Folksinger Gilbert Vandine “Cisco” Houston was born in Wilmington, Delaware on August 18, 1918. Houston is probably best-known for his work with Woody Guthrie, but he also performed with artists like Lead Belly and the Almanac Singers.
Houston had a great voice and was a wonderful interpreter of traditional songs and folk songs written by others. But he also wrote some songs and worked for good causes with Guthrie, touring migrant camps and supporting workers’ rights.
Houston died at a relatively young age from stomach cancer in California on April 29, 1961. Below Houston sings “The Preacher and the Slave (Pie in the Sky),” a song written by activist and songwriter Joe Hill.
Although Cisco Houston is not remembered as well as some of his contemporaries, he has always been respected by other folk singers.
Houston is referenced in a number of songs, including Steve Earle’s “Christmas in Washington (Come Back Woody Guthrie).” In that song, Earle laments, “To listen to the radio / You’d think that all was well / But you and me and Cisco know / It’s going straight to hell.”
Folksinger, actor, and famous snowman Burl Ives was born in Illinois on June 14, 1909. Ives had one of the most recognizable voices of American singers, although I suspect that most people today know him for one TV role more than anything else. But many of us, like Johnny Cash, learned some of our first songs from Ives.
In the 1930s, Ives became an important figure in the folk-revival movement. After moving to New York City, he worked for progressive causes and performed with musicians that included Pete Seeger, Josh White, Alan Lomax and Lead Belly.
A rift later developed between Ives and Seeger after Ives, accused of being a communist, cooperated with the witch hunt by the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1952. Ives saved his career as others who stood up for the First Amendment suffered. Seeger compared him to a “common stool pigeon.” But Ives and Seeger eventually reconciled decades later.
Ives recorded a number of successful albums and helped popularize songs like “Blue Tail Fly” and “Big Rock Candy Mountain.” Growing up, my family welcomed Christmas every year with Ives’ interpretation of Christmas folk songs on the record album Christmas Eve (1957).
Many associate Ives with Christmas for another reason. He provided the voice for the narrator Sam the Snowman in the 1964 Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer holiday TV special. Ives also developed a career as an actor, including roles in films like Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958). He won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in The Big Country (1958).
Throughout it all was his wonderful voice. The warmth of his tone made every song welcoming and familiar.
Below, Ives appears on Johnny Cash’s television show. After performing by himself, Ives is joined by Cash to sit down, tell some stories, and sing some folk songs. Cash introduces the songs by noting how he learned some of his first songs and chords by listening to Ives.
Ives, who was a pipe and cigar smoker, died from complications related to oral cancer on April 14, 1995.
What is your favorite Burl Ives recording? Leave your two cents in the comments.
One ridiculous aspect about comments made by President Donald Trump regarding his preference for immigrants from Norway over immigrants from Haiti and some other African nations is the debate about his language. Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Senator David Perdue of Georgia, who attended the Oval Office meeting, defend the president by using a bit of linguistic legerdemain.
While reliable sources confirm that Trump referred to Haiti and other countries as “shithole countries,” Trump’s allies have raised an interesting defense. Cotton and Perdue supported Trump by denying the president said the word. But apparently the basis for their defense is that Trump actually said “shithouse countries.”
Others may debate whether it is more or less racist to have used one term over the other. But it is clear that politics is at a low level when you have elected Senators even making such an argument to suck up to this president.
The incident, however, probably is not a new low for politics. Just considering Cotton’s record, one sees a man whose loyalty to ideology often trumps traditional notions of national service. For example, during his first year in the Senate in 2015, Cotton organized other Senators to undermine President Barack Obama’s nuclear negotiations with Iran through a letter to the government of a foreign country.
Cotton also worked to prevent the confirmation of a highly qualified African-American woman to be the U.S. ambassador to the Bahamas because she was friends with President Obama. The nominee, Cassandra Butts, had a distinguished career when she was nominated for a position that needed to be filled.
After a hearing about Butts’s nomination in May 2014, Cotton put a hold on her confirmation. He later told her that he was doing it because he knew she had been friends with President Obama since law school. And he wanted to hurt the president. Butts spent the last 835 days of her life waiting for the confirmation before she died of acute leukemia.
