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Four of these sit side-by-side in the boondocks of central florida (Shiloh, Florida to be exact). Museum condition but on private land. Intersection of Marion Cty 320/329. There are another 4 nearby that are visible from the road.
These cabins were built by the land-owner who was trying to attract help in his Turpentine business during the depression (1930's). He built about a dozen of them. They haven't been occupied for decades, but the land-owners are continuing to maintain them.
blog: www.joiseyshowaa.com/2010/01/old-florida.html
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Doz Cabezas, AZ, (est. 1879, pop. <25), elevation 5,082 ft. (1,549 m)
"The Dos Cabezasite is the only person on the globe who can sit serenely down and smile, and smile again, amid conditions and adversities which would madden a lowly follower of the lamb. When Gabriel blows his horn he will find some of these genial old fellows sitting on a rock telling each other of the promising future of the camp, or how rich the Juniper mine is." —“Tombstone Epitaph,” 28 Apr 1887
• Dos Cabezas, AZ is a "living" Sonoran Desert ghost town with few remaining residents • located in the Sulphur Springs Valley [photo] of Cochise County • lies beside the Dos Cabezas ("Two Heads") mountain range, named for its twin bald summits
• an historically significant spring with potable water, once known as Dos Cabezas Spring, stands about a half mi. southwest of the town by the old Southern Emigrant Trail, a principal artery of the westward movement • the trail descends to the valley from Apache Spring through Apache Pass
• on 4 Sep 1851, John Russell Bartlett & his Boundary Survey Commission were heading west through what was, for over 300 yrs., Spanish/Mexican territory • most of the land had been ceded to the U.S. in 1848, ending the controversial Mexican-American War, but much of southernmost Arizona & New Mexico remained under the Mexican flag • Bartlett's mission was to work with a Mexican survey team to formally define the post-war US-Mexico border
• the survey was a prelude to the 1853-54 Gadsden Purchase which, for $10MM, acquired 29,670 sq. mi. of Mexican territory south of the Gila River, Cochise County included • the deal was signed by President Franklin Pierce, a northern, anti-abolitionist ("doughface") Democrat • it was intended to facilitate development of a road, canal and/or New Orleans-LA railroad, & to open the southwest to Southern expansion, seemingly ignoring the fact that an economy based on slave-produced cotton was unlikely to flourish in the desert — “Cochise and his Times”
• with potable water a precious commodity for both 2- & 4- legged desert travelers, Apache Spring – like many watering holes – became the site of a stagecoach stop c. 1857 • was operated by the San Antonio-San Diego "San-San" Mail Line, commonly known as "Jackass Mail" • Chiricahua Apache attacks made Apache Pass the most perilous stop on the line's Birch Route [map], named for company owner James Birch (1827-1857) —“The West is Linked”
• the 1,476 mi. daylight-only journey — with daily stops for 2 meals (45 min. each) & team switches (5-10 min.) — typically took less than 30 days & could be as few as 22 • a one-way ticket cost $150, meals & 30 lb. baggage allowance included —“Deconstructing the Jackass Mail Route”
• the Jackass line had a fleet of celerity (mud) wagons, vehicles suited for travel in intense heat over rugged terrain • it also operated fifty 2,500 lb. Concord stagecoaches [photo] manufactured by the Abbot Downing Co. in Concord, NH
"To feel oneself bouncing—now on the hard seat, now against the roof, and now against the side of the wagon—was no joke. Strung beneath the passenger compartment, wide leather straps called 'thorough braces' cradled the coach, causing it to swing front to back. Motion sickness was a common complaint, and ginger root was the favored curative." —Historynet
• each stage could accommodate 9-12 passengers on three benches inside & up to 10 more on the roof • the coaches were drawn by four- & six-mule teams • the company maintained 200 head of mules in its western corrals
“The coach was fitted with three seats, and these were occupied by nine passengers. As occupants of the front and middle seats faced each other, it was necessary for these six people to interlock their knees; and there being room inside for only ten of the twelve legs, each side of the coach was graced by a foot, now dangling near the wheel, now trying in vain to find a place of support..." —”The History of Stagecoaches in Tucson, Arizona”, Bob Ring
• Tips For Stagecoach Travelers, “Cowboy Chronicles”
• The Passenger Experience, “Desert USA”
"The company recommended that each passenger:... should provide himself with a Sharp's rifle, (not carbine,) with accoutrements and one hundred cartridges, a navy sized Colts revolver and two pounds of balls, a belt and holster, knife and sheath..." —“San Diego Herald” 21 Nov 1857
• the line's stations were built 10-40 mi. apart • some provided rudimentary sleeping accommodations; all had water for passengers, drivers ("whips") & their teams • equipped with corrals, the depots served as relay stations where drivers & draft animals were changed • "swing stations" provided no meals, but larger "home stations," often operated by families, were "meal stops":
"…tough beef or pork fried in a grime-blackened skillet, coarse bread, mesquite beans, a mysterious concoction known as 'slumgullion,' lethally black coffee, and a 'nasty compound of dried apples' that masqueraded under the name of apple pie." —True West
• in Sept 1857 Jackass founder James Birch, sailing to California via Panama, was lost at sea along with 419 other passengers & 30K lbs. of gold, in the S.S. Central America disaster • that same month, the Butterfield-Overland Mail line [photos] began St. Louis to San Francisco service, gradually displacing the Jackass line & absorbing many of its stations
• by 1858 a new, fortified stone depot, Ewell's Stage Station [photo] , rose 4 mi. south of Dos Cabezas Spring • it's unclear which stage line erected the building, but around the time of its completion Jackass Mail quit the route, Butterfield-Overland later decided to bypass "Ewell's" & by 1861 it lay in ruins, destroyed by Apaches
• the Ewell name lived on at a tiny, hardscrabble settlement called Ewell Springs & at Dos Cabezas Spring, renamed Ewell's Spring when the original station was built • by 1879 the National Mail & Transportation Co. had established a new Ewell's Station
• Virginia-born Richard Stoddert "Baldy" Ewell (1817-1872) was a Captain in the First U. S. Dragoons, stationed in the Southwest in the 1850s • he resigned from the U.S. Army in 1861 to join the Confederacy • served in the Civil War as senior commander under Stonewall Jackson & Robert E. Lee • it has been argued that his decisions at the Battle of Gettysburg may have decided the outcome of that engagement
• during Ewell's service in the West, Gila Apache raids along the Southern Emigrant Route prompted a military response • he advocated unrestrained combat: "How the Devil can a soldier stop in the midst of battle and summon a jury of matrons to decide whether a redskin pouring bullets into the soldier is a woman or not." • the 1857 Bonneville Expedition, in which Ewell commanded about 300 men, engaged against Apaches at the Gila River
"…the June 27 fight... was short and sweet …Ewell walking away with the lion's share of the honors… Scarcely an Apache escaped. Nearly 40 warriors were killed or wounded and 45 women and children taken captive. … Ewell was freely acknowledged as the hero of the day; his unhesitating leap to action crushed the western Apaches and forced them to sue for peace." —“Robert E. Lee's Hesitant Commander”, Paul D. Casdorph
• From Lt. John Van Deusen Du Bois's account of the engagement: "An Indian was wounded and his wife carried him in her arms to the chaparral and was covering him with brush when the troops came upon them and killed them both... One fine looking Indian brave was captured and by Col. Bonneville's desire, or express command, was taken out with his hands tied and shot like a dog by a Pueblo Indian—not 30 yards from camp... May God grant that Indian fighting may never make me a brute or harden me so that I can act the coward in this way..." —“Journal of Arizona History”, Vo. 43, No. 2, Arizona Historical Society
• c. 1850, gold veins & a few gold nuggets were discovered around Ewell's Station • in the 1860s wildcatters found gold on both sides of the Dos Cabezas range • by 1862 claims were staked & worked near the mountains & in the Apache Pass area —“Index of Mining Properties”
• in 1866 Congress passed a mining act that proclaimed "mineral lands of the public domain... free and open to exploration and occupation" • in 1872 additional stimulus was provided to "promote mineral exploration and development… in the western United States" —“Congressional Research Service”
• in 1878 John Casey (c. 1834-1904), an immigrant from Ireland, staked the first important claim in the Dos Cabezas area • the Juniper, locally known as the "Casey Gold," was located just ~2 miles NE of Ewell's Spring • John & his brother Dan moved into a cabin at the site • by the end of the year a dozen employees were working the mine
• the news that Casey had struck pay dirt & word that a Southern Pacific RR station would soon be built at Willcox – just 14 mi. away – lured scores of prospectors, e.g., Simon Hansen (1852-1929), a recent immigrant from Denmark who filed 27 claims • with the arrival of the new settlers, a small school was erected • on 20 Oct, 1878, the Dos Cabezas Mining District was officially designated
• in 1879 the “Arizona Miner” reported rich silver & gold deposits & claimed a population at Ewell Springs of 2,000 • other accounts, however, suggest that prior to 1920 the local population probably never exceeded 300 —“The Persistence of Mining Settlements in the Arizona Landscape”, Jonathan Lay Harris, 1971
• amid the rapid growth of 1879, the Ewell Springs settlement gave way to Dos Cabezas, a town with its own post office located a bit uphill from Ewell • John Casey is generally considered its founder • Mississippi-born James Monroe Riggs (1835-1912), once a Lt. Col. in the Confederate Army, became Dos Cabezas' 1st postmaster & opened a store he named Traveler's Rest
• by 1880 the nascent town had ~30 adobe houses & 15 families • sixty-five voters were registered in 1882, the year the town's newspaper, the “Dos Cabezas Gold Note”, launched, then promptly closed • in 1884, 42 students enrolled in the town's school
• at its height, Dos Cabezas had ~50 buildings, 3 stores, 3 saloons, 2 dairies, carpenter shops, telegraphic facilities, a mercantile, barber shop, butcher, brewery, brickyard, hotel, dancehall, boarding house, blacksmith shop, 3 livery stables, 3 stamp mills for gold ore & about 300 residents though actually, the area's population was at least 1,500 counting prospectors, miners & other mining co. employees living in the nearby mountains & valleys —Books in Northport
• Dos Cabezas ("Two Heads") was often spelled & pronounced "Dos Cabezos" with an "o" replacing the 2nd "a" in "Cabezas" • the postmaster settled on both spellings, as seen in the town's postmarks • the English translation of Dos Cabezos is "Two Peaks," arguably a more accurate — if less poetic — description of the twin summits than the original • given that the erroneous version was only name registered at U.S. Post Office Department in Washington DC, the interchangeable spellings persisted well into the 20th c.
