Officially on a big time 20th century music bent on Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog, this blogmeister has been binge-listening to the innovative and incomparable guitar-slinger, guitar builder and recording technology innovator Les Paul, the only musician also in the National Inventors Hall of Fame and Museum.
Having made his name first as a country-western guitarist, then as a band member in Fred Waring's Pennsylvanians and ultimately with his own trio, Les was hired by Bing Crosby.
Clearly, Les was extremely adept at accompanying vocalists even early on in his recording career.
After further success as an ace accompanist with The Andrews Sisters and as a last-minute sub for Oscar Moore in the first Jazz At The Philharmonic concert, Les Paul would join forces with talented vocalist, fellow guitar-slinger and wife-to-be Mary Ford.
The duo soon became one of Capitol Records' top selling recording artists. On radio, Les and Mary co-starred in the 15-minute Les Paul Show.
The Les Paul & Mary Ford records, including 16 top 10 hits between 1950-1954, sold millions.
The duo were the biggest recording artists in the business until the emergence of Elvis Presley.
Les, always a builder and tinkerer, figured out how to add more recording heads to tape machines, utilize multiple tape recorders and create multi-track recordings.
Using a makeshift recording studio in their garage, Les Paul and Mary Ford created hit records for Capitol Records in which Les' guitar and Mary's voice became an orchestra.
The musical couple hosted their own syndicated TV show in 1954-1955.
Celebrated by guitarists from Pat Martino to Steve Miller to Jimmy Page: Les Paul's innovations and inventions in building electric guitars.
Les retired from performing in 1964 and dropped out of sight to concentrate on new guitar designs for Gibson.
Les was among the few luminaries from the swing and bop eras to live long enough to carry that blazing musical brilliance into the 21st century. He held forth weekly at New York City's Iridium Club - and look who showed up to pay tribute.
While we at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog missed the TCM Classic Film Fest and shall, having found ourselves increasingly and seriously homesick as our March-April CA trip progressed, also miss the epic 2019 San Francisco Silent Film Festival (and drive all the blog's cinephile readers away by covering other totally unrelated 20th century pop culture topics), we never miss a favorite song.
At the top of the list of ridiculously catchy tunes from the halcyon days of 1960's AM radio (KFRC, KYA and KDIA where I grew up), even higher than Mother-In-Law by Ernie K. Doe and Quarter To Three by Gary U.S. Bonds: the one, the only Gene Chandler's 1962 hit The Duke of Earl.
It's a great tune and Gene's snazzy getup tops Bela Lugosi, Liberace and Screamin' Jay Hawkins.
Gene Chandler sang this hit with pleasure for 50+ years!
Amazingly enough, The Duke of Earl made it into the late 20th century.
In 1991, the Latino American hip hop group Cypress Hill sampled it 29 years after The Duke Of Earl topped the charts.
What do the kings of doo-wop and hip-hop have in common? Well. . . in this writer's estimation, a certain goofy, tongue-in-cheek sensibility and humor underlying a strong desire to entertain and give the audience their money's worth, not unlike the aforementioned Screamin' Jay Hawkins.
Lyrically, Cypress Hill's (would-be) macho tough guy anthem Hand On The Pump is more akin to Elton John's Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting than Gene Chandler's doo-wop masterpiece, even though one suspects neither the glam pop star Englishman nor the very thoroughly 420-ed Cypress Hill in actuality administered "beat-downs" ever.
Few recording artists had the temerity to actually cover The Duke of Earl. One musician who did was Alex Chilton.
Alex Chilton, as he did with many 1960's tunes, rearranged Gene Chandler's classic as a rock n' roll song, gave it his all and had fun in the process!
The fact that
Alex Chilton, the uncrowned king of covers throughout his solo career and even in his concerts with Big Star and The Box Tops, tackled The Duke Of Earl should be no big surprise. Alex covered one of this blogger's favorite 1967 hits, Brenton Wood's classic "The Oogum Boogum Song."
As far as this blogger knows, Alex did not cover Brenton Wood's second big 1967 hit, Gimme Little Sign. Possibly he did and it was never recorded; didn't call Alex Chilton the uncrowned king of covers for nothing!
Meanwhile, here's Brenton Wood performing Gimme Little Sign on Top Of The Pops - and sounding great as usual.
While asking just how I might wrap up this post, the notion arises that some readers of Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog might want to sing The Duke of Earl at home. Why not? Here are the lyrics - have fun!
At Savanna Jazz in beautiful downtown San Carlos tonight at 7:30: rip-roaring and inventive sounds courtesy of Jeff Sanford's Cartoon Jazz Octet. In tonight's program, amazing music from the 1930's will be rocking the house in 2019.
The intrepid ensemble - Jeff and Hal Richards on reeds & flutes, Mark Rosengarden on drums, Zachariah Spellman on Tuba, Simon Planting on acoustic bass, Andy Ostwald on piano, Eric Wayne on trumpets, and Randy Johnson on guitar, banjo and vocals - will tackle the epic music of John Kirby & His Sextet, Raymond Scott, Jelly Roll Morton and more.
