What the F***! Department:

Courtesy Confetta Ras, from a post by Ralph Carney:

Johnny Otis and Etta James

Etta James (Jamesetta Hawkins, January 25, 1938 – January 20, 2012) was fourteen years old when she auditioned for Johnny Otis in a San Francisco Hotel.

She had written an answer song to Hank Ballard's "Work with Me, Annie" called "Roll With Me, Henry." She and her friends the Michell sisters had a girl- singer trio called the Creolettes, and the oldest, Abye, set up the audition. Johnny Otis liked what he heard, and despite the girls' ages (Jean was also fourteen, her sister Abye, 23) took them under his wing, put them on the road and produced Etta's song, retitled, "The Wallflower."

On the road in the early days

 He also changed their name to the Peaches, and Jamesetta Hawkins became Etta James, nicknamed Peaches. Johnny Otis (Ioannis Alexandres Veliotes, December 28, 1921 – January 17, 2012) was many things: vibist, drummer, arranger, songwriter, producer, talent scout, entrepreneur, bandleader, dee- jay and farmer. More, probably. The son of Greek immigrants, he grew up in Los Angeles and embraced Black culture. Much like the newspaperman and essayist Lafcadio Hearn, who after moving from New Orleans to Japan adopted the Japanese culture as his own, Johnny Otis pretty much became a black man, albeit a somewhat light- skinned one, probably darker though than Don Robey of Dallas, who really was African- American.

 Like many zealous converts, he became an uber- black man: street king, hipster par excellence. He was famous for re-molding his discoveries: JamesEtta into Etta James, Johnny Watson into "Young" John Watson (later Johnny "Guitar" Watson), Gene "the Mighty Flea" Connors, "Pee Wee" Crayton- reinventing them as he went along, because, after all, wasn't he his own greatest reinvention? He produced their records, often wrote their songs, or at least got a co- credit, and booked them on the road. If you wanted to make it as an entertainer in black Los Angeles in the late '40's to mid '50's, you had to go through a swarthy Greek. He held the keys to that Kingdom for many years, and that's how Etta James started out.

Eventually, their lives diverged. Etta James went on to sign with Leonard Chess at Chess Records, had many hit records, recorded "At Last" (introduced by Glenn Miller in a 1942 movie), the theme song of "...every graduation, wedding and big event in this country," she said when I saw her at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival in 2006.

At a later performance, after her massive weight loss

Otis never stopped playing, never stopped putting bands together or promoting new musicians, including his talented but troubled son Shuggie. He was featured briefly in Clint Eastwood's film, "Play Misty For Me" and the album of that performance, "Live at the Monterrey Jazz Festival" helped him get back into the public eye, albeit a whiter, younger eye than before. He maintained a high level of professionalism to the end of his performing days, and gained reknown as a painter and organic farmer, ever the classic renaissance man.

Fascinating lives, hard lives, intense lives, American success stories, real American success stories (as opposed to Horatio Alger, whoever he was). Etta, frustrated and proud to the end, unhappy with the President playing Beyonce's weak version of her song at the Inaugural. Johnny Otis, playing at his son's organic market on the weekends to sell- out crowds, despite the ultimate failure of the market itself.

Both gone now within seventy- two hours of one another. Starting together and somehow finishing together, with a lot of stories in- between.

What We Lost: Blues Deaths in 2011 or The One About Hubert Sumlin

This comment was posted on the blog January 13th:

Steve M. said...

I check your blog mostly for the music stuff. Since Hubert Sumlin died, you haven't posted anything about him. will you? Thanks for all your other good posts on blues and jazz players.

January 13, 2012 2:05 PM

So true, Steve. I am remiss in not writing about Hubert Sumlin, the long- time guitarist for Howling Wolf and a favorite of mine. Thinking about Hubert started me thinking about what a devastating year 2011 was for many classic blues musicians.

