Motley Moose – Archive

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.

HAIL and FAREWELL to the British pop singer Duffy Power – who in 1963 recorded one of the first Beatles’ covers ever (with the future Cream rhythm section of bassist Jack Bruce and drummer Ginger Baker backing him) – who has died at the age of 72.

ART NOTES – also in the run-up to the 100th anniversary of its advent: posters, letters, photos and drawings help chronicle The World at War, 1914-1918 at the Ransom Center in Austin, Texas through August 3rd.

TEN YEARS AGO the two-time Oscar winner Cate Blanchett turned-in a fine performance as the Irish investigative journalist Veronica Guerin – who was murdered by some of the organized crime figures she was following. Last week, the kingpin who (it is believed) ordered her murder … was shot himself, and is now in a hospital recuperating.

THURSDAY’s CHILD is Priscilla the Cat – an English kitteh who went missing five years ago in Lincolnshire, England … and then waltzed up to Ruby Murphy at a bus stop as if no time had passed at all.

SCIENCE NOTES – in wondering why so many more males than females are afflicted with autism – and I have an nephew who is – an essay entitled “Why it’s not Rain Woman” speculates that women have fewer cognitive disorders than men do because their bodies are better at ignoring the mutations which cause them.

SAD to learn that in this economy, over 10,000 bars and restaurants closed last year in Spain – widely considered to be the country with the highest number of bars per capita.

FRIDAY’s CHILD is Boulette la Chatte – known in the English language as Meatball the Hero Cat – a French kitteh who alerted members of a multi-family home to a fire, then was feared lost in it … but who turned up safe a few hours later.

CHEERS to the former SCTV star Andrea Martin – a Portland, Maine native – who has a recent Tony Award, two upcoming Broadway plays …. and is set to publish her memoirs this year.

BRAIN TEASER – try this Quiz of the Week’s News from the BBC.

SEPARATED at BIRTH – the Scottish author Iain Banks – whose first collection of poetry will be published posthumously, eighteen months after his death last June …. and Steven Spielberg the Academy Award-winning director.

   

……and finally, for a song of the week …………… … as a follow-up to last week’s profile of a noted session player: someone who did so on drums, Earl Palmer – who, along with someone he mentored (Hal Blaine) and Nashville’s Buddy Harman – is among the three most-recorded drummers of all time. Few people know his name, but a look at some of the recordings he made will make one’s head nod in recognition. In addition, he is one of the pioneers of modern R&B and R&R back-beat style drumming; reportedly he was the first to use the word “funky” descriptively.

The New Orleans native was born to a pianist father and a mother who brought him with her and his aunt on the black vaudeville circuit … as a five year-old tap dancer. His sense of rhythm was further enhanced by lessons in piano, music theory and percussion at the city’s Gruenwald School of Music after serving in WW-II. There he sensed the Army’s institutional racism – as most black recruits were confined to service departments (although as a munitions handler, his task was less menial than for others).

In his early twenties, he began his career as drummer for the noted New Orleans bandleader Dave Bartholomew – who is still alive in his 94th year – yet he found more work as a session player at the famed New Orleans studio owned by Cosimo Matassa from 1950-1957. His drumming can be heard on many hits recorded by Professor Longhair, Lloyd Price, Smiley Lewis and – especially – for Little Richard and Fats Domino (which will be recounted later). And thus Palmer was definitely “present at the creation” of the rock-n-roll era, helping to shape its drum sound. He later said that one could identify New Orleans drummers, as their bass drum sound came from parade music.

Yet in 1957, Earl Palmer pulled-up stakes and left New Orleans – ostensibly to accept an offer to be an A&R man in Los Angeles for Aladdin Records  – but also to escape Jim Crow (declaring it “the best thing I ever did” despite having left his wife and children behind). Soon enough, the burgeoning LA recording scene was happy to welcome him into its Wrecking Crew and he later won elected office in musicians union Local 47. And recording on albums, films and TV became his mainstay for decades (although he did record two albums as a leader in the early 1960’s).

After retiring from session work in his later years, Earl Palmer returned to his first love (jazz) as a member of an LA-based jazz trio. Earl Palmer died in September, 2008 at the age of eighty-four after a long illness.

Now, to showcase just some of his career highlights.

In New Orleans in the 1950’s: his drums are heard on “I Hear You Knocking” (Smiley Lewis), “Lawdy Miss Clawdy” (Lloyd Price), “Tipitina” (Professor Longhair), “The Girl Can’t Help It” (Little Richard) and often for Fats Domino (“The Fat Man” and “Walking to New Orleans”) just for starters. This work alone would ensure his place in history. Yet upon relocating to LA, his career surged.

He backed musicians as diverse as Frank Sinatra, the Beach Boys, Bobby Vee, Ray Charles, Bobby Darin, Neil Young, Tom Waits and Elvis Costello. He was also able to record with stars from the jazz world (Dizzy Gillespie, Earl Bostic and Count Basie) as well as bluesman B.B. King. Here are just a few of the hit singles you can hear him on.

“La Bamba” and “Donna” (Ritchie Valens), “Summertime Blues” (Eddie Cochran), “Rockin’ Robin” (Bobby Day), “You Send Me” (Sam Cooke), “High Flying Bird” (Judy Henske),  “Little Old Lady from Pasadena” (Jan & Dean), “You’ve Lost that Loving Feeling” (Righteous Brothers), and “River Deep – Mountain High” (Tina Turner).

His film score soundtracks include “Judgement at Nuremberg”, “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad World”, “Cool Hand Luke” and “In the Heat of the Night”.

And for TV themes? How about: “The Flintstones”, “77 Sunset Strip”, “I Dream of Jeannie”, “Green Acres”, “The Brady Bunch”, “The Partridge Family”, “The Odd Couple”, “M*A*S*H”, “Mannix” and perhaps most notably “Mission: Impossible”.

Tony Scherman wrote a biography Backbeat: Earl Palmer’s Story – published in 1999, along with as much as a compliation album as can be found of his work. The following year, Earl Palmer was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as a sideman. In his own autobiography, Little Richard declared him “possibly the greatest session drummer of all time”.

Where to start? Well, let’s begin with an instrumental from his 1961 solo album … with The Clovers’ 1952 hit One Mint Julep – that years later received a hit version by Ray Charles – in which Earl Palmer’s drums are showcased on.

And below you can hear it.

But perhaps the hit single in which Earl Palmer’s drums propel the song most distinctively: is I’m Walkin’ from 1957. And below you can hear this Fats Domino classic.