I post a weekly diary of historical notes, arts & science items, foreign news (often receiving little notice in the US) and whimsical pieces from the outside world that I often feature in "Cheers & Jeers".
OK, you've been warned - here is this week's tomfoolery material that I posted.
CHEERS to Bill and Michael in PWM and ...... well, each of you at Cheers and Jeers. Have a fabulous weekend .... and week ahead.
ART NOTES— the Grand Egyptian Museum (outside Cairo) has been opening in stages … and will have its official grand opening in early July (when the King Tut gallery opens), with over 100k items.
I recall when the King Tut exhibits came to the Metropolitan Museum of NYC in 1978: timed tickets were free if you obtained them at the box office, while ordering them from Ticketron (the forerunner to you-know-who) had a per-ticket charge of ……. a bone-crushing 60¢.
YOUR WEEKEND READ #1 is this Substack essay by former Mike Pence staffer Olivia Troye (a frequent MSNBC guest) about the sentencing hearing for the El Paso racist shooter who — despite his immigrant hatred — was shown a great deal of compassion by the Hispanic community of her hometown (as a sign that his hate could not win) before receiving his life sentence.
THURSDAY's CHILD is named Sophie the Cat - who wandered onto the White House lawn, joining the press corps (before being returned to her human).
YOUR WEEKEND READ #2 is this essay by Adam Klasfeld about three Georgetown Law students— distraught over the actions of leading legal firms — who created a spreadsheet with the following categories: “Caved to Administration,” “Complying in Advance,” “Other Negative Action,” “No Response” as well as … “Stood Up Against Administration’s Attacks”. It has had more of an impact than all of the spreadsheets I’ve compiled over forty years combined.
FRIDAY's CHILD is is the late, great Toby the Campus Cat - who became part of Britain's University of Worcester campus and whose passing is being mourned by students and faculty alike.
BRAIN TEASER— try this Quiz of the Week's News from the BBC ...… and the usually easier, less UK-centered New York Times quiz.
YOUR WEEKEND READ #3 is this essay in the Huffington Post by Jennifer Bendery, about the website PublicSquare— which lets you search for businesses in your community that endorse Trump/MAGA values — yet now is backfiring … as people use it to boycott those businesses.
YOUNGER-OLDER BROTHERS?— Bill Gates and English musician Steve Winwood.
...... and finally, for a song of the week ...........................… the full name of The Who’s guitarist is Peter Dennis Blandford Townshend … yes, a mouthful. It turns out that Dennis was his mother’s last name and Blandford was his father’s middle name. And while it’s not unusual to read about famous musicians whose parents were also in the business … Pete’s parents make for an interesting storyline.
Cliff Townshend (1916-1986) was an alto saxophonist/clarinetist who in his teens was expelled from school for performing at what were called bottle parties (after-hours adult places with drinking and popular music). At age twenty-four in 1940, he enlisted in the Royal Air Force (RAF) after the outbreak of WW-II. He was invited to join the RAF Dance Orchestra (popularly known as the Squadronaires) and the following year he met Betty Dennis (1923-2010) who had enlisted (as an RAF truck driver) at only age seventeen. She was a featured singer with various RAF ensembles and the two married in 1944.
When Betty gave birth to Peter (less than two weeks after Germany surrendered in 1945) she stopped singing but continued to work in the offices of the Squadronaires. The band toured for several years, placing a strain on the couple’s marriage (with Betty having affairs) and both having drinking problems that led to a two-year separation before they reunited. (The Squadronaires disbanded in 1964, but reformed in 1985, and are still playing at charity events).
In 1956 Cliff recorded an instrumental version of the song Unchained Melody— (the theme song to the 1955 film Unchained), which had some success in Britain during its difficult post-war recovery years (and helping the family’s finances).
The song has had numerous recordings since; most famously by the Righteous Brothers, whose 1965 recording received a new-lease-on-life twenty-five years later (via the film Ghost).
The years 1956-1957 saw Cliff bring his eldest son to two events involving Bill Haley: first to the film Rock Around the Clock, and then to see Haley perform in London, which Pete considered one of the origins of his career in rock music.
Years later Pete related how he loved his father yet Cliff could never understand rock music, adding:
“‘Pete, you guys with your big amplifiers … can fill a ballroom with just three of you … making the music, and a singer. For us, it’s 20 people. … [W]e can’t do what you do. You are putting us out of business.’ He didn’t say it in anger. He didn’t say it with resentment, but he stated it as a fact, and it turned out to be a fact”.
I think Cliff is a bit off in that it wasn’t simply rock music that did it. Many of the big-bands of the pre-war period fell victim to the changing post-war economics (with Duke Ellington and Count Basie being notable exceptions). Small groups became the norm in jazz, with Charlie Parker/Miles Davis as the new wave.
On that note:
In his own 2012 memoirs, Pete wrote a comforting paragraph to me, as every-now-and-then, I get a little wistful: about being just too young to have gone to the Fillmore East, nor seeing some of the rock and blues bands that didn’t last into the 1970’s, when I came-of-age (as well as John Coltrane). From Who I Am, page 108:
“[Jimi Hendrix] was a mesmerizing performer, and I hesitate to describe how fantastic he was to actually see play live, because I don’t want to make his legions of younger fans feel they’ve missed out.
We all miss out on something. I missed out on (Charlie) Parker, (Duke) Ellington and (Louis) Armstrong”.
Here is that 1956 instrumental recording of Unchained Melody.
In 1981, Pete appeared on the BBC with his father … and beginning around the 2:20 mark, the two men perform together as the show ends. A year after his father’s death in 1986, Pete dedicated his solo album Another Scoop to him.