A partial list:

Dave "Honeyboy" Edwards

Dave "Honeyboy" Edwards (June 18th- August 29th, 2011), a compatriot of Robert Johnson's and just about everyone else from the Mississippi Delta that ever played blues. His autobiography, The World Don't Owe Me Nothing is a fascinating book that I highly recommend.

Eddie Kirkland

Eddie Kirkland (August 16, 1923 – February 27, 2011), dead in a car accident at the age of 87. An indefatigable road warrior who must have played three hundred nights a year, year in, year out. I opened a show that Eddie headlined. He was a beautiful eccentric, with the most varied array of old solid state amps I'd ever seen, all wired together. He wore a kind of black gypsy outfit with a head scarf. He could have been a violinist in a Hungarian restaurant in Harlem. I got the impression that he could do anything, from wire a house to mesmerize an audience made up of people a third his age.

Mojo Buford on harmonica with Muddy Waters

George "Mojo" Buford (November 10, 1929 – October 11, 2011) , the harp player who could always come home again, if home was the Muddy Waters' Band. Buford played briefly with Muddy after Little Walter left, then again after James Cotton left, then again after Paul Oscher left and finally yet again when Jerry Portnoy left. While no one ever thought Buford was a great harmonica player, he was a very good one, who made a living as a solo performer in Minneapolis in- between his stints with Muddy. Simple, unadorned lines, and good timing coupled with a robust tone were the hallmarks of his playing. 

Lacy Gibson, right, with Willie Black, left, and Freddie Below, center

Lacy Gibson (May 1, 1936 – April 11, 2011) was a Chicago mainstay who never liked to travel outside the city. His jazz- influenced guitar enhanced performances by musicians as varied as Junior Wells and Sun Ra, his one- time brother- in- law. In later years Lacy and his wife Ann ran an after hours club out of their basement, and were known for the block- parties they'd put together.

Big Jack Johnson © Bill Streber

Big Jack Johnson (July 30, 1940 – March 14, 2011), a Mississippi blues mainstay died at the age of seventy, way too early. He came to prominence with the Jellyroll Kings, an electrified Delta group featuring Sam Carr on drums and Frank Frost on keyboards and harmonica. Johnson later started the Oilmen. Along with R. L. Burnside and Paul "Wine" Jones, Johnson exemplified the contemporay Delta sound.

Pinetop Perkins

Joseph William "Pinetop" Perkins (July 7th, 1913- March 21, 2011) did the impossible: he filled Otis Spann's piano spot in the Muddy Waters' Band. In the course of his twelve years with Muddy, he made folks forget Spann (or at least not miss him so much) and became one of the most beloved figures in the blues. Prior to Muddy, "Top" played with Rice Miller on KFFA, Earl Hooker, Little Milton, and Albert King among others. I asked him one time about playing with Rice Miller. "Did he have names for the songs, like 'Eyesight to the Blind', or did he just say, 'Shuffle in G?'"

"Shuffle in G," Top laughed.

In the last year of his long life he won a Grammy for a record he made with Hubert Sumlin.

He loved MacDonald's food and lived to be 97. 

Howard Tate, soul singer extraordinaire

Howard Tate (August 13, 1939 – December 2, 2011) was blessed with one of the most beautiful voices in the annals of Soul music: swooping falsettos, great mid- range tenor, incredibly passionate. In the late 1960's, he made a record so perfect, so realized that it immediately became a cult staple. If you had this record, then you knew! You just... knew.

Produced by the late Jerry Ragavoy, the record "Get It While You Can" spawned three top 20 hits and one of Janis Joplin's most memorable covers.

Tate never hit like that again.

Despite his great voice, follow- ups filled with inferior material failed to chart or even approach the greatness of that first transcendent recording. Tate turned to drugs in 1980, became homeless for a period and ultimately sought solice in the church, where, in 2001 he was rediscovered by a New Jersey disc jockey.

Numerous live performances followed, he travelled the world, made another pretty good CD with Ragavoy and a live performance DVD for the Shout Factory.

He died at the age of 72 from myeloma and leukemia.

A Young Hubert Sumlin with the Howling Wolf. Together they played history.

