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Beatles Get Back to Mono Vinyl (& The Lost Tribal Ritual of Reading Liner Notes)

9/10/2014

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BEATLES GET BACK TO MONO VINYL by Alan L. Chrisman

In honor of the recent re-release of the original Beatles on Mono LP’S set, I thought I’d write some reflections of all the changes that have happened, in how we listen to music.

It’s kind of ironic, because, there has been a real return to vinyl, even among whole new generations, let alone people like the baby Boomers who grew up with it.  Many people now get their music directly through downloading (and don’t even think of paying for it and helping support the artists who make it), so it’s actually become harder than ever for musicians to make a living.

“ Has the McDonaldization of music , with its constant accessibility, taken something away from the music itself”

I wrote the above words back in 1989, for an Ottawa, Canada Carleton University newspaper, when CD’s were supposed to be the new format, which would sound better and last forever.  And just today, I heard that Ottawa’s CD Warehouse (nominated once as the best music store in Canada) is closing their doors after 24 years.  Of course, as with the DVD video format, people have changed the way they consume music and film.  And “consume” is perhaps the fitting word.  Like fast food restaurants we, a lot of us anyway, want to just gobble it down 24/7.

But some of us still remembe, how we would, after saving up our money as kids, finally be able to afford the latest LP.  The Beatles’ especially, seem to have a new album out about every 6 months or so (groups today are lucky to get one out every few years).  Every Beatles’ record was a quantum leap from the previous one- from Rubber Soul to Revolver to Sgt. Peppers’ to The White Album to Abbey Road.  And the other leaders in rock at the time, like Dylan and the Stones, did the same thing, and we as fans had to make the jumps too.

But it was then a whole ritual we went through. You couldn’t wait to rush home, after waiting so long to finally have a copy and tear off the plastic wrapping, like it was Xmas, and gaze at the a cover.  For there was a real art to designing covers then,  especially after Sgt. Peppers’ psychedelic one, and as with the music inside, musicians were constantly trying to outdo each other artistically, but in a friendly rivals way, which made us all grow, artists and audience alike.  Then we would pop it on the turntable and play it for the first time.  But at the same time, we’d read  over the back cover and the often printed lyrics and liner notes, noting who’s singing what song  and who’s playing what instrument and which musicians are guesting on it, etc.  Albums were albums then, each one had a certain "flow" or feel to it; artists and producers worked hard to position each song for variety, etc. and sometimes with even an overall concept behind it.  Kids these days download songs separately and thus it doesn't have the same impact.  Instead of a three-minute statement, an artist had a  whole side or two of an LP to explore his or her expressions.  I think that's why so many of those albums still stand up.

I know it probably sounds strange to some people who didn’t grow up with it this way, like some fancy chef going on and on about the proper way to savor a fine wine or meal.  But that is what it was like for so many of us back then.  It was a ritual and rituals are important.  There is something to be said, even for having to wait for things in life, in the same way, which children still appreciate, after anticipating a present, getting up early Xmas morning, and finally getting it.  There’s just something about having to work and earning its reward.  Getting a new album, felt like that to us.  

I wrote those above words about the taking for granting our music, 25 years ago now.  And perhaps, we did lose something in the process, in this fast paced world of the internet and social media, where everything, for good and bad, is available to us all, anytime.  

Times change, and that’s just life too.  But as Marshall Mcluhan told us, each media also changes the message. There were first, Thomas Edison’s wax cylinders, 78 rpm’s, 33’s, 45 singles, LP’s, 8- tracks , cassettes, CD’s and now MP3’s, downloading, streaming-each for its time.   Analog vinyl, which several musicians like Neil Young have long maintained (Young has recently announced his own process), most experts now agree, has a “warmer” sound than digital (and these are the first re-releases that went back to the original mono analog masters).  Steve Berkowitz, one of engineers on the new project states, “the intention of these records is only realized in analog, because they made them in analog. People will feel it differently. There are sounds and feelings and spaces that the human animal reacts to, whether you know it or not. It's innate in us in as animals."

Generations since then may not be aware of these differences, because they haven’t actually heard them, especially using the portable devices of today.  The Beatles themselves actually took part in the mixing of the original mono versions, whereas, the later stereo versions were usually mixed by engineers only. So this is the way the Beatles originally intended them to be heard.

