"Heartbreak Hotel" - Bob Dylan and The Cowboy Band

Apropos of yesterday's post. Bob Dylan with a fine cover of Elvis' "Heartbreak Hotel", August 16th 2009, as a U.F.O. hovers over Lake Tahoe.

Kind of makes you wish for an "Elvis" project too, doesn't it?  Of course it'd be nice to have the Hank Williams Project sometime within this decade, too.

Thanks to Dreamtime pal John Caruth, and others for the links.

A Giant Falls: Les Paul 1915-2009

The Wizard of Waukesha, Hot Rod Red, Rhubarb Red, Lester William Polsfuss, inventor extraordinaire and master musician, the man best known as Les Paul, has walked off the stage at age 94, a pretty damn good run. At various stages in his career, Paul played with or backed Rudy Vallee, Kate Smith, Bing Crosby, the Andrews Sisters, Louis Armstrong, Nat King Cole, Chet Atkins, Eric Clapton, Keith Richards, and Jeff Beck, His life essentially paralleled the development of American pop music over seven decades.

And of course, there was his collaboration with Mary Ford, née Collen Summers, whose name Paul changed by skimming through a telephone book after deciding that her birth name didn't scan correctly when billed with "Les Paul."

The Theme Time Radio Hour team missed several opportunities to play their hits. "Mockingbird Hill" would have been perfect for either of the "Bird" shows from Season 2 (maybe with two "Mockingbird" songs already on the "More Birds" playlist, a third was thought overkill), and "Vaya Con Dios" would have fit nicely into the final show. But we did get “How High the Moon,” featured in Season One's "Moon" show.



Les Paul's full obituary is here.

Woodstock Slappy Redux

We try not to cannibalize ourselves too much here at Dreamtime. But the summer is slow, Theme Time is, as "ocgypsy" over at the ER forums succinctly put it, "becoming the 'I Love Lucy' of radio reruns," and we're contractually obligated to mention Woodstock at least three times this week.

So, here's a golden oldie we first posted this March, with some added material...

... an update to the classic Abbott and Costello Who's On First? routine, performed by the Animaniac's Slappy Squirrel and her nephew Skippy in Woodstock Slappy.



As older Dreamtimers know, the original skit was performed by the great comedy team, Bud Abbott and Lou Costello. One of the funnier things I've read on the Web was a time-challenged commenter complaining that Who's On First was an obvious rip-off of Woodstock Slappy.



Who's On First was the most famous of many burlesque routines centered around word confusion. The earliest example may be a skit designed for a straight man and comic probably written at the start of the 20th century called "The Baker Scene," where the straight man relates that he's getting paid for loafing in a bakery.

Comic: I'd like to get a job in that bakery. Who's the boss?
Straight Man: Yes.
Comic: That's what I'm asking. Who's the boss?
SM: Yes.
C: Who's the guy you're working for?
SM: Exactly.
C: I'm asking you for the last time, what's the name of your boss?
SM: No, Watt's the name of the street.

And we're off. Abbott and Costello originally introduced Who's On First? in their stage act, and trotted it out to a larger audience during their run on The Kate Smith radio show in 19 and 38. By 19 and 44, the duo had had the routine copyrighted, and it became a staple of their radio and television appearances.

Who's On First Gets Psychedelicsized

The first rock'n-roll version seems to have been done by the L.A.-based comedy group, The Credibility Gap, in the mid-70s. Members of The Credibility Gap would later go on to greater fame as Lenny and Squiggy in the Laverne and Shirley sitcom (Micheal McKean and David Lander) and as members of Spinal Tap (Harry Shearer and the versatile Michael McKean again).

The Credibility Gap's routine centered around a music promoter trying to write a newspaper ad about a concert to feature The Who, The Guess Who, and Yes. Hilarity, as one could guess, ensued. You can hear the Credibility Gap update of Who's on First here, in obnoxious RealAudio format, I'm sorry to say.


Who's On First For Real


Although it took some 60-odd years, life finally imitated art in 2007 when the Los Angeles Dodgers added an infielder named Chin-Lung Hu. After Hu singled in a game against the San Diego Padres, Dodgers announcer Vin Scully solemnly remarked "And Hu's on first."

"I've waited my entire life to say that," Scully later added.

Woodstock Slappy - The Full Script


WOODSTOCK SLAPPY
----------------
Written by: JOHN P. McCANN & TOM RUEGGER
Director: AUDU PADEN
Animation: TOKYO MOVIE SHINSHA LTD.

CRONKITE-TYPE NARRATOR: 1969. As brave American soliders went to battle in Vietnam, back at home demonstrators protested the war. It was a time of flower power, pyschedelic music, student marches, and a nation divided. Which brings us to August 1969 and Slappy Squirrel.

{Going Up To The Country}

SINGER: Going up to the country
Gotta get away
Got to leave the city
Gotta get away
We might even leave the USA...

SLAPPY: Ah, here we go, summer in the country. Nothin' but rest and relaxation, right Skippy?
SKIPPY: Yeah, groovy, Aunt Slappy, man, groovy.
SLAPPY: Skippy, don't talk like that, people will think you had brain surgery.
SKIPPY: I can dig it, man, far out.
SLAPPY: *sigh*; I had to get him out of the city, away from all those bad influences.
SKIPPY: You mean like peace and love?
SLAPPY: Exactly. That stuff will warp ya!

{Humouresque (Slappy's theme)}

SLAPPY: There it is. Our summer cottage.
SKIPPY: Outta sight, man.
SLAPPY: Make yourself at home, kiddo.
SKIPPY: I can dig it.
SLAPPY: *sigh; I'll have him speakin' English again in no time.

{guitar riff...}

SLAPPY: Knock it off with the Bing Crosby, Stills, and Nash, will ya'?
SKIPPY: Why?

{Slappy's Theme}

SLAPPY: 'Cause the only tune I want to hear is "The Sound of Silence", can you dig that?
SKIPPY: I hear ya.
SLAPPY: Good. Now let's rest up for tomorrow.
SKIPPY: Why? What are we doing tomorrow?
SLAPPY: Napping all day if I have anything to say about it. Ah, rest and relaxation at last.

{Beautiful Dreamer}

M.C.: There is 300,000 of us here today, man! And now Miss Janis Joplin!

(screaming Joplin parody)


SLAPPY: Oops. Somebody just ran over a dog!
For the love of Kaopectate, what's going on?
SKIPPY: Something's happening here, What it is, ain't exactly clear.
SLAPPY: Well, thank you for that. Hey, you kids, what are you doin'?! Go on, get away from my tree!
HIPPIE1:Like, mellow out, you running-dog squirrel.
HIPPIE2:Hey, we're here for the Woodstock concert, man.
HIPPIE1:Three days of rock from groups like Jefferson Airplane, The Band, The Who, The Grateful Dead...
SLAPPY: I'd be grateful, too, if I didn't have to listen to this noise. Now clear out all of ya, go home! Scat!

{Animaniacs' theme}

SKIPPY: Aunt Slappy, be cool. Let's just go with the flow.
SLAPPY: I'm not goin' anywhere with Flo! I want some peace and quiet.
SKIPPY: But, Aunt Slappy, man, we're witnessing history. Woodstock. A single event pulling together a whole generation.
SLAPPY: A bowl full of prunes would have the same effect.

(Feel Like I'm Fixin' To Die Rag parody}

COUNTRY JOE McDONALD: And it's two, four, six
What am I singing for?
Don't ask me; I don't give a hoot
Just pay me with lots of loot!
And it's eight, ten, twelve
I'm just killing time
My contract says to sing a song
Yee haw! I need a rhyme!

SLAPPY: All right, all of ya', hit the road! Party's over! Go on, shoo!
SKIPPY: They're not listening, Aunt Slappy, man, they're tuned into the music!
SLAPPY: Well, we'll see about that. Come on.
SKIPPY: Where are we going?
SLAPPY: To the stage, to put a stop to this. I came to the country forsome peace and quiet and I'm gonna get it.

{Brand New Key parody }

MELANINE: Who's got a box of brand-new crackers?
I've got some brand-new cheese!

{With A Little Help From My Friends parody }
JOE COCKER: Would you still cheer if I had a tin ear?
Would you throw a tomato at me?
SLAPPY: Yes!
SKIPPY: Chill out, Aunt Slappy, man.

