A friend brought this item to my attention, prefacing it with "And now for something completely different."
The musician in the video below is Hugh Levey. He writes: "My grandson quite often picks up a toy and pretends to play it like a clarinet, so last week I thought we could make a carrot clarinet together ..."
Mr. Levy runs Woodwindly, a music store in the UK. He also has a Facebook page. And he plays a darned good carrot!
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| Above, Blind Willie McTell and Bob Dylan, from a collage by the author. |
This is where Phil Baxter, the first registered co-author (along with Carl Moore) of "Gambler's Blues" - aka "St. James Infirmary" - held sway from 1927-1933 (with his big band, "The Texas Tommies.").
In the previous post we visited the resurrection of the famous mirrored ball which reflected light onto the ceiling in the days of dance bands and huge dance floors. And now, news of the renovation of the dance hall itself!
You can read about it here:
https://kansascitymag.com/news/the-owners-of-el-torreon-one-of-kansas-citys-most-iconic-music-venues-have-big-plans-for-renovating-it/
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| Cover for 1925 sheet music. |
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| Phil Baxter and Carl Moore |
Both Baxter and Moore are important characters in the tale of "St. James Infirmary," and both are detailed in the book I Went Down to St. James Infirmary.
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| Phil and the Texas Tommies in 1926, a year before they became the house orchestra at the El Torreon Ballroom. Trombone. Trumpet. Drums. Piano. Clarinet. Banjo. |
Phil Baxter, a Texan, and his band "The Texas Tommies" roamed the land dressed in Stetson hats and cowboy boots, performing hot jazz in the many dance halls that spotted the landscape. Forgotten today, they were a major draw. In the years 1927-1933 they served as the house band in Kansas City's hottest dancehall, the El Torreon Ballroom.
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| Phil and the Texas Tommies in Kansas City c 1927 Photo taken at the El Torreon Ballroom. |
"The El Torreon was huge. It had room for two thousand dancers. It was decorated in an exotic Spanish motif. Clouds, projected onto the high vaulted ceiling, floated across glistening stars. The dance floor was illuminated by a massive mirror ball of a hundred thousand facets that hung from the ceiling. The El Torreon's opening night featured a double bill. The Texas Tommies, now an orchestra of sixteen musicians, had traded in their cowboy gear for tuxedos. At the opposite end of the dance hall stood the Coon-Sanders Nighthawks, back in Kansas City for a three-week stint. The Nighthawks were once the most popular band in the city but had relocated to Chicago three years earlier."
That mirrored ball struck me as extraordinary, prefiguring the decorations of the disco era. It must have been a fantastic sight in the 1920s, giving the dancehall an exotic, unforgettable atmosphere.
Almost a century later the mirrored ball has been resurrected. The El Torreon underwent many changes since Phil Baxter's day. From a 1920s fancy ballroom ("the tallest building in Kansas City") to a skating rink to a rock 'n roll arena renamed "The Cowtown Ballroom" in the 1970s - where Frank Zappa, Ravi Shankar, The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Paul Butterfield, Van Morrison, The Byrds, BB King, King Crimson, Captain Beefheart, and many others performed.
And then the mirrored ball was taken down and put into storage.
In subsequent years (after 1974) the El Torreon served as a flea-market venue, a church, etc.
The mirrored ball has been resurrected, 45+ years later. You can see it in the Kansas City Museum.
These days, the El Torreon hosts weddings, business meetings, and special events.
Here is a link to an article about the resurrection of the mirrored ball.
Here is a link to its present incarnation.
And here is a preview to a movie about the Cowtown Ballroom of the 1970s - when the mirrored ball still spun above the stage.
A quick post, here. Three items that I've had on the burner.
1. Jorge Luis Borges, singer of St. James Infirmary
Are you familiar with Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986)? Argentinian, he is often considered one of the premier fiction writers of the age. While he received many international awards, many think it atrocious that he was not given the Nobel prize for literature.
Borges' short story collection, Labyrinths, had a big impact on me.
And, abstract writer par excellence, he was a big fan of St. James Infirmary. He enjoyed singing it.
2. A tattoo artist imprinted stop-motion impressions of the cartoon featuring Cab Calloway circa 1932. 76 inkings on 76 bodies.
