Department of Amplification

Carroll Baker and her seeing eye Afghans

A "listener" writes in to ask:

"As to that aside in "How Droll Was My Puberty," though ... is it Carroll Baker or "Sylvia" that you're expressing affection for? Or both? I've never seen "Sylvia," although I remember some talk about it's being preferable to the much-publicized "Harlow." Didn't "Sylvia" have a sizeable Ann Southern [sic] role (as it were) and a David Raksin song? Good signs, both."

Signed,

Fearless

Dear Fearless:

"The Sylvia reference alludes to the fact that the title character starts out as a trailer trash teen in Pittsburgh and ends up an internationally renowned poetess. Not exactly a strict parallel to my personal evolution. Still, it is my way of observing that I didn't necessarily end up sweeping up hazardous waste materials in a cradle to grave minimum wage program, as could have been my destiny considerin' my lowly beginin's class-wise, dearie.

Don't you remember the part where Sylvia's hitching her way out of Pittsburgh after her stepfather, played by Aldo Ray, attempts to rape her, and she gets picked up by an equally disreputable character by the name of 'Black Peter' who drives her all the way to Florida and 'Wouldn't even stop by the wayside to let me pick one lousy daisy'? Oh, that's right. You said you hadn't seen Sylvia. Pity.

Yes, Ann Sothern was in it along with Viv Lindfors, George (Tea Room) Maharis, Nancy Kovack (Mrs. Zubin) Mehta, and the great Connie Gilchrist. I saw it for the first time on a double bill with the TAMI Show at 3.00 a.m. on 42nd Street, with my new (then) friend, then-friend Cecil Taylor. At five a.m. we ended up at his flat and he subjected me to a vocal jazz blindfold test. I got it in ten seconds flat. It was Betty Carter.

What I wouldn't give to see a quintuple bill on the giant screen (maybe at a drive-in) of Angel Baby, Joy House, Sylvia, Cold Wind in August and Baby Doll, in which Carroll Baker utters the immortal line: 'And he went off and left me here without a coke on the place.'"

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Hello Hello It's The Bill Bringdown Show

Singer Kyu Sakamoto holds the record for the only number one U.S. pop recording performed entirely in Japanese, 1963's "Sukiyaki," whose lyrics, by the way, have nothing to do with that Japanese dish (actually it's of Chinese derivation, but let's not go there for the nonce). The actual lyrics and original title of "Sukiyaki" are about looking up when the song's spurned lover-narrator walks so that his tears don't fall on the ground. (Might slip and fall?) For more than twenty years after that recording, which was even bigger in Sakamoto's native land, he was regarded as a national treasure. Then, at the age of 43, he died in a plane crash on August 12, 1985, near Tokyo, Japan.

This morning a new cyber pal of mine sent me an email that happened to mention Sakamoto's name in passing. Here is part of what I wrote back to him:

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Here's four incredibly creepy things that I know about that doomed Kyu Sakamoto flight. When anyone mentions his name to me, which you unfortunately just did in your email, I have no choice but to repeat the following. It's my ghoulish lot in life, and I have cleared entire rooms with my riff about Flight 123---LOL:

1.) JAL Flight 123 was the most deadly single-plane accident in aviation history. 520 deaths

2.) Passengers knew they were going to crash, but the interval between knowledge of that fact and the impact was so long (a half-hour) that some chose to use that time to write goodbye notes to their loved ones. I think I would have been too busy screaming.

3.) There were four survivors! (talk about "survivor guilt")

4.) Authorities traced the cause of the crash to improper maintenance done ten years prior to the event! Now THAT should really reinforce your faith in the safety of flying.
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If there's a dark cloud behind a silver lining, leave it to me to find it.

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A has-been under TWO names

Click twice to enlarge and read

By the late 50s, singer Bill Black, on the run from the mob, had fully inhabited his new persona of "Clay Mundey." And when, around that time, influential midwestern music critic Dale Stevens informed that, in essence, he would eat his shorts if Mundey didn't become the next big thing, he apparently had no idea that he was writing about the very same performer of whom, less than a decade earlier, major jazz critic George T. Simon had written:

"Right now Gene Krupa has himself a fine singer and a fine performer. I have a hunch that sometime in the future he's going to garner a little additional glory of the reflected variety from Bill Black."

Both men were very right about Black/Mundey's artistry, but couldn't have been wronger about the fact that he would soon arrive. He finally does---sort of---when M&I Records (Japan) issues his posthumous CD, Down in the Depths on August 25th. Too bad there's no heaven, no hell (t'ain't ya know) from which he can observe his belated digital transcenendence.

I suppose I'll never get over wondering what it was that caused Bill Black to run so fast, so far from the long arm of the organized crime "wing" of the record biz.

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Cat Blog (almost) Friday: Kuro's favorite pasttime, the game of...

... Rock in the Shoe


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