• in 1880 the railroad arrived in Arizona, a station was established at Willcox & a cranky Scotland-born miner, John Dare Emersley (1826-1899), arrived at Dos Cabezas to prospect for mineral deposits • J.D. was a grad of the U. of Edinburgh, a writer well-versed in science & a botanical collector with a drought-tolerant grass, muhlenbergia emersleyi (bull grass), named for him • was a correspondent for the Engineering & Mining Journal • several other magazines including Scientific American also published him
• according to a miner who knew him, Emersley was apparently a greedy – and unusually tall – claim jumper: "Every old settler in the Globe District remembers Emersley, a seven foot Scotchman who had more claims located than he could work, and jumped more than he could hold." -“Arizona Silver Belt” (Globe, AT), 06 Jan 1883
• the "Scotchman" soon found a gold deposit & staked about 20 claims • he built a cabin nearby at an elevation of ~6,000 ft., & lived a reclusive life • entered into a pact with God, vowing not to develop any of his claims unless he received a sign from above • nevertheless, the work legally required to retain title to his claims produced several tunnels, one, the Roberts, 160' long • the sign from God never materialized and while awaiting it, Emersley died of scurvy
• shortly thereafter “Starved Amid His Riches”, the story of J.D. Emersley, a religious recluse who lived & died on a "mountain of copper," appeared in newspapers throughout the country • Emersley willed his claims to the Lord to be used for the good of all mankind • though this final wish was never fulfilled, the "mountain of copper" story brought yet another wave of prospectors to the Mining District & sparked a local copper boom
• in 1899 a new town, Laub City, was being laid off at the mouth of Mascot Canyon, 2 mi. above Dos Cabezas • John A. Rockfellow (1858-1947) [photo], author of "The Log of an Arizona Trailblazer," performed the survey • Rockefeller's sister was Tucson architect Anne Graham Rockfellow (1866-1954), an MIT grad & designer of the landmark El Conquistador Hotel [photo]
• the townsite was near the Emersley claims, which had been acquired by Dos Cabezas Consolidated Mines • America's coast-to-coast electrification required countless miles of copper power lines, thus "copper camps" like Laub City proliferated & prospered • the town grew & by 1900 warranted its own post office
• Laub City was named for (and possibly by) Henry Laub (1858-1926), a Los Angeles investor born in Kentucky to German-Jewish immigrants • made his first fortune as a liquor merchandiser • later invested in mining, oil & Southeast Arizona real estate
"There is every reason to believe that Dos Cabezas will be one of the greatest mining districts of Arizona" —Henry Laub, 1902
• a worldwide surge in mining caused copper prices to fall as supply outstripped demand • several mining concerns colluded to restrict production in a failed attempt to stabilize the market • Consolidated Mines' financing subsequently dried up & by 1903 Laub City was a ghost town • Dos Cabezas also suffered from the mine closings but managed to hang on as some mines continued to operate
• in 1905 a Wales-born mining engineer, Capt. Benjamin W. Tibbey (1848-1935), arrived in town with a "Mr. Page" • Ben Tibbey's mining career began as a child in a Welch mine • Page was actually T.N. McCauley, a Chicagoan with a checkered career in investment & finance • the two surveyed the mining district • McCauley apparently remained, later claiming he had resided in Emersly's abandoned shack for 2 yrs. • he also quietly filed & acquired claims covering 600 acres
• in June, 1907 McCauley, organized the Mascot Copper Company with a capitalization of $10MM & began large scale development • euphoric reports of massive ore deposits appeared in the local press, e.g., "Many Thousands of Tons of Ore in Sight— Property Bids Fair to Become Arizona's Greatest Copper Producer"
• in 1909 Mascot acquired control of Dos Cabezas Consolidated Mines Co., the original Emersley claims that Laub's group had purchased • McCauley launched a campaign to sell Mascot stock at $3/share, later $4 & finally $5 • his extravagant promotions included investor & press junkets to the mine in private railroad cars, wining & dining at the property's Hospitality House & a lavish stockholders' banquet at the Fairmont Hotel In San Francisco, with the company logo, a swastika, prominently on display [photo]
"The management of the Mascot has to its credit a remarkable series of sensational ore discoveries and few, if any other copper mining companies can match their enviable record in point of actual tonnage when at the same stage of development." —Bisbee Daily Review, 10 Mar 1910
• though stock analysts familiar with McCauley's history as a con artist cautioned their clients, by August, 1910 reports had sales at $300,000 • shareholders owned 25% of the company, the remainder was retained by the promoters
• while actual mining & ore shipments were limited, the company announced that a store, a boarding house, sleeping quarters for employees, & a new office building had been completed • in 1912, as Mascot continued its costly build out & occasionally shipped ore, Arizona Territory gained statehood
• in 1914, the company launched the Mascot Townsite & Realty Co. to sell lots in a new town they were developing in Mascot Canyon:
"UNUSUAL OPPORTUNITY FOR PERSONAL PROFIT By the Purchase of a Lot In the MASCOT TOWNSITE This new town should have a population of 5000 within a few years." - May 1915
• by 1915 the town of Mascot had been established • homes accessed by winding paths rose one above another on terraces • residents pitched in to build a community hall in a single day • a band called the "Merry Miners" was organized to play at Saturday-night dances
"King Copper, the magic community builder, has once more raised his burnished scepter—and once more a tiny mining camp, a mere speck of Arizona landscape, has received the industrial stimulus which should shortly transform it into a factor to be reckoned with among the bustling little cities of the southwest… The tiny mining camp of the past was Dos Cabezas. The coming city is Mascot. —El Paso Herald, 25 Jun 1915
• within 10 yrs. the town would boast ~100 buildings & a population of ~800 • its children were educated at Mascot School & a second school, with 4 teachers between them • many of the town's boys "grew up panning gold to earn money" —Arizona Republic, 04 Mar 1971
• though most of the area's Mexican residents lived in Dos Cabezas, a few, like Esperanza Montoya Padilla (1915-2003), resided in Mascot:
"I was born in Mascot, Arizona, on August 28, 1915… In the early days, when I was a young child, Mascot was very built up; it was blooming. It was also a beautiful place. There were a lot of Cottonwood and oak trees on the road going up towards the mine and streams coming down the mountain. The school was on that road along with a grocery store and even a pool hall. There was a confectionery in the pool hall where they sold goodies like ice cream and candy. There was a community center on the hill where they showed movies. I remember silent movies with Rudolph Valentino. Even the people from Dos Cabezas came up to Mascot for the movies.
At Christmas they put up a tree in the community center, and all the children in town would get their Christmas presents. There was a road coming up from Dos Cabezas to Mascot and all kinds of houses along that road all the way up to the mine. Our house was on that road. I remember a time when everything was caballos – horses pulling wagons. The cars came later of course. —Songs My Mother Sang to Me
• on January 27, 1915, a celebration in Willcox marked the beginning of construction of the Mascot & Western Railroad • a large crowd watched a jubilant T. N. McCauley turn the first shovelful of dirt • the final spike - a copper one - was driven 15 June, 1915 at The Mascot townsite, followed by a "monstrous barbecue" for 4,000 guests [photos] • activities included a tour of a mine and the company's "2-mile" (10,6000') aerial tramway [photo]
"I feel that only great and lasting good can come of this project. It not only means that the Mascot, in itself, is established but it means that many people, who have known Arizona only a place in the desert before, may take home with them the idea of permanency which we enjoy in this great commonwealth." — H.A. Morgan, Bisbee Daily Review, 27 Jun 1915
• in 1916 a drought ravaged the mining district — wells dried up, cattle died & many mines shut down • on 1 July 1917, American Smelting & Refining took out a 20 yr. lease on the Mascot property only to relinquish it less than a yr. later, presumably because the operation was losing money
• with Mascot Copper facing insolvency, McCauley reorganized it via merger • the "new" Central Copper Co. began operations 15 Feb 1919 • McCauley devised a multi-level marketing scheme where stockholders became stock salesmen • the price was set at $0.50/share, purchases limited to $100/person with $10/mo. financing available • the salesmen, using portable hand-cranked projectors, screened movies of the property at small gatherings of prospective buyers
• reportedly 70,000 stockholders invested & were stunned as the price dropped 50% when the stock hit the market • lawsuits were filed • in a display ad published in several newspapers, McCauley denied each charge against the company
• by Jan, 1924, McCauley reported $4,500,000 spent on new construction • by 1926 400 employees were on the payroll, but output of the mines proved marginal • in 1927 stockholders were informed that falling copper & silver prices dictated that ore extraction be reduced to the minimum necessary to cover operating expenses
• the following year the enterprise was taken over by Southwestern Securities Corporation, a holding company • by late 1929 the payroll was down to 26 employees • on February 29, 1932, Southwestern Securities purchased the Mascot Company at public auction for $100,000 • McCauley promptly moved to Tucson, was implicated in a bank scandal, fled to California then disappeared without a trace —“A history of Willcox, Arizona, and Environs”, Vernon Burdette Schultz
• with the failure of Central Copper [photo] & exodus of miners, Dos Cabezas began its final descent, although not devoid of diversions • in spite of frequent mine closings & the onset of the Great Depression, the town fielded a team in the Sulphur Springs Valley Baseball League, which also included a squad representing a C.C.C. camp • Willcox had 2 teams in the league, the Mexicans & the Americans
• among the dwindling Dos Cabezas population was Jack Howard, the man who "sharpened the first tools that opened up the first gold discoveries of Dos Cabezas district" & spent his last 30 yrs. with Mary Katherine Cummings, history's "Big Nose Kate" [photo], memorialized in movies as Katie Elder —“Tombstone Daily Prospector”
• John Jessie “Jack” Howard (1845-1930) was born in Nottingham, England • as one of the first miners in the Dos Cabezas mining district, he is memorialized by Howard Peak & Howard Canyon • lived in the hills near Dos Cabezas • remembered as a crusty churl who hid in a manhole behind his shack to fire at intruders as they rode into range • on the other hand, some of his fellow Dos Cabezans considered him friendly • divorced his wife Mary who, according to court records, "displayed a vile and disagreeable disposition coupled with frequent outbursts of the most violent temper until she made his life a burden he could stand no longer.”
