The Man in BLACK and BLUEberry Hill

Today being the birthday of two bygone giants of popular music, I thought I’d do a bit of a musical remembrance, because one of them is one of my favorites, and the other may be one of yours (if you’re into the early days of rock ‘n’ roll).

I’ll start with the former: The Man in Black, JOHNNY CASH (2/26/1932–9/12/2003). I seem to recall doing a post on Johnny several years ago, so I won’t spend many words on him here. If interested in bio details, here a link you can check out:

https://www.biography.com/musician/johnny-cash

So let’s get to the music, beginning with a song which tells you something about where you’ll usually find me and my partner in time:

Speaking of doing time:

Here’s Johnny….cashing out this segment with wife June Carter Cash, in one of their hottest numbers:

We close with “Mr. Blueberry Hill” himself, FATS DOMINO (2/26/1928–10/24/2017):

Bio:  https://www.biography.com/musician/fats-domino

 

 

 

TALK ABOUT A SITE FOR SORE….FEET

Friends, if you neglected to take advantage of TAKE A WALK IN THE PARK DAY on March 30 (not to mention WALK AROUND THINGS DAY on April 4), you can still take steps to walk the walk today, which happens to be NATIONAL WALK TO WORK DAY (if you’ve already gone to work via a conveyance other than your feet, you have my permission to walk home FROM work. Why let a technicality stand in the way of exercising your rights….and lefts.

Obviously, those of us who are retired can’t walk to work, and those who work from home should have spent the night elsewhere in order to walk to work this morning, but it’s too late to do anything about that now (just don’t let it happen again).

Now, perhaps you think that three days dedicated to walking within a span of six days is going a bit too far, but let’s face it — without something that reminds you to get off your butt, you would probably just sit there all day working or (if you’re retired) blogging, neither of which is good for your heart. So do as I do:

OK, guess I’d better quit while I’m ahead, before we get the….

A PASSING EXAMPLE OF ROAD SAGE

BUMPER STICKER:
TIME IS WHAT KEEPS EVERYTHING FROM HAPPENING AT ONCE

I hate to be
the one to tell you,
but everything IS
happeningatonce.

Such being the case, I am taking a few weeks off from blogging* to catch up on what happens when one gets behind from blogging. Be back some time in mid-to-late June. Meanwhile….

*other than replies to comments, & checking in on your blogs from time to time

 

F-STOPS

This sixth post in my alphabetical series of ‘femme de lettres’ songs shouldn’t take long because, frankly, feminine names with F in the song title are few and far between. As good fortune would have it, however, the slim pickins include this familiar favorite:

FRANKIE AND JOHNNY (not Cash) go back to the turn of the last century. I think some, if not most, of my readers would find the story behind this old love-gone-wrong song downright interestin’, so I’ll stop for a spell to link to it here:

http://mentalfloss.com/article/78308/story-behind-frankie-and-johnny

Speaking of “behind” songs, let’s go with FANNY (title song of the 1954 play and 1961 film) as the last stop of our run on post #6. It seems a sitting place to end:

 

C NOTES

In American slang, C notes are $100 bills. In this, the third in our song series of girl’s names in alphabetical order, C notes are the sound of music recalling the Cins of our past….such as this scintillating folk song sung by Johnny Cash (sharing credit with Cave):

From toe-tapping folk song to glass-slippered fairy tale, Cin is transported 78 rpm, perchance to dance with a smitten Prince Charming imploring her….

When the two sisters returned from the ball, Cinderella asked if they had been well diverted, and if the fine lady had been there. They told her: Yes, but that she hurried away immediately when it struck twelve, and with so much haste that she dropped one of her little glass slippers, the prettiest in the world, which the King’s son had taken up; that he had done nothing but look at her all the time at the ball, and that most certainly he was very much in love with the beautiful person who owned the glass slipper.

And so you see, young ladies, all you need is a fairy tale fairy godmother and you too can meet a Prince of a fella!

 

 

CASH & CODY

February 26 is the birthday of JOHNNY CASH (1932), not to mention WILLIAM F. “BUFFALO BILL” CODY (1846). I say “not to mention” Cody because I wish it were instead the birthday of CARY GRANT, so I could have titled this post CASH & CARY. No such luck, but give me credit….for trying.

Now, I’m not a big fan of country music (Cash excepted), and not even a small fan of a man killing 4,282 buffalo in 18 months, as Buffalo Bill purportedly did under contract to provide Kansas Pacific Railroad construction crews with buffalo meat. That’s a helluva way to run a railroad chow line, but in the unsettled west at that time (1867-68), what was the meat alternative — prairie dogs and rattlesnakes? I suppose the RR could’ve hired vegetarian railroad workers, but the nearest vegetable stands and supermarkets were probably hundreds of miles away, so let’s not go there.

Anyway, having come this far, we may as well finish paying our Buffalo Bill respects before turning to Johnny Cash. Buffalo Bill was one of the most colorful characters of the Old West. He was a U.S. Army soldier during the Civil War and an Army scout 1868-72, but is most famous for his “Wild West” show in which many historical western figures appeared, including Sitting Bull and Annie Oakley. The show toured throughout the U.S. and Europe, where it was enormously successful and made him an international legend. At the turn of the 20th century, he was regarded as the most widely recognizable celebrity in the world by some historians. Today, we see that he was ahead of his time in his support for conservation and the rights of women and Native Americans, regarding whom I found this Cody quote: Every Indian outbreak that I have ever known has resulted from broken promises and broken treaties by the government.

As for Johnny Cash, I think he is of recent enough vintage that I need not detail his life here, and in any case, his music is his enduring legacy….music such as:

I suppose I should quit while I’m ahead, but Feb. 26 is also the birthday of probably the youngest HUSBAND in history, as recorded on his birth certificate: HUSBAND EDWARD KIMMEL….a name which some say lives in infamy. Husband E. Kimmel was a four-star Admiral and Commander-in-chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet at the time of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor….following which he was demoted to a two-star Admiral. There is debate to this day as to whether he was made a scapegoat for the failure of the U.S. to be prepared for the disastrous sneak attack, but there is no debating that he was already a Husband when he married (Dorothy). She HAD to know, don’t you think?