President Biden’s declaration of June 19th as a new federal holiday – Juneteenth – is an incredible moment for a nation in recovery from a global pandemic. At least half of America is rejoicing at this leap forward in race relations in the nation.
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So does trump really have COVID-19? Or is this a giant hoax, meant to get him out of further debates, and create a ‘sympathy’ vote for the poor sick baboo?
Since we DBAWIS scribes are about to go on hiatus until September 7th, today’s column is a round up of ideas and issues that have zipped past us in the last few days.
Have you noticed that, the speeding up of events? In the last few years we have become accustomed to barely accommodating the horrors of a day before awakening to the new atrocities of the next. It’s exhausting, and it’s been taking a huge toll on the psyches of not only Americans, but of citizens in countries all around the world.
‘At freaking Doug Sahm. I thought I knew him, and I do know his music, but he was a lot more complicated than I’d ever heard. Hell of a musician. The epitome of crazy as hell. Hellbent on glory. And yet shied back from it whenever it showed itself. If his life had been all stage, I think he would have been happier, but those times in between shows and rehearsals wore him down. There are only so many shows in any one of us and Sahm had more than most. A lot more.
I think I learned more about him watching the documentary Sir Doug and the Genuine Texas Cosmic Groove than I could have learned outside of following him since the sixties and the explosion of Texas music (and The Sir Douglas Quintet) all over the US of A. There is a lot to learn and watching the film a few more times will more than likely fill in some holes, but man! What a life!
I have “moved” Janis Joplin from my Women in Rock series to this one. When I started the “Women of ……” series, I felt she had a foot in both camps. However, the more I listen to Joplin the more I realize her feet were far more firmly planted in the blues as her voice alone attests. There have been comparisons over the years between Maggie Bell and Janis Joplin. They are reminiscent of each other and that starts with the hair. Scotland is steeped in the blues (just listen to the pipes and some of the Celtic music) but the seeds were planted, and the roots run to the core of the earth, in the U.S.’s “deep south”. Keep in mind, much of the southern U.S. became home to the Scots fleeing the oppressive English in the late 1700’s. Combine that with the African “slave” songs….mix with oppressive heat and stir….so, sometimes I wonder, who exactly influenced whom?
Ch-ch-ch-cha-changes
I have been slowly getting to know my fellow writers, conversing with them through Facebook, email and over the phone. A what! Yep, a real live telephone. You know, those devices that allow you to actually hear what the other person sounds like while enjoying honest-to-goodness dialogue. Fingers seem to do more walking and mouths less talking these days. We are no longer an oral society. The world of banter, tete-a-tetes and nattering have gone the way of such foods as pineapple upside down cake. (remember those) Mmmmmm……
If I made (or kept) New Year resolutions, I might have resolved to pay more attention to Canadian issues, and less to America’s or the rest of the world.
The impetus, for what has now become a series, was my discovery of an old vinyl record by Maggie Bell. I came across it going through one of my many purge cycles. Suicide Sal, released in 1975, was my introduction to the blues….I just didn’t know it then. I wasn’t in the habit of labeling types of music in my younger years, I just knew what I liked. Greg Simpson, who happened to be managing the now defunct Records on Wheels in London, Ontario, recommended the album, thinking I might like it. I loved it and still do. Thank you Greg!
Fifty years on, the assassination of President John F. Kennedy still sparks painful memories in the hearts and minds of North American Baby Boomers. Where were you on November 22, 1963, when the American “Camelot” ended?
Kennedy was an impossibly exotic vision to the families of the 60’s. He was the first Irish Catholic to be elected President, something that at that time seemed as impossible as there ever being an African American in the White House. (Or a woman, for that matter, but that will happen too.) He was young, a war hero, from a large and seemingly happy family, and he seemed so very much what we all wanted our families to look like.
Bullseye Records of Canada
Segarini: Don't Believe a Word I Say 