"…witnesses testified about Mary’s barrage of insults that included publicly calling Howard a white-livered son of a b—. She kept a filthy house, never washed dishes or clothing and even threatened to burn down his house and poison his stock." —“He Lived with Big Nose Kate”, True West
• Mary Katherine "Big Nose Kate" Horony (1850-1940) was born in Pest, Hungary, 2nd oldest daughter of Hungarian physician Miklós Horony • emigrated to the U.S. with her family in 1860 • placed in a foster home after her parents died • stowed away on a steamboat to St. Louis, where she became a prostitute • in 1874 was fined for working as a "sporting woman" (prostitute) in a "sporting house" (brothel) in Dodge City, KS, run by Nellie "Bessie" Ketchum, wife of James Earp [video (8:59)]
• moved to Fort Griffin, TX in 1876 • met dentist John "Doc" Holliday, who allegedly said he considered Kate his intellectual equal • Kate introduced Holliday to Wyatt Earp • Doc opened a dental practice but spent most of his time gambling & drinking
• the couple fought regularly, sometimes violently • according to Kate they married in Valdosta, Georgia • moved on to AZ Territory where Kate worked as a prostitute at The Palace Saloon in Prescott • they parted ways but she rejoined Holliday in Tombstone [photos] • claimed to have witnessed the 26 Oct 1881 Gunfight at the O.K. Corral from her window at C.S. Fly's Boarding House
• 19 years later Kate, nearly 50 [photo] & divorced from an abusive husband, was long past her romance with Doc & too old for prostitution • in June 1900, while employed at the Rath Hotel [photo] in Cochise, AT, she answered a want ad for a housekeeper at $20/mo. plus room & board • the ad had been placed by Jack Howard • Kate lived with him as his employee ("servant" according to the 1900 census) until 1930
• on 3 January, Kate walked 3 mi. to the home of Dos Cabezas Postmaster Edwin White.
“Jack died last night, and I stayed up with him all night.”
• Howard was buried in an unmarked grave in Dos Cabezas Cemetery • after living alone for 2 yrs. Kate sold the homestead for $535.30 • In 1931 she wrote Arizona Gov. George W.P. Hunt, requesting admission to the Arizona Pioneers Home at Prescott • although foreign born thus not eligible for admission, she claimed Davenport, Iowa as her birthplace & was accepted • she died 5 days shy of her 90th birthday • was buried under the name "Mary K. Cummings" in the Home's Cemetery—“Big Nose Kate, Independent Woman of the Wild West” —Kyla Cathey
• the Mascot Mine closed in 1930
• the Mascot & WesternRailroad discontinued operations in 1931 — the tracks were taken up four years later
• 1940s Dos Cabezas photos
• in 1949, the U.S. Postal Dept. corrected its spelling of the town's post office from Dos Cabezos to Dos Cabezas
• mid-20th c. Dos Cabezas family [photos]
• the Dos Cabezas's post office was discontinued in 1960
• in 1964 the town's population was down to 12
• McCauley's Mascot Hospitality House was repurposed as part of the Dos Cabezas Spirit & Nature Retreat Bed & Breakfast [photo]
• today, Dos Cabezas is considered a ghost town, its cemetery the town's main attraction
Two years ago I published a graphic showing the favicons of places that I'd recently visited on the internet. I thought I'd take some time (a few hours actually) this afternoon to revisit and refresh that graphic. In order to see this graphic best I'd recommend clicking through the image to Flickr and then clicking on the magnifying glass above the graphic on Flickr to view full size. Best viewed large I suppose as they say.
If you'd like to add a note with a hyperlink to a url for any site feel free. :)
The image above represents only some of the websites that I've visited in the past 2 weeks. The list does not include everywhere I've been on the internet. I've only chosen to share sites in this graphic that have favicons that pop up when you visit them. Probably about half of the sites that I visit (my own included) don't have favicons. The above graphic contains 330 different internet sites that I've visited.
Some stats on my internet activity over the course of the past 2 weeks. From May 15 until today I have visited 12,601 pages on the internet on my primary laptop computer (MacBook Pro). I have visited more pages than this because this is not my only computer. In addition to my primary MacBook Pro, I have three other PCs that I use regularly to surf the internet. I estimate that I probably load a little over 1,000 internet pages a day.
The number one site that I've visited over the past 2 weeks has been FriendFeed. The number 2 site I've visited over the past 2 weeks has been flickr. These two sites represent over half of my internet activity over the past 2 weeks.
Below is a list of sites that are included in this graphic.
1001 Noisy Cameras
30 Boxes
Adrian's
im.alexcarpenter
Yahoo Answers
Anyone's Guess
iTunes Store
I'm Not Actually a Geek
Big Thoughts from a Small Mind
Eskelin Technology
Compete
Epic Edits Weblog
Flickr Blog
FriendFeed Blog
FriendFeed
Go2Web2.0
High Touch
Magnum Photos Blog
MySpace
Seattle Pi.com
Twitter Blog
Wired
blogoscoped.com
blogs.eastwick.com
photopreneur
blogs.wsj.com / Law Blog
blogs.zdnet.com
Google Blog Search
Bloomberg.com
Blue Side of Life - Dave's Weblog
BoingBoing
Google Book Search
Brightkite
Broadcaster House
Brugo, Your Daily Dose of Bit Rates
Camerapedia.org
CertifiedBanger.blogspot.com
Paying Attention
Colin Walker
Commentful
# Comments
Dotted Line
iCraig
Creative Commons
Davis Freeberg's Digital Connection
del.icio.us
Dembot.com
Mozilla Developer Center
Digg
Dossy's Blog
Ethan Klapper
elbo.ws
Mozilla.com
Firefox 3
Wikipedia
SmartSetr
Failblog.org
fatherroderick.sqpn.com
sarahintampa
flickr
forums.ilounge.com
frederickvan.com
Fred Wilson
Edythe
gas2.org
gawker.com
greenstijl.nl
getsatisfaction.com
gigaom.com
gizmodo.com
Good Experience
Gothamist
Google Groups, FriendFeed
highscalability.com
honest ape
Hype Machine
ifitsgood.wordpress.com
Google Image Search
Instrumental Analysis
internetducttape.com
itafroma
itsmejulia.com
Jonathan Penny
jp.Zooomr.com
J W Horne
All Things Digital
kwerfeldein.de
Confess 2.0
Laserlike
Laughing Squid
Letters Have No Arms
Lifehacker.com
Google Maps
Yahoo Maps
Mashable.com
memes.org
michaelmistretta.com
midPhase
most-expensive.net
mrontemp.blogspot.com
Project Muse
musicisart.ws
mysmithmicro.com
newatlantic.wordpress.com
New Media Fanboy
BBC News
news.cnet.com
news.yahoo.com
next-thing.net
nextup.wordpress.com
notes.torrez.org
officeofstrategicinfluence.com
onlytheblogknowsbrooklyn.typepad.com
Powerset
Pandora
parents.berkeley.edu
paulbuchheit.blogspot.com
photooftheday.hughcrawford.com
phreadz.com
Pop17
Popdose.com
Pownce
robinjeanandersen.com
ryansholin.com
pilcrow Lit Fest
Picasa Web Albums
Photobucket.com
saladdaysmusic.net
sanfrancisco.giants.mlb.com
sarahmeyers.wordpress.com
scobleizer.com
seanreiser.com
searchengineland.com
Craigs List
SheGeeks
Shirky.com
songsillinoismp3.blogspot.com
suwaowalog.tumblr.com
slashdot.org
techmeme.com
technorati.com
Technosailor
terraminds.com
thedigitallifestyle.com
the Next web
The Pop Cop
tinyurl.com
nytimes.com
trac.zooomr.com
TranceMist
travel.yahoo.com
twittermap.com
upcoming.yahoo.com
userscripts.org
VentureBeat
viaspire
archive.org
weburbanist.com
whois.domaintools.com
wickedstageact2.typepad.com
Dare Obasanjo
360voice.com
AccuWeather.com
Adobe.com
Adorama
Alexa
amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
AppleInsider
AV Club
Blogger
BlogThis!
Box.net
Brave.com
bspcn.com
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"The sky was no longer blue. North-eastward it was inky black, and out of the blackness shone brightly and steadily the pale white stars. Overhead it was a deep Indian red and starless, and south-eastward it grew brighter to a glowing scarlet where, cut by the horizon, lay the huge hull of the sun, red and motionless."
