From Left David Oliver, Mike Oliver, Susan Schneider Williams and Catherine Oliver.
Been a wild week, much of it spent in Las Vegas. More on that in this column at AL.com: Susan Schneider Williams.
Just got through playing one of my favorite albums of the past year or so: The Brummies’ “Eternal Reach.” You know why I am listening to it? Because I saw one of the best concerts I’ve seen in recent memory last night. The Brummies at the Saturn. Even ate one of those gigantic hamburgers from the man outside. The Brummies deny classification except I guess I’d put them under Beatlesqe. I’ve said it here before, they are a band to watch (and listen to). Dang that was tight last night.
So two days earlier I was at the Lewy body dementia international conference in Las Vegas (see Susan Williams story above).. After one long day, they had a pool party and they had listed (Live Music) in the schedule. We had no idea the live music was going to be REO Speedwagon as represented by lead singer and songwriter Kevin Cronin. Now this midwestern band had a huge career in the 70s, 80s and 90s. They were from Illinois but they were huge in my 1970 Junior High School named Klondike in West Lafayette, Ind. We took a picture and as we parted ways,he told me to ‘Roll with the Changes,’ and I told him to ‘Keep on Pushing.’ Seriously that’s true. So cool.
They became this big Top-40 band with the release of High Infidelity but they had been cranking out hard rock singles since 1972, Kevin came to the event because his mother had Lewy body dementia. His voice after 40 years of rock n roll singing, is not as strong but he entertained with another REO member dipping into the group’s deep bag of hits.
Kevin Cronin, lead singer of REO Speedwagon with Mike Oliver of myvinylcountdown.com
The Marvelettes were the first all female group at Motown to obtain a No. 1 record.
‘You gotta waitaminute waytaminute Wait Mr. Postmasman.”
They were pioneering but now seemingly lost in history.
I am going to do something, however small, to correct that. First off publishing this blog post.
And in this blog I’m going to name the names of the Marvelettes. Least I can do for such an amazing talent.
Here they are from: Wikipedia: They consisted of schoolmates Gladys Horton, Katherine Anderson (now Schaffner), Georgeanna Tillman (later Gordon), Juanita Cowart (now Cowart Motley), and Georgia Dobbins, who was replaced by Wanda Young (now Rogers) prior to the group signing their first deal. They were the first major successful act of Motown Records after the Miracles and its first significantly successful girl group after the release of the 1961 number-one single, “Please Mr. Postman“, one of the first number-one singles recorded by an all-female vocal group and the first by a Motown recording act .
These early ‘girl-group’ and boy groups were super smooth at Motown.
LAS VEGAS, Nevada – It could have been out of a movie: Susan Schneider Williams passionately addressing a crowd of more than 300 people — many with Lewy body dementia in a large conference room on the bottom floor of the iconic Caesar’s Palace.
I know I’m safe with that one.
I believe, a record was set.
The name of the deadly brain disease ‘Lewy body dementia’ was uttered more in an 8-hour conference than it has ever been uttered. At least, I’m pretty sure. Maybe it’s the ‘most times Lewy body dementia was uttered in a casino’ record.
It’s working out OK by the way: dozens and dozens of people with dementia walking around a maze of a building. Some on medicines whose side effects include loss of impulse control in areas regarding sex, gambling and shopping.
(Talk about a demographic, the Caesar’s event planner was probably thinking when booking the Lewy body group..)
Of the 300 or more attendees at the International Lewy Body Dementia Conference there seemed to be equal parts academics and those living with Lewy body and their caregivers.
You see, Lewy body, the second most prevalent form of degenerative dementia after Alzheimer’s has an identity problem. Few know what it is.
So saying the word is important in a world of acronyms representing diseases. In fact the Lewy Body Dementia Association is working on reassessing the verbiage. A task force is focused on ‘Nomenclature’ is in the works. Names are important because if no one names it, no one funds it – except through the trickle-down theory.
Susan Williams talked about how she met Robin in an Apple Store, he was wearing Camo. “He loved Camo,”she said.
Like when the National Institutes of Health last year released its announcement about 10’s of millions in funding for “Alzheimer’s and other dementias”
Williams, the daughter of a pathologist,said her husband had a bad case of Lewy body and he thought he was losing his mind. He had never felt anxiety like he felt, she said.
” Robin was an extreme case of LBD with deep concentration of Lewy bodies in his amygdala had very high cortisol,”she said. His depression made LBD diagnosis harder.
Williams described it as ‘Whack A Mole’ — you knock down one symptom and another pops up.
In 2013, they spent 10 months chasing symptoms before his death Nov. 3.
For this McCartney review I am going to rank the records I own (4) and comment on them. First off, John Lennon’s work after the Beatles was socially conscious, powerful and heartbreaking, critics said. While mostly true, it set up a false dichotomy with McCartney losing in the side-by-side comparison.