Today is the birthday of Cartoon Jazz Orchestra composer-in-residence Lenny Carlson, so tonight's repertoire shall include several new original tunes by Mr. Carlson, which sfall be included on the group's upcoming CD release "Nothing Wrong."
There will be eccentric, wonderful and very challenging-to-play songs by American composer Raymond Scott.
We shall also hear great tunes by Raymond Scott collaborator (and member of Jazz At The Philharmonic and the mighty Verve Records house band) Charlie Shavers, the brilliant trumpeter, composer and arranger who “jazzed the classics” for the John Kirby Sextet.
The Date: Thursday April 11, 2019 Showtime: 7:30 p.m. The Place: Savanna Jazz Club
1189 Laurel Street
San Carlos, CA 94070
RESERVATIONS: (415) 624-4549
Club: (650) 453-3683
E-mail: jazz@savannajazz.com
For more info and musical coolness, see the Cartoon Jazz Orchestra official website.
Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog, obsessed with vintage print and TV advertisements from the mid-20th century, did a post in August 2017 about celebrities plugging alcoholic beverages, featuring everyone from Lucille Ball to Orson Welles to Dan Duryea. Makes me think of this Red Skelton routine. . .
So, before Pinterest makes searching online for ads either obsolete or expensive, let's kick off this post about comics selling alcoholic beverages with Ernie Kovacs. It comes as no surprise that Ernie Kovacs appeared in this campaign for Hueblein ready-made martinis, although it does surprise me that I could not find even one ad featuring Ernie's martini-lovin' Percy Dovetonsils character.
Hard to think of a better spokesperson for "cocktails in a bottle."
Can one imagine Ernie and Edie Adams performing Spike Jones' Cocktails For Two? Yes!
Far and away, the king of print advertisements featuring comedians plugging BOOOOOOOOOZE would be Smirnoff Vodka, owned by. . . G.F. Heublein & Brothers. None less than the King of Late Night, Johnny Carson of The Tonight Show, appeared with a St. Bernard to promote a Smirnoff + Fresca cocktail. . . to which we say, don't knock it unless you've tried it - and, PLEASE, don't skimp on the vodka.
A frequent guest on The Tonight Show With Johnny Carson was comedian Buddy Hackett, who portrayed a fireman with a mission to save dull, boring, floundering parties with plenty of social lubricant Smirnoff vodka in this ad.
Wally Cox, star of Mr. Peepers and Underdog, as well as the comedian who waxed the novelty record There Is A Tavern In The Town, also liked his Smirnoff!
There was a successful campaign plugging the use of Smirnoff Vodka in a cocktail called The Moscow Mule. While the always glamorous Julie Newmar was in many of the ads for The Moscow Mule, quite a few of them featured comedy greats. None other than Woody Allen - see 10 Classic Celebrity Booze Endorsements for more - starred in several "get blasted as Sputnik at a Smirnoff Mule party" print advertisements.
Another celebrity generally not associated with heavy drinking who appeared in ads for alcoholic beverages was Groucho Marx - but, in demand for endorsements, did this one for Smirnoff.
Not to be outdone, Harpo also did Smirnoff ads.
Although Chico would definitely have needed the money and fit nicely in a Smirnoff print ad, he had passed away in 1961. Zeppo and Gummo of The Marx Brothers did not endorse Smirnoff, even if they drank the stuff.
It is rather difficult to believe that were not A LOT more print ads with movie stars and cinematic luminaries of the 1920's and 1930's plugging BOOOOOOOOOZE! W.C. Fields! John Barrymore! Errol Flynn! Joan Crawford! John Ford! Walt Disney and his crew of hard-partying animators at The Mouse Factory! Charley Chase!
Well, at least one ad featured silver screen icon Buster Keaton, who, by the time in his life that appeared in this ad was not guzzling fifths of Smirnoff Vodka daily. . . as he may well have been when he co-starred in What! No Beer? with the shy, retiring and low key Jimmy Durante.
George Burns, the great comedian (and All-Star straight man in Burns & Allen) was headlong into his successful second career as a solo act when he did this ad from Black Velvet Imported Canadian Whisky.
We close today's post with another guy who also headlined print ads for Canadian whiskey. While he's not somebody who would be regarded as a comedian per se, these ads, seen 40 years later, are definitely funny (as are his golden throats record albums). That would be the one, the only Telly Savalas, not only the star of Kojak and the macho action flick The Dirty Dozen, but the unfortunate victim of evil killer doll "Talky Tina" in a memorable, unsettling and creepy episode of The Twilight Zone. "Feel the Velvet, baby!"
Graphics by Sci Fi Bob Ekman, Scott Moon and Judy Zillen
Two days early for April Fools' Day, the KFJC Psychotronix Film Festival returns to Foothill College’s Room 5015! The perpetrators of this festival shall plug Saturday's celluloid extravaganza this very evening (from 6:00 - 7:00 p.m. Pacific Standard Time) with the event's host, Robert Emmett, on the Thoughtline show on KFJC.