— H.G. Wells (The Time Machine)
* Pentax K20D + Pentax 18-55mm Lens - Single Shot SOOC
Memphis, TN, est. 1819, pop. 650,000
• in the 1950s, in a small studio on Union, Ave., Sam C. Phillips (1923-2003) recorded music that is "one of the true touchstones of American culture" —Escott, Hawkins, Good Rockin' Tonight: Sun Records and the Birth of Rock 'N' Roll
• this two-story corner bldg. is located in Memphis's Edge district • before becoming the Sun Studio Café, the 1st floor housed Taylor's Fine Food restaurant (1948-1981) [photo] • owned by Dell Taylor (1911-2003) & husband, Carlos (1914-1976) • 2nd floor was a rooming house
• the 1908 bldg. shares a partywall with a 1-story storefront at no. 706, built in 1916 [photos] • this small adjacent structure became Memphis Recording Service & later, Sun Studio [discography], where Elvis Presley (1935-1977) began his recording career
"Dell M. Taylor served up country fried steak and gentle mothering to the emerging stars of Sun Studio… Mrs. Taylor saw to it that Elvis Presley, Rufus Thomas, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash, Charlie Rich and Carl Perkins, — along with the mechanics and other workers from the auto dealership row on Union — had the freshest greens and vegetables… Many a song was written in the booths, as the musicians would come in to eat during a break in recording at Sun Studio next door… Sun Studio founder Sam Phillips, credited with discovering Elvis and others, often did his bookkeeping at the restaurant." —Chris Conley, The Commercial Appeal (Memphis), 24 Feb., 2003
• Sam Phillips, who claimed he didn't have a desk, had his own booth at Taylor's to pore over paperwork • "That's where all the guys did their writing and talking, and that's where the Sun sound was really born." –Jack Clement (1931-2013), Sun Studio producer
• exhausted musicians often spent the night in one of "Miss Taylor's" upstairs rooms • while recording at Sun the mid-1950s, Roy Orbison had a two-room apartment there
• the bldg. now serves as visitor center for the recording studio, which is open to the public for tours
Marker: Elvis Presley and Sun Records
In July 1954 Sun Records released Elvis Presley's first recording. That record, and Elvis' four that followed on the Sun label, changed popular music. Elvis developed an innovative and different sound combining blues, gospel, and country. That quality made Elvis a worldwide celebrity within two years. He went on to become one of the most famous and beloved entertainers in history. Sun Records introduced many well known people in all fields of music. Generations of musicians have been affected by those who recorded here and especially by the music Elvis Presley first sang at Sun Records
National Historic Landmark Nomination: (unedited version with citations available here)
Marion Keisker (1917-1989), Phillips's sole assistant & employee when he started his business said he "would talk about this idea he had, this dream, I suppose, to have a facility where black people could come and play their own music, a place where they would feel free and relaxed to do it. One day we were riding along, and he saw that spot on Union, and he said, 'That's the spot I want.' With many difficulties we got the place, and we raised the money, and between us we did everything. We laid all the tile, we painted the acoustic boards, I put in the bathroom, Sam put in the control room—what little equipment he had always had to be the best." — quoted by Peter Guralnick, Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley
Phillips started his own record company, Sun Records, in 1952, "the first great rock 'n' roll record label." • Some of the artists Phillips recorded would redefine the musical genres in which they worked. Many of them made for Phillips not only their first recordings but also their best.
Before World War II most black music was blues, and a lot of those were country blues of the Mississippi Delta, the raw, gut-wrenching folk music of rural African Americans… Black migration out of the rural South accelerated during the First World War and exploded after World War II when manual cotton picking came to an end. Synthetic materials took over the market after the discovery of nylon in 1939, and the mechanical cotton picker, able to do the work of fifty people, arrived soon after. "The main musical result of the great migration was the blues came to town, and not to any old town: to Memphis, which acted as the local focus for migration from the Delta." — Sir Peter Hall, Cities in Civilization
In Memphis, WDIA started out in 1947 as a popular and country music radio station. The station switched formats in 1948 and began programming for a black audience after the success of a show called "Black America Speaks," hosted by Memphis's first black on-air personality, Nat Williams (1907-1983) [editorial: Color the Issue, A Point of View by Nat L. Williams]
Also in 1948, Dewey Phillips (1926-1968), a white radio announcer from rural Tennessee, began to host a show on WHBQ. "Red Hot and Blue" [listen] expanded from fifteen minutes to three hours daily during its first year on the air. Phillips played "an eclectic mix of blues, hillbilly, and pop that would become an institution in Memphis, and his importance to the cross-cultural miscegenation that became Rock 'n' Roll is incalculable." By 1951, word began to spread that white kids were buying "race records."
Sam Phillips was born on January 5, 1923 in the northwest corner of Alabama near Florence, about 150 miles east of Memphis. He got his first radio job in 1940 at WLAY in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, and later took correspondence courses in radio engineering. He worked at WMSL in Decatur, Alabama, and at WLAC in Nashville before moving to Memphis in 1945.
In January 1950, Phillips started his own recording business in addition to his regular jobs. The Memphis Recording Service opened at 706 Union Avenue, about a mile east of the downtown area. The small one-story brick building had a reception area/office at the front of the building, a recording studio in the middle section, and a small control room in the rear. The entire building is only about 18 feet wide and 57 feet long. Phillips's business card read "We Record Anything—Anywhere—Anytime." Initially that included weddings, funerals, bar mitzvahs, advertisements for radio, etc., in addition to musicians in his studio.
"I opened the Memphis Recording Service with the intention of recording singers and musicians from Memphis and the locality who I felt had something that people should be able to hear. I'm talking about blues—both the country style and the rhythm style—and also about gospel or spiritual music and about white country music. I always felt that people who played this type of music had not been given the opportunity to reach an audience . . . My aim was to try and record the blues and other music I liked and to prove whether I was right or wrong about this music. I knew, or I felt I knew, that there was a bigger audience for blues than just the black man of the mid-South. There were city markets to be reached, and I knew that whites listened to blues surreptitiously." —Escott, op. cit.
Phillips also functioned as a folklorist, documenting music that was fading into the past. "With the jet age coming on, with cotton-picking machines as big as a building going down the road, with society changing, I knew that this music wasn't going to be available in a pure sense forever."
Recording the Blues
video: Sam Phillips: The Man who Invented Rock & Roll Part 1 (44:22) & Part 2 (45:59)
His first deal, with 4 Star/Gilt Edge Records, was a song by a blind pianist from south Memphis. Lost John Hunter's "Boogie for Me Baby" [listen] was "a crude boogie blues that could pick up some southern juke coin," according to the review in Billboard, a record business trade publication.
In late summer 1950, Phillips launched his own record company with partner Dewey Phillips (the hot Memphis radio announcer, no relation) in order to issue and promote his own products. They called their label Phillips, but it only lasted a few weeks, issuing three hundred copies of Joe Hill Louis's "Boogie in the Park" in August 1950 [listen]
Phillips soon began working with Modern Records of Los Angeles, owned and operated by the Bihari brothers. Their new subsidiary, RPM Records, was looking for "new music with a down- home feel." Jules Bihari sent a guitar player from Indianola, Mississippi, to Sam Phillips to record. Riley King was already popular locally and known as B.B. King (for Blues Boy, or more likely, Black Boy). Phillips recorded King, one of the first artists on the new RPM label, from mid-1950 until mid-1951 [listen].
Even at this early stage in his career, Sam Phillips used recording techniques that were soon recognized as hallmarks of his records. He put up-tempo boogies on the front sides of records, slow numbers on back sides, and overamplified on faster songs to get a primitive fuzzy sound… These early recording sessions with King also document Phillips's skill as a record producer. King's version of a Tampa Red song had an explosiveness missing from the original record.
"Rocket '88'," a song about a hot Oldsmobile, is one of the contenders for the title "first rock 'n' roll record." It featured Jackie Brenston, the singer, and Ike Turner, the bandleader, on piano. "Rocket '88'" [listen] was released in April 1951. It hit number 1 on Billboard's R&B chart in June and eventually became the second biggest R&B hit of the year. According to Sam Phillips, "Rocket '88'" was the record that really kicked it off for me as far as broadening the base of music and opening up wider markets for our local music." Phillips resigned from WREC in June 1951 after "Rocket '88'" became a hit. — [more] on the history of “Rocket 88”
The Commercial Appeal (Memphis), 28 Mar, 1951: "[Sam Phillips] has agreements with two recording companies to locate and record hillbilly and race music. Race numbers are those tailored for the Negro trade. Sam auditions musicians with original songs. When he finds something he's sure will sell, he gets it on acetate and sends it to one of the companies. He doesn't charge the musicians anything . . . Sam may branch out one day, so he says if anyone wants to bring him a pop song, he'll be glad to look it over." • full article
• Sam Phillips first recorded Chester Burnett (The Howlin' Wolf) in the spring of 1951. Born near Aberdeen, Mississippi, Howlin' Wolf (1910-1976) was a singer who gave the traditional Delta blues another dimension. They recorded "Moanin' at Midnight" and "How Many More Years" [listen] in August 1951… In Phillips's estimation, the Wolf was his greatest discovery.
• Even though he preferred the creative side of the business, Phillips started his own record company early in 1952… With his own label, Phillips could run the business like he wanted and release records that other labels rejected.
"When I was leasing to other labels, they wanted me to compromise. They wanted a fuller blues sound than I did. They were selling excitement. I was recording the feel I found in the blues. I wanted to get that gut feel onto record. I realized that it was going to be much more difficult to merchandise than what Atlantic or Specialty, for example, were doing, but I was willing to go with it."
Phillips named his new company Sun Records and selected an eye-catching record label [photo] designed by John G. Parker (1925-2012), who also designed the tiger stripe helmet for the Cincinnati Bengals football team and packages for Alka-Seltzer and Super Bubble gum… "The sun to me—even as a kid back on the farm—was a universal kind of thing. A new day, a new opportunity." —Sam Phillips
The first record issued on the new Sun label (March 27, 1952), Sun number 175, was an original instrumental, "Drivin' Slow," by alto saxophonist Johnny London.
"Even on this first release, all the hallmarks of a Sam Phillips Sun record were in place: the raw sound, the experimental origin, the dark texture, even the trademark echo. Phillips and London created the illusion of a sax heard down a long hallway on a humid night by rigging something like a telephone booth over London's head while he played. The record's appeal had more to do with feeling than virtuosity—in short, it offered everything music buyers could expect from Sun for the remainder of the decade." [listen]
The first recording on the Sun label considered to be a classic was Easy, an instrumental released in March 1953 by Walter Horton (1921-1981) (Little Walter, and later, Big Walter).
". . . Horton played the same theme five times, with mounting intensity. By the fourth chorus, he was playing with such intensity that his harmonica sounded like a tenor saxophone. Phillips' virtuosity with tape delay echo was rarely used to better advantage: he made three instruments [harmonica, guitar, drums] sound as full as an orchestra. Any other instrument would have been redundant." [listen]
Sun Records had its first national hit in the spring of 1953 with "Bear Cat," [listen] which went to number 3 on the national R&B chart. It was an "answer song" to "Hound Dog" by Big Mama Thornton aka Willie Mae Thornton (1926-1984), sung by local radio announcer Rufus Thomas. "Bear Cat" was the first record to make money for Sun Records and it put the company on the map. "Feelin' Good" by Little Junior's Blue Flames (released in July 1953), was also commercially successful, reaching number 5 on the national R&B chart.
