birthday Archives - Page 18 of 51

Underplayed vinyl: Reflections – Gil Scott-Heron

The first song I remembered from Reflections by Gil Scott-Heron, before playing it again, is actually the final track, B-Movie, mostly about Ronald Reagan.

Gil Scott-Heron would have been 70 on April 1, 2019, reason enough to bring back a category on this blog. Underplayed Vinyl means records I used to play a LOT as LPs, but as I got into CDs, haven’t played nearly so much.

His “collaborative efforts with musician Brian Jackson featured a musical fusion of jazz, blues, and soul, as well as lyrical content concerning social and political issues of the time, delivered in both rapping and melismatic vocal styles by Scott-Heron. His own term for himself was ‘bluesologist’, which he defined as ‘a scientist who is concerned with the origin of the blues…’ Scott-Heron is considered by many to be the first rapper/MC ever…”

I have some other music by him. We Almost Lost Detroit appears on the No Nukes album. He co-wrote and sang on Let Me See Your I.D. on the Artists United Against Apartheid album Sun City. Most importantly, I have the epic The Revolution Will Not Be Televised on a compilation of 100 Years of Black Music.

Reflections (1981) is the only full Gil Scott-Heron album I own. The first song I remembered, before playing it again, is actually the final track, B-Movie, mostly about Ronald Reagan. It’s astonishing how relevant the lyrics still are. Just change the names of the players.

The idea concerns the fact that this country wants nostalgia
They want to go back as far as they can…
Even if it’s only as far as last week
Not to face now or tomorrow, but to face backwards

Reflections features:
Storm Music (Gil Scott-Heron)
Grandma’s Hands (Bill Withers)
Is That Jazz? (G S-H)
Morning Thoughts (G S-H)
Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler) (James Nyx, Marvin Gaye)
Gun (G S-H)
‘B’ Movie (Intro, Poem, Song) (G S-H)

Gil Scott-Heron, born April 1, 1949, died too early, on May 27, 2011 at the age of 62. I have found no cause of death, though “he disclosed in a 2008 New York Magazine interview that he had been HIV-positive for several years, and that he had been previously hospitalized for pneumonia.”

Pieces of a Man album (1971), the first cut being The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
Winter In America (1974)
We almost Lost Detroit (1977 studio version with Brian Jackson)
Reflections album (1981)
Artists United Against Apartheid: Let Me See Your ID (1985)
Several National Public Radio pieces

I get my kicks on Route 66

Annually on this date, I muse about how I will remember how old I am. It’s not a number that’s divisible by ten or even five.

Here I am with my mother, Trudy Green on my birthday in 2005. To be clear, I wasn’t dressed up for my natal day.

Actually, it was also the wedding day of my first niece, Rebecca Jade, to Rico Curtis, which I wrote about here. I noted that my mom wished me a happy birthday, first thing in the morning. What I didn’t mention was that no one else did that day, even my sister.

I didn’t mind (much) because their subsequent mortification was somewhat worth it. And, of course, mom remembering the birth date of her first born was golden.

Annually on this date, I muse about how I will remember how old I am. It’s not a number that’s divisible by ten or even five.

But it does have two things going for it. Well, four:
1) a repeating digit
2) a famous U.S. highway which runs from Chicago to Los Angeles, though black Americans were not nearly as nostalgic about it
3) a TV show (1960-1964) about traveling said highway with Martin Milner, and George Maharis or Glenn Corbett, which I used to watch
4) a famous song about said highway, written by Bobby Troup in 1946

Since I don’t blog on my birthday, I’ll leave you with versions of a certain song
Nat King Cole, mom’s favorite artist
Bing Crosby and The Andrews Sisters
Chuck Berry
The Rolling Stones
Them
Dr. Feelgood
Asleep at the Wheel
Glenn Frey

There are plenty more versions. Happy birthday to me. I’m how old again? And happy 14th anniversary to Rebecca and Rico!

Boxer George Foreman turns 70

With this historic victory, George Foreman broke three records.

George Foreman There was a time in the United States when most people could name the current heavyweight boxing champion. My paternal grandfather McKinley Green probably could have named them all, from John L. Sullivan through Jack Johnson, Jack Dempsey, the undefeated Rocky Marciano to Floyd Patterson.

In 1967, Muhammad Ali was stripped of his title that he’d won in 1964 (as Cassius Clay) by beating Sonny Liston. This was due to his refusal to be inducted into the military during the Vietnam War. “Smokin'” Joe Frazier eventually won the confusing alphabet soup of titles when he defeated Jimmy Ellis in 1970. Frazier then beat Ali, who was by then allowed to make his comeback, in the “Fight of the Century” in 1971.

On January 22, 1973, Frazier lost his title when he was defeated for the first time professionally by George Foreman. Foreman had won a gold medal in the heavyweight division at the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City. He turned professional in 1969. After he beat Frazier, he had two successful title defenses.

Foreman’s lost the title in his first professional defeat, to Muhammad Ali, in “The Rumble in the Jungle” in October 1974 in Zaire. George retired from boxing after a loss to Jimmy Young in 1977 and had a religious conversion. He became an ordained minister and opened a youth center in Houston, TX.

In 1987, at the age of 38, George announced he was returning to boxing to raise money for his youth center. From the Wikipedia: “By 1989, Foreman had sold his name and face for the advertising of various products, selling everything from grills to mufflers on TV….his public persona was reinvented, and the formerly aloof, ominous Foreman had been replaced by a smiling, friendly George.” In fact, it was the George Foreman Grill that made him far more money than he made in his boxing career.

