Roger O Green

The Country Western #1 songs of 1955

A Satisfied Mind

Three different Billboard charts determined the Country Western #1 songs of 1955: most played in jukeboxes, best sellers in stores, and most played by jockeys. Interestingly, at that point, although changed in 1956, it didn’t specify most played country western, et cetera. I presume some discernment on Billboard’s part. This explains the 76 weeks of #1 songs.

From the Country Music Hall of Fame: Webb Pierce, born August 8, 1921, in West Monroe, Louisiana, died February 24, 1991, and was inducted in 2001.

“One of the greatest stars of country music’s honky-tonk heyday, the 1950s, Webb Pierce had thirteen singles top the Billboard charts in those years—more than any of his illustrious contemporaries.

“His loud, nasal, high-pitched, and sometimes slightly off-key delivery on hit after hit marked him as one of the music’s most distinctive singers in an era of great individualists.”

In The Jailhouse Now – Webb Pierce, 21 weeks at #1. I know the song from the movie O Brother, Where Art Thou, the version by Tim Blake Nelson and Pat Enright (credited as The Soggy Bottom Boys)

Love, Love, Love – Webb Pierce (Decca), 13 weeks at #1

I Don’t Care– Webb Pierce (Decca) ,12 weeks at #1, co-written by Pierce

Redux

Sixteen Tons – “Tennessee” Ernie Ford, 10 weeks at #1. The only song that also went to number one on the pop charts from this list

Loose Talk (Freddie Hart) – Carl Smith, seven weeks at #1

A Satisfied Mind – Porter Wagner (RCA Victor), four weeks at #1. Red Foley and Jean Shepherd both had Top 5 hits with this song in 1955. But the version I heard on the album 50 Stars! 50 Hits! Of Country Music, which my grandfather McKinley Green, gave me, was by Pete Drake and his Talking Steel Guitar

Live Fast, Love Hard, Die Young – Faron Young, three weeks at #1. He died at the age of 64 in 1996

The Cattle Call – Eddy Arnold (RCA Victor), two weeks at #1. I remember this song.

That Do Make Make It Nice – Eddy Arnold (RCA Victor), two weeks at #1

Let Me Go, Lover! – Hank Snow and his Rainbow Ranch Boys (RCA Victor), two weeks at #1

Movie review: SINNERS

Michael B. Jordan and Michael B. Jordan

Admittedly, I was wary about seeing the movie SINNERS. I can be a bit squeamish when it comes to a film described as vampire horror. My friend Steve Bissette had recommended it when he saw it in April, but that type of film is more in his wheelhouse.

Then my daughter, likewise squeamish, viewed it in Cape Town, South Africa, in June, just before returning to the States. She said I had to see it because it was about the black experience in America, and it was about music.

So I went to the Madison Theatre near my home on the hottest day of the year, Primary Day – they have $5 films on Tuesdays! – while my wife, the most squeamish of the three of us, saw another flick at the same venue.

How do I describe this film? The IMDb notes: “Trying to leave their troubled lives behind [in Chicago], twin brothers (Michael B. Jordan) return to their hometown [in 1930s Mississippi] to start again, only to discover that an even greater evil is waiting to welcome them back.”

That doesn’t tell you much. Bissette wrote: “A rip-roaring fusion of masterful visual storytelling and toe-tapping music, writer-director Ryan Coogler’s first original blockbuster reveals the full scope of his singular imagination.

“Wildly primal, big and bold, fueled by pain and rage, by community and family, throbbing with love and sex and joy, infused with magic. A sumptuously textured, unmissable howl of a passion project.”

It’s about time

Someone named Corey Creekmur commented on Bissette’s Facebook page: “It’s such a rich sequence. It seems to be drawing upon African models of time, occult notions of time (such as the way vampires move outside of human time and share memories), and rich notions of musical and cultural continuity across eras. (It seems evocative of Sun Ra and George Clinton’s mystical, time and space traveling visions.) It’s dazzling in any case.”

Oh, it’s Afrofuturism, at least in part, which does not become clear to me until near the end.

It was well-acted by all involved. The scenes with the twins, Smoke and Stack, looked realistic. Special kudos to Miles Caton, who is all of 20, for playing the pivotal role of Sammie. And the music is excellent; I have, of all things, Rocky Road to Dublin, stuck in my head.

The Rotten Tomatoes reviews were 97% positive among critics and 96% positive among audiences. Some suggested that at 137 minutes, it was about 15 minutes too long. But I think the time built up the tension and better established the characters.

An audience reviewer on a site thought the vampires were silly, rather than scary-looking. I thought that was the point. The vampire’s life was alluring at some level.

Bissette is right about this: “if (and oh, you should) you catch SINNERS in the theater, be advised NOT to leave when the first of the final credits appears…

“The real ending to the film is mid-way through the final credits” (at least three of the dozen and a half folks in my theater left too early and missed Buddy Guy!), “and after the credits crawl conclude, a sublime post-credits sequence that sent me out of my seat positively elated follows” (I was in an otherwise empty theater.)

1946: The Mistranslation That Shifted Culture

the misinterpretation of ancient Greek

Summer Movie Night: “1946: The Mistranslation That Shifted Culture”

Sunday, July 13 at 6:30 pm

Emmanuel Baptist Church, 275 State Street, Albany, NY

Free and open to the public

In partnership with the Pride Center Spirit Committee, Emmanuel Baptist invites you to a screening of “1946: The Mistranslation That Shifted Culture.”

I RECOMMEND IT.

