Today (in 1890) is one of a few dates that are said to be the birthday of Jelly Roll Morton. Another is September 13, 1884 and another is said to be September 30, 1890. So I really can’t even tell you how old he would be today. It just so happens that one of his birthdays fell on this Monday and it’s a perfect tie in to The Monday Blues.
Morton was known apparently for “bending the truth” a bit. His claim to have invented jazz in 1902 was often criticized. The music critic Scott Yanow once said, “Jelly Roll Morton did himself a lot of harm posthumously by exaggerating his worth … Morton’s accomplishments as an early innovator are so vast that he did not really need to stretch the truth.”
At the age of fourteen, Morton began as a piano player in a brothel. He often sang smutty lyrics and used the nickname “Jelly Roll”, which was slang for female genitalia. At the time, he was living with his grandmother who was quite religous. When she found out what he was doing she literally disowned him. Morton said, “When my grandmother found out that I was playing jazz in one of the sporting houses in the District, she told me that I had disgraced the family and forbade me to live at the house. She told me that devil music would surely bring about my downfall…“
The Jelly Roll Blues (or The Original Jelly Roll Blues as it is sometimes called) is an early jazz fox-trot composed by Morton. He recorded it first as a piano solo in Richmond, Indiana, in 1924. Take a listen to this …
In 1938, Morton was stabbed and suffered wounds to the head and chest. A nearby hospital refused to treat him, as the city had racially segregated facilities. So he was transported to a black hospital farther away. When he was in the hospital, doctors left ice on his wounds for several hours before attending to the injury. His recovery from his wounds was incomplete, and thereafter he was often ill and became short of breath easily.
His asthma would get so bad that he stayed at a hospital in New York for three months. He continued to suffer from respiratory problems when he travelled to Los Angeles hoping to restart his career. It was not to be, however, as he spent eleven days in an LA hospital before passing away on July 10, 1941.
I left a sleep conference yesterday evening and was hungry. I decided to just drive thru to grab a bite to eat before picking up the kids.
The line was slower than normal. Once I paid, I went to the next window. The car in front of me pulled off to a parking spot. In front of him was a car that had pulled past the window and was waiting. I got to the window and they asked me to pull off to the side. The car behind me – same thing!
How in the world do they get four cars behind? And why do we have to pull up or over? It makes me so angry.
I paid for my order at 7:21pm. I waited in the parking spot for almost 14 minutes before they brought me my food – which was one hamburger. This is truly unacceptable.
I went looking through my junior high yearbooks this week. I had heard of the passing of a classmate who went to a different high school, but was in junior high with us. I knew the name but couldn’t picture his face, so I went through the yearbook.
While searching I was reminded of some of the teachers I had. One in in particular came to mind immediately – Mrs. Kellogg.
I just loved her! She was no nonsense, and yet enjoyed a little nonsense at times. I was lucky enough to have her for 7th and 8th grade for English. She was tough and I learned a lot about writing because of her. The above picture was taken on my last day of 8th grade. These were the days when no one knew what a “selfie” was. I really wish I had a photo of us together.
Mrs. Kellogg was instrumental in getting me to be proactive about working. Yeah, I was not very self-motivated at this point in my life. I remember one day we were supposed to be doing some quiet reading, and I think I was staring off out the window or something and she called my name and said, “Don’t just sit there like a Willie Lump Lump! Get your eyes on the book!” Well, Willie Lump Lump was a Red Skelton character, who I knew because my dad let us listen to old radio shows. I laughed at this and a special bond was created. I never wanted to disappoint her, and I took initiative to get my work done.
She is the teacher responsible for one of my yearly traditions. We read Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol in 7th and 8th grade. She had recorded herself reading it on tape. When we “read” it in class, we read along with her voice. I have read it every year since.
I kept in contact with her long after she retired and sadly, I lost her address in between moves. She had told me that she was working on a book. I told her I would love to read it, and then I lost the address. She passed away before I had the chance to reconnect with her. She was a fine example of a caring teacher.
Back in 2023, I read Deanna Raybourn’s Killers of a Certain Age. My thoughts about that one can be found here. At the end of my recommendation, I wondered if the ladies from the book might show up in another story. Sure enough, they do. This time it is in Kills Well With Others.
