La Vie En Robe

Don Cornelius, RIP

What a supreme stone drag it was to open up the internet this AM and read that Don Cornelius had died, most likely from a self-inflicted gunshot. That's no way at all for the unimpeachably smooth cat who brought us Soul Train to go out...

I can't put it as beautifully as Questlove from The Roots says it here, but suffice to say that my life would have been considerably poorer — and a lot less funky — without all the amazing music, dances and fashions that Soul Train turned me on to in the 1970s. For me, Don Cornelius was more important than Dick Clark, Wolfman Jack and Don Kirshner combined. Thank you, Don... I only hope you know how much joy and meaning you brought to so many people...

So let's go down the Soul Train line, one more time for DC...

The Return of Friday 'Fro: Frederick Douglass?!?

Those of you who have followed this blog for awhile know that I used to do a regular feature called "Friday 'Fro," wherein I would celebrate some outstanding achievement in the Afro hairstyle arena.

That feature, like the rest of my regular blog posts, has fallen by the wayside over the last year, a victim of both a massive shortage of free time. But I felt like "Friday 'Fro" needed to come out of retirement, at least temporarily, to honor this very strange and utterly amazing TV commercial that I discovered earlier this week.

Originally broadcast during a mid-70s Soul Train episode, it features Frederick Douglass, noted abolitionist and social reformer, rising from the dead to fight the good fight against... nappy Afros?!?

I've watched it ten times now, and I still don't believe my eyes. The youngblood IS sporting a pretty happenin' 'do by the end of the ad, though!

F is for Friday...and FUNKADELIC

Just discovered this incredible video of Funkadelic performing an incredibly freaky, deeply acid-fried and VERY live medley of "Friday Night August 14th" and "Mommy, What's A Funkadelic" on a 1969 WGBH broadcast of the local Boston TV show Say Brother. Just looking at it, I'd bet on 1970 — though the exact date's ultimately irrelevant, given just how far ahead of their time these cats clearly were. Hope it puts a little extra funk in your stride as you head into your weekend; I know it's definitely done did that for me and mine...

Five Days To Big Hair!

It blows my mind like Kurt Bevacqua's winning bubble to say this, but my book Big Hair And Plastic Grass: A Funky Ride Through Baseball And America In The 1970s is going to hit your local bookstore in five days — Tuesday, May 25 to be precise. And I just wanted to remind all you beautiful, '70s baseball-lovin' people that you can buy it from Amazon and Barnes & Noble (both of whom also have it available in digital form, if you're into that 21st Century reading experience kinda thing) or from the indie bookseller of your choice.

Also wanted to hip you to a very cool Windy City-centric interview I just did with the Onion's Chicago AV Club, and a lovely shout-out from Bruce Markusen (a baseball author whose work I admire greatly) in today's Hardball Times. Thanks again to everyone for all the support and good vibes; I'm about to embark on my first promo jaunt on the book's behalf, and I am more hopped-up about it than Larry Bowa with a fistful of greenies.

Hair Games People Play

Many thanks to my pal Tracy for hipping me to this most hair-tastic clip of Englebert Humperdinck and Tom Jones doing Joe South's "Games People Play" with Billy Preston on keys; no date on this, but I'm gonna guess it was filmed in late '69 or early '70. Eng and Tom were both managed by Gordon Mills, but this is the only time I've ever seen this hirsute duo perform together... which, considering how effortlessly ToJo sings rings around him, probably isn't that surprising.

Baseball Book Update

My friend Heather sent me a message via Facebook today: "How does it feel to be eligible for Super Saver shipping?"

This could only mean one thing, of course: My forthcoming baseball book (awesome cover pictured above) is now available for pre-order via Amazon. Which, considering that I have a very vivid memory of when I first decided I would try and write it (about, oh, ten years ago), feels pretty amazing. To say the least.

It also feels a bit "cart before the horse," as I am currently up to my elbows in going through the copy-edited manuscript and making some final tweaks before it heads off to the printer. But hey, don't let me stop you if you feel like pre-ordering it...and it's apparently coming out in late May, not June as I'd previously mentioned, which means you'll get it in plenty of time for Father's Day...

Coming in June to a Book Store Near You...

Just got a look at the cover of Big Hair and Plastic Grass, my forthcoming book on baseball and pop culture in the 1970s, and I'm stoked I just had to share it. Major kudos to the St. Martin's Art Department, who completely jacked this baby outta the park...

Friday 'Fro: Smokey Robinson

Not long ago, someone on some chat board linked to one of my Friday 'Fro entries, telling their fellow chat-mates that "this is a cool 'fro site, but it's mostly about dead guys." Which has never been my intent, of course, but I made a mental note that I really oughta throw a living 'fro into the mix.

So, today at the office, my colleague Tony was making the afternoon go better with a Smokey Robinson (both with and without the Miracles) collection, and that got me thinking — I'd never seen our "Greatest Living Poet" (to quote Bob Dylan) sport anything beyond the most rudimentary tennis-ball 'fro. Did Smokey ever go for the big hair?

Well, five minutes of internet research turned up very little on that score, except for the above picture from the cover of his 1974 album, Pure Smokey. And, to be honest, I have to call "'fro shenanigans" on it, because that perfectly coiffed afro really looks like the work of the Motown art department, instead of anything remotely "natural". Maybe they were worried that Smokey's old-fashioned romanticism wasn't playing anymore with "the kids," and felt a faux 'fro was needed if he was gonna keep moving units like he used to. Sigh. That's simply no way to treat a national treasure...