Sun's next hit was "Just Walkin' in the Rain" [listen] by The Prisonaires, a black vocal group of five inmates from the Tennessee State Penitentiary in Nashville. They sang close-harmony gospel style and came under armed guard to record at 706 Union on June 1, 1953. As part of the warden's rehabilitation program, they were allowed to perform on radio, in concerts, and at the Governor's mansion, but "Just Walkin' in the Rain" was their only hit.
Phillips recorded a number of important blues artists in the early 1950s, including "Sleepy" John Estes, Little Milton Campbell, Rosco Gordon, Dr. Ross, Harmonica Frank Floyd, Willie Nix, Billy "The Kid" Emerson, and Bobby "Blue" Bland.
". . . It's safe to say that the blues has never sounded as mean, raw, or intense as it did on countless days and nights at 706 Union Avenue. Amplifiers were cranked way past the point of distortion, guitars slashed like straight razors, rickety drum kits were pounded with fury and abandon, and the stories both sung and shouted spanned the gamut of the black Southern experience…
"Even if he'd never issued a record on the shining yellow Sun label, even if Elvis Presley had never entered his small recording studio..., Phillips would rank as one of the most visionary record producers of our time on the basis of his early fifties blues work." —John Floyd, Sun Records: An Oral History
In May 1954, Phillips recorded "Cotton Crop Blues" with James Cotton on vocals and Auburn "Pat" Hare on guitar. This was "one of the truly great blues recordings," but recording of traditional blues at 706 Union fell off in 1954 with the growing popularity of R&B music. Sun Records soon became synonymous with rock 'n' roll, overshadowing Phillips's role in blues recording "and the insight that [he] brought to recording the blues. He worked hard to get the best from his artists . . . Phillips would sit behind his tape deck until sunup if he thought the musicians on the studio floor might capture the sound that he heard in his head."
Phillips struggled to make money in the record business for almost six years. Eventually he saw that the market at that time was too small for the kind of music he was recording.
"The base wasn't broad enough because of racial prejudice. It wasn't broad enough to get the amount of commercial play and general acceptance overall—not just in the South . . . Now these were basically good people, but conceptually they did not understand the kinship between black and white people in the South. So I knew what I had to do to broaden the base of acceptance." —Escott, op. cit.
Elvis Presley
Elvis Presley graduated from Humes High School in north Memphis on June 3, 1953 and went to work at M.B. Parker Machinists on July 1. Later that summer, he recorded a personal record at the Memphis Recording Service. Presley paid $3.98 for an acetate with two sides, both ballads. While he was there, Presley talked with Marion Keisker, a long-time Memphis radio personality who helped Sam Phillips run his businesses at 706 Union, and asked if she knew of a band that needed a singer.
He made an impression on Keisker which she later remembered well, especially his answer to her question about which hillbilly singer he sounded like: "I don't sound like nobody." At that time, Presley had a child's guitar that he played in the park, on his porch steps, and in a band with his buddies around their housing project. He soon aspired to be a member of the Songfellows, an amateur church quartet. —Guralnick, op. cit.
Presley dropped by 706 Union a number of times after that initial meeting to see if Ms. Keisker had any leads for him. In January 1954, Presley paid for a second personal record, and tried out for a professional band that spring. Eddie Bond (1933-2003), the band leader, told him to keep driving a truck because he would never make it as a singer. Presley later revealed that Bond's rejection "broke my heart." —Guralnick, op. cit.
". . . There is little question that he stepped through the doorway [at 706 Union] with the idea, if not of stardom . . . at the very least of being discovered. In later years he would always say that he wanted to make a personal record "to surprise my mother." Or "I just wanted to hear what I sounded like." But, of course, if he had simply wanted to record his voice, he could have paid twenty-five cents at W. T. Grant's on Main Street . . . Instead, Elvis went to a professional facility, where a man who had been written up in the papers would hear him sing." —Guralnick, op. cit.
Marion Keisker finally called Presley on Saturday, June 26 to set up an appointment, almost a year after he recorded his first personal disc. On a recent trip to Nashville, Phillips had gotten an acetate of a song that reminded him of Presley's voice. They worked on "Without You" [listen] for a long time that afternoon, and Phillips had Presley sing a number of other songs after his unsuccessful attempts with "Without You."
A week later, Phillips set Presley up with two members of the Starlite Wranglers [photos], Scotty Moore (guitar) and Bill Black (bass), and the three of them went to the studio on Monday, July 5 so Phillips could hear them on tape. Nothing special happened at the session until they took a break and Presley began fooling around and playing an old blues song by Arthur Crudup, "That's All Right [Mama] [listen]."
"Sam recognized it right away. He was amazed that the boy even knew Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup—nothing in any of the songs he had tried so far gave any indication that he was drawn to this kind of music at all. But this was the sort of music that Sam had long ago wholeheartedly embraced . . . And the way the boy performed it, it came across with a freshness and an exuberance, it came across with the kind of clear-eyed, unabashed originality that Sam sought in all the music that he recorded—it was "different," it was itself." —Guralnick, op. cit.
Phillips got his friend and kindred spirit, disc jockey Dewey Phillips, to play "That's All Right" [listen] on his radio show "Red Hot and Blue," then near the height of its popularity. The response was immediate—hundreds of phone calls and telegrams. Dewey played the song a number of times that night and also interviewed Presley during the show.
By the time the record was pressed and ready for release, there were 6,000 orders for it locally. Sun record number 209 was released on Monday, July 17, 1954. Phillips had been "looking for something that nobody could categorize," and this song did not sound exclusively black or white or country or pop. Initially, many people who heard the song thought that Presley was a black man. —Guralnick, op. cit.
Elvis Presley's first big public appearance with Scotty and Bill, the Blue Moon Boys, was on Friday, July 30 at Memphis's outdoor amphitheater in Overton Park [photos]. The show featured Slim Whitman, a star from the Louisiana Hayride, which some called the Grand Ole Opry's "farm club." He drew a hillbilly crowd, but they went wild when Elvis shook and wiggled his legs, his natural way of performing.
The new record made Billboard's regional charts by the end of August, but it was the B side that was more popular. Phillips backed "That's All Right" with an unorthodox version of "Blue Moon of Kentucky" [listen], a waltz that was a hit in 1946 for Bill Monroe, country music's elder statesman. By early September, "Blue Moon" was number 1 on the Memphis C&W chart and "That's All Right" was number 7. —Guralnick, op. cit.
Sun released Presley's second record in late September. "It was . . . an even bolder declaration of intent than the first, especially the strident blues number 'Good Rockin' Tonight' [listen], which rocked more confidently than anything they could have imagined in those first, uncertain days in the studio." The original jump blues version was written and recorded by Roy Brown in 1947 [listen]
Presley's growing popularity enabled Phillips to arrange a guest appearance on the Grand Ole Opry for October 2, even though the Opry had never before scheduled a performer at such an early stage in his career. The performance of "Blue Moon of Kentucky" by Elvis Presley, Scotty and Bill received a "polite, but somewhat tepid, reception," and the Opry's manager told Phillips that Presley "just did not fit the Opry mold."
It was a big disappointment for Elvis. But soon they were off to Louisiana for Presley's first appearance on the Louisiana Hayride, "the Opry's more innovative rival in Shreveport" that had a show every Saturday night. On the third Saturday of the month the show broadcast with a 50,000 watt signal that reached up to twenty-eight states.48 After only one guest appearance, Presley signed a standard one year contract to be one of the Hayride's regular members, and he and his band quit their day jobs. —Guralnick, op. cit.
For the next year, Elvis Presley and the Blue Moon Boys toured almost constantly... Presley took his first airplane flight and first trip to New York City on March 23, 1955 to try out for Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts contest, but he did not pass the audition. [A] tour with Hank Snow/Jamboree Attractions began on May 1 in New Orleans, visiting twenty cities in three weeks, including a number of stops in Florida. There was a "riot" backstage after the concert in Jacksonville …
The audiences had never heard music like Presley played before, and they had never seen anyone who performed like Presley either. The shy, polite, mumbling boy gained self-confidence with every appearance, which soon led to a transformation on stage. People watching the show were astounded and shocked, both by the "ferocity of his performance,"49 and the crowd's reaction to it.
Even in the early days, Elvis almost always stole the show from the headliners, and concert lineups had to be rearranged accordingly. Nobody followed Elvis. Roy Orbison saw Presley for the first time in Odessa, Texas: "His energy was incredible, his instinct was just amazing . . . I just didn't know what to make of it. There was just no reference point in the culture to compare it."—Guralnick, op. cit.
"'He's the new rage,' said a Louisiana radio executive… 'Sings hillbilly in R&B time. Can you figure that out? He wears pink pants and a black coat . . .'" —Guralnick, op. cit.
Elvis caused a great commotion everywhere he went. Throughout the South, Presley had girls screaming and fainting and chasing after him.
Sam Phillips was also on the road constantly after the Overton Park performance in July 1954, promoting the new records to distributors, disc jockeys, record store owners, and jukebox operators. His experiences, however, were entirely different. Time and again, disc jockeys who were old friends and/or long-standing business associates told Phillips they could not play the Presley records. A country deejay said "Sam, they'll run me out of town." To an R&B deejay, "That's All Right" was a country song. A major pop station disc jockey told Phillips, "your music is just so ragged. I just can't handle it right now. Maybe later on." —Guralnick, op. cit.
WELO in Tupelo, Mississippi, Presley's hometown, would not even play the record, in spite of many requests from teenagers, because the deejay did not like the new music. —Guralnick, op. cit.
Sam Phillips persevered in spite of all the rejection he was getting, and kept trying to turn it around. "I needed the attention that I got from the people that hated what I was doing, that acted like: 'Here is somebody trying to thrust junk on us and classify it as our music.'"—Guralnick, op. cit.
"He was a man swept up by a belief, in a sound and in an idea. And as discouraged as he might sometimes get, as harsh as the reality of selling this new music might be, he never strayed from his belief, he never allowed himself to be distracted from his main goal. Which was to get them to listen." —Guralnick, op. cit.