3. Conspiracy theorists put forward the notion that the the SJI cartoon predicted Covid-19.
I had forgotten about this book until I received an email from Philip Nel. Philip is working on early cartoons by Crockett Johnson, the author of Harold and the Purple Crayon.
In the 1940s, Johnson created a brilliant comic strip featuring another young boy called Barnaby. Barnaby ran from April 1942 to February 1952. Nel has been co-editing the Barnaby cartoons. He is now working on the fifth and final volume.
What does this have to do with St. James Infirmary?
Well, in the July 30, 1951 cartoon Barnaby's rather inept and blustery fairy Godfather recited a variation of the opening lines of the song SJI:
"'Twas a balmy summer evening and a goodly crowd was there!
It well-nigh filled Joe's barroom, on the corner of the square."
Nel had recognized this as similar to the opening lines of many (or most) Gambling Blues/St. James Infirmary iterations. He wrote me, asking if I had encountered this lyric before. "No. It's new to me."
It presented a puzzle.
I searched more deeply and found that these are the opening lines of an 1887 poem by the poet, playwright, actor, and movie executive Hugh Antoine d'Arcy (1843-1925). The Face on the Barroom Floor (or The Face on the Floor, etc.) is a poem which became immensely popular in the early 20th century. People read poetry back then, and even attended poetic recitations for which they had to pay.
D'Arcy himself recited it in front of paying crowds. Charlie Chaplin made a short comedic silent film of the same name in 1917. Hank Snow recorded it as late as 1968. Joe Cocker's stage manager Sherman "Smitty" Jones recited it from memory during a break from the Mad Dogs and Englishmen tour in 1971. Charles Manson, who was once an ambitious singer/songwriter, recorded a recitation. Composer Henry Mollicone wrote a 1978 opera of the same name, based on the poem. The list goes on.
Despite its immense popularity I hadn't come across the poem until Nel brought it to my attention.
Famous as it was, The Face on the Barroom Floor would not have been considered "serious" poetry. It is a kind of pop-poem. It tells an emotional tale that would resonate and excite, in the days before the easy-to-access entertainments of our era. It's the story of a homeless man, impoverished, poorly dressed, who wandered into a bar, and of whom a bar patron said (reflecting one of the discriminations of the time): "I wouldn't touch him with a fork, he's filthy as a Turk."
For the price of a few drinks the man told his story of woe. He was once a successful portrait painter who fell in love with a woman "with a form like the Milo Venus, too beautiful to live; / With eyes that would beat the Koh-i-noor, and a wealth of chestnut hair." She, however, became distracted by a fair-haired dreamy-eyed youth he was painting, and she ran away with him. The artist fell into disarray and now, in this bar of attentive listeners and ever reinforced by drink, he offered to draw the face of his beloved on the floor with chalk the bar used to record baseball scores. In the final lines of the poem:
Another drink, and with chalk in hand, the vagabond began,
To sketch a face that might well buy the soul of any man.
Then, as he placed another lock upon that shapely head
With a fearful shriek, he leaped and fell across the picture — dead!
This is an exciting find. This poem from 1887 supports the notion that St. James Infirmary was created from myriad sources: a couple of lines taken from The Face on the Barroom Floor, bits from a number of old songs like Let Her Go, God Bless Her, or Let Her Go, I'll Meet Her, or She's Gone, Let Her Go, and so on, interwoven with imaginative lyrics from which emerged a new story.
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| "Face Upon the Floor" Engraving by John Held Jr. 1925 (John Held Jr. also illustrated the coffin scene from the song St. James Infirmary.) |
Titus recited it for a record series "Voices From The Past," on his 90th birthday.
These expressions of The Face on the Barroom Floor illustrate a common, dynamic aspect of creativity. Nothing arises from a vacuum. Everything depends upon what came before. The Face on the Barroom Floor lent a couple of lines to St. James Infirmary. In the same way, Bugs Bunny would not have existed without Mickey Mouse. Before Mickey there was Felix the Cat (of whom animator Otto Messmer credited the influence of Charlie Chaplin). Before Felix there was Krazy Kat. And before Krazy Kat all sorts of newspaper cartoons - all the way back to drawings on cave walls.
Love and theft. Imitation and flattery. St. James Infirmary.
