Freitag Musik

Bert Kaempfert (Berthold Heinrich Kämpfert) was a songwriter, producer and German orchestra leader that popularized jazz and easy listening music.  He also wrote any number of songs popularized by Al Martino, Nat King Cole, Elvis Presley and Wayne Newton.  He's remembered for writing Strangers in the Night, Moon Over Naples and Swinging Safari (first and original theme song for the MATCH GamE).

 Kaempfert played a role in the success of The Beatles after he signed them to record several tracks during his sessions with Tony Sheridan.  Who knew?

Because my folks spent considerable time living in Germany before returning the the states in 1959 Bert's albums were always on deck for hi-fi music in our household growing-up in the 1960s.  

Enjoy this medley of possibly familiar tunes...

Civil Rights Museum - Part 2

As a follow-up to Monday's post here's a sampling of some of the historic content curated at the Nation Civil Rights Museum located in Memphis, Tennessee.  

The museum complex is situated in downtown Memphis and is associated with the South Main Arts District.  The site includes the Lorraine Motel and the buildings across the way on 422 Main Street.  On Main Street is the rooming house from which James Earl Ray stalked and later assassinated Martin Luther King.     

All the properties, with the exception of the motel, are owned by the Lorraine Civil Rights Museum Foundation.  The State of Tennessee owns the motel.

The museum houses a vast collection of interactive media, exhibits, oral and written histories and artifacts.  Visitors follow a self-guided experience through five centuries of history spanning the slave trade, racial segregation under Jim Crow, the civil rights movement to modern time.  In 2016 it became a Smithsonian Affiliate. 

I haven't thought about this much since I ceased traveling to Providence, RI on business. The rum trade became The Golden Triangle between New England, the West Indies, and the African Gold Coast that maintained the prosperity of the northern colonies throughout the eighteenth century.  In this triangular trade, molasses was sent to New England, rum to Africa, and slaves to the West Indies. 

One enslaved worked was expected to produce 200 pounds of sugar a year, yielding up to 110+ gallons of molasses eventually distilled into 73.5 gallons of rum.  Simple economics.

City bus...

Actual school song, Central High School Little Rock, Arkansas...

View from the balcony where Martin Luther King was shot in the direction of the rooming house from which James Earl Ray shot King...

Building and bathroom (open window on the right) from where the killing shot originated...

The museum collection includes the weapon, bullet and autopsy report too.  Anything tagged "green" is original....

Nothing in this museum is white washed (pun intended).  The grim and stark truths on display are in your face.  And while some of my acquaintances would casually dismiss this is "woke culture" it's actually history.  And sometimes history can be uncomfortable.....

May 4th

 May the Fourth Be With You...

 

Backyard Circus

 

Audubon Image

Meet Circus cyaneus - the northern harrier - colloquially known as a marsh hawk. A predictable resident as we've been host to a nesting pair for any number of years already.

 

The genus name Circus comes from the Greek kirkos - meaning 'circle' a reference to its circling flight. Cyaneus is Latin - meaning dark-blue. 

 

This is an easy bird of prey to identify.  Northern harriers have several characteristics that set them apart from other hawks.  The feathers around their face have an owl-like disk focusing sound into their ears. Their wings form a v-shape as they fly low and slow and parallel to the ground during flight. Males have a white belly while females have a streaked brown belly.  They also have a distinctive white rump and black wing tips which are visible during flight. 

 

This raptor both nests and feeds on the ground and provides hours of bird watching as they hunt over the tall grass prairie north of the house.

 

I captured this video Sunday afternoon.  It was the second time I witnessed this behavior this week and fortunately had the presence of mind to have my device handy to record it.  A turkey has cutting thru the field out back and both birds were ganging-up on it to harass it and drive it off.  If I had to hazard a guess this is a display of territorial behavior.  It is not at all different from tree swallows dive-bombing me and the dog during nesting season.  Although I'm not going traipse thru there and test the hypothesis with the hawks.

 

Be sure to turn-up the volume....

 

 

Hillbilly Apologist

Current and former elected officials, candidates for office, and media figures who are popularized in MAGA World have a history of pro-Putin comments. 