{Feel Me parody}

ROGER DALTRY: Can you watch me?
Can you listen to me?
Can you smell me?
Can you hear me?
SLAPPY: Unfortunately, yes! Skippy, what is the name of that group playing on stage?
SKIPPY: Who.
SLAPPY: The name of the group.
SKIPPY: Who.
SLAPPY: The group on stage.
SKIPPY: Who.
SLAPPY: The group playing on stage.
SKIPPY: Who.
SLAPPY: You're starting to sound like an owl, Skippy.
SKIPPY: Who is on stage!
SLAPPY: That is what I'm askin' ya', who is on stage?
SKIPPY: That's what I said.
SLAPPY: You said who?
SKIPPY: I sure did.
SLAPPY: So tell me the name.
SKIPPY: Who.
SLAPPY: The name of the group.
SKIPPY: Who.
SLAPPY: The group on stage.
SKIPPY: Who.
SLAPPY: The name of the band on stage!
SKIPPY: Who!
SLAPPY: You're doing that owl thing again, Skippy!
SKIPPY: I'm not, Aunt Slappy, I'm telling you Who is on stage.
SLAPPY: So tell me.
SKIPPY: Who.
SLAPPY: So tell me.
SKIPPY: Who.
SLAPPY: The name of the group.
SKIPPY: Who.
SLAPPY: The group on stage!
SKIPPY: Who!
SLAPPY: That's what I'm asking you!
SKIPPY: And I'm telling you the answer.
SLAPPY: Wait, Skippy, let's start over. Is there a band on stage?
SKIPPY: Yes.
SLAPPY: Does that band have a name?
SKIPPY: Yes.
SLAPPY: Do you know the name of that band?
SKIPPY: Yes.
SLAPPY: Then tell me the name of the band on stage.
SKIPPY: Who.
SLAPPY: The name of the band!
SKIPPY: Who.
SLAPPY: The band, playing on stage!
SKIPPY: Who.
SLAPPY: That's what I want to know!
SKIPPY: I'm telling you!
SLAPPY: Who is on stage.
SKIPPY: Yes.
SLAPPY: Who is?
SKIPPY: Yes.
SLAPPY: Oh. So the name of the band is Yes.
SKIPPY: No, Aunt Slappy, Yes is not even at this concert.
SLAPPY: Then who is on stage?
SKIPPY: Yes.
SLAPPY: Who is?
SKIPPY: Yes.
SLAPPY: That's just what I said, Yes is on stage.
SKIPPY: No, Yes is not here. Who is on stage.
SLAPPY: Whaddya askin' me for?
SKIPPY: I'm not!
SLAPPY: Wait, let's try this again. Do you see the band on stage?
SKIPPY: No I don't see The Band, that's a different group entirely.
SLAPPY: On stage, Skippy. Look, see the band?
SKIPPY: No I don't.
SLAPPY: Get rid of those John Lennon glasses and look! There, there's the band!
SKIPPY: No, that's not The Band. The Band is performing later on. Who's on stage.
SLAPPY: You tell me.
SKIPPY: Who.
SLAPPY: The name of the group on stage.
SKIPPY: Who.
SLAPPY: The name of the group!
SKIPPY: Who.
SLAPPY: The group on stage!
SKIPPY: Who.
SLAPPY: The band!
SKIPPY: No, The Band is performing later. Right now, we're listening to Who.
SLAPPY: That's what I wanna know!!

(applause)

ROGER DALTRY: Hey, you squirrels are funny, man. Come on up here and takea bow.
SKIPPY: Yeah! Far out!
SLAPPY: Oh brother....

{Humouresque}

SLAPPY: Yeah, yeah, OK. Thank you. Now everybody go home! Including you guys, what's your name?
ROGER: Who.
SLAPPY: The name of your band.
ROGER: Who.
SLAPPY: Don't start with me! Just get off the stage! The rest of you, go!

SLAPPY: Why aren't they leaving?
SKIPPY: They dig you, Aunt Slappy, man.
SLAPPY: Oh yeah? We'll see about that. I said leave!
[Smashes Hendrix's guitar]
ROGER: Oh, very groovy, mates, isn't it, totally!
PETE TOWNSHEND: Totally groovy.
ROGER: We are The Who!
[Smashing insturments]
ROGER: erg...

(applause)

SLAPPY: Yeesh! These kids would applaud my laundry! Why won't they take a hike?
SKIPPY: They want more music.
SLAPPY: All right, then. They can have more music!

{Slappy's theme}

SLAPPY: Hey everybody! Let's polka!

"Uncle Yasha lost his shoe
It fell in a bog; he did too.
Uncle Schmeeda grabbed his foot
He jumped in the bog and went kaput."

[audience runs]

{Beethoven's 6th Symphony}

SLAPPY: Ah. Peace and quiet at last!

{Star Spangled Banner}

In the land of the free,
Now that's comedy!

"The last time I saw Donald Armstrong" - The Bob Dylan/James Dickey Connection

I've been dipping into Chronicles: Volume One again while talking with Scott Warmuth over various discoveries we've made in the text. Scott, as you already know if you follow Dreamtime, found evidence that a 1961 issue of TIME magazine was the reference source for at least one section in Chronicles. During our correspondence Scott mentioned another discovery he had made, which I'll let him reveal publicly himself when he's ready. But his remark had me opening Chronicles again, and as I was skimming through the text, I stopped on what I always thought was one of the stranger passages in the book..

I gazed around the room, got up and nervously paced around a few times, watching the clock on the wall--it seemed to be running backwards.  I sat back down feeling lines plowing into my face and the whites of my eyes turning yellow. Al Kooper was clowning around, telling shaggy dog stories. I was listening to Daniels practicing scales on the fiddle, thumbing through some magazines that were left on the table, Collier's, Billboard, and Look magazine. Running across an article in Male magazine about a guy, James Lally, a radio man in World War II who had crashed with his pilot in the Philippines.  I got sidetracked for a second.  It was a gut crunching article, unfiltered.  Armstrong, the pilot, was killed in the crash, but Lally was taken prisoner by the Japanese, who took him to a camp and beheaded him with a samurai sword and then used his head for bayonet practice.  I pushed the magazine away.  Russ Kunkel, the drummer on the sessions, was siting on the couch was his eyes halfway shut, tapping two sticks together-- gazing through the glass darkly. I couldn't stop thinking about Lally and felt like moaning in the wind.~ Chronicles: Volume One, Pages 139-140

There's something weird - weird in the full Shakespearian sense - about this paragraph.  There's a thread of unspoken dread running throughout the passage that doesn't seem warranted. Dylan has "lines plowing into my face" and relates that the whites of his eyes are turning yellow.  The wall clock is running backwards. He feels like "moaning in the wind" and paraphrases 1 Corinthians 13:12, noting that drummer Russ Kunkel is "gazing through the glass darkly." All these allusions seem to make even less sense when read in context. Before and after the passage, Dylan is thinking about what was constantly on his mind; trying to figure out how to "freeze-frame" his image and "suggest only shadows of my possible self."  On a separate note, he's also deciding what to call the album which he would eventually title New Morning.

So what to make of the story of Lally and Armstrong that is the foundation of the passage? Are we to believe the article impressed Bob Dylan so much in 1970 that he introduced it as a strange non sequitur into Chronicles thirty years later?

You'd be unlikely to find a copy of Collier's in a 1970 recording studio, unless Bob Dylan brought it in himself.  The magazine stopped publishing in 19 and 57.  Leaving that aside, the other three magazines could have been on the table, including Male, a he-man "men's adventure" magazine specializing in lurid war tales and still being published into the `70s. It's also possible that there was an article about James Lally in some edition of Male, as his actual death at the hands of the Japaneses fit all the requirements for one of their patented stories, especially given the grisly details. According to one report Lally's body, as well as the body of the already deceased Armstrong, had been buried to their shoulders and their heads used for bayonet practice, as Dylan tells us the article relates. The war-crimes trial of Lally's executioners was also one of the first of its kind, making it even better fodder for a Male article.

Without an index of Male, we'll never know whether Dylan read the story in that magazine or not.  Perhaps the overall gruesomeness of Lally's death or some specific imagery caught his attention. Maybe it ended up in his commonplace book to be unearthed and used some three decades later when he was looking for some background material about the making of New Morning.

That's possible.  It's also possible that Dylan was well aware of another source reporting the death of Donald Armstrong, James Dickey's poem, "The Performance."