“Cotton Fields”
For something nicer, when I think of rotten cotton, I go back to the classic song “Cotton Fields.”
Oh, when them cotton bolls get rotten, You can’t pick very much cotton In them old cotton fields back home.
Huddie Ledbetter, better known as Lead Belly, wrote “Cotton Fields.” He recorded it in 1940.
A number of famous artists have covered the song, including Odetta, Harry Belafonte, the Beach Boys, and Johnny Cash. But my favorite cover version is the one by Creedence Clearwater Revival.
The CCR version is the one I grew up listening to. It appeared on their 1969 album Willy and the Poor Boys.
“Cotton Fields” is a wonderful song that people still enjoy more than seventy-five years after it was first recorded. By contrast, seventy-five years from now, nobody will probably remember how a man named Cotton tried to ingratiate himself to a president based on a distinction between “shithole” and “shithouse.”
Photo of cotton fields via Creative Commons and Kimberly Vardeman. What is your favorite version of “Cotton Fields”? Leave your two cents in the comments.
On May 6, 1937, the German passenger airship Hindenburg caught fire while it attempted to dock at a naval station in Lakehurst, New Jersey. Thirty-five of the 97 people on board the ship died, along with one worker on the ground.
Herbert Morrison’s Report
Many people would listen to Herbert Morrison‘s recorded reports on the radio. The horrible crash — along with Morrison’s cry of “Oh, the humanity!” — helped end public confidence in the use of airships as a means of travel.
This video puts together Morrson’s reporting with some separate color footage from the scene.
Lead Belly’s “The Hindenburg Disaster”
In the years before television, songwriter often responded quickly to write songs about a major disaster. And Huddie Ledbetter, better known as Lead Belly, used his songwriting skills to tell the story of the Hindenburg in “The Hindenburg Disaster.”
Lead Belly recorded his song for the Library of Congress on June 22, 1937. Check out his version of the story in “The Hindenburg Disaster.”
On February 15 in 1903, the first Teddy bears appeared in a toy store window. The name for the bears was inspired by the man who was the president of the United States.
Morris Michtom, who owned a toy store, had written a letter to President Theodore Roosevelt asking permission to use the name “Teddy” for his bears. The president gave his approval. Other toy makers soon followed Michtom’s lead in naming stuffed bears, leading to the popular Teddy bear.
The Inspiration for the First Teddy Bear
The stories of the details about the event that inspired Michtom’s letter vary somewhat. But it is clear that Michtom got the idea from President Roosevelt’s encounter with a bear. While hunting in Mississippi in 1902, President Roosevelt, who would later found the Bull Moose Party, showed mercy to a bear.
Some stories today claim the bear was a cub tied to a tree, but it more likely was an old bear. Either way, the incident illustrated another side of Roosevelt. Political cartoonists portrayed the event by illustrating a cub, showing the tough Roosevelt as a softy at heart.
“(Let Me Be Your) Teddy Bear”
The most famous song about Teddy bears was released more than five decades later in 1957. That year, a rock icon showed his softer Teddy bear side.
Elvis Presley sang “(Let Me Be Your) Teddy Bear” in the movie Loving You (1957), his second film and his first in color. The song went to number one on the charts that year.
“Boll Weevil” And Its Connection to “(Let Me Be Your) Teddy Bear”
Kal Mann and Bernie Lowe wrote “(Let Me Be Your) Teddy Bear,” but part of the inspiration for the song came indirectly from an insect. Wikipedia and other sources report that the song’s roots go back to a traditional blues song, “Boll Weevil.”
In “Boll Weevil,” a boll weevil talks to a farmer, threatening the cotton crop while looking for a home. The song has been around since at least the 1920s, and it may have its origins in Roosevelt’s time.
One of the most famous early recordings of “The Boll Weevil” was by Lead Belly in the 1930s.
Can you hear “Teddy Bear” in Lead Belly’s song? If not, listen to singer-songwriter Brook Benton‘s version of “The Boll Weevil Song,” which became a hit in 1961.
Now you hear it, don’t you? And now you know, how a bull moose, a bear, and a beetle helped give Elvis Presley a hit song.
Cartoon by by Clifford Berryman via public domain.What are your favorite songs about bears and bugs? Leave your two cents in the comments.
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