Persons – Page 36 – GEORGE ROTHERT

Chuck Berry Miscellany

Brian Wilson put new lyrics to Chuck Berry’s “Sweet Little Sixteen,” for the Beach Boys’ monster hit, “Surfin’ U.S.A.” Berry sued and got songwriting credit… and royalties.

Chuck Berry put new lyrics to “Wabash Cannonball,” for his hit, “Promised Land.” No copyright disputes, as the old folk song was in the public domain.

Longtime pianist sideman and collaborator Johnnie Johnson sued Chuck Berry in 2000 claiming co-composing credit for dozens of songs. The suit went nowhere because too much time had passed since the songs were written.

Chuck Berry: The Autobiography is slightly less self-serving than many, and is no great literary feat. But it’s an interesting read and gives some insight to a complicated personality.

Chuck Berry toured regularly without a band. The promoter was responsible for hiring musicians to accompany him. Berry figured it was not a problem because everyone knew his songs. When Berry turned sixty, Keith Richards decided an appropriate birthday gift would be a decent backup band. The movie “Hail! Hail! Rock n Roll” chronicles this and the head butting between Berry and Richards.

Ken Kesey Hasn’t Left Us; He’s Just Dead

Ken Kesey wrote the Great American Novel, Sometimes a Great Notion, published in 1964. Well, okay, Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn was pretty good, too. Twain was certainly more prolific. Kesey’s published works other than his first, and more famous novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, include the novel Sailor’s Song, the historical novel Last Go Round, set in the 1911 Pendleton Round-Up, plus assorted miscellany, some collected in Kesey’s Garage Sale. (Paul Newman’s first directorial effort was the film adaptation of Sometimes a Great Notion.)

Kesey is also famous – or infamous – for the Acid Tests of the 1960s, bringing LSD and the Grateful Dead to notoriety. Kesey was the ringleader of the Merry Band of Pranksters – “Too young to be a beatnik and too old to be a hippy” – and the instigator of their road trip, in the psychedelically-painted bus “Further,” to the New York World’s Fair. Tom Wolfe chronicled the excursion in his classic of “new journalism,” The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.

Ken Kesey eventually had enough of the lifestyle and came to the realization that Pranksters was another name for moochers. He took his bus back home to his farm near Eugene and spent a relatively quiet rest of his life. He died in 2001.

Further – also known as “Furthur,” after decades of deterioration on Kesey’s farm, has been restored. A feature-length film of the Merry Pranksters adventures, “Magic Trip,” has been released and is available on DVD.

Postscript:

Ken Kesey was a champion wrestler at the University of Oregon. His son Jed was also. On the way to a match in 1984, the team’s bus, previously used to transport chickens and lacking seat belts, slid off an icy road. Jed was kept on life support for two days until his parents, Ken and Faye, gave permission to shut it off. Twenty-year-old Jed Kesey had previously signed an organ-donor authorization. Twelve of his organs went to others. The Keseys sued the National College Athletics Association and settled for $70,000. They used the money to buy a new bus for the U of O wrestling team. Read Ken Kesey’s letter about his son.

Phil Campbells Helping Phil Campbell

Phil Campbell Alabama began with a nineteenth-century railroad builder. A businessman in northwest Alabama persuaded Phil Campbell to build a depot nearby, promising, if he did, to name the town after him. He did. Although Phil Campbell never lived in Phil Campbell, the town still carries his name.

Phil Campbell of New York City, aka Brooklyn Phil, organized a Phil Campbell convention. The initial gathering in 1995, brought together twenty-two Phils – and one Phyllis – for a weekend of getting to know one another and their namesake town. Most all the Phils and the townspeople had fun, but it didn’t catch on as an annual event.

Some years later, Brooklyn Phil, while perusing Wikipedia’s Phil Campbell entry, decided that in the age of social media, he would try again to gather together the Phil Campbells of the world. The event was scheduled for June 2011. A devastating tornado hit the town on April 27, killing twenty-seven residents. Instead of cancelling the convention, it became a relief project, “Phil Campbells Helping Phil Campbell.”