The last time I saw Donald Armstrong
He was staggering oddly off into the sun,
Going down, off the Philippine Islands.
I let my shovel fall, and put that hand
Above my eyes, and moved some way to one side
That his body might pass through the sun,

And I saw how well he was not
Standing there on his hands,
On his spindle-shanked forearms balanced,
Unbalanced, with his big feet looming and waving
In the great, untrustworthy air
He flew in each night, when it darkened. from "The Performance," 1959

 In March 1945, James Dickey had volunteered to become the historian for the 418th Air Squadron, and recorded the following on March 15th:

A most unexpected and tragic occurrence befell the Squadron when 2nd Lt. DONALD H. ARMSTRONG ... and his observer F/O JAMES J. LALLY ...high-speed-stalled close to the ground over the Jap strip at St. Jose,Panay, and crashed northwest of the field. ... [The plane] was found to be almost completely demolished except for a small portion of the crew nacelle. The entire Squadron awaited apprehensively the guerrilla radio operating near San Jose, for the plane had gone down between Japanese and Filipino-held positions. Finally the guerrillas informed us that Armstrong had been killed and Lally, badly injured, was in the hands of the enemy. There has been no further news to date.

The event resonated with Dickey for the rest of his life, becoming the basis for essays, short stories, and eventually two poems about Armstrong and Lally, "Between Two Prisoners" and "The Performance." One of James Dickey's most-anthologized poems, "The Performance" was not without its share of  Dylanesque controversy. Dickey changed many of the facts, ignoring Lally altogether and making Armstrong, who had died in the plane crash, "a mythical hero executed by sadistic enemies," as Henry Hart wrote in The Southern Review.  Dickey, a man who liked to mythologize his own life, claimed "almost every word of `The Performance' is literally true," and at various other times said he had been close friends with Donald Armstrong, wrote that Armstrong was a daredevil hero who had taken it upon himself to bomb an enemy field, and that he had seen Armstrong practicing showy handstands as reported in "The Performace."

In fact, none of it was true, but more grist for the re-invention that James Dickey created for his own life. "Dickey revises Armstrong's life by re-envisioning it," Hart writes, and goes on to theorize that "Armstrong provided Dickey with a mirror in which he could see himself in larger-than-life proportions."

James Dickey famously growled in a 1969 symposium about the "debased kind of music Bob Dylan and these people play."  If you read the line in context, Dickey was more complaining about the decline of traditional southern country and folk music, an opinion that Dylan would likely have agreed with then and now.  But whether James Dickey was a fan of Bob Dylan or not, it's probable that Dylan was a fan of his.

The inherent danger in exploring anything Bob Dylan writes or says is that sometimes the cigar is probably just a cigar, and maybe this anecdote of his idly thumbing through an issue of Male is just what it is. On the other hand, we're dealing with a man whose 1991 Grammy Acceptance Speech sounded, on first listen, to be embarrassed, semi-coherent rambling...

"Well, my daddy, he didn't leave me much, you know he was a very simple man, but what he did tell me was this, he did say, son, he said..." (pause) "He said, you know it's possible to become so defiled in this world that your own father and mother will abandon you and if that happens, God will always believe in your ability to mend your ways."

... which turned out to be a allusion to Psalms 27:10.and a near-direct quote from the commentary of Rabbi Shimshon Rafael Hirsch...

"Even if I were so depraved that my own mother and father would abandon me to my own devices, God would still gather me up and believe in my ability to mend my ways."

This TIME It Is For Reference

Even Dreamtime isn't immune from using the occasional obligatory headline.

Our internet pal and correspondent Scott Warmuth was the man who first broke the news that several lines in the songs of Modern Times were based - sometimes borrowed from - the poet laureate of the Confederacy, Henry Timrod. Scott went on to discover fragments from Ovid, Chaucer and James Joyce in the lyrics of the Together Through Life songs, and has recently looked into Chronicles to see what he could find.

Scott noticed that a phrase in Chronicles referring to Hanoi as the, "brothel-studded Paris of the orient" appeared in quotation marks and wondered where it had been sourced. A little digging uncovered the Friday, March 31, 1961 edition of TIME magazine:

Chronicles, page 87:
"They had turned Hanoi, the capital city, into the 'brothel-studded Paris of the orient.'...The press reported Hanoi was grubby and cheerless, that the people dressed in Chinese shapeless jackets"

TIME, Friday, Mar. 31, 1961
North Viet Nam: Poor Neighbor
"Hanoi, long the brothel-studded 'Paris of the Orient,' is now grubby and cheerless..."

Interesting, but as Scott started to go through that issue of TIME (which can be found on-line here), it got even more interesting. He discovered that Dylan had apparently used that specific issue of the magazine as a reference source for a complete section of Chronicles. Among other things he mentions a glossary of phobias in that issue, "..."There'd be articles about things like new modern-day phobias, all with fancy Latin names...", paraphrases an article titled The Anatomy of Angst, and refers to people and events all covered in that edition of TIME, including Jackie Kennedy and the Cuban Revolutionary Council meeting at the Biltmore Hotel.

You can find a complete list of Scott's discoveries over at Expecting Rain, although I should warn you that as is usual with these cases, there's a turgid and occasionally nasty ongoing battle between those who feel Bob Dylan should be drawn-and-quartered for plagiarism, those who feel that way about Scott for reporting his discovery, and those with a more pragmatic view. I'm on the third side, if it matters. Any careful reading of the section in question shows that either Dylan or his editor very carefully mentions "articles" and "reported in the press," and the line about Hanoi as "brothel-studded" is enclosed in quotes, indeed the very clue that sent Scott off on his research. And I know Scott. His motivations are neither evil nor mercenary. He's simply interested in Dylan's sources, who, God knows, obliges with providing them.

There are many other lines in Chronicles that are better ammo for the "Dylan as magpie" crowd, including phrases that appear borrowed from such sources as Really the Blues by Mezz Mezzrow and Bernard Wolfe, Raised on Radio by Gerald Nachman, Daily Life in Civil War America by Dorothy and James Volo, as well as works by Jack London, and even potboilers by Sax Rohmer. Ed Cook, over in Washington, D.C., recently noted the parallels between the story Chronicles tells about Sonny Boy Williamson and the story Blues with a Feeling: the Little Walter Story relates about the first Sonny Boy.

Take any random descriptive phrase in Chronicles, run it through Google Books, and the chances are pretty good you'll get a match.

Some might find this awful, some might find it disappointing. Me, I find it interesting, just as I find it interesting that one of the weirder elements of Modern Times, Dylan's shout-out to Alicia Keyes in Thunder on the Mountain, is based on a 19 and 40 Memphis Minnie song found on Queen of the Delta Blues, Vol. 2, Ma Rainey.

I was thinking about Ma Rainey
Wonderin' where Ma Rainey could be

I was thinking about Ma Rainey
Wonderin' where Ma Rainey could be

I've been looking for her
Even been to Tennessee

There are numerous stories of Bob Dylan's "box of words," his apparent equivalent of a commonplace book, a storage bin for lines, phrases, stories, anecdotes that have caught his eye and ear. Thanks to the work of people like Scott, we get a peek inside that box occasionally, and are the richer for it, I think.

A-Coco-Wika-No, A-Coco-Wika-Shay: The Chimes and Zindy Lou

I should include a warning that listening to "Zindy Lou," may cause an uncontrollable urge to repeat the phrase, a-coco-wika-no, a-coco-wika-shay for an indeterminate length of time.

"You can always trust a vocal group with a guy named 'Pookie' in it, and The Chimes are no exception." ~ Bob Dylan, Theme Time Radio Hour, "Women's Names"

It's difficult to locate much information on The Chimes, not least because there were several other groups called The Chimes around the mid-`50s, plus the personnel who made up The Chimes - Charles Jackson, David Cobb, Pookie Whooten and John Talbert - played it fast and loose on whatever they were calling themselves on any given day, as they specialized in backing vocals for other singers when they were with Specialty Records. "The Champs," is what they were called when they backed Tony Allen on his first hit, "Nite Owl."  Reports have it that they also released one single on the Jade label as the El Reyes. Three of the four Chimes would go on to form The Lions in 19 and 60, and later reformed as The Resonics.

A song with an irresistible hook, "Zindy Lou" was written by Eddie Smith and Johnnie Moore and released on the Specialty label in September 19 and 55 as the B-side to another Chimes' song worth searching out,, "Tears On My Pillow."

It Was 50 Years Ago Today: July 24 19 and 59 - The Kitchen Debate

Says Mr. K., "The Soviets will overtake America and then wave, 'Bye-bye'."