Phillips could feel a revolution was on the way. There were already lots of country boys coming to his studio to play the new music, which initially got the name rockabilly. "Sam knew that a day was coming . . . when the music would prevail." —Guralnick, op. cit.
Presley was still a regional sensation and unknown to the national market when he got the record industry's attention. By the summer of 1955, almost all the major and independent record labels were inquiring about him. Sam Phillips had mixed feelings about selling Presley's contract, but his operations could not accommodate the Presley phenomenon, his finances were very tight, and he had other artists who needed his attention.
Presley's parents signed a contract in August which soon forced the issue. Col. Tom Parker (1909-1997) became "special adviser to Elvis Presley." He was the head of Jamboree Attractions, one of the major promoters and bookers of country and western talent, and had booked Presley on the Hank Snow package tours earlier that year. At that time, Parker was known as the best promoter in the business. In October Parker asked Phillips to name his price for Presley's contract, and Parker made sure that it was met.
The deal was signed at 706 Union Avenue on November 21, 1955. RCA-Victor bought Elvis Presley's contract from Sun Records for $35,000, plus $5,000 in back royalties owed to Presley. The story ran in the Memphis Press-Scimitar the next day:
"Elvis Presley, 20, Memphis recording star and entertainer who zoomed into big- time and the big money almost overnight, has been released from his contract with Sun Record Co. of Memphis . . . . Phillips and RCA officials did not reveal terms but said the money involved is probably the highest ever paid for a contract release for a country-western recording artist. 'I feel Elvis is one of the most talented youngsters today,' Phillips said, 'and by releasing his contract to RCA-Victor we will give him the opportunity of entering the largest organization of its kind in the world, so his talents can be given the fullest opportunity.'" —quoted in Guralnick, op. cit.
Sam Phillips never regretted his decision to sell Elvis Presley's contract. In many ways, Presley's departure was like a new beginning for Sun Records. Many country musicians aspiring to play rockabilly began to make their way to 706 Union Avenue. As Johnny Cash said many years later, "Elvis was a beacon that brought us all there." —Peter Guralnick, "Sam Phillips: The Man Who Invented Rock 'n' Roll," VHS (A&E Biography, 2000)
Sun Studio
After Sam Phillips moved his companies to the new location on Madison Avenue, 706 Union Avenue housed a number of different businesses in the 1960s and 1970s, including a barber shop, an auto parts store, and a scuba shop. The building was vacant in 1985 when it became the site of a family reunion of sorts. An album entitled “Class of '55: Memphis Rock 'n' Roll Homecoming“ was recorded here to celebrate and remember the "Class of '55" on their 30th "anniversary." Record producer Chips Moman convened Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, and Roy Orbison to record together for the first time at the Sun studio in September 1985.
Not long after that event, 706 Union Avenue became a stop for visitors on tours to Graceland, the home of Elvis Presley, which opened to the public in 1982. The building opened as the Sun Studio for tours in 1987—the name Sun Records and the original Sun record label design still belong to Shelby Singleton, who bought the company in 1969. The current property owner also purchased the adjacent two-story brick building that housed a café and a boarding house in the 1950s. That building now serves as a soda shop, gallery, and gift shop for visitors to Sun Studio.
The Sun Studio also operates as a full service 24-track recording studio for professional musicians, as well as anyone who wants to make a personal record, just like Elvis. In 1987, the Irish rock band U2 recorded several songs here for their album "Rattle and Hum," including "When Love Comes to Town" featuring B.B. King. Several hundred thousand visitors have made the pilgrimage to this extraordinary place.
• National Register # 03001031, 2003 • designated a National Historic Landmark, 2003
My father had a copy of the book With Edged Tools by H S Merriman. I have never read it but the title intrigued me.
This photograph, which comes to you by courtesy of the letter E, is my fifth picture for the February Alphabet Fun: 2020 group.
Cartoon published in a 1970s aviation magazine.
Also in this book of the author's memoirs.
Hope you enjoy your next flight !
I was a bit rubbish at keeping track of my reading on Goodreads last year, so trying to make more of an effort this time - on my fifth book of the year already - this one's about an investigation into the death of singer Elliott Smith.
iPhone 11 Rear camera
This photo was taken in Belgium this past summer.
Excerpt from a fantastic novel by Chicago author Joe Meno called The Boy Detective Fails. It's a postmodern sad but beautiful, whimsical yet melancholy sort of book. Highly recommended.
"Sometimes I say to a poem,
"I don't have the strength
To wring out another drop
Of the sun."
And the poem will often
Respond
By climbing onto a barroom table:
Then lifts its skirt, winks,
Causing the whole sky to
Fall."
— شمسالدّین محمّد حافظِ شیرازی - Hafiz (The Gift)
* Pentax K20D and Samsung D-Xenon 50-200mm Lens
More at my blog A Raven Image
bathing
in
the
Hooghly
river
in
the
great
city of
Kolkata
a city i have had the honor
and privilege
to know
intimately
and
shoot
since 1991
www.goodreads.com/book/show/2229743.Calcutta
or buy it near NEW st and SUDDER. for 5 bucks
Photography’s new conscience
First published by Doubleday in 1932 in the depth of the Great Depression, an era whose seamy side it depicts, and only recently rediscovered, "Fast One" by Paul Cain (one of the mystery men of American literature) explodes into real life with the story of one of the toughest characters ever to emerge in American fiction.
Paul Cain is the pseudonym of Peter Ruric, a man who emerged from nowhere in the 1930s, wrote "Fast One" and several short stories and movie scripts, and then disappeared. Nothing more has been heard of him. Gerry Kells, the antihero of his shocking, brutal novel, is equally mysterious. A loner with a reputation but without a visible past, Kells simply appears, re-arranges the lives of the Los Angeles underworld, and then is heard no more.
Only the strong prosper in the world of the depression. Seemingly amoral, Kells does prosper. He strikes to survive, kills without conscience, without time for conscience. But he never becomes a mere killing machine. His integrity, his humanity, abides in a code demanding that he pay for all services: those rendered for him, those rendered against him.
Fast paced and very readable, the novel limns a true character who should take his place in our national literature, if only for his representation of the individual will to survive in one of the toughest times in American life.
[Source: Goodreads website at www.goodreads.com/book/show/441818.Fast_One]
i bought this in 2011 and apparently it's out of print now & being sold at 200$, heheh. lucky me. i recently got the 2nd book for 15$ though! it's in the mail but i gotta reread Martyr first. I'm enjoying it way more this time.
if you're on goodreads - www.goodreads.com/0004/
From the first page I was completely riveted. An excellent collection of stories that should have every human being questioning their ideas about race/racism. Some of the reviews I've read here (on GoodReads) are baffling - "I don't think I'm the intended audience". Um- you might be a racist if... When I read - I want to enter the worlds of other people - through location, experience, etc. For me that is the point of reading, along with being entertained, it should make one THINK and maybe gain an ounce of understanding worlds that are not your own.
Gone Girl 384, based on the David Fincher feature film Gone Girl.
Men actually think this girl exists. Maybe they’re fooled because so many women are willing to pretend to be this girl. For a long time Cool Girl offended me. I used to see men – friends, coworkers, strangers – giddy over these awful pretender women, and I’d want to sit these men down and calmly say: You are not dating a woman, you are dating a woman who has watched too many movies written by socially awkward men who’d like to believe that this kind of woman exists and might kiss them. I’d want to grab the poor guy by his lapels or messenger bag and say: The bitch doesn’t really love chili dogs that much – no one loves chili dogs that much! -Gillian Flynn
Female model by @deviant-caroline fav.me/d5hkqod
Background by fleetofgypsies fav.me/d48li8z
Words by Gillian Flynn www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/13306276-gone-girl
My latest art project EntertainMe, where I create another year’s worth of digital collages, based on indie rock and visual media.
