REAL MTV: Music Television, Part 1

     I recently saw a headline about us currently living in "a golden age for music documentaries," and it makes sense. Baby Boomers and members of Generation X are the generations that grew up surrounded by music and that lived through the birth and growth of rock and roll. They're nostalgic for the musical soundtracks of their lives. Many musical stars of the 1970s and 1980s are in the midst of farewell, reunion or flashback  tours, and they're packing venues. Also, there are more television and online platforms than ever before, and those platforms are desperate for content. Combine an innovative filmmaker and a musical performer or group, you're likely to find an audience for their product somewhere. 

    1970's Woodstock is, of course, the template for many classic documentaries. Other classics include Stop Making Sense, The Decline and Fall of Western Civilization, Gimme Shelter, and The Last Waltz,

but I've seen and enjoyed several of the more recent documentaries that I highly recommend. 

Trailer

    The most recent release is Summer of Soul, directed by Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson, front man of the musical group, The Roots. When I say summer of '69, your mind automatically goes to Woodstock, right? Who knew that there was also a Harlem Cultural Festival that brought the biggest names in R & B or Soul music to a park in Harlem over a period of six weeks? Apparently, not many people knew, but it drew massive crowds. One man captured more than forty hours of live performances on videotape, which then sat, untouched for fifty years. A couple of other people discovered it and intended to do something with it, but those efforts came to naught as well. Then, Questlove entered the picture. Questlove realized that the footage not only contained fantastic, never before seen performances, but it also represented a criminally neglected episode in American history. The film is full of great performances by people including Stevie Wonder, Sly and the Family Stone, Nina Simone, Gladys Knight and the Pips, B.B. King, Mahalia Jackson, and the Staple Singers, just to name a few.  It also includes recent interviews with performers and audience members.

        Twenty Feet From Stardom (2013) is a story about unsung (get it?) heroes of the recording studio, the backup singers.  The film focuses on 6 of the best known backup singers in the industry, who were active from the late 1950s to the present. These women, like Darlene Love and Merry Clayton, provided the background for some of the biggest records in history. In Love's case, her voice was actually used, uncredited, for the lead parts on several songs. She actually recorded songs for some famous girl groups of the 50s and 60s, and those songs were released under the groups' names. She jokes in the documentary, "I recorded the songs and they were climbing up the charts before the group had ever even heard the song." The groups would then lip-sync to the Darlene Love version while on stage. Incredible. And then there are younger backup singers like Lisa Fisher, who had a big pop as a solo artist for a minute in the early 90s, winning a Grammy, and Judith Hill, who is still working on a solo career. The featured women are awesomely talented, and their stories are quite compelling. Sadly, in today's musical digital and computer-generated musical scene, the backup singer is becoming a rarity in the studio.

        The Wrecking Crew (2008) is about another group of invisible artists. The Wrecking Crew was the nickname given to a group of 15-25 super-talented studio musicians who recorded albums in Los Angeles in the 1960s.  They literally played the music heard on dozens and dozens, maybe hundreds, of albums in the 1960s and early 1970s, often for bands that couldn't or didn't play their own instruments. The albums would be released under the performer's or band's name, and the Crew never got any credit. The Wrecking Crew musicians worked because they were so good and so fast. They could record an album in a day instead of 3 weeks or more. The Crew recorded for what seems like everybody in the 60s. Name a 60s album, and, if it was recorded in Los Angeles, chances are extremely high that it was a Crew job.  It was amazing to see and hear their stories.

    Look for Part Two of this blog next week, in which I list some great documentaries about specific 1980s artists.

And the latest news in Numismatics......

     Have you heard the news? From 2022  through 2025, the United States Mint will be releasing up to 5 new quarter designs each year, honoring great American women.  This comes on the heels of the very popular state, territory, and national park quarters.  For more info, here's the link to the Mint page https://www.usmint.gov/learn/coin-and-medal-programs/american-women-quarters?doing_wp_cron=1634230641.4021039009094238281250 .

    The obverse ("heads") will continue to be a portrait of George Washington, but a different portrait than we're used to. The reverse ("tails") will feature the chosen woman. The distinguished American women celebrated on the 2022 quarters will be:

• Maya Angelou – celebrated writer, performer, and social activist
• Dr. Sally Ride – physicist, astronaut, educator, and first American woman in space
• Wilma Mankiller – first female principal chief of the Cherokee Nation
• Nina Otero-Warren – a leader in New Mexico’s suffrage movement and the first female superintendent of Santa Fe public schools
• Anna May Wong – first Chinese American film star in Hollywood

 

 

    How were these women selected? They were selected through the joint efforts of the Secretary of the Treasury, the Smithsonian Institution’s American Women’s History Initiative, the National Women’s History Museum, and the Congressional Bipartisan Women’s Caucus. In 2021, the public was invited to submit recommendations for potential honorees through a web portal established by the National Women’s History Museum. (I totally missed this announcement somehow and knew nothing about it.)