You never know what's going to become grist for the Dreamtime Theme Time Radio Hour mill.  Coincidentally, today is the 50th anniversary of the great kitchen debate between Nixon and Khrushchev, which Our Host mentioned during the "California" show and we blogged about in great detail a week or so ago.

The argument inside the model home which gave the kitchen debate its name was not captured on tape, but above a clip from a news conference on the same day shortly after the two had locked horns. In fact, the "kitchen debate" was an ongoing series of impromptu exchanges between then-Vice President Richard Nixon and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev at the opening of the American National Exhibition in Moscow, on July 24, 19 and 59. Clips of the kitchen debate were aired on American T.V. the next day, July 25th, angering the Soviets, who thought they had an agreement with Nixon that the U.S.S.R. and the U.S. would broadcast the debate simultaneously. Two days later, the debate was released on Moscow television.

You'll hear a reference to the "American Ampex color video tape recorders" in the clip, which is what captured this last portion of the kitchen debate.  Although the newsreel is in black-and-white, you can see a small clip of the color recording - and a very nattily dressed K. - here.

"Gene says, 'You can swing, you better come with us." ~ Anita O'Day

"This is the story about a woman who wanted to be a jazz singer, and refused to let anything stop her. It's the story of Miss Anita O'Day. We can hear most of you say, 'Anita who?"" ~ Harry Reasoner, 60 Minutes, 1983.

"Gene says, 'You can swing, you better come with us." ~ Anita O'Day

I'm not sure who the hell would say, "Anita who?"  Certainly nobody I would know or love, or would want to know or love for that matter.

The 2007 documentary Anita O'Day - The Life of a Jazz Singer is finally available on DVD.  If you have any love at all for the lady whose autobiography - High Times, Hard Times -  Mr. D. recommended not once, not twice, but three times on Theme Time Radio Hour, you'll want The Life of a Jazz Singer.

You'll want that autobiography, too, if you haven't read it.  Since I'm on a recommendation kick, you also want Jazz on a Summer's Day, another indispensable documentary about the 19 and 58 Newport Jazz Festival where, looking like she had just arrived from a lawnside cocktail party, Anita's take on  "Sweet Georgia Brown" is one of the finest performances ever captured in jazz.

As High Times, Hard Times relates, Anita O'Day's life was a jazz life. She lived hard, worked hard, loved not wisely, fought addictions, was often broke, and occasionally had too much money for her own good. As Roger Ebert noted in his review of Life of a Jazz Singer, as remarkable as O'Day's life was (she passed away at age 87 in 2006, shortly after her last interview for the documentary), more remarkable was the fact that she survived it.

One of the reasons that Our Host might admire Anita O'Day, is, like him and like Frank Sinatra, she was a serious musician who spent a lot of time thinking about the mechanics of music. "I had very little tone," she mentions in both autobiography and documentary. "when Al {Lyons] asked me why I didn't have a uvula, I thought he was talking dirty." Turns out a careless doctor had sliced off her uvula during a tonsillectomy when O'Day was seven, and she had to figure out a workaround when she found she couldn't do "proper" jazz phrasing... even though she didn't know why.

But she learned.

Bob Dylan played Anita O'Day six different times over the three seasons of Theme Time Radio Hour, including "Ten Cents a Dance" in the "Dance" episode, "And Her Tears Flowed Like Wine," in the "Tears" show,  "Let Me Off Uptown" ("New York"), "Johnny One Note" ("Number One"), "Skylark" ("More Birds"), and "I Can't Get Started" ("Beginnings, Middles, and Ends"). Obviously, he knows something.  Go take a look at Anita O'Day - The Life of a Jazz Singer to find out what.

K's Shoe Redux

Dreamtime's already received some interesting emails on our K Blows Top! post of Wednesday, including a nice note from author Peter Carlson, who wrote the book that inspired our title and article, the original (and highly recommended) K Blows Top: A Cold War Comic Interlude Starring Nikita Khrushchev, America's Most Unlikely Tourist. Mr. Carlson writes the he's "a big fan of Dylan and his radio show" and goes on to say about the controversy over whether the shoe-banging actually happened or not...

"... it was reported in newspapers the next day by people who did see it and then K admitted in his memoirs... [But] it has become a mythic event and so it's not surprising that people deny that it happened."

We also received a lengthy and fascinating email from a correspondent who writes that he was the T.V. Director at the U.N. at the time...

"...The U.N. TV signal was fed to closed circuit monitors within the International facility, to a pool of outside subscribers, as well as an in-house instant kinescope setup, supervised by a kinescope director. From what I have been able to determine, the kinescope cameras were not rolling when the shoe incident took place...

...CBS- (or WCBS) News had nevertheless booked a daylong feed and their VTR machine(s) recorded Mr. K's parliamentary transgression. That very evening, sitting at home, I watched a Special Event broadcast on Channel 2, WCBS-TV, wherein the shoe banging was repeated several times, almost ad nauseam."

Our correspondent goes on to note that as we recorded in our post and as Peter Carlson writes in K Blows Top, all visual evidence of Khrushchev's shoe-banging - including that WCBS tape - seems to have been lost. To avoid confusion and emails , I'll again point out that the image above, which circulates on the Web as a still from the incident, is a Photoshopped fake.

Finally, our correspondent provides a correction to an error: "You report that 'Many in the Soviet delegation were embarrassed, although they all dutifully banged their shoes along with their Premier'. That is incorrect. They – and other Iron Curtain-country delegates did however bang their fists in unison w/ Mr. K. But that was during the Harold Macmillan and Dag Hammarskjold incidents, earlier in the session."

Never know what you'll get when you do a Dreamtime post. As always, I appreciate the emails, comments, and corrections. It's what makes Dreamtime a joy to write.

K Blows Top!

"To me, the first lesson of being subversive is, don't tell people you're being subversive." ~ Eddie Gorodetsky, The Los Angeles Times, December 10, 2000.

"I've always believed that the first rule of being subversive is not to let anybody know you're being subversive." ~ Bob Dylan, Theme Time Radio Hour, "Trains (Part 1)," March 14, 2007

***

Our Host: Oh, we have a first-time caller. Am I supposed to pick up Line 1?

Lamont: Hi Bob!

Our Host: Hello, caller. What's your name?

Lamont: My name is Lamont Dween.

Our Host: Where ya calling from, Lamont?

Lamont: I'm calling from Silver Lake, California.

Our Host: Well, that's good. We're doing our California show today.

Lamont: I know you are, I've been listening.

Our Host: Uh-huh.

Lamont: I got a question and I got a request. I was wondering if you could play "Whittier Boulevard" by Thee Midniters?*

Our Host: We're going to look for that record for you. What's your question?

Lamont: Isn't there a famous Nikita Khrushchev quote about automobiles from the Cold War?

Our Host: Why, yes there is, Lamont. I believe it was in 19 and 56, during the famous kitchen debates. Nikita Khrushchev was speaking to Nixon and he said to him,

"Whether you like it or not, history is on our side. We will strangle your cities with traffic. We'll draw you into fighting useless wars. We'll send in developers to ravage your land and replace your individual farms with corporations. We will force your citizens into the slavery of credit card debt. We'll send gangsters into your schools to sell your children drugs. We'll replace each of your meals with empty junk food. One way or another, you'll see who comes out on top."

Our Host: Thanks for your call Lamont, and keep listening.

Our Host: Well, it wasn't any empty threat at all, almost a quarter of the land mass in Los Angeles is taken up by auto-mo-biles. This one's for you, Lamont...

[Musical Interlude - "Whittier Blvd." - Thee Midniters]

* Lest anyone think I've gone typo-blind, Thee Midniters did spell the article preceding their name with an extra "E." This was not because they were especially religious or old-fashioned, but because they were wary about having their asses sued off by another band frequently mentioned on Theme Time, Hank Ballard and the Midnighters. According to Wikipedia, the conceit started a minor craze of similar misspellings among East L.A. bands, including Eddie Serrano and Thee Enchantments, Thee Headcoats, and Thee Hypnotics.

[Later in the show]

Our Host: Tex is holding up a sign. Got a caller on Line 2. He says it's Lamont? But I think we already talked to Lamont. Lamont, is that you?

Lamont: Yeah, it's me again, Lamont. Thanks for playing "Whittier Boulevard" for me.

Our Host: You're welcome.

Lamont: Boy, it's rilllly heavy what Khrushchev said.

Our Host: Yeah, wasn't it?

Lamont: I can't believe they don't teach that side of the Cold War at school.

Our Host: Well, that's the educational system at work.

Lamont: Did anyone record what Nixon's reaction was?