I knew the book was due out this year. While at a library visit with my kids, I saw it on the shelf and immediately checked it out. I read it in two days.
Here is the Goodreads synopsis:
Four women assassins, senior in status—and in age—sharpen their knives for another bloody good adventure in this riotous follow-up to the New York Times bestselling sensation Killers of a Certain Age.
After more than a year of laying low, Billie, Helen, Mary Alice, and Natalie are called back into action. They have enjoyed their rest, but the lack of excitement is starting to chafe: a professional killer can only take so many watercolor classes and yoga sessions before she gets the itch to get back in the game. When they receive a call from Naomi Ndiaye, the head of the elite assassin organization known as the Museum, they are ready to tackle the greatest challenge of their careers.
Someone on the inside has compiled a list of important kills committed by Museum agents, all of them connected to a single, shadowy figure, an Eastern European gangster who rules her business empire with an iron fist and plays puppet master in international affairs. Naomi is convinced this criminal queen is bent upon revenge, killing off the agents who attempted to thwart her, and the aging quartet of killers is next.
Together the foursome embark on a wild ride across the globe on the double mission of rooting out the Museum’s mole and hunting down the gangster and her assassin. But their nemesis is unlike any they’ve faced before, and it will take all their experience and a whole lot of luck to get out of this mission alive.
I believe it was one of the first book’s reviewers who said it was “Golden Girls Meets James Bond.” I remembered that as I started to read the sequel. I wondered if I needed to go back and read the first one to catch up, but it wasn’t necessary. Once the story started, I recalled the characters pretty quickly.
There were a couple throwbacks to the first book, but you can still read this one without reading the first one and enjoy it. The sequel was a little less “James Bond” than the first book. Yes, there was still some sense of it, but the story was very character driven. I really enjoyed it.
Was it as good as the first book? It was close. At the end of the first book, I couldn’t wait to see if there was more to their story. This time around, I still felt that way, just not as much. It is not a bad sequel, and it is open ended so that a third book in the series is certainly possible.
My father-in-law asked me if I would be available Sunday to help him swap a few deck boards at his place. “It should be a quick job. We’re only replacing a few bad ones,” he said. Well, it indeed started off with “a few bad” boards…
On the porch itself, we put in three new boards. On the ramp, we used 4 long boards to replace 7 boards. As you can see from the above photo, the thought eventually was to just go ahead and replace all the ramp boards. And we did.
It actually came out pretty good and only took about half the day. Then at some point, the decision was made to do the whole porch.
In the above photo, you can see the three boards we replaced. Once we knew we were doing the whole porch, we had to rip out the rest of the boards. It was a job! My father-in-law and brother-in-law ran up to Home Depot to get more boards and more screws while I ripped out the deck boards.
When they returned, they helped me with the remaining boards. We worked pretty much up until dinner time and we called it a day. We still had half the porch to finish which meant we were back at it on Monday afternoon. I stayed until about 6pm, and left because I needed to get the kids home, bathed and in bed for school the next day. They were almost finished when I left.
Tuesday morning, I had to stop over there after dropping Ella off at school. My wife bought something from a fundraiser and I had to bring over the money for it. When I walked up the ramp I saw that they had all but the very end board done. They didn’t finish it because my father-in-law was going to put in a different size board to avoid cutting the size they were using.
It looked fantastic. I can tell you, though, Sunday night I was sore. Monday night, I was stiff and sore. My hips were on fire, probably because we were hoping over deck boarding all day. My knees were killing me too because we were on them the entire time we were screwing in deck boards.
I’m always glad to help out my father-in-law. Lord knows how many times he has helped me! I’m happy it is done and that my mother-in-law is happy with the way it looks.
Happy 51st Birthday to Natalie Maines of The Chicks (Formerly the Dixie Chicks).
In 1995, Natalie got her lucky break when she was recruited by the Dixie Chicks to replace their lead singer, Laura Lynch. Things turned around quickly for the band. With Natalie as lead vocalist, the band earned 10 CMA Awards and 13 Grammy Awards.
Their album Wide Open Spaces offered up five singles. All of them were Top 10 and three of them went to number one. The fifth and final single was my favorite from the album – Tonight, The Heartache’s On Me.
