There is no closer bond on earth than that between a dog and its owner. Tonight’s offering en route to the Tips shows footage of a woman having a myocardial infarction. Fortunately for her, she’s surrounded by her loyal dogs – Puppyboy, Ginger, Jimmy and Hedda – who spring into action. Without further ado, here’s Merrill Markoe’s short film Le Crise (“The Crisis.”)
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Tonight’s featured amusement en route to the Tips is the next in our summer series of songs extolling the virtues of a particular city. From a 1963 television appearance, here’s laid-back North Carolina native George Hamilton IV singing Bob Gibson and John D. Loudermilk’s paean to the Texas city of Abilene – the prettiest town that he’s ever seen.
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Tonight’s entertainment en route to the Tips is a 19th century American gospel-folk song loosely based on the 23rd Psalm. One minor note about the lyrics: the performer’s use of the lyrical phrase “for yourself” instead of the original “by yourself” made sense in the African-American vernacular at the time, when the meanings were synonymous, but in terms of modern usage it could be a bit misleading.
A fine performance nonetheless: from a 1960’s American television appearance, here’s Mississippi John Hurt singing You’ve Got To Walk That Lonesome Valley (By Yourself.)
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It’s Saturday night, it’s hot and muggy – at least where I am – and my biodex is down a quart, so I figure, what better time for a splendidly senseless panoply of fruit hats, monkeys, tambourines, banana xylophones, showgirls, maracas, overhead shots of kaleidoscopic, choreographed arms and limbs, and….did I mention giant technicolor bananas? From Busby Berkeley’s 1943 film The Gang’s All Here, here’s Maria de Carmo Miranda da Cunha, better known as Carmen Miranda, camping her way through The Lady In The Tutti-Frutti Hat.
No, I don’t understand it either, but just look at all those purdy colours and gee-gaws…
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Lieber and Stoller are one of the most prolific, talented and successful songwriting teams in history. Last Saturday’s amusement featured one of their lesser-known songs; tonight’s selection is their most unusual song, a definite singularity for the team that wrote Hound Dog and Stand By Me. Based on Disillusionment, a 19th century short story by German writer Thomas Mann, the song manages to take a narrator’s world-weary, almost apathetic outlook and metamorphose it into something resembling liberation and spiritual emancipation.
A brilliantly audacious song, and an improbable Top 40 hit. From 1969, here’s North Dakota Native Miss Peggy Lee singing Is That All There Is?
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Every year in England during the May Bank Holiday a seven pound wheel of Double Gloucester cheese is sent rolling down Cooper’s Hill in Brockworth, just outside of Gloucestershire, while dozens of competitors run, leap, roll, flip, and faceplant their way down the steep slope in pursuit of the cheese; whoever crosses the finish line first wins the cheese.
It’s not as easy as it sounds. 33 people were injured in the 1997 running, leading to the cancellation of the following year’s event. Although this year’s event was canceled as well, this time due to concerns about the sheer number of spectators who have come to attend the event, a less-publicized unofficial rolling was held.
There’s nothing like the real thing, though. Said competitor Mike Smith of the cancellation,

“Dreadfully disappointed with the news. As a cheese-roller of many years, I look forward to the chance to really injure myself each year. I have no idea how I’ll hurt myself this year…”

With any luck he’ll get the opportunity next spring. Until then, all we have are memories: here’s video footage of the 2007 Cooper’s Hill Cheese-Rolling and Wake.
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Several years ago Kate wrote an essay in the National Post suggesting that a good famine would cure our whiny nation, and teach us to be “grateful for what we have, accept our own burdens, and mourn quietly for what we lose.” Her prescription might have been half tongue-in-cheek, but when you watch Clara Cannucciari, the 94-year-old star of tonight’s video from the online series Great Depression Cooking, it’s hard not to think that the proposed cure would indeed pay such dividends. Growing up during the Great Depression, when a lot of food ingredients were unavailable or beyond reach financially, the young Clara and her parents and siblings had to make do with whatever was available; to this day she takes pleasure in preparing simple meals, using whatever ingredients are tastiest and cheapest. Tonight, using a recipe from chapter three (“It’s a Hot Meal, Stop Complaining“) of her new cookbook, the commonsensical, good-natured, self-reliant, and adorable Clara Cannucciari demonstrates how to prepare and cook The Poorman’s Meal. Is it any good? Well, why don’t you ask her grandson and his friends!
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The song “Mercury Blues” (“I’m gonna buy me a Mercury / and cruise it up and down the road“) has been covered by a lot of artists over the years. David Lindley’s up-tempo, slide guitar-heavy 1981 release was probably the most famous version until country music star Alan Jackson’s big 1993 hit was used by the Ford Motor Company to advertise its pickup trucks. Tonight’s featured amusement en route to the Tips is a recording of the original version of the song – with its original title – by the artist who wrote it: From 1948, here’s K.C. Douglas performing Mercury Boogie.
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Tonight’s selection, the next weekly installment of Songs About Cities – songs that don’t just mention a city, but are about the titled city, and in praise of it – extols the virtues of a city that has the softest grass, sunshine that touches the soul, and women – the prettiest you’ve ever seen – who treat you right and wear their dresses “country tight.” Surprisingly, it still only has a population of about 50,000 people. From July of 1967, here are The Everly Brothers singing the praises of the earthly paradise known as Bowling Green, Kentucky.
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It’s Sunday night, time to straighten up and fly right in preparation for the arrival of Arkansas’ own electric guitar-playing Sanctified gospel powerhouse singer Sister Rosetta Tharpe, who was “one of gospel music’s first superstars (and) the first gospel performer to record for a major record label.” From an undated ’60s television appearance, here she is performing Up Above My Head.