Paul’s stuff was good, excellent and silly silly. But his records contain enough good songs out there to show that he’s better than most on the radio — or at least then during the 70s.
With no further ado, the rankings in ascending order.
4. Red Rose Speedway (1973) — This has the best cover and goodies of the four McCartney albums.. A multi page booklet connected to gatefold. But album has much fewer great moments. I do like ‘When the Night.’ ‘My Love’ is big hit here, yawn. MVC Rating: 3.5/$$$
3. Venus and Mars (1975) …are more than all right tonight. Almost edged out Ram. MVC Rating: 4.0/$$
2. Ram – (1971) and overly criticized as Beatle break-up anger is still in the air. Critics chose Lennon as the genius at the expense of clear headed reviews of McCartney’s music. Paul’s stuff was easier to make fun of. Silly Songs, et.al. On this record Uncle Albert seemed like more silly fluff but I really grew to love that Abbey Road kind of song switch-up (kinda like Queen in Bohemian Rhapsody.) ‘Too Many People’ is a fan favorite. Me being the fan. MVC Rating: 4/0/$$$
1. Band on the Run: (1973) This is best. Best writing. Best song for song. Best thinly disguised metaphor for a put upon Paul. Just what do you do when laden with mountains of expectations. RUN!
Even a characteristically silly song, such as Mrs. Vanderbilt, is good. MVC Rating: 4.5/$$$
I was invited to speak this morning at an Alzheimer’s lecture series in Birmingham sponsored by the Alzheimer’s Foundation of America. It went well.
I was pleased to be invited but I didn’t want to ‘lecture’ in the negative meaning of that word. I told my story of diagnosis. I talked about my decision to ‘come out’ in my early stages and told them I believe I can be an advocate as a writer describing what I am going through for as long as my illness allows me .
I also touched on the lack of awareness people have on the subject of Lewy body dementia.
Well, I believe I heard them say that they would help promote MikeMadness. That’s a great start. We may be different diseases but we are all one brain. (Um I think I should work on that phrase a little.)
Still room for more teams in the hoops tournament for Lewy bod dementia awareness and research. See www.mikemadness.org
MVC Rating: 3.5/$$$ (I don’t think you are going to be able to get this for under $10 and maybe not under $15.)
There’s no other way to describe this band. They are punk.
Loud shouted vocals, thrashing, loosely played, guitars and an ideology bordering on anarchy.
The only thing about MC-5. They formed their band Motor City 5 in 1964. Yes that’s right, they were screaming their heads off and playing relatively sloppy G and A chords while the Sex Pistols were getting out of Kindergarten.
It would be another decade before the Sex Pistols, often called the first punk band ,would start doing their thing. Don’t believe me check em out. I saw this used in great condition and snapped it up at WUXTRY in Athens as a teenager. So I was prepared when the Sex Pistols and the Clash, Black Flag and Dead Kennedy’s. et al. began their angry and cathartic outbursts — about 10 years later.
In 1969 MC5 put out their signature song: ‘Kick Out the Jams.’
Because they often started that song with an obscenity, the Hudson Department store chain refused to stock and sell their records. Another omen of things to come.
I feel like I’ve been remiss in not touting Curtis Mayfield enough. My early exposure to soul when I was around 9 or 10 was mainly from Wilson Pickett, Otis Redding and Aretha. Oh yes, Al Green a little later.
But I recollect I loved the song ‘People Get Ready,’ an overt religious gospel piece that Rolling Stone ranks as the 24th of the 500 best songs that shaped rock music.
And Superfly is one jammin’ soundtrack, with a message for the ‘man.’
And at about the same time Marvin Gaye (another favorite) started becoming socially conscious in songs such as ‘What Going On?.’
Superfly, the soundtrack from the movie was in that vein. Mayfield with his ever-present falsetto sang about the junkies, the pimps, the violence, injustice from the street level.
Song was punctuated with: Trying to get over — Superfly.
Besides being a great songwriter and singer, Curtis could play some guitar.
The album is funky fun from 1 to 9 cuts with standouts such as the title song, Pusherman, Freddie’s Dead and Little Child Runnin’ Wild.
I’m not sure why they called movies like Superfly blaxploitation films. Shaft was another favorite of mine by Isaac Hayes. Do they call ‘Rambo’ a whitesploitation film?
NOTE: This is a preamble of sorts to another observation about connections I hope to finish up today.
Musicians jamming on a song get into a groove. They are altogether connecting in a series of reactions. Smiles, eye contact: They play off the sounds of the instruments — off each other.
The mix is elevated beyond the contribution of any single player.
Elevated improvisation within a structure. Its kind of what I’m doing here. And, it would be appropriate at this time to ask the question: What’s the point? The point these connections, these relationships shouldn’t be taken lightly. The brain is a buzzing slab of electro-excitability that needs its connections, its synapses and neurons to be firing.