It was a song that had been previously recorded in 1994 by Joy Lynn White. The Chicks version sounds so much better. I think the reason for this is the groups amazing harmonies. Their voices blend so nicely. I’m not sure what chord they are hitting when they sing the line, “Bartender, pour the wine …” but there is something about that line that gives me goosebumps. LOL
Happy Birthday, Natalie – the birthday wish is on me.
I heard this song while driving into work this week. When I am not listening to a book on tape or a sermon from a pastor friend, I am surfing through the channels on Sirius XM. Albert King’s tune, Born Under a Bad Sign was playing on BB King’s Bluesville. I had forgotten how much I liked it.
The song is considered a blues standard. Albert recorded it in 1967. In his book, Deep Blues, Robert Palmer said “the song also had strong crossover appeal to the rock audience with its synchronous bass and guitar lines and topical astrology reference.” It was recorded at Stax Records.
The song was written by Stax singer William Bell and Booker T. Jones. Bell said, “We needed a blues song for Albert King … I had this idea in the back of my mind that I was gonna do myself. Astrology and all that stuff was pretty big then. I got this idea that [it] might work.” Booker’s arrangement was unique in that it was dominated by an R&B-style bass/rhythm guitar line, which Bell claimed that he came up with “while fooling around on the guitar.”
The song was backed by Booker T and the MG’s and the Memphis Horns. Albert would jump in with vocals and guitar fills. Released in May of 1967, it would reach number 49 on the Billboard Top Selling R&B Singles chart.
Describing the song in an interview, Jones said, “At that time, my writing partner was William Bell. He came over to my house the night before the session. William wrote the words and I wrote the music in my den that night. That was one of my greatest moments in the studio as far as being thrilled with a piece of music. The feeling of it, it’s the real blues done by the real people. It was Albert King from East St. Louis, the left-handed guitar player who was just one of a kind and so electric and so intense and so serious about his music. He just lost himself in the music. He’s such a one of a kind character. I was there in the middle of it and it was exhilarating.”
The song is included on The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s list “500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll.” Rightfully so.
It is time once again for a new Turntable Talk topic from Dave at A Sound Day. Each month he offers up a musical topic for us to write about. This month we are Going out on a High Note. Dave’s instructions to us:
We all have seen artists (not to mention athletes, politicians…) who stick around long after they should have exited gracefully. For this round, pick a musical artist who you think ended their career on a high note, a great final album, or triumphant concert tour before they grew stale.
I had a difficult time with this one. As I began to think of artists, I kept coming up with artists who are still recording and touring. Willie Nelson, for example, is still making music and hitting the stage. Has he stayed around “too long?” Some say yes, while other say no. So my search continued. Then I remembered Bill Withers.
Bill served in the US Navy for almost 10 years. It was while he served our country that he began writing songs and became interested in singing. After he left the Navy, he decided to relocate to California in hopes of starting a career in music.
He found work as a mechanical assembler for several different companies including IBM, Ford, and the Douglas Aircraft Corporation. He used the money from his job to record demo tracks that he could take to record companies. He also began to play his songs in nightclubs in the area, hoping someone might discover him.
In 1967, he had his first official release – “Three Nights and a Morning.” It was a song that got little recognition. Three years later, he was signed to Sussex Records and Booker T Jones was assigned to produce Bill’s first album. That album, Just As I Am, included his first hit – “Ain’t No Sunshine.”
The album was a huge success and Withers rounded up a band and went out on tour. “Ain’t No Sunshine” was a Top 10 song and went on to win the Grammy for Best R&B Song in 1972. It also got him noticed by Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show, who sent him a letter inviting him to appear on the show.
When his tour wrapped up, he used the time off to write and record songs for his second album entitled Still Bill. This album included Bill’s first #1 song – “Lean On Me,” which hit the top of the charts in July of 1972. This was followed up with his third million selling record – “Use Me.”
Bill’s relationship with Sussex record eventually went sour. He said of Sussex Records “They weren’t paying me.” He claims to have erased an entire album that he had recorded for the label in a fit of pique. “I could probably have handled that differently,” he said. There was an ongoing legal dispute with the Sussex company, and because of that Withers was unable to record for some time thereafter.