People laughed at me when I wrote those words and when I even predicted a comeback for vinyl one day.  At the time, I was running a vinyl store called Get Back! Records (a take-off on both The Beatles and my hope that vinyl would come back one day).  I ran vinyl stores for 30 years, opening perhaps the first used one in Ottawa, Canada in 1972.  The owner of the Ottawa CD store that just announced its closing, said that vinyl sales have actually been increasing by two or three times every year, these past few years.  It’s still admittedly, a relatively small minority market, but many bands, both new and old (including McCartney’s latest), are now also available on vinyl.   The Beatles box set of 14 LP’s is $375 (and doesn’t contain Abbey Road, Let It Be or Yellow Submarine, because they were recorded in stereo) and is mainly for collectors (individual albums can also purchased though). 

All I can say is, I can still remember first hearing, The Beatles’ Yesterday and Today album , which Capitol Records complied from the British LP’s  and called it (and later withdrew the legendary, rare “Butcher Cover”),  growing up in the States in 1966.  And it was the original mono version (which I still have, amazingly) with “Day Tripper” coming out of my speakers in Mono and feeling like The Beatles were right there in my university room.  There’s something to be said, as I say, for these often tribal youth rituals which human beings still seem to need, and the somewhat surprising return to vinyl by many young people too, these past several years.  They remind us, that despite all the changes, some things are timeless.  Get Back to MONO!  Read Alan Chrisman’s other recent blog on his meeting several people from the Beatles Beginnings:  Meeting Beatles People from the Mono Days         www.beatlely.wordpress.com

OTTAWA CITIZEN ARTICLE on ALAN CHRISMAN’S “GET BACK! RECORDS” VINYL STORE, 1999:

 

 

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JENNIFER LAWRENCE:  NUDE PHOTOS & POLITICAL CORRECTNESS

9/6/2014

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JENNIFER LAWRENCE:  NUDE SELFIES & POLITICAL CORRECTNESS by Alan L. Chrisman


The recent leak of Jennifer Lawrence’s and other celebrities’ nude photos by a hacker has raised some interesting questions.  It seems to me, to be mainly a generational thing.  The younger generations, who’ve grown up with social media their whole lives, have a whole different definition and practice of “privacy”, than those who haven’t. 

Many young people think nothing of revealing anything and everything about themselves on the internet.  And that includes sexting, nude, and explicit photos.  Supposedly, one in four of them has sent them and 40% have received them.   One half of 18-24 year olds, according to one survey, send them.  If these are to be believed, and I’m not saying they aren’t.   Remember back in 1998 (which seems like a century ago now), when Bill Clinton argued that oral sex wasn’t really sex.  This new generation, evidently, agrees.   How far we’ve gone since then.

It’s amazing how fast our social mores have changed.  It started perhaps, with Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, reality shows, people famous for being famous, celebrity sex tapes, selfies, sexting, etc.  I guess it was just a matter of time until the non-famous would want to be in on the act (no pun intended)  too.  So now you can be your own porn star and share it with friends and family.

This younger generation will, no doubt, say “what’s the big deal?” Get with the times, Man!  Every generation thinks the previous ones are out of date.  That’s a necessary part of being young, since time began.

And we live in politically-correct times (have for a while now).  The Baby Boomers, more than any other generation perhaps, will do anything- not to get old.  Youth is the magic elixir. If you have enough money of course, to buy the health supplements and organic food and get our hair dyed and tattoos, to show we’re still hip.  We line up for the latest social media device.  Everyone’s a writer.  Everyone’s a musician.  Everyone’s a poet.  Everyone’s an artist.  Everyone has a blog (including me!).  Everyone can express themselves.  Of course, few can make a living at these things anymore , because we also don’t  want to have to pay for it.

But hey, this is the perfect democratic set-up, right?

Sex was once the taboo subject, but not anymore.  Sex is everywhere; it’s out of the closet.  My female bank tellers are wearing low-cut tops as part of their business attire and I have to try and keep my eyes on my bank deposits and not get accused of leering.   Middle-aged women want to look like their daughters.  Their daughters want to go TV Idol shows and imitate famous people who can’t sing.  College students are too often regressing to a rape culture, despite all the sex-equality education.  And there’s little subtlety left about anything anymore.  

