RIP Archives - Page 6 of 9

Rescue Me: Fontella Bass and the Joy and Pain of a Hit Song

Fontella Bass, who is best known for her 1965 hit “Rescue Me,” passed away at the age of 72 on December 26, 2012 in St. Louis. Bass, who had other hits, is best known for the song she co-wrote during a jam session with Carl Smith, Raynard Miner, and Phil Wright. Her recording of the song for Chess Records went to Number 4 on the Billboard pop chart and to Number 1 on the R&B charts.

Although one might think that having a great hit song would only be a source of joy, Bass had to fight over royalty rights to “Rescue Me” for decades. Initially, she did not have a manager and did not get much royalties from her hit song, instead making a living from her voice in commercials. Later, she had to fight to get some money for her record and among the settlements, she reached an agreement with American Express in 1993 after they used her song in a commercial.

There was an upside to the litigation around “Rescue Me,” as Bass explained in a November 1995 interview with The Tuscaloosa News. The American Express battle inspired her and earned her some money to come out of a low point in her life.

Aside from the litigation, Bass did not always get the recognition she deserved for her most famous song. Many mistakenly think Aretha Franklin is the original singer of “Rescue Me,” which I suppose is a complement for most singers. Franklin eventually recorded a version of “Rescue Me” for a 1992 Pizza Hut commercial where the chorus was instead “Deliver Me.”

Bass lived in Europe for awhile, leaving the American recording industry in 1969, but she recorded periodically. She had other more modest hits like “Don’t Mess Up a Good Thing” with Bobby McClure and other recordings like the very different funk and jazz-inspired “Theme de Yoyo.” She earned a Grammy nomination for a 1995 gospel album.

But it is “Rescue Me” that is mentioned in the first line of her obituaries. It is a great gift she gave to the world even it it was not always a gift to her. In the video below, she sings the song on Shindig! in 1965, before the years of litigation, not yet realizing she would never have such a song again.

For more information, Randall Roberts at the Los Angeles Times writes a nice appreciation of Bass’s work. NPR has a short audio story about Bass. The Guardian has a nice obituary too.

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Aretha Franklin 1972 Performance Will Be Released: “Amazing Grace”

Performance of the Day: Aretha Franklin Live at Fillmore West 1971

Ned Miller: The Shy Man Behind “From a Jack to a King”

Merle Haggard: “Kern River”

Jeremiah Was a Bullfrog

(Some related Chimesfreedom posts.)

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Take Five Dave Brubeck

Jazz pianist Dave Brubeck passed away today of heart failure while he was on his way to the cardiologist. He would have turned 92 tomorrow. Other articles elsewhere will discuss his legacy, both for his music and for leading on some Civil Rights issues, for example, when he played black clubs in the South in the 1950s.

But for now, let us listen to one of the great classics of jazz music and instead of saying “R.I.P.,” we will just say, “Take Five.”

The above performance of “Take Five” with the Dave Brubeck Quartet is from 1964 in Belgium, with Brubeck on piano. The other musicians are Paul Desmond (alto saxophone), Eugene Wright (bass), and Joe Morello (drums).

What is your favorite recording or performance by Dave Brubeck? Leave your two cents in the comments.

Charlie Haden’s “Spiritual”

Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)

Barbara Dane’s Cool Musical Legacy: “Wild Woman,” “Gasser,” “Hard-Hitter”

Ned Miller: The Shy Man Behind “From a Jack to a King”

Merle Haggard: “Kern River”

Jeremiah Was a Bullfrog

(Some related Chimesfreedom posts.)

Not a Liar or a Hypocrite: Gore Vidal vs. Norman Mailer

I was sad to hear that author, playwright, commentator, etc. Gore Vidal passed away Tuesday from complications from pneumonia. Vidal was a rare breed who was able to be intellectual, thought-provoking, controversial, and a celebrity all at the same time. Popular culture often takes the easy well-worn path down to a common denominator, but Vidal was able to be both smart and entertaining, whether one agreed with him or not.

I have enjoyed several of his books, including his historical novel Lincoln and his collection of fascinating essays in United States. But when I heard he died, my first thought was of his famous feud with Norman Mailer that was brilliantly captured in December 1971 on The Dick Cavett Show. It was an exchange between two men you would not expect to see on television today. Several years ago, Slate even suggested the confrontation be made into a play.

Mailer was drunk and had head-butted Vidal in the green room before the appearance as revenge for Vidal’s negative book review of Mailer’s Prisoner of Sex. In the review, Vidal wrote that Mailer — along with Henry Miller and Charles Manson — were part of “a continuum in the brutal and violent treatment of women.” Mailer took the criticism as a reference to an incident where he was arrested in 1960 for stabbing his wife with a penknife. The two writers continued the argument in front of the audience with Cavett and writer Janet Flanner in the middle. . .

Well, okay, it is a little like reality TV, but with two great writers and intellectual giants of their generation. Note that after Mailer called Vidal a “liar and a hypocrite,” he then pointed to Vidal’s reference to the wife-stabbing. Vidal responded with great wit, “But that wasn’t a lie or a hypocrisy.” Ouch.

And we are still talking about it decades later, as Cavett wrote about the interview in a 2007 essay about the experience in The New York Times. In the article, Cavett noted that both Vidal and Mailer returned to his show again, but he never had them on the same show again. Although the two writers never became great friends, they did not remain enemies. Mailer later explained, “We pass, and like two old whores on the street, say ‘Still at it, Norm?’ ‘Yep. Still at it, Gore?’ ” Unfortunately for us, neither man is still at it, but we can still read and debate their stories and their ideas, and that is not a bad legacy. RIP Mr. Vidal.