Bob Bossin, from British Columbia's Gabriola Island, recently bought a copy of I Went Down to St. James Infirmary. We exchanged a few emails and then he sent me this video he put together of the Scott Cook song, Pass it Along. It's a remarkable cooperative piece featuring an international array of musicians (and - in the case of Elizabeth May, past leader of the Canadian Green party - a politician) including Peggy Seeger and Canada's Connie Kaldor. The song is a rewarding listen. Starting as an homage to a guitar, it spreads its wings to include ... well, everything.
Thanks for this, Bob Bossin. I shall say no more. The song speaks.
Celebrated innovative cellist, singer, and multi-instrumentalist Leo Crandall died on May 29. Obituary.
In memory, here is a performance with The Gonstermachers of St. James Infirmary.
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| A.P., Sara, and Maybelle Carter The original Carter Family |
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| Some of the characters who inhabit I Went Down to St. James Infirmary |
Here are excerpts from reviews of I Went Down to St. James Infirmary:
"A sparkling book."
"A goldmine of information."
"This is not the first book devoted to one song, but it is the first to cross so many stylistic fences in its attempt to trace the origins of a tune."
"The definitive statement on the subject - and a very entertaining read."
"It will retain a favourite place in my library."
"The book: wow. I'd picked up bits of the story from the blog, but the book was an absolute feast. These are wonderful stories and you tell them so beautifully."
"This work is unique, so if you don't have it, get it."
"I am thrilled beyond belief at your great story. You found things out about (my husband) Carl Moore that I didn't even know."
"The best treatment of Irving Mills life and work is in this book."
The book can, of course, be purchased here: I Went Down to St. James Infirmary
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| Irving Mills (c. 1982) by Bruce Fessier |
I have exchanged emails with Irving Mills' granddaughter, Beverly Mills Keys, for over a decade. Ms. Keys recently sent me a link to a remarkable article about Irving Mills by writer Tracy Conrad.
Irving Mills, as you know, was the pseudonymous Joe Primrose, supposed composer of "St. James Infirmary." He was also a tireless promoter of musicians, a successful song publisher, and so on. Mills is part of a fascinating tale, recounted in my book I Went Down to St. James Infirmary.
Anecdotes about Mills are not easy to come by. He kept much of his life private, and so it is a pleasure to read about him. He was a significant force in the shaping of American music. Ms. Conrad has kindly permitted me to reprint her article on this blog:
* * *
Newspaperman Bruce Fessier chronicled an amazing story in 1982 as told to him by his friend Irving Mills. By then, Mills had retired to a big house in the south of Palm Springs and would regale Fessier with stories of the golden age of jazz. After all, Mills had been there for some of the most important moments, or really, had worked tirelessly to make many of those moments happen.
For instance, Mills wrote the lyrics to “It Don’t Mean a Thing” (If It Ain’t Got That Swing) in 1929, but as Fessier recorded, Mills said it happened by accident. “‘I had an engagement in Chicago for a café roadhouse that opened in the summer, and prior to the opening, he (Ellington) played for six weeks in theaters. After six weeks, doing four shows a day, five on Sundays, they became very stagey. I noticed the dancers weren’t dancing right. It wasn’t Duke Ellington’s dance music.’ Shocked after his first viewing, Mills said he ‘ran back to the dressing room’ and asked Ellington why he had changed his music. Ellington said the people liked it, but Mills told him to stop. "I said, 'It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing,'" he recalled. And he said, “You know, Irving, you’ve got a lyric there. Let’s write it up."
And write it up they sure did. Mills added some more lines,
and Ellington’s trumpet player Cootie Williams came in with the music,
"Do-whacka-do-whacka-do-whacka-do."
Born at the end of the 19th century in Ukraine and having immigrated to the United States as a child, Mills had a spectacular, if unlikely, career. His father was a milliner who died in 1905 when Mills was just 11 years old, forcing him and his brother Jack to work at exceedingly odd jobs including busboy, wallpaper salesman, telephone operator, and “song demonstrator” to support the family.
By 1919, Irving and Jack Mills were in business together
publishing music. Soon, they were the kings of Tin Pan Alley, cultivating
songwriters and then hawking those tunes to radio stations. Both Irving and
Jack discovered a number of first-rate songwriters like Sammy Fain, Hoagy
Carmichael, Jimmy McHugh and Dorothy Fields. (Carmichael and McHugh would also
retire to the desert.)