But it’s dangerous and unpopular and politically incorrect to say these things, because we live in a “liberal” society.  Nobody wants to be labeled a prude or intolerant.  Racists don’t even consider themselves racists .  Remember Donald Sterling?  If you even question some of these things, some people will say,” You against Sex or something?”  The worst crime is to be uncool.

No, we’re all so liberated.   It seems to me that morals and politics is always about, really one thing-thinking the other guy is not as “open “as we are.  Conservatives think liberals are too open and liberals think conservatives are not “open” enough.  Comedian Mort Sahl said, “Liberals feel guilty about everything and conservatives think they have the right to own everything”.  If we listened to our mainstream media, we’d think the news is just about scandals and what’s the latest video that’s gone viral.  At one time only the tabloids specialized in those things.

I recently read a novel by Gary Shteyngart, Super Sad True Love Story, set in the perhaps, not too distant future.  America has a one party government and China owns most of its economy.  Everyone has a Credit Ranking and your social standing and any chance for advancement is based on that Ranking.  Poor people have a low Ranking and are basically disposable.  Also everyone has a personal device called an apparat, which allows everyone to find out anyone else’s Ranking (as well as their sex lives) and whether it’s worth associating with them or marrying them.  So in this future, everyone knows everything about everyone else.  Of course, the book is a sort of 1984-like Sci. Fi. satire.   Shteyngart has also, in 2014, released his painful, but uproariously funny memoir, Little Failure, about coming to America as a Russian immigrant and trying to adopt to his new land and  how he finally found his true calling as a writer.  In the previous Super Sad True Love Story, his character, Lenny, is a collector of “printed, bound media artifacts(aka) books.

Some people say that a world of more and more social media and is even desirable and less and less privacy is inevitable. We learn more everyday just how much governments and corporations know about us and everyday there is another mass breach of our privacy.  Edward Snowden revealed that the NSA wanted to have eavesdropping abilities secretly put on every device sold to the public (and almost got away with it).

It’s true that new generations don’t seem too concerned with these things and also many of the older generation seem to just accept this “progress”.  Perhaps, Shteyngart’s future society, where everyone knows everything about everyone else, may not be far off.  But maybe we should at least question where this is leading us all.  And maybe we should remember where we came from and not be so afraid of being accused of not being “with it”.

 

 

“HUMAN REALITY”                    Lyrics by Alan Chrisman c. 2013



1.There is no perfection                                Chorus:

Not everything is connected                 Everybody lies

There is no excuse                                   Everybody cries

There is no simple truth                         Everybody dies

                                                                    Not everybody flies

2.There is no black                                               

There is no white                              4. There is no smart addict             

There’s only wrong                            There is no escape    

There’s only right                               There’s only ourselves to blame

                                                               There’s only human joy and pain

                                                                        

3.There’s not always a reason            5.  The Spirit is overrated                 

Things are never simple                      Our ego’s are inflated

They are always complex                    Most have already made up their minds

It’s always a changing season             Few will take the necessary time

 

6.Doesn’t matter how much we say

Only what we do

Whether we deliver

And come through

We are not the same

 

7.We are not equal

We are not the same

We are all different

In more than a name

 

8.Only you can grow

Only you can know

And not be a slave

And can yourself save

 

 Hear " HUMAN REALITY" By Al & THE G-Men under Songs and CD's Heading.

 

 



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"BABY BLUE" & BADFINGER: THE AMAZING SAGA OF A BAND

9/4/2014

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”BABY BLUE” & BADFINGER: THE AMAZING SAGA OF A BAND by Alan L. Chrisman

Badfinger has always been one of my favorite bands. Badfinger was a Beatles-produced band in the early 70’ who had 4 albums  and 4 top singles on the Beatles’ label, Apple Records. Amazingly, one of my favorite songs by them “Baby Blue” had a resurgence in 2013, as it was chosen for the final episode of the popular Breaking Bad TV show, and it ended up back in the charts at no. 14.  Some people may not know they also wrote the song, ”Without You” which Harry Nilsson had a number one hit with in 1972 and Mariah Carey in ’94.