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In the 1950s and ’60s the songwriting team of Leiber and Stoller wrote a remarkable number of hit songs, including Stand By Me, Is That All There Is, On Broadway (with Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil), Save The Last Dance For Me, Spanish Harlem, Jailhouse Rock, Kansas City, Hound Dog, and many others.
Tonight’s amusement en route to the Tips is a live performance of one of their lesser-known songs. From a recording made at a 1966 acid test (note the tempo difficulties) at the Filmore Auditorium in San Francisco, here are the newly-minted Grateful Dead (formerly The Warlocks) performing Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller’s I’m A Hog For You Baby.
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In 2004 Ray Davies, former frontman for The Kinks, was shot in the leg by a mugger in New Orleans. He fully recovered (a doctor reassured him that New Orleans is “the best place to get shot” because ER staff “had plenty of practice” treating gunshot wounds) and wrote tonight’s selection, a wry take on the uneasy relationship between restless, low-income locals and cash-waving, well lubricated tourists. From 2005, here’s Ray Davies performing The Tourist.
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Years ago it was common for comedians and comedic actors to portray stereotyped ethnic characters for laughs. Buddy Hackett’s surly Chinese waiter (“Your brother’s a liar!”) was a standout, as was Peter Sellers’ guileless Hrundi V. Bakshi in Blake Edwards’ comedy film The Party. Tonight’s featured amusement en route to the Tips is a comedy skit about a laconic, hapless Mexican-American who has been chosen – ordered – to be the first man in space. From a 1960 recording, here’s actor/comedian Bill Dana as Jose Jimenez the Astronaut.
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In 1949 Pete Seeger and Lee Hays wrote If I Had A Hammer, which that lists all the beautiful things that could be accomplished – “I’d hammer out love between my brothers and my sisters” – if only a hammer could be located. In tonight’s musical oddity the performer not only has a hammer, but she looks like she’s itching to use if for less friendly purposes. From a 1964 appearance on Italian public television station Rai 2, here’s Rita Pavone performing her peppy, muscular, and slightly disconcerting “why, I oughta” version of Datemi un martello – literally, Give Me A Hammer.
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Tonight’s featured amusement en route to the Tips thread is a three-for-one soul music cover-song extravaganza as performed by four fictional brothers – “non-identical quadruplets” – who turned their musically-confusing uprootedness (they were born in the deep South before being hauled off to Detroit, the home of Motown and soul music) into a humorously mixed-up style of music.
From their 1993 album Into The Twangy-First Century, here are the Burns Brothers, aka Run C&W, performing a three-song soul music Medley consisting of Ray Charles’ What’d I Say, Stevie Wonder’s Superstition, and – my favourite part – Diana Ross and the Supremes’ Stop In The Name Of Love.
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Last week, in the first installment of the Songs About Cities series, Perry Como sang the praises of Seattle; tonight Frank Sinatra, accompanied by the Nelson Riddle orchestra, sings Jimmy Van Heusen and Sammy Cahn’s paean to the city of Chicago called My Kind Of Town.
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The late Thomas Dorsey is considered to be the inventor/creator of what we now call gospel music, which melds expressions of praise with melismatic blues-style tones to create a very powerful and affecting musical expression of faith.
In 1937 Dorsey wrote the widely-covered gospel classic Peace In The Valley for Mahalia Jackson. Unfortunately, I could find no videos or even MP3s of Jackson singing it, and many of the versions by other artists either omit the beautiful and important transitional chords or are a bit stilted. Fortunately, and by coincidence, the version I selected has a connection to Dorsey via another gospel great named Roberta Martin: in 1933, when she was a pianist for Dorsey’s youth choir, she organized a youth group called the Martin-Frye Quartet, one of whose members was a gentleman named Romance Watson. I can’t find any biographical information on Mr. Watson, but here he is, years later, all grown up, giving a heartfelt live performance of Thomas Dorsey’s Peace In The Valley.
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In the 1960s the songwriting team of Carole King and her then-husband Gerry Goffin wrote a number of songs, including (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman, Up On The Roof, The Locomotion, Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow, and Pleasant Valley Sunday, that became hits for other artists, In 1971, after their divorce, King released Tapestry, a collection of her own songs (with the exception of three that were co-written with Goffin) which became the largest selling solo album of all time. From that Album, here’s Carole King singing You’ve Got A Friend.
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I suggest you get some tissues handy, because tonight’s video, shot on the G20 weekend, might just break your hearts. In it, a brave, upright Torontonian stands up for our fundamental rights in the face of in the face of oppressive and callous tyranny. I’m not sure what’s more heartbreaking about the video, the refusal of the authorities to answer his simple questions – “Why are you putting us through this? Who gave you the right? Who are you?” – or the way bystanders looked on with apathetic, almost amused indifference, like it was all a big joke.
While the nature of the footage raises some disturbing questions about whether we are really a free people with rights, or whether anyone even cares anymore, it’s comforting to know that at least one brave soul – I liken him to Rosa Parks – understands that we, as a people, must never, ever surrender our fundamental and inviolable right to shop.
Let freedom ring.
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Another day, another severe thunderstorm watch. If you’re living on the prairies right now you’ve probably been seeing a lot of oddly dark skies and ridiculous amounts of rain and hail. Or maybe you haven’t been looking at the skies at all, because you’re too busy with a wet-vac and a mop cleaning up your basement.
Time for a little weather music, then: from 1943, here’s the late Lena Horne singing Harold Arlen and Ted Koehler’s Stormy Weather.
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