three decades, beginning in the 1980s, as Senior White House correspondent.  He was also, from 1988 to 1995, the anchor of CBS's Sunday Night News.  

During his career, The Washington Post noted in its obituary about him, he became "one of the most visible newsmen on television."  

From the Post's obituary:

“Bill was a friendly rival, always willing to share insights,” Tom Brokaw, the longtime former anchor of “NBC Nightly News” wrote in an email, describing Mr. Plante as “a smart, serious journalist with a droll, self deprecating style.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/09/28/cbs-correspondent-bill-plante-dead/

(CBS photo of Bill Plante, 1989)

Rosh Hashanah, beginning tonight

 Good wishes for the New Year...

Ken Burns, and the film "The U.S. and the Holocaust"

Modern life moves increasingly fast.  The work of the outstanding documentarian Ken Burns offers a counterpoint to such acceleration.

His films--his America-centered histories--move slowly, in the best sense of the word. Their unhurried pace allows for depth, nuance, and rounded portraits--from 1990's The Civil War, to his recent films Benjamin Franklin (2022), Hemingway (2021, co-directed by Lynn Novick), and Muhammad Ali (also from 2021, co-directed by Sarah Burns and David McMahon).

I find that Mr. Burns's films routinely stay with me--images from them, words, stories, emotions. One continues to admire the (signature) sense of orchestration:  the use of still pictures; the rare, often startling, archival films his production company manages to locate; the superb interviews, commentaries, narrations.  

Tonight, from 8 until 10:15 (Eastern time), the first installment of Mr. Burns's new documentary (co-directed by Lynn Novick and Sarah Botstein) appears on PBS. The film is The U.S. and the Holocaust.  Its subsequent two episodes air later in the week. (Broadcast times may vary, depending upon location; one should check one's local PBS listings.)  I'm very much looking forward to watching the program.

Please see these links, from PBS:

https://www.pbs.org/kenburns/us-and-the-holocaust/

https://www.pbs.org/kenburns/us-and-the-holocaust/about-the-film