Who do you think wins the exchange? Leave your two cents in the comments.

Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)

Bryan Cranston As LBJ in “All the Way” (Short Review)

Ned Miller: The Shy Man Behind “From a Jack to a King”

Merle Haggard: “Kern River”

Jeremiah Was a Bullfrog

B.B. King: “Why I Sing the Blues”

(Some related Chimesfreedom posts.)

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I Sit Here Tonight, the Jukebox Playing Kitty Wells

Country music legend Kitty Wells passed away July 16, 2012 at the age of 92. Among other accomplishments, she will be remembered because in 1952 her record of “It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels” became the first country music #1 song by a woman soloist. It is a great country song too.

Although Wells may be best remembered for that groundbreaking hit, she had many other popular recordings, including a version of “I Can’t Stop Loving You,” and she was known as the “Queen of Country.” She was generally listed as the top female country singer for more than a decade during 1952 through 1968 before being dethroned by Tammy Wynette, who was followed by other female country singers. Wells’s website notes a number of honors, including that she was inducted into the Country Music Association Hall of Fame in 1976.

Although it is hard to imagine now, but “It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels” was controversial when released. The song was an answer song to Hank Thompson’s “The Wild Side of Life,” where the singer said he didn’t know that God made honky tonk angels and bemoaned the lover that left him to go back to the wild side of life.

In Wells’s response with “It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels,” written by J.D. “Jay” Miller, Wells put the blame back on the men. At the time, some of the male-dominated radio stations would not play the song and she was not allowed to perform it at the Grand Ole Opry. But the song struck a chord with enough people to become a bigger hit than Thompson’s song.

Both Thompson’s and Wells’s songs used the same tune, which appeared in the earlier songs of The Carter Family’s 1929 “I’m Thinking Tonight of My Blue Eyes” and Roy Acuff’s 1936 classic record of Rev. Guy Smith’s “The Great Speckled Bird.” Kitty Wells herself later recorded “The Great Speckled Bird,” where you can hear the similarity to “It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels.”

Wells was born Ellen Muriel Deason in Nashville, Tennessee on August 30, 1919. She changed her name to Kitty Wells in 1943 based on a suggestion of her husband, Johnny Wright, who was also a country music performer. The name came from a folk ballad recorded by the Pickard Family, entitled “Sweet Kitty Wells.” Here is the song that provided her name, recorded by Billy Grammer.

Peace to Sweet Kitty Wells and honky tonk angels everywhere.

What is your favorite Kitty Wells song? Leave your two cents in the comments.

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Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)

Billy Grammer and Buddy Holly’s Opening Song, “Gotta Travel On”

Ned Miller: The Shy Man Behind “From a Jack to a King”

Merle Haggard: “Kern River”

Song of the Day: Lee Ann Womack “Chances Are”

Jeremiah Was a Bullfrog

(Some related Chimesfreedom posts.)

Andy Griffith Was America’s Favorite Country Boy

One of the legends of television, Andy Griffith passed away today at the age of 86. He died at his home on Roanoke Island, North Carolina, where he lived peacefully out of the spotlight. Griffith will always be remembered as the sheriff of Mayberry in The Andy Griffith Show (1960-1968), where Griffith also helped in developing the scripts for the series. Many of us grew up watching that show and Griffith’s role in the legal drama, Matlock (1986-1995), which actually ran longer than The Andy Griffith Show.

Griffith’s first big break came when his 1953 funny monologue, “What it Was, Was Football,” became a best-selling record. The story recounts a hillbilly’s attempt to try to figure out the sport.

On television, he appeared in the teleplay No Time for Sergeants in 1955 playing a country boy in the Air Force. The show would later inspire the Andy Griffith Show spin-off, U.S.M.C. Gomer Pyle, and it led to Griffith starring in the 1958 film version of No Time for Sergeants. The movie teamed Griffith with Don Knotts, who went on to co-star as Barney Fife on The Andy Griffith Show. The TV show pairing with the funny Knotts freed Griffith’s Andy Taylor from having to be the clown and allowed his character to develop as the small town’s heart. Knotts also became Griffith’s life-long best friend until Knotts died in 2006.

My favorite Griffith movie role is his starring performance in A Face in the Crowd (1957). The film, directed by Elia Kazan, starred Griffith as a power-hungry country boy, capturing something darker than we would usually see in Griffith’s characters. The film had mixed reviews initially, but today, most critics appreciate the film’s deep journey into revealing something scary underlying American popular culture. A Face in the Crowd now has an excellent 91% Critics Rating and a 93% Audience Rating on the Rotten Tomatoes website.

In later years, Griffith did not appear often on television. But in 2008 he appeared in Brad Paisley’s video for “Waiting on a Woman” and on a remix of the song on Paisley’s mostly instrumental album Play (2008). It was great to see Griffith in action again, once again dispensing some country wisdom to a new generation. Paisley became friends with Griffith, and told the older man that his TV role as Andy Taylor had taught him many lessons about raising his own son.

I still watch The Andy Griffith Show when I catch it on television, and I wrote about my trip last year to see Andy Griffith’s birthplace of Mount Airy, which claims to be the basis for the fictional Mayberry. So, for many of us, the story of Andy Griffith has to begin and end with The Andy Griffith Show because we so loved the character and the town he created. And we loved how the country boy in a simple town taught us something about being a man in a complicated world. And so I will end with one of my favorite short clips where Andy used birds to teach about responsibility to his son Opie (Ron Howard).

My, don’t the clouds in heaven seem nice and full today? RIP Andy Griffith (and Andy Taylor).