Our Host: You bet they did. Nixon took a step back, took a deep breath, looked Khrushchev straight in the eye with the power of millions of citizens behind him and said,

"Oh no, you won't."

Our Host: The two squared off, neither willing to give an inch. According to reports, someone banged their shoe on the table, but it's unclear which of the two.

Lamont: Wow! It's like you always say Bob, the show is not only entertaining but informational.

Our Host: Well, we try, Lamont.

Lamont: Thanks again, Bob. Keep rockin' in the free world!

Our Host: All right. ~ Bob Dylan, Theme Time Radio Hour, "California," October 10, 2007

***

K Blows Top!

I recently finished Peter Carlson's wonderful book about Nikita Khrushchev's bizarro road trip across the United States in 19 and 59, K Blows Top. Whether you lived through that era or not, I highly recommend K Blows Top as a delightful history of a time that seems to get both stranger and more familiar as it recedes away from us.

During the height of the Cold War, Nikita Khrushchev wrangled an invitation to visit the U.S. from an unenthusiastic Dwight D. Eisenhower. Taking a two-week jaunt across the country, the Mighty K. insulted and was insulted by a variety of local pols, hobnobbed with Hollywood luminaries including Marilyn Monroe and Shirley MacLaine, visited farms and auto plants, and shook hands and kissed babies as if he were running for President himself. He was also barred from Disneyland, and sometimes threatened to start an atomic war when he was tired or in a bad mood.

The closest equivalent today would be if North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong-Il suddenly appeared in New York City and set off on a whistle stop tour of America, sampling corn dogs and having a brew at the local watering hole with the boys while holding the occasional news conference to point out that he had rockets capable of hitting California and might just use them.

Washing Machines, Da! Rockets, Nyet!

K Blows Top reminded me of Our Host's equally surreal recounting of the kitchen debate during the "California" episode of Theme Time Radio Hour, a history lesson which I doubt was taught in either the Rhode Island or Minnesota school systems to producer Eddie G. or deejay, Mr. D.

For those not familiar with the background, there was indeed a kitchen debate between the two which took place three years later than Our Host stated, in 19 and 59, in a "typical American tract house" set up for a trade fair in Moscow. During the pair's tour, Nixon led Khrushchev into the model house's kitchen, extolling the benefits of its modern appliances. An unimpressed Nikki K. replied "We have such things" and, typical for the Soviet leader, decided to take Nixon's remarks as a grave insult to the Soviet people as a whole.

The two squared off on Communism versus Capitalism for several more minutes, covering everything from who built the better washing machines (point to the U.S.) to rocketry (point to the U.S.S.R,, which had recently hit the moon with an unmanned rocket. Ours, in contrast, kept blowing up), to who was making ultimatums to whom (point to no one since both sides were).

There was no discussion of the Soviets drowning our cities in consumer goods or credit card debt.

However, Nikki the K. did (kind of) make the "history is on our side" remark during a reception at the Polish embassy in Moscow on November 18, 19 and 56. The actual quote reads: "Whether you like it or not, history is on our side. We will dig you in." which was translated by Western reporters who knew how to write a good lead into, "We will bury you!" ("Мы вас похороним!")

Khrushchev always claimed the translation had been mangled, once relating that he had meant that America's working class would bury capitalism, another time saying that he had been referring to a Marxist joke, "a capitalist would sell the shovel to dig his own grave." But "We will bury you!" is the quote the Chairman is remembered for.

Banging of the Shoe

Khrushchev is also remembered for his "banging of the shoe" which Our Host obliquely refers to in his second conversation with Lamont. The incident - or maybe "performance" would be the better term - didn't happen in either 1956 or `59, but in October 19 and 60, and didn't involve Richard Nixon but instead the full General Assembly of the U.N.

A pugnacious K., inflamed by the Gary Powers' U-2 affair and wanting to impress Third World nations with the U.S.S.R.'s commitment to stand up against that ol' debbil imperialistic America and its running dog lackeys, flipped out when a Filipino delegate suggested that maybe the Soviets, for all their fuming about imperialistic colonialists could themselves be considered "the greatest colonial power in the world." And howza 'bout that Hungary and Czechoslavkia, anyhoo, Nikki? How do you like dem apples, huh?

Reaction: K. blows top.

"Enraged, Khrushchev jumped up again, his face beet red," Peter Carlson relates in K Blows Top. "He had something in his hand and he waved it like a club. It was his right shoe, a tan loafer. For a moment, Washington Post reporter Murrey Marder thought Khrushchev was going to throw it at the podium. But he didn't. Instead, the premier sat down and began banging the shoe on his desk. His first blows were mere taps, but then he pounded harder and harder, louder and louder. Soon the other delegates were turning around, craning their necks to see who was making such a racket."

Khrushchev never explained what had inspired him to bang the shoe, but it became a signature gesture, forever after to be associated with Nikki the K. Many in the Soviet delegation were embarrassed, although they all dutifully banged their shoes along with their Premier. The U.N. was officially outraged. The media was alternately amused and frightened in their reports, given that this, this, this seeming buffoon prone to throwing temper tantrums also had a nuclear arsenal at his disposal.

As Carlson notes, "...the phrase 'Khrushchev banging his shoe' conjures up such a vivid mental image that many Americans believe they watched the event on television." I'm one of those Americans. Even though I was only eight years old at the time, I can close my eyes and see Khrushchev - in fuzzy black-and-white - slamming that shoe on the table. What I'm actually seeing is a fantasy image, maybe brought on by the dread of being fried to a radioactive krispy kritter at the tender age of eight by this guy who looked like somebody's grandfather.

Carlson goes on to point out that not only was there no video of the banging of the shoe, there's not even a still photo of the banging. (the photo above, which circulates on the Web as from Look magazine, is a Photoshopped fake). The closest thing we have to a photo of the shoe banging is a UPI picture of the shoe quietly sitting in front of Khrushchev's U.N. nameplate.

There's some controversy about whether there even was a shoe-banging incident. In a 2003 editorial in The New York Times, William Taubman expresses doubt that it ever happened. "According to [a Times reporter], Taubman writes, "Khrushchev leaned over, took off a slip-on shoe, waved it pseudomenacingly, and put it on his desk, but he never banged his shoe." And a photographer from Life, who was covering Khushchev's visit, notes, "...I can assure you that every camera in the booth was trained on Khrushchev, waiting for him to use the shoe. He only put it on again and left. None of us missed the picture — which would have been a serious professional error. The event never occurred."

Shoe-banging or no shoe-banging? Proof is lost in the mists of history.

Speaking of the the mists of history, just what did Eddie Gorodetsky and Bob Dylan mean by their fractured retelling of the kitchen debate? It wasn't the first or the last whopper Our Host would tell on Theme Time Radio Hour. In various shows he opined that all the presidents except Jimmy Carter were Freemasons, that Alexander Dumas wrote Airport 79 - The Concorde, and made the very debatable claim that Ronald Reagan was a "friend of the black man."

As far as the Krushchev/Nixon alternate world history goes, I think it probably has something to do with the two quotes I used at the beginning of this article, as well as Eddie G.'s fondness for jokes with their punchline in the middle, exemplified by The Aristocrats and The Big Orange Head story.

Or maybe I'm just thinking too much.

Morgus the Magnificent

Our Host: Mac Rebennack is a New Orleans native. He's probably better known as "Dr. John." And on this record from the late Fifties he pays tribute to the local horror movie host that he used to watch, Morgus the Magnificent. He was a quintessential Mad Scientist. He was assisted by his executioner sidekick, Chopsley, and performed well-intentioned experiments that would often go wrong and blow up in his face.

[organ music]

Morgus: Who are these idiots to criticize and can't see my genius to recognize? It was I, Morgus, who performed the first organ transplant! But, being the appendix, they turned down my grant. Hah-hah!

[organ music swells]


Our Host: Here's "Morgus the Magnificent," by Dr. John, the ghoul who steals the show on TV.

~ Bob Dylan, Theme Time Radio Hour, "Halloween" on "Morgus the Magnificent"

A post over at io9 on the many "Creature Feature" hosts that dominated the UHF channels from roughly the late `50s to around the early `80s got me thinking about one of the most infamous of the crew - at least in the New Orleans market - "Morgus the Magnificent," created and portrayed by New Orleans actor Sid Noel.