Hubert Sumlin (November 16, 1931 – December 4, 2011) played guitar with Howling Wolf for so many years that Wolf called Hubert his son. "I think he really thought Hubert was his son after awhile," said James Cotton.

Sumlin briefly joined Muddy Waters in 1956 after a money- related dispute with Wolf, but rejoined Wolf after getting into a fight with Muddy and Otis Spann. A deceptively sweet man, Hubert was not one to back down from a fight. He had his teeth knocked out by Wolf ("He just backhanded me and teeth went everywhere!") and dodged a motorcycle chain wielded by Otis Spann.

His beautiful guitar tone was partially the result of not using a pick. My particular favorite Sumlin break is the one on "Hidden Charms", after Wolf says, "Git it!" Hubert knocks out one of the truly great recorded guitar solos of all time! He is among a handful of blues guitarists whose sound is identifiable within one or two notes, and some of his licks, like the voicings on "Killing Floor" or the trance- like figure on "Smokestack Lightning" are among the most influential ever recorded.

After Wolf's death, Hubert began recording on his own, often with someone famous like Eric Clapton. His 2010 record with Pinetop Perkins, "Joined at the Hip" won a Grammy and he was a mainstay of Eric Clapton's Crossroads Festivals.

Much respected, much venerated, Hubert died quietly in Wayne, New Jersey of heart failure.

New Years Eve

I'm playing the Blues tonight at the Zoo Bar in Washington DC. This is the 7th or 8th year my band has played NYE at the Zoo, and, truth be told, I'd be pretty sad if we weren't.

Every year brings about a certain amount of change, but, ultimately, it's the things that don't change that begin to mean more and more to me.

Like the beauty of a Robert Johnson recording, or a Rembrandt self- portrait, especially the later ones. There are so many things, I won't attempt a list.

So, Happy New Year, gentle readers, we'll meet in the future sometime soon next year.

Thanks to all of you.

Where You'll Be Spending the Rest of Your Life

Windsor McCay, from Mr. Door Trees' site

As we approach the last of 2011, my thoughts seem to turn toward my old nemesis- the Future. Long- time L by L readers may recall my fixation with the Future, because it never seemed to arrive!

Here are some links:
http://bretlittlehales.blogspot.com/2009/12/future-is-now.html and http://bretlittlehales.blogspot.com/2010/03/future-isnt-now.html.

And now, on the eve of 2012, the year the Mayans supposedly predicted would be the planet's final one, I just keep thinking about the Future that never was, and how close we came to it.

I'm not talking about the total lack of anti- gravity belts; or cities in the clouds, or under glass domes, or on other planets (glass domes again, I guess.) Nor am I talking about controlling the weather, robot servants, and pills that turn into full plates of food! Rocket cars, highways made of clear, plexi- glassed tubed tunnels that never have traffic jams. Utopian societies w/ tunics that have space-age fins on the shoulders. Invisibility rays!

Well, you get the idea.

I'm talking about some things we used to have that can serve to remind us that the future was once right around the corner:

1. We went to the moon and played golf
I don't play golf, but if I were on the moon, I'd be happy to give it a few swings! The point being, of course, that instead of only one astronaut, all of us, by now, should be able to go to the moon and do some anti- gravity putting. In a glass- domed city. But we're not! And why not?

2. Monorails in department stores
My wife used to celebrate Xmas in Philadelphia, visiting her grandparents, and recalls riding in a monorail (hanging?- I'll have to ask) around Wanamaker's department store. This part of the future probably got litigated out of existence, a fate I imagine that curtailed a lot of the future.

<--- The Santa Land monorail, Meir and Frank's in Portland, Oregon, similar to the one in Wanamaker's.

