All posts in Biography

Happy Birthday, Phil Silvers: From Burlesque and Blinky to Bilko and Beyond

philsilverscards

I always looked forward to the dances that followed our high school football and basketball games (we didn’t dance after baseball). Win or lose, we’d shower and suit up in our best late 70s party attire (mostly because it was the late 70s), then make our way back to the gym to check out our potential partners. But the dances weren’t my favorite thing to do late at night. Like many in attendance, I always had big plans for AFTER the dance. But where some might have schemed to sneak away for some light drinking or heavy petting, my reason was always the same, Monday through Friday. I had to get home to watch Bilko. In those pre-DVR (or even VCR) days, there was no other way to scratch a Phil Silvers itch. I had to be in front of the family set by 11:00 pm, tuned to Oakland’s KTVU….

Top

100 Years of Louis Prima: An Appreciation

primalps

To one generation of fans, he was the “Wildest” show in Vegas and Tahoe. To another, he was the voice of “King Louis the Most.” To Sam Butera and the Witnesses, he was known simply as “The Chief.” Louis Prima was born one hundred years ago today—December 7, 1910—in the Little Palermo section of New Orleans’ French Quarter. It’s fitting that he came into the world surrounded by a tossed salad of nationalities (his neighborhood was home to Italians, Jews, Middle Easterners and African-Americans), because the music he made throughout his remarkable career was embraced by fans the world over. For more than five decades, Louis Prima played it pretty for the people, and the people loved him for it. Originally a violinist, Prima switched instruments following the early success of his older brother Leon, who played trumpet with Jack Teagarden’s orchestra and several others. The switch to brass made…

Top

Books: Frank Fenton and “A Place in the Sun”

A Place in the Sun

It’s really all Joseph Henry Jackson’s fault. In June of 2002, I picked up Jackson’s Continent’s End: A Collection of California Writing (1944). As a collector of western lit — specifically on my native California — I regularly thumb through anthologies which expose me to writers unknown to me. And Jackson, a long-time critic and book reviewer for the San Francisco Chronicle, didn’t disappoint. Alongside authors I’d already read and collected (the hugely underrated George R. Stewart as well as Fante, Steinbeck, Corle, Saroyan and Schulberg), were excerpts from Hans Otto Storm’s “Count Ten,” Royce Brier’s “Reach for the Moon” and Idwal Jones’ “China Boy.” The excerpt I enjoyed most, however, was a chapter from Frank Fenton’s “A Place in the Sun.” I’d never heard of it, or Fenton. The only “Place in the Sun” I knew was the unrelated film of the same title (adapted from Theodore Drieser’s “An…

Top

Bud Dashiell’s Solo LPs, Part 3: “I Think It’s Gonna Rain Today”

bdthinkrain

Part 3 of “Bud Dashiell’s Solo LPs.” For Part 1, click HERE. The landscape of popular music changed dramatically during the final two years that Bud & Travis were back together. Even the year they chose to reunite was pivotal. In 1963, folk music went prime time with the launch of ABC-TV’s Hootenanny! show, but it was also the year that the mighty Weavers — one of the most influential of all folk groups — finally called it quits. Of course, Bud & Travis had never referred to themselves solely as “folk singers.” Travis had even gently protested that classification at their heralded 1960 live concert in Santa Monica: “One of the things that is frequently said of Bud and myself is that we’re folksingers…I guess if we sing, and we’re folk…it fits. But we like to do anything that we like. We don’t like to…just stay on one kind…

Top

The ’68 Nixon: A Political Primer From Denver, Boise & Johnson

With national politics in the air once again (whether or not you like what’s “blowin’ in the wind” is up to you), it seems more than appropriate to revisit a tiny portion of the 1968 presidential campaign, specifically this musical ditty from Denver, Boise & Johnson, a group which evolved from The Chad Mitchell Trio. This cut (subtitled This Year’s Model) and Take Me To Tomorrow (the flip side of the Reprise 45) are the only known commercial recordings of DB&J. The stereo track below is taken from an early 70s Warner Bros. “Loss-Leader” 2-LP set titled Hard Goods. (CLICK the arrow to listen) The CMT had a history of mixing humor and political satire into their tight vocal harmonies (starting with the classic The John Birch Society), and the tradition continued through a series of personnel changes. In 1964, they became The Mitchell Trio (to become more egalitarian), and…

Top

Profiles: Richard “Dick” Lane

DickLaneKTLA1

He was Joe Penner’s frequent foil on film and radio, Jackie Robinson’s celluloid manager, the human soundtrack to a generation of wrestling and roller derby-mad Angelenos, and the man who first uttered the phrase, “Whooooaaaah, Nellie!” into a broadcasting microphone. Richard “Dick” Lane was born in Rice Lake, Wisconsin on May 28, 1899. After early success as an announcer and emcee (and as an “iron jaw” act in various circuses…an odd occupation for such a gifted talker), he came to Broadway in 1928, where he appeared in the long-running comedy Present Arms. In 1930, he appeared in the Vanderbilt Revue alongside eventual film and radio co-star Joe Penner (the subject of my Wanna Buy a Duck? website, where you’ll find plenty of info, video & photos of Lane). Lane made his film debut beside Bob Hope in the 1935 comedy Shop Talk, and following 110 stage performances of George White’s…

Top
Page 1 of 1