Under a variety of names, "Creature Features" were blocks of horror movie -- usually B or even lower-quality - programming shown on local television stations. Around the mid-1950, Hollywood realized that they were sitting on a treasure trove of retired films from the `30s and `40s that were doing nothing except turning to mush in their vaults. So they licensed the broadcast rights to local TV markets who needed something to fill late-night slots, and, in stroke of genius, only sold the films as a package. Want Frankenstein? Then you were going to get Curse of the Zombie Woman too, buddy.

Vampira essentially started the horror host genre in 1954 in Los Angeles, creating the model that ghouls from Zacherley, through Morgus, to Mistress of the Dark, Elvira would copy. Spooky garb, cheesy sets, bad jokes... even worse movies.

Outside of his other accomplishments, Morgus is noteworthy for being the first horror host to get his own film, 19 and 62's The Wacky World of Dr. Morgus, beating out Elvira by some 25-odd years, as well as being the first to be saluted by a rock-'n-roll number. 19 and 59's "Morgus the Magnificent" on the Vin label was credited to Morgus and the Three Ghouls, the "Three Ghouls" not only including Mac Rebennack (a.k.a. "Dr. John"), but also Frankie Ford and Jerry Bryne, backed by The Huey Smith Band. While he did mention the Mac Rebennack connection, Our Host missed the opportunity to note that of the other two ghouls Ford - "The New Orleans Dynamo" - would later have a mega-hit with "Sea Cruise," covering Huey Smith's original, and Jerry Bryne, Mac Rebennack's cousin, already had a hit under his belt with the 1958 rocker, "Light's Out." While Morgus is named as the leader and lead singer of the Three Ghouls, Sid Noel had nothing to do with the single outside of lending his name. "Morgus" on the recording is actually the voice of Frankie Ford.

The real "Morgus the Magnificent," Sid Noel, did go into the recording studio once, in 19 and 56, when he covered a popular novelty number, "The Flying Saucer." "Flying Saucer" was the first of a short-lived AM Radio record craze of the `50s, the so-called "break-in" record, which featured an interviewer asking questions with the responses being clips from popular songs of the day from performers such as Fats Domino, Elvis Presley and Little Richard.

"What did you think when you first saw the flying saucer?"

"Good golly, Miss Molly!"

As one might guess, the attraction of break-ins quickly waned, as many of the musicians' labels sued about the unauthorized use of their music. Sid Noel got around that problem by hiring a local band, The Hawks, who did their own version of the original numbers. In their interest of completeness, here's Dickie Goodman's and Bill Buchanan's original "The Flying Saucer" Parts 1 and 2.

Someone Ought to Wave the Flag - George M Cohan and Bob Dylan

Above a <1-minute audio clip of Bob Dylan and the Cowboy Band playing a snippet from George M. Cohan's Yankee Doodle Boy (more popularly known as Yankee Doodle Dandy) yesterday, July 4, in the Year of Our Lord 2000 and 9, which I will suspect will be grist for a blog post by our friend over at RightWingBob.

And below, a fascinating, if politically incorrect, 9-minute clip from the little-known The Phantom President of 19 and 32. What makes this film especially unique is that it features the original song-and-dance man and Yankee Doodle Boy born on the 4th of July - George M. Cohan - who was trying to move from a sagging theater career into film with The Phantom President.



Watch Cohan's blackface routine in this clip and it's easy to see where Jimmy Cagney got his spot-on phrasing and moves for Yankee Doodle Dandy, the movie.

Cohan would make but one more movie in 1934 (Gambling), that - like Phantom President - would meet with indifferent public reaction. He'd return to Broadway and revive his career in his last successful show, the Rodgers & Hart hit of 19 and 37, I'd Rather be Right, where he'd play a dancing FDR. Yankee Doodle Dandy, the movie, by the way, re-creates a scene from I'd Rather be Right in its opening sequence.

Stick around through the entire 9-minute clip, and you'll also catch appearances by Jimmy Durante and Sidney Toler. Toler is probably best-known for playing the lead in the equally politically incorrect Charlie Chan series. An entire generation has grown up without knowing anything about Jimmy Durante, which is their loss. The Ol' Schnozzola was a Runyonesque one-of-a-kind who for a period of time was one of the most popular performers in the U.S. I'm old enough to remember his TV show, and was always delighted as a kid when an old movie would air on one of the UHF stations and feature Durante. These days you'll still occasionally see/hear a Durante cartoon impersonation on The Simpsons or Family Guy, although I suspect most of the audience doesn't have a clue that it even is an impersonation.

Outside of not being that good - Cohan plays a surprisingly unsympathetic character - one of the reasons that The Phantom President is seldom seen anymore is the blackface, of course. As regular readers of Dreamtime know, I'm fascinated by the medicine and minstrel show genres, which have a history stretching from the 19th century to Spike Lee's Bamboozled. Blackface routines in movies of the `30s and `40s, and even somewhat unbelievably into the `50s, were more common than you might expect.

Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland would appear in blackface in 1939's Babes in Arms and 19 and 41's Babes on Broadway. Jimmy Stewart in 1939 for It's a Wonderful World. Shirley Temple in 1935's The Littlest Rebel. Fred Astaire put on the cork in 1936's Swing Time. Bing Crosby appeared in blackface in 1942's Holiday Inn, the precursor to the better-known White Christmas, released in 1954, and which also included a minstrel show number, but which, happily, was not done in blackface. Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin donned blackface for the original Ocean's 11, released in 19 and 60. The Black and White Minstrel Show was a popular British television series with a 20-year run into the `70s that presented traditional American "Deep South" songs - often performed in blackface.

Among Jefferson Airplane fans there's a story that Grace Slick deliberately put on blackface in 1968 for a Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour appearance, fueled by the fact that Slick closed her performance with the Black Power salute, and occasionally appeared on stage wearing a Hitler mustache. But video of the Smothers Brothers segment shows Slick looking more like she had had a very bad session at the tanning salon rather than doing a deliberate blackface turn. Slick later noted in an interview that the makeup hadn't meant to be political, more of a statement antithetical to her white-bread appearance after she had been given unsupervised access to the makeup table, but she did regret not doing the full "Al Jolson with the lips."

For obvious reasons most of the films I noted above aren't broadcast widely anymore. You can occasionally find a bootleg edition of The Phantom President on eBay. If you share my fascination in the old time minstrel shows and the very strange - and very racially insensitive, it should be noted - art of blackface, you may also be interested in a film I've mentioned before: Yes Sir, Mr. Bones, a 54-minute movie from 19 and 51, which contains the only known footage of the legendary blackface singer and comedian Emmett Miller in action.

The movie is available as 1/2 of Showtime USA, a DVD that also contains Square Dance Jubilee, featuring Spade Cooley. As a commenter noted on the Amazon page, Yes Sir, Mr. Bones is probably as close as we're likely to get to a reconstruction of an actual minstrel show, from the opening "end man" comedy routines, featuring Miller, to the "olio" including sentimental ballads performed by an "Irish Thrush," to an amazing softshoe on sand routine, to the closing burlesque numbers. The movie supposedly takes place in a show biz retirement home; a young boy wanders in and the residents - thanks to the magic of imagination - recreate a minstrel show.

If you're offended by blackface material - some of it very crude, by the way - you don't want to watch Yes Sir, Mr. Bones, as one of the audio commentaries puts it right at the beginning. If you're interested in it as a historical document - especially of Emmett Miller - you do.

"We Sampled His Ass" - No Sleep Till Brooklyn - The Beastie Boys

"When Mike D., MCA, and Ad-Rock produced Cooky Puss*, a song about their favorite Carvel ice cream cake in 19 and 83, everyone thought The Beastie Boys were just a flash in the pan.

["Hello, I'm Cookie Puss..."]

But New Yorkers are much tougher than that, and they made it through all sorts of changes in music. Here's one of their early ones, from 19 and 86 - a shout-out to one of the five boroughs, No Sleep Till Brooklyn, The Beastie Boys." ~ Bob Dylan, Theme Time Radio Hour, "New York"

***
From "Boys will be boys: Beastie Boys Talk Hot Sauce Committee Pt. 1" interview on Drowned in Sound.


DiS: Nas and Santigold appear on [Hot Sauce Committee Pt. 1] but there’s no sign of, as previously claimed, Bob Dylan. Was that, in best Beastie Boys tradition, a cheeky fib?

Ad-Rock: Bob Dylan is guesting on ...Pt 2. He talks about us. More of a spoken word thing...

MCA: We sampled his ass.

Mike D: He has a radio show on satellite and he was speaking about Beastie Boys...

Ad-Rock: He played one of our songs and was talking about us; he’s a big fan.