I have Lewy body dementia where the connections get snowed in; the neurons get caught in a sticky pile of excess proteins. I get that I have a lot of storage capacity but every day a little is being chipped away. Lewy body dementia robs people the ability to make those connections.
Please join us July 20 for a fund raiser basketball tournament to raise money to fight this horrible disease. I didn’t ask to be the poster boy in this, but I am so happy to be involved. We have raised a total of $25,000 in two years and are looking to do much more.
If basketball isn’t your thing, we have an after party at TrimTab brewery open and free to all. We’ll have Karaoke, purple T-shirts for sale and I hear there may be some dunking going on.
Relationships can be tricky. A misperceived comment; fumbled attempts to help. We listen but aren’t really listening. We make assumptions that aren’t true and build with those assumptions our own wrong-headed case for action – the wrong action.
From the archives today, we have something I wrote about 18 months ago. I believe I meant it as a warning that like a gentle rose, relationships need nurturing to keep the connections alive.
What is more fragile than a relationship?
A day too old rose waiting for one touch to send petals spinning to the ground.
The stability of a family facing a future with too many ifs.
The conviction that doing right is always right. Or always doing right is right.
The profundity of a well educated person.
The joy of sleeping when really really worn out.
The reality you see right now.
The love you can’t define but know it’s true.
The knowledge that the straight trail is better than the switchback.
The theory that a theory is not truth.
The laugh between old friends you may not see again.
The idea that your decisions don’t affect the world.
The notion that there are things that are impossible.
Caring, love as I rearrange everything
What is rare as a loving relationship?
DId you find that yellow bird?
Reach Mike Oliver at moliver@al.com and read his blog at myvinylcountdown.com
Wow, look at that cover on this album by a band named Malo.
When I first saw it, I thought of the cover art on Abraxas, Santana’s great second album. Obviously different covers in color and all — but similar in other striking ways, attention to detail, beautiful people from another time and place. Maybe it was the same painter?
I put it on the turntable and what did I hear. A jamming rhythmic Latin-tinged, multi-piece band with trumpets, electric guitar and lots of shake rattle and roll. Man it sounded like early Santana led by Carlos Santana.
So not surprisingly as I checked out the names of musicians, I noticed Jorge Santana. He is, I found out, Carlos’ brother. As an early Santana fan, I couldn’t believe I never heard that. As a decade long dweller in Marin County, California, where Carlos lives and is frequently spotted driving around in his convertible(s) I never knew he had a brother in a band or that I had never heard of the band. Of course I believe, the band no longer existed by the time I got there in 2001. They had a Top 20 hit with Suavecito but you don’t see this album around at least not on the east coast.
Maybe they should have re-thought the band’s name. Malo in Spanish means ‘Bad.’
The Malo album cover is from a painting by Mexican painter Jesus Helguera.
The Abraxis cover was from a painting called Annunciation by German-French painter Mati Klarwein.
I got this record around my junior or senior year in high school in Athens, Ga., and Steve Martin was taking off.
From writing for sketches on TV on shows such as the Smothers Brothers, he moved quickly to being an on-air comedian. His Saturday Night Live appearances boosted audiences by the hundreds of thousands. His ‘Excuse Me’ and “We’re just two wild and crazy guys’ became national catch-phrases. Then he went to movies. Some good ones Father of the Bride, All of Me; Some not so good, Dead Men Don’t Wore Plaid, Pennies from Heaven.
The Jerk in 1979 is along with Airplane, Dumb and Dumber and Ace Ventura Pet Detective, among the best lowbrow comedies of an era, punctuated with pratfalls and bathos.
Martin, Robin Williams and especially Jim Carrey drew heavily on the physical comedy of Jerry Lewis. But took that style to new and different levels.
But Martin was no lowbrow draw. Inspired by his philosophy classes, Martin considered becoming a professor instead of an actor–comedian, Martin’s Wikipedia page says..
“It changed what I believe and what I think about everything. I majored in philosophy. Something about non-sequiturs appealed to me. In philosophy, I started studying logic and they were talking about cause and effect, and you start to realize, ‘Hey, there is no cause and effect! There is no logic! There is no anything!’ Then it gets real easy to write this stuff because all you have to do is twist everything hard—you twist the punch line, you twist the non-sequitur so hard away from the things that set it up.”
That comedy was on full display on the ‘Let’s Get Small’ album.
On ‘One way to leave your lover’ he starts a lament about his girlfriend whome he lost one tragic night. I feel responsible Martin tells the audience. We were at a party and she had too much to drink. She snatched the keys from my hands. I told her no don’t go but she wouldn’t listen. Then Martin pauses and says: “So I shot her.” The audience doesn’t know whether to laugh or what. He waits and then adds: “With a shotgun.” Martin is chuckling a sinister chuckle. Non sequitur delivered.
The comedy is good and the record is inexpensive. Should have no trouble finding for under $5.