Check out my new blog: www.dekdav.com/gone-girl-384/
Doz Cabezas, AZ, (est. 1879, pop. <25), elevation 5,082 ft. (1,549 m)
"The Dos Cabezasite is the only person on the globe who can sit serenely down and smile, and smile again, amid conditions and adversities which would madden a lowly follower of the lamb. When Gabriel blows his horn he will find some of these genial old fellows sitting on a rock telling each other of the promising future of the camp, or how rich the Juniper mine is." —“Tombstone Epitaph,” 28 Apr 1887
• Dos Cabezas, AZ is a "living" Sonoran Desert ghost town with few remaining residents • located in the Sulphur Springs Valley [photo] of Cochise County • lies beside the Dos Cabezas ("Two Heads") mountain range, named for its twin bald summits
• an historically significant spring with potable water, once known as Dos Cabezas Spring, stands about a half mi. southwest of the town by the old Southern Emigrant Trail, a principal artery of the westward movement • the trail descends to the valley from Apache Spring through Apache Pass
• on 4 Sep 1851, John Russell Bartlett & his Boundary Survey Commission were heading west through what was, for over 300 yrs., Spanish/Mexican territory • most of the land had been ceded to the U.S. in 1848, ending the controversial Mexican-American War, but much of southernmost Arizona & New Mexico remained under the Mexican flag • Bartlett's mission was to work with a Mexican survey team to formally define the post-war US-Mexico border
• the survey was a prelude to the 1853-54 Gadsden Purchase which, for $10MM, acquired 29,670 sq. mi. of Mexican territory south of the Gila River, Cochise County included • the deal was signed by President Franklin Pierce, a northern, anti-abolitionist ("doughface") Democrat • it was intended to facilitate development of a road, canal and/or New Orleans-LA railroad, & to open the southwest to Southern expansion, seemingly ignoring the fact that an economy based on slave-produced cotton was unlikely to flourish in the desert — “Cochise and his Times”
• with potable water a precious commodity for both 2- & 4- legged desert travelers, Apache Spring – like many watering holes – became the site of a stagecoach stop c. 1857 • was operated by the San Antonio-San Diego "San-San" Mail Line, commonly known as "Jackass Mail" • Chiricahua Apache attacks made Apache Pass the most perilous stop on the line's Birch Route [map], named for company owner James Birch (1827-1857) —“The West is Linked”
• the 1,476 mi. daylight-only journey — with daily stops for 2 meals (45 min. each) & team switches (5-10 min.) — typically took less than 30 days & could be as few as 22 • a one-way ticket cost $150, meals & 30 lb. baggage allowance included —“Deconstructing the Jackass Mail Route”
• the Jackass line had a fleet of celerity (mud) wagons, vehicles suited for travel in intense heat over rugged terrain • it also operated fifty 2,500 lb. Concord stagecoaches [photo] manufactured by the Abbot Downing Co. in Concord, NH
"To feel oneself bouncing—now on the hard seat, now against the roof, and now against the side of the wagon—was no joke. Strung beneath the passenger compartment, wide leather straps called 'thorough braces' cradled the coach, causing it to swing front to back. Motion sickness was a common complaint, and ginger root was the favored curative." —Historynet
• each stage could accommodate 9-12 passengers on three benches inside & up to 10 more on the roof • the coaches were drawn by four- & six-mule teams • the company maintained 200 head of mules in its western corrals
“The coach was fitted with three seats, and these were occupied by nine passengers. As occupants of the front and middle seats faced each other, it was necessary for these six people to interlock their knees; and there being room inside for only ten of the twelve legs, each side of the coach was graced by a foot, now dangling near the wheel, now trying in vain to find a place of support..." —”The History of Stagecoaches in Tucson, Arizona”, Bob Ring
• Tips For Stagecoach Travelers, “Cowboy Chronicles”
• The Passenger Experience, “Desert USA”
"The company recommended that each passenger:... should provide himself with a Sharp's rifle, (not carbine,) with accoutrements and one hundred cartridges, a navy sized Colts revolver and two pounds of balls, a belt and holster, knife and sheath..." —“San Diego Herald” 21 Nov 1857
• the line's stations were built 10-40 mi. apart • some provided rudimentary sleeping accommodations; all had water for passengers, drivers ("whips") & their teams • equipped with corrals, the depots served as relay stations where drivers & draft animals were changed • "swing stations" provided no meals, but larger "home stations," often operated by families, were "meal stops":
"…tough beef or pork fried in a grime-blackened skillet, coarse bread, mesquite beans, a mysterious concoction known as 'slumgullion,' lethally black coffee, and a 'nasty compound of dried apples' that masqueraded under the name of apple pie." —True West
• in Sept 1857 Jackass founder James Birch, sailing to California via Panama, was lost at sea along with 419 other passengers & 30K lbs. of gold, in the S.S. Central America disaster • that same month, the Butterfield-Overland Mail line [photos] began St. Louis to San Francisco service, gradually displacing the Jackass line & absorbing many of its stations
• by 1858 a new, fortified stone depot, Ewell's Stage Station [photo] , rose 4 mi. south of Dos Cabezas Spring • it's unclear which stage line erected the building, but around the time of its completion Jackass Mail quit the route, Butterfield-Overland later decided to bypass "Ewell's" & by 1861 it lay in ruins, destroyed by Apaches
• the Ewell name lived on at a tiny, hardscrabble settlement called Ewell Springs & at Dos Cabezas Spring, renamed Ewell's Spring when the original station was built • by 1879 the National Mail & Transportation Co. had established a new Ewell's Station
• Virginia-born Richard Stoddert "Baldy" Ewell (1817-1872) was a Captain in the First U. S. Dragoons, stationed in the Southwest in the 1850s • he resigned from the U.S. Army in 1861 to join the Confederacy • served in the Civil War as senior commander under Stonewall Jackson & Robert E. Lee • it has been argued that his decisions at the Battle of Gettysburg may have decided the outcome of that engagement
• during Ewell's service in the West, Gila Apache raids along the Southern Emigrant Route prompted a military response • he advocated unrestrained combat: "How the Devil can a soldier stop in the midst of battle and summon a jury of matrons to decide whether a redskin pouring bullets into the soldier is a woman or not." • the 1857 Bonneville Expedition, in which Ewell commanded about 300 men, engaged against Apaches at the Gila River
"…the June 27 fight... was short and sweet …Ewell walking away with the lion's share of the honors… Scarcely an Apache escaped. Nearly 40 warriors were killed or wounded and 45 women and children taken captive. … Ewell was freely acknowledged as the hero of the day; his unhesitating leap to action crushed the western Apaches and forced them to sue for peace." —“Robert E. Lee's Hesitant Commander”, Paul D. Casdorph
• From Lt. John Van Deusen Du Bois's account of the engagement: "An Indian was wounded and his wife carried him in her arms to the chaparral and was covering him with brush when the troops came upon them and killed them both... One fine looking Indian brave was captured and by Col. Bonneville's desire, or express command, was taken out with his hands tied and shot like a dog by a Pueblo Indian—not 30 yards from camp... May God grant that Indian fighting may never make me a brute or harden me so that I can act the coward in this way..." —“Journal of Arizona History”, Vo. 43, No. 2, Arizona Historical Society
• c. 1850, gold veins & a few gold nuggets were discovered around Ewell's Station • in the 1860s wildcatters found gold on both sides of the Dos Cabezas range • by 1862 claims were staked & worked near the mountains & in the Apache Pass area —“Index of Mining Properties”
• in 1866 Congress passed a mining act that proclaimed "mineral lands of the public domain... free and open to exploration and occupation" • in 1872 additional stimulus was provided to "promote mineral exploration and development… in the western United States" —“Congressional Research Service”
• in 1878 John Casey (c. 1834-1904), an immigrant from Ireland, staked the first important claim in the Dos Cabezas area • the Juniper, locally known as the "Casey Gold," was located just ~2 miles NE of Ewell's Spring • John & his brother Dan moved into a cabin at the site • by the end of the year a dozen employees were working the mine
• the news that Casey had struck pay dirt & word that a Southern Pacific RR station would soon be built at Willcox – just 14 mi. away – lured scores of prospectors, e.g., Simon Hansen (1852-1929), a recent immigrant from Denmark who filed 27 claims • with the arrival of the new settlers, a small school was erected • on 20 Oct, 1878, the Dos Cabezas Mining District was officially designated
• in 1879 the “Arizona Miner” reported rich silver & gold deposits & claimed a population at Ewell Springs of 2,000 • other accounts, however, suggest that prior to 1920 the local population probably never exceeded 300 —“The Persistence of Mining Settlements in the Arizona Landscape”, Jonathan Lay Harris, 1971
• amid the rapid growth of 1879, the Ewell Springs settlement gave way to Dos Cabezas, a town with its own post office located a bit uphill from Ewell • John Casey is generally considered its founder • Mississippi-born James Monroe Riggs (1835-1912), once a Lt. Col. in the Confederate Army, became Dos Cabezas' 1st postmaster & opened a store he named Traveler's Rest
• by 1880 the nascent town had ~30 adobe houses & 15 families • sixty-five voters were registered in 1882, the year the town's newspaper, the “Dos Cabezas Gold Note”, launched, then promptly closed • in 1884, 42 students enrolled in the town's school
• at its height, Dos Cabezas had ~50 buildings, 3 stores, 3 saloons, 2 dairies, carpenter shops, telegraphic facilities, a mercantile, barber shop, butcher, brewery, brickyard, hotel, dancehall, boarding house, blacksmith shop, 3 livery stables, 3 stamp mills for gold ore & about 300 residents though actually, the area's population was at least 1,500 counting prospectors, miners & other mining co. employees living in the nearby mountains & valleys —Books in Northport
• Dos Cabezas ("Two Heads") was often spelled & pronounced "Dos Cabezos" with an "o" replacing the 2nd "a" in "Cabezas" • the postmaster settled on both spellings, as seen in the town's postmarks • the English translation of Dos Cabezos is "Two Peaks," arguably a more accurate — if less poetic — description of the twin summits than the original • given that the erroneous version was only name registered at U.S. Post Office Department in Washington DC, the interchangeable spellings persisted well into the 20th c.