Originally called The Iveys, they were the first non-Beatles band signed to their new Apple label in 1968.  They changed their name to “Badfinger” after an incident when John Lennon had hurt his finger playing what was later to be the Beatles’ song, “With A Little Help from My Friends”. Paul McCartney wrote and produced their first big hit, “Come And Get It”, which was on their first Badfinger album, the soundtrack to the Peter Sellers movie Magic Christian Music, produced by Tony Visconti, later David Bowie’s producer.  Their next album, “No Dice” had the afore-mentioned “Without You” and “No Matter What” hits released in 1970.  Their 3rd Apple release was the solid “Straight Up” LP with “Baby Blue” produced by Todd Rundgren and “Day After Day”, produced by George Harrison.

The four members of the band were originally from Wales and  Liverpool ( Pete Ham, guitar, Tom Evans, bass and Mike Gibbons, drums, Joey Molland guitar).  Molland even looked similar to McCartney. They all four wrote songs so catchy that people often took them for the Beatles and their harmonies. They also played on several Beatles’ solo albums like Harrison’s All Things Must Pass and Ringo’s single,”It Don’t Come Easy”. And they played at Harrison’s Bangladesh Benefit Concert in ’71 and Ham with Harrison for his “Here Comes The Sun” duet.

But then fate was to turn on this storied band, for the Beatles broke up in 1970, just at the height of Badfinger’s success, with their record label in lawsuits and Badfinger’s money too tied up for years afterward. They released their final album for Apple, Ass, in 1973, with their goodbye song ” Apple of My Eye”. Afterwards, they got a deal with Warners Bros label, and released two decent albums Badfinger and Wish You Were Here in 1974. But they also met an unscrupulous new manager and he disappeared with the advance money the record company had given them and that put them on the financial hook for his actions and wouldn’t publicize their albums or release any future ones. .  They went back in Apple’s studio one last time to record Head First, but it wasn’t released until 2000.  And it was only the beginning of their troubles, for their main songwriter, Pete Ham, was found hanged in April, 1975.  The remaining members tried to carry on in various bands and solo projects for the next several years.   Molland and Evans recorded a “comeback” album Back on The Airways for Electra in ’79.  It’s actually, one of their best, I think, besides their Apple releases, with several quite good songs on it like the title rocker and the Beatlely ballad single, “Love Is Gonna Come at Last”; I recommend it if you can find it.

I actually met the remaining members and got their autographs when they played Ottawa, Canada’s Barrymore’s Hall in the early 80’s.  They released another decent album “Say No More” in ’81.  But soon they fell apart again and at one time, there were two rival touring bands, one led by Evans, one by Molland, both claiming to be Badfinger.  This led to more lawsuits and money woes and tragically, in Nov. ’83, Tom Evans also committed suicide, still evidently despondent over his earlier bandmate, Pete Ham’s, death eight years before.

Thus Badfinger’s story became more known for its tragedy than its music often, unfortunately. All the members had recorded various solo projects that were finally released over the years: Pete Ham’s 7 Park Avenue (’97) and Golder’s Green (’99); Tom Evan’s Over You: The Final Tracks(’95) and Molland has 4 albums After The Pearl (’85), The Pilgrim(’92),This Way Up(2001) and Return To Memphis (2013). Badfinger fans are advised to check them out for they all contain some well-written songs.  I met member, Joey Molland, again at the Connecticut Beatles’ Convention in’94 and he signed my beloved original Apple album Staight Up.  Goldmine collector’s magazine said that Straight Up was the most requested out-of- print album in 1988 their subscribers wanted released again.  Under pressure, Apple Records did re-release their Badfinger albums on CD , as Come And Get It: The Best Of Badfinger in 1995 and the Very Best Of Badfinger in 2000.

Finally in 2013, the surviving member of Badfinger, Molland, (drummer Gibbons died in Florida in 2005) and the other members’ families got their royalty payments settled in court.  Pete Ham’s song “Without You” alone was worth over a half million dollars for his in ’94, when Mariah Carey had hit again with it.  With Breaking Bad’s re-hit of “Baby Blue, 42 years after its first release, there would be no doubt more to come. 