Anyway, this all brought back some very lovely memories of interviewing Mr. Robinson for the L.A. Weekly back in 2002, so I went online and checked to see if I could find the article I wrote on him and the radio show he was doing at the time. It's still there, though does omit some of my favorite memories from the experience. I did it right after Thanksgiving, and thus I got to have the surreal experience of watching him try to heat up some leftover turkey and stuffing in his oven; I think the housekeeper was gone for the day, and he wasn't, shall we say, completely comfortable in the kitchen. 

He was super smooth in every other way, though; we broke the ice talking about the Detroit Tigers (I was wearing my 80s-era Tigers starter jacket at the time), and he waxed nostalgic about going to old Tiger Stadium with his uncle back in the 1950s. But from the get-go, he really was every bit as sweet and warm and kind as his records had led me to imagine, and I thoroughly enjoyed every second of our hour-long conversation.

It was also Carole's birthday that day, so as we were wrapping up I asked if he would wish her a happy birthday; without any further prompting, he grabbed my tape recorder and sang a full chorus of "Happy Birthday" to her — then added, "Hi, Carole, this is Smokey Robinson, wishing you the most joyous of birthdays! God bless you!" Pure Smokey, indeed...

Oh yeah — you can read my old L.A. Weekly piece here.

Friday 'Fro: RIP, Mitch Mitchell

The Jimi Hendrix Experience is no more. Okay, I know, Jimi's been dead for 38 years; but with the death of bassist Noel Redding in 2003, and with drummer Mitch Mitchell (pictured above right) passing away this week, all mortal traces of one of the greatest bands of the 1960s (and perhaps ever) have been officially snuffed. And I must confess that makes me a wee bit teary-eyed...

I've been listening to Hendrix for nearly 30 years now, and I'm still surprised, moved and blown away by his playing every time I spin his records. But even musical geniuses need great sparring partners; and while Mitchell didn't always the credit he deserved back in the day, he might well have been Jimi's greatest and most valuable collaborator. Mitchell's loose, rolling, yet hard-hitting style (honed in countless British R&B and jazz combos) and his telepathic ability to sync up with Hendrix on all manner of improvisatory adventures were absolutely key to the Experience's stage and studio magic. And I haven't even mentioned the hair, yet...

Unlike Redding, who had naturally curly locks, Mitchell had to get his hair permed to measure up to Jimi's wild 'do. But he took one for the team, at least for a while, allowing the JHE to claim the mantel of "All-Time Greatest 'Fro-Topped Power Trio," at least in my book. C'mon, name a better one, I dare ya...

Alas, I couldn't find a clip of the Experience in action that really did justice to both Mitchell's playing and his short-lived 'fro-age, so I'm gonna go with this incredible 1967 clip from the "It's Lulu" TV show. The back-story behind it is that Lulu was actually supposed to come out half-way through "Hey Joe" and sing a duet (!!!) with Jimi, and was just about to take the stage when the band abruptly switched gears and went into their tribute to the Cream, whose breakup had just been announced. Lulu was apparently quite pissed, but it made for some amazing television. Mitchell gets a ton of camera time, too, so you can really get an eye- and ear-ful of his unique and soulful playing — somewhere between Ginger Baker and Keith Moon, yet more rhythmically grounded than either. He was, as they say, the absolute shit. I'm sure there's a wicked jam session going on in Rock and Roll Heaven right about now...

Return of the Friday Fro (On Thursday): R.I.P., Rudy Ray Moore

Well, as the man himself would've surely said, ain't that a bitttttch? Rudy Ray Moore — aka "Dolemite," the godfather of rap, blaxploitation film auteur, and perpetrator of about 30 of the most gleefully foul-mouthed "party" records you'd ever want to hear — passed away last week at the tender age of 81. Mr. Moore may not have possessed the most happenin' 'fro in the world (it generally looked pretty nappy whenever it bloomed beyond the basic circumference of his head), but his contribution to African American culture was surely 'fro-tastic in the extreme.

Moore was born in Arkansas in 1927, and he never really lost that "just off the hay wagon" vibe, even when he was sporting his finest pimp vines at the peak of his stardom. An older black gentleman I once met at a party lovingly described Moore as "a stone country n*gger"; and on the surface, at least, there was little about Moore's excessive braggadocio — the length and girth of his dick wasn't just a boast in his standup routines, it was a veritable plot point — that you could ever describe as sophisticated. And yet, the rhymes and tall tales that Rudy laid down (both in form and content) actually dated back hundreds of years to the slave-era south, and to Africa before that; so in his own twisted way, Moore was something of a walking, talking cultural artifact.

His no-budget films — Dolemite, The Human Tornado, Petey Wheatstraw — The Devil's Son-in-Law, Avenging Disco Godfather — were a whole 'nother thang altogether. My friend Tracy, who had the pleasure of working with Rudy in his later years, has compared him to Ed Wood, Jr., which is pretty spot-on, except that I'd throw in some John Waters and James Brown, as well. Sure, you could see the microphones in the shots half the time, but Rudy had a finely honed sense of ridiculousness and a deep appreciation for oddball characters (dig "the creeper," aka "hamburger pimp" from Dolemite, the junkie who could barely shuffle across the street yet boasted that he was "so bad, I kick my own ass twice a day"), and exuded a natural comic charisma that made many other blaxploitation stars of the day seem like cardboard cutouts by comparison. I mean, anyone with the balls to call a late-70s album Close Encounters of the Sex Kind has to be some sort of genius in the first place, but these flicks confirmed it — in my warped mind, at least.

In final tribute to the man, I'll just treat you to the original trailer from 1975's Dolemite. Not remotely safe for work — but you simply wouldn't want it any other way. R.I.P., Rudy.