Mike D: So we collaborated with that.

DiS: Is he one of your big musical heroes?

Mike D: Oh, first off, he’s one of the first b-boys, if not the first. What more to say?

Ad-Rock: Billy Joel is the fifth b-boy. That’s just a side note. Bob Dylan is one of the greatest songwriters of all time.

Mike D: When you think ‘songwriter’ you think him, Gordon Lightfoot; there’s not many others.

Ad-Rock: Carl Carlton. Carl Douglas. There’s a lot of Carls.

***

The guitar riffs and solo of No Sleep Till Brooklyn, which really should be No Sleep 'Til Brooklyn, sez the didactic Fred, are played by Slayer guitarist Kerry King, who was brought in by by Rick Rubin, writer and co-producer of the Beasties' 19 and 86 debut album, License to Ill. The song's name is a joking take on on Motörhead's No Sleep 'til Hammersmith..

"We just got signed to Def Jam, and we were in the same studio, and Rick Rubin was working with both of us. And he just came down and said, "Hey, what do you think about doing the lead down the hallway?" That was about all there was to it. It took five minutes. It might have taken two takes, because it wasn't supposed to be anything intricate. They were spoofing metal, so to speak, on "No Sleep Till Brooklyn," so I just went in and did something, out of tune in parts, and [with] feedback - was just one of those totally spur-of-the-moment things, I didn't think about it at all." - Kerry King, excerpted from The Skills to Pay the Bills by Alan Light, 2005

Hot Sauce Committee Pt. 1 is slated for a September release. It remains to be seen whether Mr. D.'s sampled ass will actually appear on Pt. 2.

* I wouldn't be a good New Englander without giving a nod to Cookie Puss of Carvel ice cream fame, who Our Host gives a brief mention in his commentary on The Beastie Boys. CP is pictured to your left.

Source: BeastieMania

It's Nothing to Me - The "Harry Johnson" Mystery

"I first heard this next record when it was on a compilation called 'God Less America,' and that's about all I know about it. Here's Harry Johnson with a song about a bar fight, 'It's Nothing To Me.'"

***

["Harry Johnson" - It's Nothing To Me]

Take your drink to the end of the bar, buddy
Let her stay there, now don't be a fool
I'd as soon have a hot seat in Sing-Sing prison
Than to sit down by her on that stool.

What's that you say?
I guess you're right... it's nothing to me.

See that man? She belongs to him, buddy
Better drink up and go while you can
I can tell by the way he looks at you, buddy
That he's sure a quick-tempered, jealous man.

What's that you say?
I guess you're right... it's nothing to me.

[gunshots]

There you are stretched out on the floor, buddy
Now you see what you made him do?
Here they come to take him off to jail, buddy
And tomorrow someone will bury you.

Oh well, that's life
Or it was... it's nothing to me.

***

"That was Harry Johnson, 'Ain't Nothing to Me.' Always enjoy a song with a story attached. It's like getting a two-for-one. And he makes a good point. Mind your own business! You don't have to get involved! You don't know the whole story! Before you go jumping in, take a moment, look at the situation. Ask yourself, 'Will I really be making this better?' I guarantee ya, nine times out of ten, the answer is, 'Nooooooo!'" ~ Bob Dylan, Theme Time Radio Hour, "Nothing"

Although bobbling the title in his outro, perhaps momentarily confusing the song with The Coasters' version, "T'Ain't Nothing To Me" (more on that later), Our Host was right that there's nothing about "Harry Johnson" to be found. And that's because there was no "Harry Johnson," even though that's the name of the artist listed on the "God Less America" compilation.

The Singer

"It's Nothing To Me" is actually being performed by Sanford Clark, a rockabilly guitarist and protégé of Lee Hazlewood probably best known for his 19 and 56 hit "The Fool."

Perhaps Mr. D. was himself fooled by the "Harry Johnson" moniker, but it's more likely not, as he had played "The Fool" by Clark way back in Season 1 during the "Fools" episode, remarking at the time, "I always thought it was one of the best Elvis Presley records that Elvis never made." While Clark was in country mode for "It's Nothing To Me" and doing pure rockabilly for "The Fool," his voice is distinctive enough that it's hard to miss the connection... although to tell you the truth, I did miss it until it was pointed out to me.

Sanford Clark was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 19 and 35 but grew up in Phoenix, Arizona, which he'd claim as his hometown. Guitarist Al Casey, who gigged with Clark at various Phoenix clubs and would later back him on most of his albums, turned then-disc jockey Hazlewood on to Sanford Clark. Lee Hazlewood was looking for someone with a distinctive voice to record a song he had just written, "The Fool," and Clark fit the bill. Casey and Clark went into the studio, recorded the song, and it was originally released in May of 19 and 56 on the tiny local M.C.I. label. "The Fool" was credited to a "Naomi Ford," Lee Hazlewood's wife, probably because radio deejay Hazlewood was worried about someone pointing out that his playing a song that he had also written and produced stunk a bit of payola.

As it turned out that wasn't a concern, as the 500-copy M.C.I. release of "The Fool" sank without a trace, and Sanford Clark started delivering soda pop in the Phoenix area to keep body and soul together. Luckily, a Cleveland disc jockey thought the song deserved a second chance if it could get some decent distribution, and passed it on to Dot Records. Dot called M.C.I. in Phoenix and cut a deal with Hazlewood. Sanford Clark signed with the Dot label, which re-released "The Fool." By August 19 and 56 the song had hit Number 7 on Billboard's pop charts and sold more than 800.000 copies, proving once again that we all deserve a second chance.

Sanford Clark wouldn't release "It's Nothing To Me" until 19 and 67 when he signed with Ramco Records after an uneven career and not much luck in the music business past "The Fool." Clark cut the song as part of a session that produced 12 singles, including a remake of his hit from a decade earlier.

"It's Nothing To Me" was released as the A-side of Ramco-1987, backed with "Calling All Hearts." As with most of the singles Clark produced in his career, "It's Nothing To Me" didn't do much of anything. Although always keeping one foot in the music business, by the 1970s Clark was making his living in construction and as a blackjack gambler. Sanford Clark is now retired and living in Mayer, Arizona.

The Song

"It's Nothing To Me" has more of a Theme Time Radio Hour connection than just Sanford Clark. The song was written by one "Pat Patterson," a pen name of Leon Payne's, author of the very weird "Psycho," which Mr. D. mentioned in an aside during the "Luck" episode of TTRH, "... a song about a serial killer [that] never got a lot of airplay, but has become quite a bit of a cult favorite."

Leon Payne was a blind songwriter and singer based in San Antonio, Texas. Among country music fans, Payne is probably best remembered for the classic, "Lost Highway," recorded by Hank Williams Sr. as well as "I Love You Because," "You've Still Got A Place In My Heart," and "They'll Never Take Her Love From Me."

Payne wrote hundreds of songs during his career, and apparently - like all good country music writers - had something of a soft spot for murderers, at least in song. He probably wrote "It's Nothing To Me" sometime around 19 and 56. A year later it was published by Lee Hazlewood's Gregmark Music and first recorded by yet another member of Hazlewood's Phoenix music mafia, Loy Clingman, on the Liberty Bell/Dot labels in February, 1957.

If an artist recorded "It's Nothing To Me" between the late `50s through the late `60s, you can pretty much bet that artist had some connection to Lee Hazlewood, a music impresario best-known for his work with Duane Eddy during the fifties and Nancy Sinatra in the sixties. After his first hit with Sanford Clark's "The Fool," Hazlewood would go on to produce, write, or co-author "The Theme from Peter Gunn", "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'" and " "Sugar Town." Hazlewood also wrote "Houston", a near-breakthrough single for Sanford Clark, until his version was overshadowed by Dean Martin's monster hit in 19 and 65.

"It's Nothing To Me" would be covered by Hazlewood acquaintance Buddy Long on the Demon label in 19 and 59, and more successfully by The Coasters in 19 and 64, who would use their comic version of the song, "T'Ain't Nothing To Me," to reclaim a slot on the pop charts after a string of unsuccessful releases.

Recorded live at the Apollo Theater in 1963, and featuring a clowning interchange between two of The Coasters, "T'Ain't Nothing To Me" would be #64 in the Hot Hundred in April `64, and climb to #20 in the R&B charts over a 10-week period. The Coasters were managed at the time by Lester Sills, Lee Hazlewood's partner and co-founder of Gregmark Publishing.

Let's see: Sanford Clark, Nancy Sinatra, The Coasters, Leon Payne... all played or mentioned on Theme Time Radio Hour. All these things tie together, as Mr. D. would say.