3. Blimps and dirigibles
Oh, the humanity! Well before the explosion of the Hindenburg, blimps were a valid form of mass transportation. Unfortunately, prior to WWII, blimps were filled with highly flammable hydrogen, instead of stable but hard- to- find helium. Nowadays the only blimps we see are advertising blimps, a la the Goodyear Blimp (which, by the way, I rode in one time!)
Imagine this: it's a beautiful fall day, the leaves are changing and you and your honey decide to view the Skyline Drive from the air. You go to the nearby mooring station and take an elevator or escalator to the entrance floor where your Skyline Blimp is tethered, buy a ticket, maybe $2.00 tops, and rise quietly and majestically over the city to the Skyline Drive, your mouths full of "Oohs!" and Aahs!"


The more I think of it, the more the current view of the computer- dominated future seems physically static. Video games have replaced an actual reality, unfortunately. Virtual reality is seemingly without consequence, or so it may seem, and all the thought that would have gone into the time machine has gone into some current video game.

4. Contacting the Spirit world
Seem farfetched?
Not so! Back at the turn of the 20th century, huge amounts of people were confident that we could communicate with the dead. The Spiritualism movement was not unlike a religion, much like, say, Scientology today or the worship of angels as the benign messengers of Deities.
It wasn't until Houdini devoted much of the final years of his career to exposing mediums as frauds that the movement began to die out.
Actually it may be coming back. With the proliferation of television shows about Paranormal phenomena, I wouldn't be surprised if the movement makes a comeback. However, no one has patented a working communicating device that can reach the netherworld, wherever and whatever that may entail.
Strange when you think about it, isn't it? All those particons, and radio waves and we still can't drop a line to our nearest deceased and find out how they're doing? Vatican cover- up, anyone?

5. Anything Buckminster Fuller invented
For a smart guy, Buckminster Fuller seems woefully under- represented in our current future. Ever been inside a geodesic dome (answer: not since the late '60's)? A folding house? Driven an aerodynamically designed car? No? Not surprised. Very few have. But it all existed. And it looked cool too: a huge qualification of the future that also got ignored. How cool- looking is an IPad? It's an iPhone tray, for chrissakes! TV dinners looked cooler, especially on the box.

5. PF Flyers
Okay, so they weren't really shoes that could enhance your anti-gravity abilities, but at least they were thinking about it.


6. Anything in a Max Fleischer cartoon.
Anything...


7. Backyard Roller Coasters
I knew of a kid in Chevy Chase MD whose dad had built him a roller coaster in their backyard. Johnny Koehler and I snuck in once and actually played on it, but the dad caught us and threw us out.

8. Personal rocket packs and
9. Floating cars
They had 'em, I saw 'em- where are they now? Expedia has one, but, like the blimps, their usage seems limited to advertising.



10. All of these:
http://blog.modernmechanix.com/2011/12/28/its-new-16/
http://blog.modernmechanix.com/2008/04/27/motor-bikes-speed-home-repairs/
http://blog.modernmechanix.com/2008/01/30/bizarre-eat-shops-built-to-lure-trade/
http://blog.modernmechanix.com/2011/09/22/robbie-and-gronk-mobile-robots/
and many, many more!

Let's not abandon our Steampunk vision of the future, please! Life is just morbidly dull and virtual enough as it is.

Long Live the Future- where you'll be spending the rest of your life!

Merry Christmas to All (and to All a Good Night)

From animator Dan Glass, the Fleischer Studios, 1932
© Fleischer Collection

Santa Drinks Coke

Haddon Hubbard "Sunny" Sundblom (June 22, 1899 – March 10, 1976) did not create the modern image of Santa Claus, but he certainly refined it. His Santa, created for the Coca Cola Company starting in the 1930's, entered the American consciousness, where it lives to this day. Virtually every commercial on television that has a Santa figure, from the Santa- bashing Best Buy ads to the pseudo- romantic Kay Jeweler spots, utilizes Sundblom's concept of Jolly Old Saint Nick. 
Sundblom was also an accomplished pin-up artist whose 1972 Playboy cover probably inspired many of the costumes from my "Xmas in a Primitive Land" blog.

Thanks to Mr. Door Tree for these images- be sure to stop by his excellent blog, Golden Age Comic Book Stories.

Sunblom's 1972 Playboy cover- his final published work