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 When the Greeks Ruled Egypt is at the Art Institute of Chicago through July 27th.

IN ITS LOOK in the run-up to the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of the First World War, the BBC has a look (in photos) of Paris in 1914 before the “lights went out” in Europe.

THE OTHER NIGHT yours truly hosted the Top Comments diary with a look at the 1939 anti-lynching song Strange Fruit – quite possibly the most important song of the 20th Century.

REGARDLESS OF WHICH CANDIDATE is elected later this year, the city of Paris, France will have its first female mayor.

YUK for today – the blogger Ed Kilgore on the decreasing role of political conventions:

Now, conventions aren’t totally useless. There’s something to be said for the painfully obvious display of the GOP’s lack of diversity; every time the camera shifts from the podium to the delegates, it looks like a Lawrence Welk Show episode gone very bad.

THURSDAY’s CHILD is an Arizona kitteh who survived a townhouse fire (with help from a firefighter’s oxygen mask), was taken to a local veterinarian and is doing well.

ATTENTION, READERS –  posted last month in this space was this year’s quiz from King William’s College (a prep school located on the UK’s Isle of Man) – with said quiz known as its General Knowledge Paper officially.

It consists of 18 groups of 10 questions – the first section on events 100 years ago, and the last on events of 2013. Each group has a common theme (though perhaps not immediately recognizable) that helps if you can answer at least one of that group’s questions – and is among the most difficult general knowledge quizzes on earth (quite British literature-laden, as you might well imagine) in part to being very cryptic.

At this link is the 2013-14 year’s quiz if you didn’t have a chance to take it.

Well, now the answers are available at this link – and yours truly maintained my blistering 2012-2013 total … of 2 (out of 180) correct.

FRIDAY’s CHILD is a West Virginia kitteh found frozen to an Ohio County bridge … but improving every day, and is now able to use the litter box and eat and drink on her own.

HAIL and FAREWELL to baseball Hall of Famer Ralph Kiner – a beloved broadcaster (from my youth) of the New York Mets since their inception in 1962 (although semi-retired the past decade or so) – who has died at the age of 91 …. and Maxine Kumin – the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet – who has died at the age of 88.

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

HANG TOUGH to the actor Leonard Nimoy – who revealed that is suffering from lung disease (despite stopping smoking 30 years ago) and urging his 808k Twitter followers to ‘quit now’.

FATHER-SON? – the late Dr. Zachary Smith (as portrayed by Jonathan Harris in “Lost in Space”) and venture capitalist Tom Perkins – whose use of the phrase Kristallnacht (in a Wall Street Journal “Oh, the pain” letter to the editor) garnered widespread criticism.

   

……. and finally, for a song of the week …………… a singer who cyclically falls in-and-out of mass appeal but never goes out-of-style is Patti LaBelle who has been recording since 1962 and has sold in excess of 50 million records. While her style of music isn’t always mine – and sometimes far from it – her voice is one that I’ll leave the radio/TV on whenever she is singing: you can always be surprised, it’s that special.

The Philadelphia native was born Patricia Holt in 1944 and after a stint in her church choir formed a vocal quartet that (in 1961) was named the Blue Belles. The head of Newtown Records thought her to be too plain to be the group’s lead singer … until he heard her voice. Then he suggested a name change: “LaBelle” to say “the beautiful”.

In addition to Sarah Dash, the quartet featured two others who would make a name for themselves: Nona Hendryx and Cindy Birdsong as well. They began (in those pre-Beatles days) with a doo-wop sound: I Sold My Heart to the Junkman was a 1940’s tune they made popular, and they also recorded their versions of old chestnuts: “Danny Boy”, “You’ll Never Walk Alone” and “Over the Rainbow”.

After also singing back-up for Wilson Pickett’s 634-5789 in 1967, Patti was upset when Cindy Birdsong announced that she would be Florence Ballard’s replacement in The Supremes (and would not even speak to Cindy for nearly twenty years). The remaining group continued in a mainstream R&B mode for the rest of the decade.

In 1970, the band came under the management of Englishwoman Vicki Wickham – Dusty Springfield’s manager – who re-named the band LaBelle. Their music changed into a more funky (and even rock-oriented) sound. They performed with Laura Nyro on her Gonna Take a Miracle album and they even toured with The Who (which had an interesting twist years later).

The group by 1973 had also “gone glam” – with Patti taking to wearing silver wigs – and were (a) the first African-American act to perform at New York’s Metropolitan Opera House, as well as (b) the first black vocal group to make the Rolling Stone cover. 1975’s Lady Marmalade – the ‘Voulez-vous you-know-what’ tune – reached #1, which proved to be their peak. After seventeen years together, LaBelle disbanded in 1977 and its members began solo careers.

Patti’s own solo career began modestly; medium-sized hits with “Joy to Have Your Love” and “You Are My Friend”. She also appeared with Al Green in a Broadway Your Arms Too Short to Box with God revival. But it was her signing with hometown label Philadelphia International in 1983 that jump-started her career. The ballad If You Only Knew reached #1 on the R&B charts and did well on the pop charts.

Her two songs for the “Beverly Hills Cop” film, New Attitude and Stir it Up also sold well. She reached #1 on the pop charts again in 1986 with the On My Own duet with Michael McDonald. Her recording of If You Asked Me To was only a modest hit; she was upset that Céline Dion’s later, similar version charted much higher than hers, citing racial attitudes on behalf of the public.

In the past twenty-five years she’s had only one minor hit (“A New Day” in 2004). But she’s been quite busy: finally releasing an oft-promised Gospel album in 2006 …. a Christmas album the next year ….. and in 2008 she reunited with Sarah Dash and Nona Hendryx to release their first group album in thirty-two years.

She’s been just as busy off the concert stage: a role on the NBC A Different World sitcom, releasing her autobiography in 1995 and has not only recorded diabetes commercials: she even has her own food company (complete with cookbooks) for those living with the disease.

After nearly fifty years, her career has garnered many honors: among them, 2 Grammy Awards, a Songwriters Hall of Fame Lifetime Achievement Award, an honorary degree from Temple University in 2010, and in 2009 was inducted into Harlem’s Apollo Theater Hall of Fame.

While she does not tour extensively she performed this past weekend at the 15th annual Gospel concert before the Super Bowl and will appear in San Antonio, Texas and in New Orleans on Feb 28th.

Such is her fame that while attending a recent Broadway show she was serenaded from the stage plus – acknowledging her large gay following – announced her support for same-sex marriage. Yet she balks at being called a diva – feeling that it is bandied about too freely. At age 69, it’s reasonable to expect that Patti Labelle may have some more surprises for us.

And while “If You Only Knew” can stand with the best of her material: I was surprised one night to see her performing an old rock standard on TV. When Ken Russell released his film version of Tommy in 1975, it was Tina Turner who played the role that calls for this song.

But in the 1989 reunion tour by The Who, it was their old touring friend Patti LaBelle whom they called upon to sing The Acid Queen – as this song gains so much by having a woman sing it.

And at this link you can see Patti LaBelle sing it with The Who and hear for yourself.