Where does one turn, at this late March point that marks the continuing Rite of Spring? The KFJC Psychotronix Film Festival, that's where!
Let's hit April Fool's Day and Easter the right way - the Psychotronic way! It will be as refreshing as springtime!
We're baaaaaaaaaaaack - with yet another off-kilter extravaganza!
Curators du jour Sci Fi Bob Ekman, Paul F. Etcheverry and Scott Moon (of Cinema Insomnia and Planet X Magazine) present a delirious deluge drawn from Our Celluloid Past. Our overstocked 16mm archive is bursting at the acetate seams yet again with some of the coolest odd-ball films you are likely to see.
OF COURSE, we'll have trailers plugging Z-movies that are, to paraphrase horror host Mr. Lobo of Cinema Insomnia, not bad, just misunderstood.
We'll feature Scopitones, Soundies and other campy as hell musical short subjects!
There shall be new-to-us but otherwise ancient snack bar ads.
As well as, inevitably, cartoons - the weirder, the better!
Will there even be a reel about the latest toys for the 1962 Christmas season?
Here at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog, we careen willy-nilly between animation, classic movies, comedy, music we like, film history/silent films and old school showbiz. Nobody was better at combining old school showbiz at its very best with the virtuosity of jazz than vocalist, pianist and bandleader Nat King Cole (1919-1965).
We'll start today's 100th birthday tribute with the following BBC-TV special, An Evening With Nat King Cole, which demonstrates Cole's blazing genius as entertainer and pianist.
Nat King Cole first made his name in the late 1930's as a swinging jazz pianist in the tradition of Earl "Fatha" Hines and Teddy Wilson.
Nat hired bassist Wesley Prince and guitarist Oscar Moore to be his first group. Paraphrasing "Old King Cole was a merry old soul," they were first The King Cole Swingsters. After changing the group name to the King Cole Trio, they began making radio transcriptions and recordings. The trio performed on radio on The Chesterfield Supper Club, Kraft Music Hall, Old Gold, The Orson Welles Almanac and Swing Soiree - and headlined their own program, King Cole Trio Time.
The first record of Nat's as powerhouse jazz pianist this writer heard was the great album of the first (and historic) Jazz At The Philharmonic concert on July 2, 1944. The all-star lineup included r&b "Texas tenor" Illinois Jacquet of "Flying Home" fame (who enters at 3:31 and gets into high note pyrotechnics 20 years before Pharoah Sanders at 5:00), followed by guitarist and guitar inventor extraordinaire Les Paul. Nat and Les have a ball trading riffs with each other.
Equally amazing: a 1946 record led by Count Basie Orchestra saxophonist and swing king Lester Young, with his trio. . . Nat King Cole and Buddy Rich!
The King Cole Trio, with either Oscar Moore or Irving Ashby on guitar and Johnny Miller on the acoustic bass, would become a very popular act and recording a series of 78s for Capitol Records.
The trio appeared in Soundies and Snader Telescriptions in the 1940s and early 1950's.
Forgive the odd over-application of makeup on Mr. Cole in the following Snader Telescription, as the song's great and the trio, as usual, sounds fantastic.
For much of his career, Nat King Cole was a star who couldn't use the rest room or drinking fountain, stay at the same hotel, or live in the same neighborhood as his melanin-challenged Caucasian entertainment counterparts in the U.S.A. As Mr. Cole broke ground, he suffered physical attacks onstage and even the poisoning of the family dog by bigoted scumbags who didn't want his family as neighbors in Sunny California. While this was going on, he was (along with Hazel Scott) among the first African-Americans to host his own TV show.
On November 5, 1956, The Nat King Cole Show debuted on NBC. The shows are consistently outstanding and a high water mark for the musical variety format, and remain much sought after by music fans and it is tough to pick a single favorite episode from the series. Here's Nat, trading his signature tunes with those of that week's guest star, movie actress and musical comedy gal Betty Hutton.
Alas, affiliates in the Deep South states refused to show the series and NBC could not sell it to advertisers. The musical program began as a 15-minute series and at first had a sponsor (Carter Products, the makers of Arrid and Rise), but advertisers could not be found after it expanded in June, 1957 to a half hour format. The racism of the times (obvious in 1957 and, sadly, still all too evident in 2019) doomed The Nat King Cole Show. Nat's response: "Madison Avenue is afraid of the dark" - and indeed it was.
NBC made a "take it or leave it" offer. For the show to stay on the air, it had to be moved from its Tuesday night time slot to Saturday evenings at 7:00 p.m. by January 1958. Cole and his agent said no and that was it. The last episode aired on December 17, 1957.
If one was forced to select one particularly exceptional example of the series, arguably that would be the episode that featured a lineup of jazz greats unseen on American television and aired on October 15, 1957. Wouldn't see anything remotely like this again until Edie Adams' jazz-oriented variety show in 1964.
Nat could do acting and comedy in addition to music, so we'll finish today's post with one of his last TV appearances as guest star on The Jack Benny Program, which aired on January 21, 1964.
Thanks and cheers to the unforgettable Nat King Cole!
