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.

ART NOTES – an exhibition entitled Warhol On Vinyl: The Record Covers, 1949-1987 is at the Cranbrook Art Museum in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan through March 15, 2014.

IN A PROFILE of the once (and now present) president of Chile, Michelle Bachelet hopes to remove the last vestiges of the Pinochet dictatorship, while noting that Latin America now has more women in high office than Europe.

WHILE IT’S A LENGTHY read, do have a look at this BBC story about the practice of “contract children” (or verdingkinder) in Switzerland – who were taken from their parents and sent to farms to work, which began in the 1850’s and which did not end until … the 1970’s.

THURSDAY’s CHILD is Linus the Cat – who has ruled the roost at Champlain College in Vermont …. but whose family will soon be moving, to the dismay of many on campus.

IT’S NOT AS DRAMATIC as Scotland’s independence vote: but newly re-elected conservative prime minister John Key has scheduled a binding referendum (in 2016) on changing part of the national flag of New Zealand – removing Britain’s Union Jack and replacing it with a silver fern.

FRIDAY’s CHILD is Sheldon the Cat – a Colorado kitteh who went missing for three years before being identified (by a shelter employee) due to his microchip …. actually a photo, as she recalled a cat with a funny shaped head being reported missing years before.

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

BOOK NOTES – a new book written by the father of the Norwegian far-right mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik – to give his side of the turmoil his son’s actions caused and his sense of responsibility – also says that Jens Breivik believes his son is becoming even more extreme in prison and fears his son will never allow his father to see him again.

MOTHER-DAUGHTER? – film star Priscilla Presley and TV star Tiffani-Amber Thiessen.

   

…… and finally, for a song of the week …………………….. in a busy week, I simply have time to post a brief tribute to the passing of my favorite musician of all time (and whom I will delve into in detail this coming Monday evening in the Top Comments diary).

For those whose favorite musicians are no longer alive (i.e., John Lennon, James Brown, Elvis Presley, Jimi Hendrix, Billie Holiday, Janis Joplin) I can now relate, with the death of Jack Bruce – best-known as the bassist of the super-group Cream from the 1960’s, with Ginger Baker on drums and a 23 year-old Eric Clapton on guitar – who died this past Saturday from liver disease. He was my musical hero and an inspiration to me as a bassist in my mis-spent youth.

This is hitting me harder than I expected it to … after all, he had a liver transplant in 2003, which prolonged his life for another eleven years. Yet in the end … it could do so no longer.

Yet he was not a sideman bassist: on the contrary, he wrote and sang much of Cream’s material in their short existence (1966-1968), was an accomplished cellist in his youth (earning a scholarship to the Royal Scottish Academy of Music) and often played keyboards on records and in concert.

If you only know him for the two hit songs he wrote/sang with Cream, Sunshine of your Love and White Room that’s not bad, but he was so much more.

He performed with pioneering English R&B singer Graham Bond (where he first performed with Baker), bluesman John Mayall (where he performed with Clapton), Manfred Mann, West, Bruce & Laing (a trio with 2/3 of the band Mountain), Tony Williams Lifetime (an early jazz-rock band), in bands with former Procol Harum guitarist Robin Trower, and leading his own bands for many years. I had a chance to see Jack three times as a solo performer, and twice (once in London and once in New York) when Cream reunited for several shows in 2005.

   

I was grateful that he lived to release one final album Silver Rails this past spring, and it is on my CD player as I write. More will come in my Top Comments diary this coming Monday … for now, two songs to remember him by.

One is my favorite song from his final album, Fields of Forever … you can hear that his once mellifluous voice had weakened, but was still vibrant:

The other is perhaps the most elegant song he wrote/performed after his time with Cream. Theme for an Imaginary Western is a ballad that (metaphorically) refers to the pioneering British blues pioneers of the 1960’s, striking out in search of new territory. It appeared on Jack Bruce’s first solo album Songs for a Tailor – which was produced by Felix Pappalardi who had previously been Cream’s producer. Felix then brought it with him to his band Mountain, and others have since covered the song. After Pappalardi was shot and killed by his wife in 1983, Jack Bruce had subsequently dedicated the song to Felix. And below you can hear it.