So the amazing story of Badfinger was to be fated both good (produced by and played with The Beatles) and bad.  Dan Matovina’s book, Without You: The Tragic Story of Badfinger was written in 1998 and re-issued in 200O.

But to me, what’s important is their great music, that’s stood the test of time and I was lucky to get to meet them and hear them play their songs.  Badfinger remains one of my favorite bands and their songs have proven to last.   One of the bands I managed, played “ Baby Blue” , especially for me,  at the Ottawa Beatles’ Conventions I organized.   For You, Baby Blue.

 

 

 


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BOB MARLEY :"NO WOMAN, NO CRY"

9/2/2014

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BOB MARLEY: “NO WOMAN, NO CRY” by Alan L. Chrisman

I was privileged to see Bob Marley perform twice. The first time was in the late 70’s in Montreal and later in Ottawa, Canada a couple years before he died prematurely in 1981.

The Montreal concert, especially, was one the best concerts I’ve seen, and I’ve seen a few, including Dylan & The Band, The Who, and George Harrison in Montreal in the early 70’s.

I remember still, being blown away, even at the beginning of the show, with only his rhythm section, the Barrett bothers and his back-up singers, The I-Threes (including wife, Rita) swaying softly on the stage, before Marley himself, came out. Then he suddenly appeared playing rhythm guitar, with the sounds reverberating throughout that packed old hockey stadium, the Montreal Forum, and it made us feel like we were in Jamaica, and soon everyone was up dancing in the aisles. I find it seems hard to really capture the true power of reggae on record, although the 2 LP album set, Babylon By Bus that was the result of that ‘77 tour and the Bob Marley-Live album recorded in England in ‘75 come closest to the experience.  I had especially liked then, the very moving song” No Woman, No Cry”, and it remains one of my favorites.

Recently I read two books about Marley, especially about The Wailers’ humble beginnings in the Trench Town ghetto in Kingston, Jamaica, which that song evokes so vividly.  Rita Marley’s own book is aptly titled: Rita Marley: No Woman, No Cry: My Life with Bob Marley (2004) and Jamaican-Brit., Colin Grant’s 2011 book is I &I –The Natural Mystics: Marley, Tosh and Wailer. The original Wailers, Marley, Peter Tosh, and Bunny (Livingston) Wailer started out with Rita, as young teen-agers,   practicing their harmonies together.  They would later combine the rhythms of ska with American soul music and help create reggae.  Grant traces their slow rise to eventually international recognition -but at a cost, often making little money, being ripped off by early Jamaican producers, and tensions within the group, until Tosh and Wailer eventually go their separate ways in 1974.  By this time, they had been discovered by Island Records owner, Chris Blackwell, and had moved to England where they had their first real success.  Blackwell though decided to market Marley, especially, to a wider, often white audience in which he succeeded.  And Marley became the Reggae icon for the world.  Tosh had some solo success, even connected with the Rolling Stones at one point, until he was shot and killed in his home in Jamaica in 1987.  Jamaica was still a very dangerous place with poverty and politics. Marley himself had left after he had been shot by political rivals there in 1976, but he had survived. Grant finally runs into the hard-to-find Bunny Wailer at the end of his book.  His book especially shows the influence of the Rastafarian religion on the Wailers and Marley.  He also wrote a book on black pioneer, Marcus Garvey.   Rita Marley’s book focuses on her more personal experiences with Marley and those early years.  She was still married to him, despite his siring several children by other women, when he died of cancer at only 36. But his legend and music would live on.

I had first been turned on to reggae by my roommate, Joe, in the mid.-70’s.  Late one Saturday night, I was awoken in our Ottawa apartment by 5 Jamaican men, whom Joe had invited to crash at our place.  It turned out they were Leroy Sibbels and his band, The Heptones, who were well known for their early 70’s album and hit, “Book of Rules”.

Joe later told me about a reggae group, he had seen in Toronto, Ernie Smith and The Roots Revival.  I ran a small newspaper at the time, Spectrum, and I was invited down to see and review them the first time they played in Ottawa.  And like seeing Marley in Montreal that first time, I’ll never forget the impression they made. It was a cold Canadian winter night outside, but inside the small, packed, hot sweaty club, it felt like we were being transported back to Africa.  Ernie had an effect on the audience almost like an ancient shaman. Or perhaps, even as the way people I later met, like Cynthia Lennon and BBC director, Leslie Woodhead, who had shot the only footage of them in the Cavern, described upon first seeing The Beatles.