    What a great program! I collected coins as a kid, and I know what a great learning tool that the hobby can be, stimulating the interest and the curiosity of kids and adults alike. But what a great task that lies ahead, the selection of n more than 20 women --- well, actually 15, since the first 5 have been selected.

    I sat down and made a list of women who I think are deserving of the honor, and, after only a couple of minutes' thought,  it's a long one. Here's my list. Whom did I miss ? (Remember, the law requires that the honoree must be dead.)

Anne Hutchinson            Abigail Adams        Martha Washington        Sacajawea

Sojourner Truth            Phillis Wheatley        Lucretia Mott            Dorothea Dix

Harriet Beecher Stowe        Nellie Bly            Georgia O'Keefe            Amelia Earhart

Bessie Coleman                Grace Hopper        Rosa Parks            Babe Didrikson Zaharias

Shirley Chisholm                Barbara McClintock            Edmonia Lewis        Ida Wells

Ida Tarbell                Margaret Bourke White        Elizabeth Cady Stanton        Harriet Tubman

Susan B Anthony        Clara Barton            Dr. Mary Walker        Elizabeth Blackwell

Fannie Lou Hamer        Coretta Scott King        Jane Addams        Helen Keller

Rachel Carson            Betty Friedan        Wilma Rudolph        Lucille Ball        Julia Child

Mamie Till Bradley       Dian Fossey        Dorothea Lange            Dorothy Parker      Cecilia Chiang  

Edna Lewis        Leah Chase          Eleanor Roosevelt        Mary McLeod Bethune    

Frances Perkins        Mary Harris "Mother" Jones        

Columbus Day or Indigenous Peoples Day ?

     In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue....

(Discovery of America, by Salvador Dali)

    We've all heard, and maybe memorized, the poem. In 1934, Congress made October 12 a federal holiday, largely because of the lobbying efforts of the Knights of Columbus organization, a Catholic fraternal organization. In 1970, Congress moved the celebration to the second Monday in October.  How did that happen? Columbus never set foot in North or South America proper. He died believing that he had only landed on a few Asian islands, denying that he had "discovered" new continents. And even in the early 20th century, there were lots of theories about people "discovering" the Americas before Columbus: Vikings, Chinese, Africans, Welsh, Jews, Egyptians, Polynesians, etc.  Of course, Native Americans knew the whole debate was ridiculous from the start.

    Columbus Day happened because of the huge surge of Italian immigrants in the late 1800s. In America, they were met with discrimination, racism, and violence. Italian-American leaders were desperate to establish their "American-ness," their rights to the American dream. They latched onto Columbus, who had been mythologized in the early 1800s by mythmakers like Washington Irving, and made him an even bigger American hero. The first Columbus Day was celebrated in 1892, along with the opening of the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893, to mark the 400th anniversary of the first voyage. 

    Colorado was the first state to make Columbus Day a state holiday in 1906. Within five years,14 other states had done the same. At the same time, there was a push to commemorate Leif Erickson Day, but that movement lacked the traction that Columbus Day had. Then the 20th century happened. Historians started tearing down the heroic Columbus, and he went from being America's biggest hero to being America's biggest villain, as evidence of the death and destruction that his voyages wrought amongst indigenous people came to light.  

    By the end of the 20th century, a new movement began. In 1989, South Dakota replaced Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples Day. Soon, other cities, states, and countries followed suit, replacing celebrations of Columbus with recognition of indigenous peoples.  Just before I wrote this, Mexico City's government announced that its statue of Columbus would be replaced by a statue dedicated to indigenous women.  

    Was Columbus a hero or a villain? We know he was not the first "discoverer" of America. We know that he only really discovered a small portion of the Americas, and we know that he was followed by lots of Europeans eager to follow up on his "discovery." We also know that he enslaved Native Americans from his first voyage, writing in his journal that the natives were “very well built with very handsome bodies and very good faces. They do not carry arms or know them … They should be good servants.” He, and/or his men, enforced subjugation of the Taino people with floggings, rape, amputations, and public executions. Unknowingly, they introduced diseases into the indigenous population.  Ultimately, it is estimated that 50% - 90% of the indigenous population of the Americas died of diseases brought by Europeans and for which the indigenous population had no natural immunity.

Columbus on Trial video

    The truth is that history is never, ever black and white. Christopher Columbus was an important figure in world history, but I think it's difficult to call him a hero.  Was he the greatest villain in history? Maybe not, but it's difficult to justify according him heroic honors.