BORIS KARLOFF SINGS "THE MONSTER MASH" ON SHINDIG 1965 : BOBBY PICKETT and LEONARD CAPIZZI SONGWRITERS

  See our previous posts on Bobby Pickett using the Google Blogger search feature!  The Shindig Haloween show featured Boris reading Monster Mash Lyrics.  The song first came out in 1962.  This video is "recreated" but we were fooled.

ENTERTAINING HALLOWEEN

(437) MAE BOREN AXTON: THE QUEEN MOTHER OF NASHVILLE and PROLIFIC SONGWRITER

MAE AXTON wrote over 200 songs, and 14 charted, but she will go down in music history and Elvis Presley history because she was the person who with Tommy Durden co-wrote "Heartbreak Hotel," perhaps the song Elvis is most famous for.  When Elvis had a hit with "Heartbreak Hotel" he had a hit on more than one chart.  It hit on Country, Pop, and R and B. 

As many songwriters have been known to do, Mae was out to sell her own song to the person she wanted to record it.  She personally presented the song to Elvis in Nashville in 1955 at a country music convention.  The video below is probably the January 1956 session with the Blue Moon Boys and session guitarist Chet Atkins.

Through the years Mae placed songs with many country music greats from Johnny Tillotson to Willie Nelson.

MAE AXTON : BLACKCAT ROCKABILLY UK SITE : By Colin Kilgour
MAE AXTON : OKLAHOMA : Oklahoma Women's Hall of Fame in 1985

ANY VIDEO OF ERSEL HICKEY PERFORMING? HOW ABOUT WES BRYAN ?

Here's a challenge to anyone who uses YouTube or other Internet video sharing sites! We would love to find footage of Ersel Hickey performing and post it! We would love to find footage of Wes performing as well.

And by the way, we know that there must be footage somewhere. Wes performed on Ed Sullivan, Dick Clark's American Band Stand (twice), the Jack Paar show, and many other regional shows in Baltimore, Cleveland, and throughout the south, as well as on shows in Los Angeles.  And he appeared live on the pier in Santa Monica.

Wes performed with Ersel Hickey in stage shows in the state of New York.  He also performed with Buddy Knox on his tour in the late 1950's in 48 states and some of you may have photos taken of Wes and Buddy from that tour.

Unfortunately many archival collections are organized by the show headliners, and over time what has been preserved is often the early careers of people such as Elvis Presley, people who became much more famous. I've enjoyed watching a number of Dick Clark American Bandstand videos all the way through at the Paley Center for the Media, including those commercials that seem so much more dated than the music,  but they don't have a full collection.  I contacted the Ed Sullivan collection but got no reply.

If you know of local repositories of film or related materials in your park of the United States please let us know!

Christine

LENNONYC (LENNON NEW YORK CITY) DVD : (JUST LIKE) STARTING OVER

LENNONYC is an American Masters Series DVD which could not have been made without the cooperation of Yoko Ono, and this film did give me a different impression of John Lennon, but having read around the Beatles and John Lennon and Yoko Ono,  I felt also that it had been edited in such a way as to admit previous controversies but also get past them quickly.  All film makers have a point of view so I should not be surprised that this one proposed that at the time of his death on December 8, 1980, John had found personal happiness and career success.

I'm writing about this video DVD here at WES BRYAN- MY LIFE IN MUSIC  because of the coverage of John's music making with Phil Spector as Producer in Los Angeles, and because John talks about how the Beatles used to cover early rock and roll "classics" in the studio when they need to relax, take a break, or get inspiration.  He also references  Elvis Presley in the section that involves his rockabilly song STARTING OVER .

  To me this song has Beatlesque aspects as well as reminding me of some Electric Light Orchestra recordings.  Christine

SHINDIG MAGAZINE : COVERING MUSIC 1965 FORWARD

The name Shindig comes from the music television show. We've been hearing about Shindig Magazine... It covers the mid 1960's forward with articles about many artists you may have loved but have lost track of...

It looks like our kind of publication. Here's a link!

SHINDIG MAGAZINE WEB SITE

LISA MARIE AND ELVIS DUET : FAN VIDEO TO BE RELEASED TO THE PUBLIC

LISA MARIE AND DAD VIDEO RELEASE : Chris Michaud reports for Rueters

Excerpt:

"Presley’s new video, “I Love You Because,” is an emotional duet with her late father.


Due to premiere on Thursday on country music TV channel CMT and CMT.com, the video was recorded in August for the 35th anniversary of Elvis Presley’s death."

"Presley, who died at the age of 42, recorded “I Love You Because” in July 1954 at Sun Studio in Memphis, the same time he recorded “That’s All Right.”


Producer Sam Phillips deemed it unsuitable for Presley’s first single, and it ended up on Presley’s first album, from 1956, never to be performed by Presley again, according to CMT.

Lisa Marie Presley, 44, recorded her vocals to the song in August at the suggestion of producer T-Bone Burnett, as a special song for fans."

MAE AXTON : ELVIS PRESLEY : HEARTBREAK HOTEL - MAE AXTON

Mae wrote a lot of songs besides Heartbreak Hotel, but she says she's OK with being known for only that song. Here's a radio interview of Mae intervierwing Elvis in 1955.