I went back the next night and there was a line all the way down the street; the word had spread fast, including to several respected Ottawa musicians like Bruce Cockburn. Bruce would later record his reggae–influenced hit, ”Wondering Where The Lions Are” using some of the same musicians as Ernie.

Ernie Smith and The Roots Revival would come back to Ottawa and packed houses a couple months later.  I didn’t know that Ernie at one time had been more popular in Jamaica than Marley, having won the Yamaha Music Festival in Japan in ’72. He also wrote the big hit, “Tears on My Pillow” for Johnny Nash.  One of my prized possessions is a cassette of that show that Ottawa’s Chez-FM taped.  Also in that band was, Jo Jo Bennett, who had played with ska legends, Don Drummond and Byron Lee and the Dragonnaires. 

My friend Joe, who was now helping to promote them, and I went to Montreal and Quebecers would stop us in the streets over them.  Ernie had moved to Toronto, like a lot of reggae musicians, to avoid the political conflict in Jamaica. They released an EP with amazing extended versions of their songs, “To Behold Jah” and “Don’t Down Me Now” which became a hit in 1979.  “Don’t Down Me Now” had special resonance with me because my girlfriend of 8 years had just left me. The band was signed to Canadian icon, Stompin’ Tom Connor’s label, Boot/ Generation Records and were recording their first full album when tensions developed.  Supposedly, the other band members felt that their Toronto manager had favored Ernie in order to market them to a wider audience, similar to what had happened to Marley and the other Wailers, and the band split, right at the beginnings of success.  So I learned early what can sometimes happen in the music business. Their manager would later put on the Reggae Sun Splash Festivals in Jamaica each year.

Fortunately, another rare tape I have is of their original recording sessions for that
album. The album was released finally, as well on Bob Marley’s Tuff Gong Records,  but by that time, the band had broken up and Jo Jo Bennett later went on to form the most successful Canadian reggae band, The Sattalites.

In the 80’s, a woman came into my vinyl store and told me she’d been looking for years for those Ernie Smith songs from that first Canadian EP, as they had been a big hit in Africa where she had worked.   She said she had finally tracked down Ernie playing in a lounge back in Jamaica, but he said he didn’t have any copies left.  Something I also learned working with musicians over the years-they often don’t keep copies of their own songs.  But he suggested trying in Ottawa, as he had been popular there and that’s how she found my store.  She was overjoyed when I offered to make copies of those rare live and album sessions, something as I said, probably the band doesn’t even have.

 In 1987, when Ernie had been having some hard times, Bob Marley’s mother, Cedella Booker, came to his rescue and together they wrote songs for a musical about Marcus Garvey by Perry Henzell, the director of the classic reggae film and soundtrack, The Harder They Come (’72), starring Jimmy Cliff, which along with Bob Marley had first spread reggae music outside Jamaica.

In the 90’s, another musician came into my store and left a CD by a Toronto reggae group, called Freedom Fighters to see if he could sell through my store.  After he left, I listened to it and it reminded me very much of the quality of Marley & the Wailers. When I read the liner notes, sure enough, on it playing were the Barrett brothers and other members of Marley’s band, and it was produced by them at Marley’s own studio in Jamaica, Tuff Gong Studios.  So it all had come full circle, from my first hearing Marley in Montreal and then Ernie Smith and the Roots Revival that first night in Ottawa:  two very special shows I would never forget, although I would see many more over the years. 


I was visiting my parents this summer and found a poster of Bob Marley and George Harrison on the same bill in '75 at the Lyceum Ballroom, London.  I knew The Beatles liked reggae and Marley (Lennon had said he had trouble getting white session musicians to play it in '73 for his mind games LP and one of the last songs he recorded was the reggae and perhaps fore-seeing, "Living On Borrowed Time").  McCartney had recorded the reggae, "C-Moon" and of course they had recorded his calypso-like "Ob-La-D" back in '68 for the White Album.  But I had no idea one of The Beatles had even played on the same bill as Marley.