But Mills also had a keen eye for performers, and started,
or boosted, the careers of Cab Calloway, Benny Goodman, Hoagy Carmichael, Lena
Horne and the Dorsey Brothers. But most importantly, one evening in New York
around 1925, Mills went to the Club Kentucky on West 49th between 7th and
Broadway. Playing there was a small band of six musicians in from Washington,
D.C., led by Duke Ellington. According to lore, Mills promptly signed
Ellington, launching his career by managing to get the band booked uptown at
the Cotton Club, and broadcasting those shows on radio.
Fessier noted that Mills did more than almost anybody to
promote black musicians and singers. He was one of the first to record black
and white musicians together, using twelve white musicians and the Duke
Ellington Orchestra for a recording of “St. Louis Blues,” and was powerful
enough to force the music label to release the record over their objections. He
booked previously all-white auditoriums for black performers. Fessier recounts
that one of the finest things he thinks Mills ever did was to hire a private
Pullman car, with proper dining room and sleeping quarters, to take the
Ellington band through southern states in order to spare them from having to
endure the harsh segregation of restaurants and hotels. (Many Ellington
compositions are known for conjuring train imagery.)
As was the practice at the time, many of Ellington’s most
famous tunes were also credited to Mills, who was an able lyricist, including
“Mood Indigo,” “(In My) Solitude” and “Sophisticated Lady.”
Mills only produced a single movie, “Stormy Weather” in 1943
for 20th Century Fox starring an all-black cast including Lena Horne, Bill
“Bojangles” Robinson, the Nicholas Brothers, Cab Calloway and Fats Waller.
In addition to relentless promotion of the best talent,
black or white, Mills was an innovator. He printed “small orchestrations”
transcribed off a record, so that non-professional musicians could see how
great improvised solos were constructed. And he conceived of the concept of a
band within a band, a rhythm section who could go into the studio without the
full orchestra and lay down cutting-edge sounds.
Mills was constantly making records, arranging tunes,
selling and merging companies, until he was the head of what would become
Columbia Records. At the time of his last sale, the total catalog of songs was
estimated to number in excess of 25,000, of which, 1,500 were still producing
royalties. In 1964, Mills was enjoying royalties in excess of one million
dollars per year, equivalent to about eleven million today, and the company
encompassed 20 music publishing subsidiaries as well as outlets in Britain,
Brazil, Canada, France, then West Germany, Mexico, the Netherlands, and Spain.
After that spectacular career, Mills retired to Palm
Springs, but was still busy creating. Fessier recalls, “I was at Irving's house
one night in December of 1981 when Hoagy Carmichael called. Irving had
published Hoagy's ‘Stardust’ in 1929 after challenging his stable of lyricists
to come up with the right words for Hoagy's beautiful melody. In the late
1970s, Irving said he couldn't find the right piano jazz for the kind of
cocktail parties he liked to throw, so he produced a series of 15 albums
featuring the music of some of his favorite jazz and pop composers. He called
them ‘Musical Cocktail Records’ (a phrase he trademarked) featuring great
pianists playing the music of Hoagy, Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, Duke
Ellington and Jimmy Van Heusen.”
Fessier continues, “Irving went into business mode when
Hoagy called, telling him he wanted to promote the record he had made with him,
featuring Paul Smith. Irving didn't get the response he wanted and I asked him
what Hoagy said. He said Hoagy's reaction was, ‘Irving, are you still
working?’” Indeed, he was. Nice work if you can get it.
Tracy Conrad is president of the Palm Springs Historical
Society. The Thanks for the Memories column appears Sundays in The Desert Sun.
Write to her at pshstracy@gmail.com.
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| Image, 1910, courtesy Eric McHenry |
"Stack O' Lee Blues. Play it over for me, I go crazy when I hear it, anywhere I may be, I long to hear them play that Stack O' Lee. Eeny, meeny, miney mo, they'll play some more, now let us catch a nigger by the toe."
And so on. Horrible.
A couple of days ago a friend sent me a really interesting article from The American Scholar website, detailing Eric McHenry's search for the origins of "Stack-O-Lee Blues." This is brilliant stuff, and a tale more than well worth the read!
Was Lee Shelton (aka Stacka Lee) really a bad man, the devil that Mississippi John Hurt portrayed? Did he ever exist? Was the man he killed, William Lyons, a real person? Did Lyons really have "two little babies and a darlin'' lovin' wife"?
McHenry pulls back the covers. Thank you.