(436) JOHNNY TILLOTSON POETRY IN MOTION MAE AXTON

I met Johnny when I was writing songs with Mae Axton. (Out of that collaboration I wrote "Apache Pearl" with Mae.)

He was also friends with Phil and Don Everly.

Little known is that Johnny is the singer for "The Mary Tyler Moore" TV show theme song.

JOHNNY TILLOTSON OFFICIAL SITE  (It's terrific!)

  One of several songs Johnny had out in 1965!  In 1960 his hit "Poetry In Motion" was one of my favorites.

GRAMMY MUSEUM : THE BEACH BOYS and WHITNEY HOUSTON EXHIBITS

GRAMMY MUSEUM - BEACH BOYS EXHIBIT

Christine here! 

Last weekend I went to the GRAMMY MUSEUM, one of my favorite places in Los Angeles.  I wanted to see the Beach Boy's exhibit, celebrating their 50 years in the business and Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.  The exhibit was one long wall and featured a number of guitar reproductions and copies rather than originals, which I understood but felt disappointed by.  Turns out my visit was about the time the Beach Boys were breaking up - again!

AISHA HARRIS of SLATE  "This is only the latest incident in years of public disagreements (and lawsuits) between cousins Love and Wilson over, among other things, writing credits and publishing rights. When the band reunited for the first time in years at the Grammys this past February, the buzz for fans was built around anticipation for a tour that would see all the surviving members on stage again. But even back in June, with the shows in full swing, trouble was brewing: Love had added some South American dates for the fall that would not include the other guys. “That’s news to me,” Wilson told Rolling Stone at the time."

LINK TO FULL ARTICLE AT SLATE

One of the most fabulous things about the GRAMMY MUSEUM is the interactive computer screens which allow you to locate music in history, by genre, and by artist, AND ALL THAT SOUND SAMPLING.  It's truly an exciting educational experience.

Of great interest to me also is the costuming that various artists wore.  Really, anyone studying fashion in the area should visit the museum every few months.  The last time I visited the museum I got chills when I saw the simple red jacket that Ritchie Valens wore in his publicity photos,  and costumes worn on stage by Michael Jackson and Neil Diamond have been featured in the past.  
This time it was the WHITNEY HOUSTON exhibit that caught my attention.  Now I have to admit I'm not a Whitney Houston fan, but then I'm not that much into the "power singers."  As I looked at her costumes and read about her career, which I knew near nothing about, I learned that no one had won more Grammy's than Whitney. 

As a woman I looked at the costumes and realized that she was about my size but I couldn't help but try on the fact that she had achieved more than the vast majority of us, and yet she had lost it all.  I listened as other museum goers discussed what really was the problem with Whitney.  Was it her husband?  Drugs?  Drugs and her husband? Or maybe simply FAME?  It brought tears to my eyes to think of it.

The museum also has a WOODY GUTHRIE EXHIBIT going on right now, and let me tell you, if you happen to be reading this and are in Los Angeles, you can take METRO there and not worry about parking or parking fees around the Staples Center area.

(435) ME AND COUNTRY MUSIC : MY ROOTS IN CHEROKEE COUNTY

I grew up in rural Cherokee County North Carolina - The Smokey Mountains - where I ran with a kid gang, and as a teen followed my father's work to Oregon and then around the country to Akron, Ohio, where I got my big break.  From there I would move to New York City as my base but tour throughout the South.

I grew up hearing Country Music and I've always loved it. Rockabilly, as you probably know, has strong roots in Country.  Many of my peers in the business in the late 1950's and early 1960's also had country roots, people like Buddy Knox, Jimmy Bowen and Buddy Holly, who were from West Texas, and Glen Campbell, who was from the "Deep South".

As a song writer, I was just as interested in writing for Country music artists as ever and I was able to place some of the songs I wrote or cowrote with Country artists.  

AL SHELTON Designer of RICK NELSON'S HAND TOOLED GUITAR COVER

FROM OUR ARCHIVES ORIGINAL POST FROM 2008

Christine here.

The other day I stopped into a storefront art gallery and workshop of an artist named AL SHELTON. Al is famous for having designed and cast the statue of Gene Autry at the museum that cowboy star Gene Autry funded, once called the Gene Autry Western Heritage Museum but now called the Autry National Center of the American West.
AUTRY NATIONAL CENTER
He is also a renown designer of hand tooled guitar covers and other items and a painter and his life has been entwined with real and movie cowboys and cowgirls.
Al showed me a photo of Rick Nelson with a hand tooled guitar cover on his guitar that Al designed and worked years ago. He told me it went down on the plane that Rick was on when he died. He also did a lot of work that Nudie, a cowboy star costume designer subcontracted, including clothes for stars like Elvis.

Here's a NPR broadcast about Al...
NPR ON AL

Here is a link that shows Al with Matthew Nelson, one of Rick's sons, and some of the hand tooled work and art he's done.
ARTISANS LINK

This post updated September 2012

MAYA ANGELOU Quotation on Friendship

"A friend may be waiting behind a stranger's face." - Maya Angelou