BELOW:ERNIE SMITH & THE ROOTS REVIVAL’S  Original 1997 Cdn. EP

with “To Behold Jah” & “Don’t Down Me Now”


  








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More on Alan Chrisman's musical experiences and on other subjects:  http://beatlely.wordpress.com and www.scribd.com/alanchrisman
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May 08th, 2014

8/26/2014

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Lewinsky,The Clintons, Donald Sterling & Political Correctness

An Essay about Our Times by Alan L. Chrisman, 2014

Monika Lewinsky says in the June issue of Vanity Fair that she is still being vilified over the Clinton affair.  And it’s created quite a reaction. How dare she drudge up this scandal again!  Media panelists’ have complained that she just move on with her life.  But she maintains she has tried, but has been unable to find jobs (despite going to the London School of Economics).  One female pundit said she could have volunteered to aid in Africa (like Bill Clinton and Bill Gates’ foundation) or changed her name, etc.   Male P.R. consultants said she should have just re-created a new public “narrative” as ex-President Clinton has done.  America just loves a comeback story.

I always thought it strange that it was, ironically, the female feminists who most criticized her but forgave Bill Clinton, the womanizer.  Of course they were mainly Democrats and consider themselves and him progressive, so it could be excused.  And there is a whole history of ‘progressives’ like the Kennedy’s being womanizers and it being dismissed.  Of course, they can’t wait for Hillary to run for President in 2016.  I recommend you read Roger Morris’s “Partners in Power”: The Clintons and their America, to get another view.   CNN host, Don Lemmon, said Lewinsky should have been more mature, as he was when her age he hinted, than to have an affair with a married man.   Lewinsky was an intern at the White House but only in her early 20’s when she became involved with the most powerful “boss” on earth.  But we have long had a double standard for males and male politicians.  At the worse, they became jokes like Anthony Weiner and Elliot Spitzer or right-wing fundamentalists, caught with their pants down.  But as Lewinsky argues, we continue to blame the women.  I was surprised myself, when my own mother had said at the time of the Clinton scandal, that it was Lewinsky’s fault.

We live, and have for a while now, in a time of political correctness.  People outside the U.S .(as in Canada, where I now live) often have this view of America as a very religious, conservative place.  Canadians see themselves as more liberal and nice and less violent (despite their love of hockey fights).  But almost all the U.S. media is owned by big and ‘liberal’ corporations on the East and West coasts.  And of course, Hollywood wants to have a social conscious with its overpaid actors and executives.
The recent Donald Sterling incident, the L.A. Clippers owner, when he was      
caught making racist remarks, is also revealing.  He has evidently had these views for years and the NBA knew it and allowed it all this time.  It’s interesting:  he actually grew up in one of the poorest and mixed-race neighborhoods in L.A., as did his supposed girlfriend (she went to the same high school 50 years later), V. Stiviano or “Visor” woman as she has become known in the media.  And they both had created a new “narrative” in the American way: he changed his Jewish name to Sterling and she her’s too and has had plastic surgery, to hide her ethnic background.

So I think he’s genuinely surprised with all the controversy.  Afterall, he made the mistake of just saying out loud what he’s probably thought all along and those around him have dismissed ( even Stiviano says he’s not a racist).  Again, he’s just lived the American Dream and become a capitalist and escaped from the ghetto, like the rappers, and couldn’t understand why his girlfriend would want to dredge up the past by hanging around with a black athlete (even though the majority of NBA players are).  He’s just an old man who has racist views, but like a lot of us, nobody wants to admit we’re not as unprejudiced in all kinds of things, as we think we are.  
 


As I said in my own book, “It’s  A Long Way Home”, (see 'memoir/book' heading), after living both in the U.S. and Canada, I believe politics is really about both liberals and conservatives each thinking that the other has less morals than they do.  Liberals think conservatives are not “open” enough and conservatives think liberals are too “open”.  But to me, there seems a lot of hypocrisy on both sides and in both the Clinton affair and the Sterling incident. 

And the media is also guilty of its own.  

   







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    Alan Chrisman went to Purdue U. and U. of Ill.(International Relations), came to Canada, was influenced by The Beatles, and became involved in many aspects of music and writing.

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