Sussex Records eventually went out of business and Bill had to find a new label. He wound up at Columbia Records in 1975. His first album on Columbia included the song “She’s Lonely,” which was featured in the movie Looking For Mr. Goodbar (which starred Richard Gere and Diane Keaton). He released an album every year afterward, including the 1977 album Menagerie which contained the hit “Lovely Day.”
Bill began to have trouble with Columbia. Apparently he was unable to get songs approved for his album. The label kept passing on the songs he wanted to record. Because of this, he decided to focus on joint projects beginning in 1977. He worked with the Crusaders, percussionist Ralph MacDonald, and jazz saxophonist Grover Washington Jr.
“Just The Two of Us” appeared on Washington’s 1980 album Winelight. It was released as a single in February of 1981 and went on to win a Grammy for Best R&B Song. In 1985, Withers released his final studio album, Watching You, Watching me. It was at this point that Bill decided to “go out on a high note.”
Withers was quoted in interviews that “a lot of the songs approved for the album—in particular, two of the first three singles released—were the same songs that had been rejected in 1982.” This played a big part in the eight-year hiatus between albums. Bill also stated how frustrating it was to see his record label release an album by actor Mr. T, when they were preventing him, an actual songwriter, from releasing his own.
With Columbia trying to exert control over his sound to sell more albums played a part in his decision to not record or re-sign with a record label after 1985. I would imagine the Mr. T thing played a part, too. This effectively ended his performing career, though remixes of his previously recorded music were released well after his “retirement.”
Withers was an artist who found musical success later in life. He was in his early 30’s when he began his career. Now at 47, he said he was socialized as a “regular guy” who had “a life before the music, so he did not feel an inherent need to keep recording once he fell out of love with the industry.” Bill felt he made the right decision. After leaving the music industry, he said that he did not miss touring and performing live and did not regret leaving music behind.
Accolades continued after his “retirement.” In 1988, he won another Grammy, this time as a songwriter for the cover of his “Lean on Me” by Club Nouveau. It won the Grammy for Best Rhythm and Blues Song. In 2005 he was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, followed in 2015 with his induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He said:
“What few songs I wrote during my brief career, there ain’t a genre that somebody didn’t record them in. I’m not a virtuoso, but I was able to write songs that people could identify with. I don’t think I’ve done bad for a guy from Slab Fork, West Virginia.”
Bill passed away in March of 2020 in a Los Angeles hospital due to cardiac complications.
He is still receiving accolades in 2025. Last month, he was selected to be inducted into the National Rhythm and Blues Hall of Fame. The induction ceremony usually takes place in October.
Thanks to Dave for once again hosting Turntable Talk. I am already looking forward to what next month’s topic will be.
First, I’d like to thank those who have already reached out to me about the devastating Tigers loss last night. It certainly was a very exciting game, but not the outcome I had hoped for.
Early in the season, when they were hot, people kept saying “The Tigers will be in and win the World Series this year.” I absolutely hate when people make bold predictions so early. I’m not superstitious, but I feel like those things always come back to bite us.
To lead the division almost all the way through the season only to slump and give it away in the final weeks hurts. I wonder what happened to the pitching coaches or batting coaches at the end. Something had to be up for such a massive collapse.
I had hoped that the win over the Guardians would be the spark to ignite the team. I can’t help but wonder how it would have gone if the first couple games had been home instead of away. The crowd and fans were such an important factor early on.
Skubal did well. He was hot. Why do managers not let pitchers go more than 100 pitches anymore? The Tigers of my youth – Jack Morris, Dan Petry, Dave Rozema and so many more pitched complete games all the time. I don’t get it.
AJ Hinch said “He emptied his tank” and that’s why they pulled him after 6 innings. I don’t know if that is true, but it doesn’t matter. Maybe he was done. Maybe they relied too much on him. You can’t do that. It’s a team effort and others have to come through.
The heart of the order, and the guys who were so productive during the season – Torres, Green, Torkelson and Keith all were hitless. Torkelson struck out 4 of his 6 at bats! Sometimes I wonder what they are looking at!
With all that being said, I’m still happy we even got some postseason play. For a while, it looked like we wouldn’t. I can only hope that we do what we need to in the off season to avoid the mistakes of this season.
Various Ramblings of a Nostalgic Italian 