Still, in 1994, he fought a guy named Michael Moorer. “With this historic victory, Foreman broke three records: he became, at age 45, the oldest fighter ever to win the World Heavyweight Championship; 20 years after losing his title for the first time, he broke the record for the fighter with the longest interval between his first and second world championships; and the age spread of 19 years between the champion and challenger was the largest of any heavyweight boxing championship fight.” He eventually ceded the title.

He has a dozen kids. “On his website, Foreman explains, ‘I named all [five of] my sons George Edward Foreman so they would always have something in common. I say to them, ‘If one of us goes up, then we all go up together, and if one goes down, we all go down together!'”

Donna Summer would have been 70 (NYE)

Donna Summer claimed a top 40 hit every year between 1975 and 1984

Donna Summer Those of you too young to remember the days of disco may not understand how truly reviled it was. The teenage son of a friend of mine mocked the fact that I bought, owned and played the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack.

But not everyone thought disco sucked. Another friend bought me the Donna Summer album Live and More, a two-LP collection that featured, on side three, in order, live versions of Love to Love You Baby, I Feel Love, and Last Dance.

Then on side four, there was a 17-minute studio version of the MacArthur Park Suite, starting and ending with the Jimmy Webb song with One of a Kind and Heaven Knows mixed there.

The woman born LaDonna Adrian Gaines was one of the most significant artists in her time. “A five-time Grammy Award winner, Summer was the first artist to have three consecutive double albums reach number one on the United States Billboard 200 chart and charted four number-one singles in the US within a 12-month period.

“Summer earned a total of 42 hit singles on the US Billboard Hot 100 in her lifetime, with 14 of those reaching the top-ten. She claimed a top 40 hit every year between 1975 and 1984, and from her first top-ten hit in 1976, to the end of 1982, she had 12 top-ten hits (10 were top-five hits), more than any other act during that time period.”

Donna Summer had “nineteen Number One dance hits between 1975 and 2008 (second only to Madonna).” Her “success continued throughout the Eighties and into the Nineties. In 1992 Summer was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.”

In 2013, she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, described as the Queen of Disco and the Mother of Modern Dance Music. Unfortunately, it was the year after she died of lung cancer in May of 2012.

Listen to multiple versions of Donna Summer songs, shortest take first

@Love to Love You Baby – #2 pop for two weeks, #3 R&B in 1976 – here or here

@I Feel Love – #6 pop, #9 R&B in 1977 here or here or here

Last Dance – #3 for two weeks pop, #5 R&B in 1978 here or here

MacArthur Park – #1 pop for three weeks, #8 R&B in 1978 here or here

Hot Stuff – #1 for three weeks pop, #3 for three weeks in 1979; here; it also won her a Grammy for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance, the first time the category was included.

@Bad Girls – #1 for five weeks pop, #1 R&B in 1979 here or here

No More Tears (Enough is Enough) – with Barbra Streisand – #1 for two weeks pop, #20 R&B in 1979; here or here; four Number One pop hits in a little over a year.

@She Works Hard for the Money – #3 for three weeks pop, #1 for three weeks R&B in 1983 here or here

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

@ co-written by Donna Summer

Donna Summer would have been 70 on New Year’s Eve.

Actor Samuel L Jackson turns 70

There’s a 2012 article in the New York Times which tries to explain How Samuel L Jackson Became His Own Genre:

“Jules was the moral center of Pulp Fiction because he carried himself like a professional. Before Jules, my characters were just ‘The Negro’ who died on Page 30.” Look at his early credits in IMDB, he’s not wrong.

“After Jules, I became the coolest [expletive] on the planet. Why? I have no clue. I’m not like Jules. It’s called being an actor.” However, it was Spike Lee’s movie Jungle Fever that broke him, “well before Pulp Fiction made him a household name. His role as a crackhead son of a minister came literally weeks after his own rehab, and changed everything.”

Maybe, as some speculate, it’s his bald head and youthful demeanor that allows him a chameleon-like quality. Regardless, he’s now EVERYWHERE. In credit card commercials on TV. As Nick Fury, agent of SHIELD, in a slew of movies in the Marvel Universe. He’s in two other franchises, Star Wars, and the animated Incredibles; he’s also appeared in a number of Quentin Tarantino’s other films.

From the Wikipedia: Samuel Leroy Jackson “grew up as an only child in Chattanooga, Tennessee. His father lived away from the family in Kansas City, Missouri, and later died from alcoholism. Jackson was raised by his mother, who was a factory worker… and by his maternal grandparents and extended family.

“Between the third and 12th grades, he played the French horn and trumpet in the school orchestra. Jackson also played the flute and piccolo.

“Initially intent on pursuing a degree in marine biology, he attended Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia. After joining a local acting group to earn extra points in a class, Jackson found an interest in acting and switched his major.

“In 1969, Jackson and several other students held members of the Morehouse College board of trustees hostage on the campus, demanding reform in the school’s curriculum and governance. The college eventually agreed to change its policy, but Jackson was charged with and eventually convicted of unlawful confinement, a second-degree felony.

“Jackson was then suspended for two years for his criminal record and his actions. He would later return to the college to earn his Bachelor of Arts in Drama in 1972.” To make ends meet, he sold hot dogs, burgers and fries at Atlanta Falcons’ football games.

“In 1980, Jackson married actress and sports channel producer LaTanya Richardson, whom he met while attending Morehouse College. The couple has a daughter, Zoe (born 1982).”

Samuel L Jackson has been such a diverse array of films that, according to Rotten Tomatoes, he’s been in movies lauded by all the critics – Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson (2004) and by none of them – Kite (2014).

Jackson “has achieved critical and commercial acclaim, surpassing Frank Welker as the actor with the highest-grossing film total of all time in October 2011.” Also, “he enjoys collecting the action figures of the characters he portrays in his films, including Jules Winnfield, Shaft, Mace Windu, and Frozone.”