Yearly Archives: 2009

December 7, 2009 · 8:44 am

Greatness Shows At An Early Age

There’s little doubt that one of the greatest female singers of our age is Aretha Franklin. Like so many of the great popular lady singers Aretha came out of the Gospel tradition. Though I consider myself as a sort of lapsed agnostic and haven’t stepped foot inside of a church in decades I absolutely love Gospel music. The music that came out of the black churches of this country formed the basis of the blues, rhythm and blues and rock and roll. The last time I was at the New Orleans Jazz Festival (1985) I spent five days at the rockingest venue at the Fairgrounds…the Gospel Tent only leaving once to see Roy Orbison.

The first time I heard the following song was on my favorite radio station ever, Radio Baie des Anges in Nice, France. It is Aretha Franklin singing in her father’s church in Detroit, Michigan in 1956 when she was only 14 years old. There was absolutely no doubt, listening to this, that this was one extraordinary talent about to be released upon the world.

If you have a decent set of earphones that can plug into your computer do it before you listen to this.

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Filed under Music, Uncategorized

December 6, 2009 · 10:19 am

Wild Women

Frequent readers of this blog know how much I love good old honky-tonk piano playing and especially by women like Marcia Ball and Katie Webster. There are others I like as well, and here are a few vids of Sue Keller and Ann Rabson of Saffire-The Uppity Blues Women. I first heard Saffire when Jolie Aire was berthed in Marbella, Spain. As a man you have to be pretty secure in your “maleness” to enjoy Saffire with their songs like “Bitch With A Bad Attitude,” “Big Ovaries, Baby.” “It Takes A Mighty Good Man,” and the first song of those I heard, “Middle Aged Blues Boogie.” I was lucky enough to see Saffire live in Fort Lauderdale at the old Musician’s Exchange and Ann Rabson was gracious enough to spend most of one of their breaks talking to me. Here, then are a couple of videos from some rather wild women…

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December 4, 2009 · 7:11 am

Mosquitoes and High Water

A couple of sleepless nights ago while surfing on line I came upon the wonderful resource site: Folkstreams.net and watched a great film about Gandy Dancers, the old crews who worked straightening railroad tracks and using songs to coordinate their work.

This morning I returned to the site and watched a film about the Isleños of St. Bernard Parish, Louisisana. The Isleños, from the Canary Islands, settled in St. Bernard, to the southeast of New Orleans in the 1770s. The reason I wanted to watch this video is that I am very familiar with this community. I spent two years running a crewboat in the Kerr-McGee oil field in Breton Sound and our headquarters were located in Hopedale at the very end of the St. Bernard Highway as it ends in the swamp at the edge of nowhere. To get to Hopedale you drive through the Isleño communities of Violet, Poydras and Yscloskey (pronounced Why skloski). A lot of the old traditions are carried on. You’d see family members in the cemeteries washing the graves of their departed prior to All Saints Day and adorning them with flowers.

The following is the trailer for the full 23-minute long movie…

In the full film you’ll see great shots of the magnificent Lafitte Skiffs with their beautiful sheerlines. One of the prettiest of all boats I know. I hope you’ll check out the full film at:

http://www.folkstreams.net/film,75

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Filed under boats, Uncategorized

December 2, 2009 · 10:24 am

For Those Enduring Chemo

I started another post on wild women in music and a group I admire, Saffire-The Uppity Blues Women when I came upon this on their official website. This song supercedes the others which will be posted another time. But I wanted this to go out first. Several years ago one of my brothers suffered through the agony of chemotherapy as he fought a losing battle to cancer. Through it all, though, he never lost his sense of humor and I’m sure he would have identified with the following video…

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November 29, 2009 · 11:15 am

No Group Has More Fun

Anyone who reads my blogs knows I absolutely love the Puddle Duck Racers. PDRacer.com After all, thier motto is “cheap, creative, and having fun on the water.”

What other sailboat class has a “land speed record” category? So far no one has submitted an entry to this record but I’m sure someone is working on it.

Here are the rules for the land speed record:

1 – Boat does NOT have to be setup in class legal configuration
2 – May use any vertical or horizontal fins, or wheels & attached apparatus such as frame, structures etc. Also the hull may end up only being a cockpit for the land sailor carridge, but that is OK for this challenge.
3 – Skipper must remain in the boat for the entire distance, however all crew may be changed without limitation.
4 – Boat must be propelled by mother nature or human, no motors. Towing with a bicycle is OK, coasting down hill is OK.
5 – For distance record, you may make laps, if you have a GPS that logs distance traveled, you may use that for calculating distance traveled (does not have to be point to point).
6 – For speed record, you can use peak GPS or submit other means that used to calculate speed.
7 – Water must go, or be under the hull at some point in the record attempt. This might be as simple as duct taping a bottle of water under the hull, going over a puddle, or having the final stretch run into the lake.
This record shall be reset at the end of each year.

Rules 4 and 7 are my favorites.

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Tagged as PDRacer

November 24, 2009 · 2:53 pm