As well as Sanford Clark's/Harry Johnson's release in 19 and 67, "It's Nothing To Me" - sometimes under its alternate title of "Ain't Nothing To Me" - has also been covered by Jim Reeves, The Sadies, Harlan Howard, and Johnny Winter among others. It remains a staple of honky-tonks, bar, and saloons.

In an elegiac coda, Lee Hazlewood would record "It's Nothing to Me" for his final album, Cake or Death, released in 2006. Hazlewood would pass away a year later. Here's "It's Nothing to Me" as performed by Lee Hazlewood.



The Mysteries

There is more than one mystery surrounding "It's Nothing To Me." We know nothing about how Leon Payne came to write it, although like most of Payne's story songs, I suspect there's a great story behind it. According to Payne's daughter, Myrtie, he wrote "Lost Highway" when he was desperate to get back to his family after a long road trip. "Psycho" came about from the movie of the same name. Payne and his wife were both big movie fans, although with both being blind, Myrtie had to describe to them what was going on on-screen. According to Myrtie, Payne called Johnny Cash after returning home, described the "Psycho" experience to him, and sat down and wrote the serial killer song minutes after getting off the phone. I wish we had a similar story about "It's Nothing To Me."

And why is "It's Nothing To Me" credited to Harry Johnson on "God Less America" rather than to Sanford Clark? That mystery is probably easy to explain. The L.P./CD, released in the mid-90,s bordered on the semi-bootleg, compiling material both in and out of copyright, but studiously avoiding paying royalties on anything. As well as "Harry Johnson" "God Less America" also tags at least one other artist with a pseudonym to avoid eagle-eyed legal beagles. "Drunken Driver," a lubrigious a tune as the title implies, is credited to a "Grandpa Joe," although it is actually a 19 and 54 Ferlin Husky recording.

Finally we come to the mystery of the gunshots. While those were apparently included in Clark's original 19 and 67 release, I have two separate reports from people who own "Shades," a CD compilation of Clark's work, that the gunshots aren't on the version of "It's Nothing To Me" in that collection.

Maybe the Bear label, which released "Shades," used the master of "It's Nothing To Me," before the gunshots were dubbed in. Maybe there were two different versions of the song.

Maybe we'll never know.

Sources and Additional Reading/Listening: A visitor with the handle of "flotser," made exactly one post to the TTRH forum at ER, noting that "Harry Johnson" was in fact Sanford Clark - referring to him with the British spelling of "Clarke" - and then disappearing back into the aether, never to be heard from again.

"flotser" and regular ER (and sometime Dreamtime) contributor "The Great Wandu" both state that the version of "It's Nothing To Me" on the Sanford Clark compilation put together by the Bear Family label, "Shades" does not include the gunshots that can be heard before the last stanza of the song included on "God Less America."  In fact, "The Great Wandu" goes further, and says that the 1967 Ramco release is also without the gunshot overdub. I'm not sure this last is correct, but having neither heard the 45 or the "Shades" compilation, I'll take the claim at face value until presented with better evidence.  That leaves another mystery, of course, about how and when the gunshots came to be dubbed in, but as I said in the main article... we may never know.

Mystery of the missing gunshots aside, one thing I am certain of is that "Harry Johnson" is Sanford Clark.  While I was unable to find the full track, various places on the Web have an excerpt of Clark's "It's Nothing To Me," including the Amazon page for the "Shades" compilation.  You can follow the link above if you want to satisfy yourself on the subject.

"God Less America," has had an appropriately unusual history, originally released on vinyl either in 1995 or 1997 on Crypt Records by compiler Tim Warren, who a reviewer noted has "...been churning out amazing compilations under a variety of label names to avoid close, copyright-wielding eyes -- 'Sin Alley', 'Down And Out, and 'Loo-key Doo-key.'"

The bootlegger may have been himself bootlegged, as a CD version was released in 2001, but its unclear whether it was officially under the Crypt label, or someone else just using the label name. In any case, used copies of the CD can be found at Amazon, U.S. or Amazon U.K. at somewhat ridiculous prices.  The tracks also sometimes float around the Web either together or separately. The L.P. occasionally appears on eBay, in fact one is being offered for sale right now through the 30th. You should be forewarned that unless you're an aficionado of rare - and weird - country-western music, you may find "God Less America" somewhat disappointing.  Personally, I like it, and have churned out several Dreamtime articles thanks to that compilation. But caveat emptor.

The great honky-tonker Leon Payne doesn't get the attention he deserves, little-remembered today except for "Lost Highway" and the novelty number "Psycho." However, there is one CD compilation available of Payne's Capitol Record singles, put out - naturally - by the Bear Family label under the title, "I Love You Because." Another compilation has a Theme Time connection, "George Jones Sings The Great Songs of Leon Payne."  Both sets are highly recommended, as is anything associated with Leon Payne. For a taste of Payne's music, check out his MySpace page, maintained by his daughter, Myrtie.

Most of the information about Lee Hazlewood and his connection to the various artists and versions of "It's Nothing To Me" was taken from "The Lee Hazlewood Story." I also used Hazlewood's Wikipedia entry for background.

Additional information on Sanford Clark came from a Rockabilly Hall of Fame article and Clark's MySpace page. I've emailed Clark several times to see if I could get more information on his recording of "It's Nothing To Me" - especially about those damn gunshots - but have never received a response.  Unfortunately, Clark is apparently in poor health these days.  We wish him the best.

The Coasters' comic turn on the song, "T'Ain't Nothing To Me" can be found on the CD compilation "Apollo Saturday Night" or as a standalone mp3 at Amazon. The song aside, "Apollo Saturday Night" is recommended for those wanting a feel at what a night at that historic theater in the early `60s was like.

More Bits and Pieces: The Hank Snow Transcript & the TTRH Archives

A couple of more random notes, too ephemeral for a full blog post. Lot #234, the "Bobby Zimmerman" transcript of Hank Snow's "Little Buddy" that we blogged about last month goes on the auction block today at Christie's with some other Dylan material, including a 1958 Hibbing High School yearbook with a "Bob Zimmerman" inscription, a couple of Broadsides with Dylan's autograph, and a concert handbill for the Bob Dylan & Joan Baez 1965 US Tour with art by Eric Von Schmidt, which you'll be familiar with if you have a copy of David Hajdu's Positively 4th Street.

That handbill is estimated at only $1,000-1,500, a bargain in my mind, but what do I know? Conversely, I thought the $10-15,000 estimate for the "Little Buddy" manuscript was grossly over-priced even when Christie's was claiming it as a Bob Dylan early original. I'd rather look at a piece of art than words on a page if I were collecting something. But again, what do I know?

It'll be interesting to see what the "Little Buddy" transcript will sell for. It'd be nice if an anonymous buyer from Minnesota, New York City, or Malibu picked it up for the full auction value for the benefit of Herzl Camp in Wisconsin, and then pack it away with whatever other mementos he might have from the early days.

UPDATE:  The "Little Buddy" transcript auctioned off for $12,500, including buyer's premium, a nice contribution to the rehabbing of cabins at Herzl Camp.

***

Dreamtime internet pal, Patrick Crosley, better-known to the hoi polloi as "Croz" has transmorgified his namesake site once again, taking the primary content offering "Recordings of Indeterminate Origin" off-line except to members-only access, while leaving the main site up, now labeled the Theme Time Radio Hour Archive. And that's what it is, the complete recordings of Seasons 1, 2, and 3 in zip archived mp3 format. If you're interested in finding a particular show or shows - and about a 1/3 of the people who come to Dreamtime through a search engine are looking for TTRH downloads - Croz.fm will probably satisfy your desire.

Regular readers know I'm a little leery, and more than a little inconsistent, about the whole "illegal downloads" thing. If there were an "official" alternative to getting permanent copies of TTRH shows, I'd point you there. But there isn't. I know Croz, as I know many of the people who were involved in distributing TTRH over the internet, and I know he's a generous, good-hearted soul whose dedication to offering access to TTRH to the widest possible audience was often much more trouble for him than it was worth. And he still did it. As I noted in my TTRH FAQ, sites like Croz's may be the only complete record that will ever be easily accessible to researchers, scholars, and fans, especially with TTRH in its re-run twilight.

Do both yourself and Croz a favor, and read his introduction before doing any downloads, okay? I've talked before about the Tragedy of the Commons, and it would be a tragedy if greedy people drove Croz's server hamsters into overload.