Recently, they have decided that they should disparage Ukraine and Volodymyr Zelenskyy despite Russia’s invasion. 

Of course some of them have walked back their comments after witnessing the raw brutality of Putin’s war machine target innocent civilian noncombatants as he forces his genocide on Ukraine. (Sociopaths are cowards at heart).

Sadly, many still see Putin as someone to be admired.

The supply of Trump-Putin apologist material is seeming unlimited.

Including this from Trump's hand-picked candidate for senate.....

I gotta be honest with you, I don’t really care what happens to Ukraine one way or the other.

J.D. Vance, US Senate Candidate

February 2022  ·  Quote Source

 

Great book - bad movie.  You can take the hillbilly out of the holler but you can't scrub the sociopath out of the hillbilly.

 

It will be interesting to observe the Ohio GOP primary today......

 

Civil Rights Museum - Part 1

I'm a museum person.  Maybe even a museum geek.  With the proper content curation I can get lost in a gallery or museum for an entire day.  Sometimes two.  But I digress.

The next time you undertake a road trip to Tennessee or find yourself in Memphis be sure to pay a call at the National Civil Rights Museum.  Convenient to the city center historic and entertainment district you can easily walk to it.  It's large and content-rich so allow about a half-day.  On your walk back to your hotel be sure to catch some live music, BBQ and adult beverages.

The site includes the Lorraine Motel - where Martin Luther King was assassinated and two adjacent buildings that are associated with his death.

The oldest part of the complex of buildings was originally the sixteen room Windsor Motel constructed around 1925.  In 1945 Walter Bailey purchased it and named it after his wife Loree and the song Sweet Lorraine.  Bailey operated the hotel for black travelers during the segregation era.  Published from 1936 thru 1967 the Negro Motorist Green Book was the go-to resource for African-American travelers.  The Lorraine was a popular destination.

With time, the Baileys expanded the business adding a second floor, a swimming pool and drive-up access for additional rooms.  Eventually substituting motel for hotel in the name. 

Speaking of the 1960s, as upscale lodging catering to a black clientele, visitors included names such as Otis Redding, Ray Charles, Cab Calloway, Aretha Franklin, Louis Armstrong, Wilson Pickett, the Staple Singers and many more.  Close proximity to Beale Street and Stax Records made this a destination spot for black performing artists visiting Memphis.

History records its most famous guest as Martin Luther King.

King had lodged at The Lorraine multiple times when in Memphis.  In the spring of 1968 he had returned with other civil rights activists to support striking sanitation workers.  On April 4 he stepped out of room 306 to speak with associates in the parking lot below.  As King began to return to his room he was struck by a single bullet and killed.  When she heard the gunshot Loree Bailey suffered a stroke later dying on April 9th, the same day as King's funeral.

 

With the passage of time the neighborhood deteriorated and the Lorraine Motel became a destination for the prostitution trade.  

Walter Bailey declared bankruptcy in 1982 and while under ordinary circumstances the real estate would have been sold at auction a non-profit acquired it with the intent to turn it into a museum.

Following multiple fits and starts, negotiations, renegotiations and governance disputes the museum stands at 450 Mulberry Street.  The museum complex is situated in downtown Memphis and is associated with the South Main Arts District.  The site includes the Lorraine Motel and the buildings across the way on 422 Main Street.  On Main Street is the rooming house from which James Earl Ray stalked and shot King.     

All the properties, with the exception of the motel, are owned by the Lorraine Civil Rights Museum Foundation.  The State of Tennessee owns the motel.

The museum houses a vast collection of interactive media, exhibits, oral and written histories and artifacts.  Visitors follow a self-guided experience through five centuries of history spanning the slave trade, racial segregation under Jim Crow, the civil rights movement to modern time.  In 2016 it became a Smithsonian Affiliate. 

George Bailey died in 1988.  The neighborhood is revitalized and to a degree gentrified.  Nowadays, the Lorraine welcomes more guests than ever before.

 

Quote of the Day

In 1849, French writer Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr wrote:  Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.  The more things change the more things stay the same.