Phil Campbells came from around the country, Australia, Scotland and England, too. They spent several days clearing and cleaning up the wreckage of the pavilion and swimming pool where the first convention took place in 1995. They also raised $42,000, enough money to fund construction of a Habitat for Humanity house

If your name is Phil Campbell, you might want to mark your calendar for 2021, when the next gathering is scheduled. In the meantime, you can watch the documentary film about the Phils, people and town, that was released in 2014.

He Was No Dirty Harry

San Francisco detective Frank Bullitt got crossways with ambitious politician Walter Chalmers over the murder of a crucial organized-crime witness under the detective’s protection. Oh, okay, this didn’t really happen. It was a 1968 movie, “Bullitt,” with Steve McQueen in the title role. Lone eagle Bullitt refused to be part of Chalmers’s (Robert Vaughn) machinations. The movie also featured what many aficionados consider the greatest car chase ever filmed.

Steve McQueen himself drove the fastback Mustang, chasing bad guys in a Dodge Charger to their fiery end. (No stunt driver for McQueen. He also gave us the greatest movie motorcycle chase.) The iconic Mustang disappeared shortly after filming ended. McQueen reportedly wanted to buy it, but it could not be found. The car recently turned up in a Mexican junkyard. No one knows where it has been for the last forty-nine years or why it was in Mexico. Experts claim the VIN confirms it is the authentic car. Estimates are that the car, when restoration is finished, could have a value in excess of a million dollars.

The World We Know Has Ended

Auto-Tune is ubiquitous in recorded music. If the vocalist is off-key, or the guitar is out of tune, not a problem, Auto-Tune electronically fixes it. It was first used in 1998 to enhance recordings by Kid Rock and Cher. (It became known as the “Cher effect.”) Although singer Michael Bublé is critical of the practice because it makes everyone sound the same – “like robots” – he admits he uses it when recording “pop-oriented” music. Christina Aguilera made a public appearance wearing a T-shirt bearing the legend, “Auto-Tune is for Pussies.” She later admitted she has used it, too. Country stars Faith Hill, Shania Twain and Tim McGraw reportedly use it in live performances.

“I’m not a perfect note hitter either but I’m not going to cover it up with Auto-Tune. Everybody uses it, too. I once asked a studio guy in Toronto, ‘How many people don’t use Auto-Tune?’ and he said, ‘You and Nelly Furtado are the only two people who’ve never used it in here.’” – singer/songwriter Neko Case

Guess what? Robots are starting to take over the composing process as well. A company named Amper has raised money from investors to develop artificial intelligence for making music.

Click here to read more about it. Or just kill yourself. Better yet, spend your music money at local clubs and hear and dance to real live music.

More About the Academy Awards

Contenders for 1939’s Best Picture Oscar included “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” “The Wizard of Oz,” “Wuthering Heights,” “Stagecoach,” “Of Mice and Men.” And the winner was… “Gone With the Wind.” GWTW won eight awards out of thirteen nominations. Hattie McDaniel was named Best Supporting Actress, the first African-American to win an Oscar. (She was also the first to be nominated.) Judy Garland won the Juvenile Award. No one attending the ceremony in that pre-television era was surprised.

Digression

“Gone With the Wind” moviegoers gasped when Rhett Butler delivered his departing remark to Scarlett O’Hara in the final scene. Today, with profanity so prevalent and used as a crutch for lazy writing, we see the shock of seventy-plus years ago as amusing. Maybe we’re coming full circle, with this year’s best-picture winner having dialog with few expletives, surprising considering the story line.

End of digression

Beginning with the 1940 awards, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences kept the names of winners in sealed envelopes, not to be opened until announced at the ceremony. Previously, the Academy released the list of winners to news organizations prior to the awards banquet, so they would be prepared to publish the results to their waiting readers and listeners. The genteel arrangement ended in 1939 when the Los Angeles Times published the winners’ names prior to the event. The Academy was not happy and from then on kept the list of winners secret. The system heightened suspense and worked well until this year’s fun ending.