This 2022 documentary explores the tireless efforts of researchers who trace the origins of the anti-gay movement among Christians to a mistranslation of the Bible in 1946. The film chronicles the discovery of previously unseen archives at Yale University, which shed light on the misinterpretation of ancient Greek that led to the term “homosexuality” being introduced into the Bible for the first time. Featuring commentary from prominent scholars and opposing pastors, the documentary also includes personal stories from the film’s creators.

Parking Information:

For those with mobility limitations: Accessible parking is available on the east side of the Emmanuel building near the ramp entrance.
Street Parking: Available along State Street, especially heading toward the Capitol building.
Westminster Presbyterian Church: Limited parking is available across the street at 85 Chestnut Street.
First Presbyterian Church of Albany: Additional parking is located three blocks away at 362 State Street.

Questions? Call the church office at 518-465-5161 or e-mail pastorkathy@emmanuelalbany.org

Lydster: plane ride home

Thandeka Dladla

The day before the daughter took the plane ride home, I asked her, on WhatsApp, if she had her ticket and passport. She wrote back, “I hope so.” Of course, she did, but it wasn’t the answer I had been seeking. She arrived at the airport in Cape Town about four hours before her scheduled flight on June 17, as recommended, which was beneficial because loading began over an hour before takeoff.

So it wasn’t precisely a plane ride “home” but to the DC metro. Meanwhile, my wife was driving us from the Poconos to a Hampton Inn near Dulles International Airport. We could follow the 14-hour flight on the United Airlines app.

The daughter has landed!

On the morning of June 18, we took a hotel shuttle to the airport, and after the driver spoke with the daughter on my phone, he was able to locate her. We see the Daughter! After brief hugs, we returned to the Hampton, ate breakfast, and then went back to the Poconos. Since her internal clock was six hours ahead of Eastern time, and she hadn’t slept much on the plane, there was a period of adjustment.

Still, she shared gifts with us, including some various flavored salts and teas for my wife. I received a University of Cape Town hat and t-shirt. Additionally, I got CDs of Miriam Makeba and a live album by Thandeka Dladla, a devotee of Makeba who my daughter has seen perform. As my daughter predicted, she fell asleep listening to Dladla.

The next day, after breakfast, we went to the miniature golf course. It was two 18-hole courses, one on the plains and the other on the mountains. It was accurate in that the latter involved far more steps to climb. It also started getting very warm and muggy as we swatted some mosquitoes.

We stopped at the general store for lunch, then stayed for ice cream when a quick deluge fell from the sky.

The next day, we went home, stopping at Milford, PA en route. About three hours after arriving home, the daughter went out with a friend. It’s good to have her back.

“Librarians aren’t the flashiest people”

liars aiming to avoid accountability will become more believable

My friend Catbird wrote:

Hi Roger—

I just saw Carla Hayden on PBS NewsHour. She made a remark (something to the effect of )“maybe maybe librarians aren’t the flashiest people, but they’re trusted,” that took me right to “information without the bun.”

Information Without the Bun was the name of my blog on the Times Union website from 2008 to 2021.

I got excited to be reminded of you. … it was a happy surprise!

I hope you are sufficiently happy in your life right now.

And in case I forgot, happy Father’s Day.

This was very touching. I strive to provide accurate data on this blog diligently. On Facebook, I often post police reports of traffic jams and parking restrictions because it seems useful.

Librarians, by training and perhaps upbringing, want information disseminated. That’s why shutting down the Voice of America, PBS, NPR (Protect My Public Media!), Radio Free Europe, and gutting the Smithsonian breaks my heart.

Tactics designed to make us more stupid, such as book bans or getting rid of people, as well as departmental websites due to “DEI,” etc., which happened to the former librarian of Congress, Carla Hayden, are extremely troubling to me. Incidentally, I never met Dr. Hayden, but librarians I know in real life who have are monumentally impressed with her.

However, it’s challenging, and it’s becoming increasingly complex always to get it right. The things I see on Facebook and other social media that are stated as fact but are wrong cause me some mental pain.

From WIRED: “When I read a tweet about four noted Silicon Valley executives being inducted into a special detachment of the United States Army Reserve, including Meta CTO Andrew ‘Boz’ Bosworth, I questioned its veracity. It’s tough to discern truth from satire in 2025, in part because of social media sites owned by Bosworth’s company. But it indeed was true. According to an official press release, they’re in the Army now, specifically Detachment 201.”

Of COURSE, Steven Levy didn’t believe it. The concept seems absurd.

The liar’s dividend

John Oliver discussed AI Slop on Last Week Tonight. He explains “why you’ve been seeing more AI-generated content online [and] the harm it can do.” This leads to a more toxic spinoff: the liar’s dividend.

From Cambridge Core: “This study addresses the phenomenon of misinformation about misinformation, or politicians ‘crying wolf’ over fake news. Strategic and false claims that stories are fake news or deepfakes may benefit politicians by helping them maintain support after a scandal.

From the Brennan Center: Scholars “posit that liars aiming to avoid accountability will become more believable as the public becomes more educated about the threats posed by deepfakes. The theory is simple: when people learn that deepfakes are increasingly realistic, false claims that real content is AI-generated become more persuasive too… Deepfakes amplify uncertainty.”

And there are other AI informational flaws. From The New York Times: They Asked an AI Chatbot Questions. The Answers Sent Them Spiraling. “Generative A.I. chatbots are going down conspiratorial rabbit holes and endorsing wild, mystical belief systems. For some people, conversations with the technology can deeply distort reality.”

I try to double- or even triple-check items I post. But if I muff it once in a while, it’s not for lack of trying.