• in 1880 the railroad arrived in Arizona, a station was established at Willcox & a cranky Scotland-born miner, John Dare Emersley (1826-1899), arrived at Dos Cabezas to prospect for mineral deposits • J.D. was a grad of the U. of Edinburgh, a writer well-versed in science & a botanical collector with a drought-tolerant grass, muhlenbergia emersleyi (bull grass), named for him • was a correspondent for the Engineering & Mining Journal • several other magazines including Scientific American also published him
• according to a miner who knew him, Emersley was apparently a greedy – and unusually tall – claim jumper: "Every old settler in the Globe District remembers Emersley, a seven foot Scotchman who had more claims located than he could work, and jumped more than he could hold." -“Arizona Silver Belt” (Globe, AT), 06 Jan 1883
• the "Scotchman" soon found a gold deposit & staked about 20 claims • he built a cabin nearby at an elevation of ~6,000 ft., & lived a reclusive life • entered into a pact with God, vowing not to develop any of his claims unless he received a sign from above • nevertheless, the work legally required to retain title to his claims produced several tunnels, one, the Roberts, 160' long • the sign from God never materialized and while awaiting it, Emersley died of scurvy
• shortly thereafter “Starved Amid His Riches”, the story of J.D. Emersley, a religious recluse who lived & died on a "mountain of copper," appeared in newspapers throughout the country • Emersley willed his claims to the Lord to be used for the good of all mankind • though this final wish was never fulfilled, the "mountain of copper" story brought yet another wave of prospectors to the Mining District & sparked a local copper boom
• in 1899 a new town, Laub City, was being laid off at the mouth of Mascot Canyon, 2 mi. above Dos Cabezas • John A. Rockfellow (1858-1947) [photo], author of "The Log of an Arizona Trailblazer," performed the survey • Rockefeller's sister was Tucson architect Anne Graham Rockfellow (1866-1954), an MIT grad & designer of the landmark El Conquistador Hotel [photo]
• the townsite was near the Emersley claims, which had been acquired by Dos Cabezas Consolidated Mines • America's coast-to-coast electrification required countless miles of copper power lines, thus "copper camps" like Laub City proliferated & prospered • the town grew & by 1900 warranted its own post office
• Laub City was named for (and possibly by) Henry Laub (1858-1926), a Los Angeles investor born in Kentucky to German-Jewish immigrants • made his first fortune as a liquor merchandiser • later invested in mining, oil & Southeast Arizona real estate
"There is every reason to believe that Dos Cabezas will be one of the greatest mining districts of Arizona" —Henry Laub, 1902
• a worldwide surge in mining caused copper prices to fall as supply outstripped demand • several mining concerns colluded to restrict production in a failed attempt to stabilize the market • Consolidated Mines' financing subsequently dried up & by 1903 Laub City was a ghost town • Dos Cabezas also suffered from the mine closings but managed to hang on as some mines continued to operate
• in 1905 a Wales-born mining engineer, Capt. Benjamin W. Tibbey (1848-1935), arrived in town with a "Mr. Page" • Ben Tibbey's mining career began as a child in a Welch mine • Page was actually T.N. McCauley, a Chicagoan with a checkered career in investment & finance • the two surveyed the mining district • McCauley apparently remained, later claiming he had resided in Emersly's abandoned shack for 2 yrs. • he also quietly filed & acquired claims covering 600 acres
• in June, 1907 McCauley, organized the Mascot Copper Company with a capitalization of $10MM & began large scale development • euphoric reports of massive ore deposits appeared in the local press, e.g., "Many Thousands of Tons of Ore in Sight— Property Bids Fair to Become Arizona's Greatest Copper Producer"
• in 1909 Mascot acquired control of Dos Cabezas Consolidated Mines Co., the original Emersley claims that Laub's group had purchased • McCauley launched a campaign to sell Mascot stock at $3/share, later $4 & finally $5 • his extravagant promotions included investor & press junkets to the mine in private railroad cars, wining & dining at the property's Hospitality House & a lavish stockholders' banquet at the Fairmont Hotel In San Francisco, with the company logo, a swastika, prominently on display [photo]
"The management of the Mascot has to its credit a remarkable series of sensational ore discoveries and few, if any other copper mining companies can match their enviable record in point of actual tonnage when at the same stage of development." —Bisbee Daily Review, 10 Mar 1910
• though stock analysts familiar with McCauley's history as a con artist cautioned their clients, by August, 1910 reports had sales at $300,000 • shareholders owned 25% of the company, the remainder was retained by the promoters
• while actual mining & ore shipments were limited, the company announced that a store, a boarding house, sleeping quarters for employees, & a new office building had been completed • in 1912, as Mascot continued its costly build out & occasionally shipped ore, Arizona Territory gained statehood
• in 1914, the company launched the Mascot Townsite & Realty Co. to sell lots in a new town they were developing in Mascot Canyon:
"UNUSUAL OPPORTUNITY FOR PERSONAL PROFIT By the Purchase of a Lot In the MASCOT TOWNSITE This new town should have a population of 5000 within a few years." - May 1915
• by 1915 the town of Mascot had been established • homes accessed by winding paths rose one above another on terraces • residents pitched in to build a community hall in a single day • a band called the "Merry Miners" was organized to play at Saturday-night dances
"King Copper, the magic community builder, has once more raised his burnished scepter—and once more a tiny mining camp, a mere speck of Arizona landscape, has received the industrial stimulus which should shortly transform it into a factor to be reckoned with among the bustling little cities of the southwest… The tiny mining camp of the past was Dos Cabezas. The coming city is Mascot. —El Paso Herald, 25 Jun 1915
• within 10 yrs. the town would boast ~100 buildings & a population of ~800 • its children were educated at Mascot School & a second school, with 4 teachers between them • many of the town's boys "grew up panning gold to earn money" —Arizona Republic, 04 Mar 1971
• though most of the area's Mexican residents lived in Dos Cabezas, a few, like Esperanza Montoya Padilla (1915-2003), resided in Mascot:
"I was born in Mascot, Arizona, on August 28, 1915… In the early days, when I was a young child, Mascot was very built up; it was blooming. It was also a beautiful place. There were a lot of Cottonwood and oak trees on the road going up towards the mine and streams coming down the mountain. The school was on that road along with a grocery store and even a pool hall. There was a confectionery in the pool hall where they sold goodies like ice cream and candy. There was a community center on the hill where they showed movies. I remember silent movies with Rudolph Valentino. Even the people from Dos Cabezas came up to Mascot for the movies.
At Christmas they put up a tree in the community center, and all the children in town would get their Christmas presents. There was a road coming up from Dos Cabezas to Mascot and all kinds of houses along that road all the way up to the mine. Our house was on that road. I remember a time when everything was caballos – horses pulling wagons. The cars came later of course. —Songs My Mother Sang to Me
• on January 27, 1915, a celebration in Willcox marked the beginning of construction of the Mascot & Western Railroad • a large crowd watched a jubilant T. N. McCauley turn the first shovelful of dirt • the final spike - a copper one - was driven 15 June, 1915 at The Mascot townsite, followed by a "monstrous barbecue" for 4,000 guests [photos] • activities included a tour of a mine and the company's "2-mile" (10,6000') aerial tramway [photo]
"I feel that only great and lasting good can come of this project. It not only means that the Mascot, in itself, is established but it means that many people, who have known Arizona only a place in the desert before, may take home with them the idea of permanency which we enjoy in this great commonwealth." — H.A. Morgan, Bisbee Daily Review, 27 Jun 1915
• in 1916 a drought ravaged the mining district — wells dried up, cattle died & many mines shut down • on 1 July 1917, American Smelting & Refining took out a 20 yr. lease on the Mascot property only to relinquish it less than a yr. later, presumably because the operation was losing money
• with Mascot Copper facing insolvency, McCauley reorganized it via merger • the "new" Central Copper Co. began operations 15 Feb 1919 • McCauley devised a multi-level marketing scheme where stockholders became stock salesmen • the price was set at $0.50/share, purchases limited to $100/person with $10/mo. financing available • the salesmen, using portable hand-cranked projectors, screened movies of the property at small gatherings of prospective buyers
• reportedly 70,000 stockholders invested & were stunned as the price dropped 50% when the stock hit the market • lawsuits were filed • in a display ad published in several newspapers, McCauley denied each charge against the company
• by Jan, 1924, McCauley reported $4,500,000 spent on new construction • by 1926 400 employees were on the payroll, but output of the mines proved marginal • in 1927 stockholders were informed that falling copper & silver prices dictated that ore extraction be reduced to the minimum necessary to cover operating expenses
• the following year the enterprise was taken over by Southwestern Securities Corporation, a holding company • by late 1929 the payroll was down to 26 employees • on February 29, 1932, Southwestern Securities purchased the Mascot Company at public auction for $100,000 • McCauley promptly moved to Tucson, was implicated in a bank scandal, fled to California then disappeared without a trace —“A history of Willcox, Arizona, and Environs”, Vernon Burdette Schultz
• with the failure of Central Copper [photo] & exodus of miners, Dos Cabezas began its final descent, although not devoid of diversions • in spite of frequent mine closings & the onset of the Great Depression, the town fielded a team in the Sulphur Springs Valley Baseball League, which also included a squad representing a C.C.C. camp • Willcox had 2 teams in the league, the Mexicans & the Americans
• among the dwindling Dos Cabezas population was Jack Howard, the man who "sharpened the first tools that opened up the first gold discoveries of Dos Cabezas district" & spent his last 30 yrs. with Mary Katherine Cummings, history's "Big Nose Kate" [photo], memorialized in movies as Katie Elder —“Tombstone Daily Prospector”
• John Jessie “Jack” Howard (1845-1930) was born in Nottingham, England • as one of the first miners in the Dos Cabezas mining district, he is memorialized by Howard Peak & Howard Canyon • lived in the hills near Dos Cabezas • remembered as a crusty churl who hid in a manhole behind his shack to fire at intruders as they rode into range • on the other hand, some of his fellow Dos Cabezans considered him friendly • divorced his wife Mary who, according to court records, "displayed a vile and disagreeable disposition coupled with frequent outbursts of the most violent temper until she made his life a burden he could stand no longer.”
"…witnesses testified about Mary’s barrage of insults that included publicly calling Howard a white-livered son of a b—. She kept a filthy house, never washed dishes or clothing and even threatened to burn down his house and poison his stock." —“He Lived with Big Nose Kate”, True West
• Mary Katherine "Big Nose Kate" Horony (1850-1940) was born in Pest, Hungary, 2nd oldest daughter of Hungarian physician Miklós Horony • emigrated to the U.S. with her family in 1860 • placed in a foster home after her parents died • stowed away on a steamboat to St. Louis, where she became a prostitute • in 1874 was fined for working as a "sporting woman" (prostitute) in a "sporting house" (brothel) in Dodge City, KS, run by Nellie "Bessie" Ketchum, wife of James Earp [video (8:59)]
• moved to Fort Griffin, TX in 1876 • met dentist John "Doc" Holliday, who allegedly said he considered Kate his intellectual equal • Kate introduced Holliday to Wyatt Earp • Doc opened a dental practice but spent most of his time gambling & drinking
• the couple fought regularly, sometimes violently • according to Kate they married in Valdosta, Georgia • moved on to AZ Territory where Kate worked as a prostitute at The Palace Saloon in Prescott • they parted ways but she rejoined Holliday in Tombstone [photos] • claimed to have witnessed the 26 Oct 1881 Gunfight at the O.K. Corral from her window at C.S. Fly's Boarding House
• 19 years later Kate, nearly 50 [photo] & divorced from an abusive husband, was long past her romance with Doc & too old for prostitution • in June 1900, while employed at the Rath Hotel [photo] in Cochise, AT, she answered a want ad for a housekeeper at $20/mo. plus room & board • the ad had been placed by Jack Howard • Kate lived with him as his employee ("servant" according to the 1900 census) until 1930
• on 3 January, Kate walked 3 mi. to the home of Dos Cabezas Postmaster Edwin White.
“Jack died last night, and I stayed up with him all night.”
• Howard was buried in an unmarked grave in Dos Cabezas Cemetery • after living alone for 2 yrs. Kate sold the homestead for $535.30 • In 1931 she wrote Arizona Gov. George W.P. Hunt, requesting admission to the Arizona Pioneers Home at Prescott • although foreign born thus not eligible for admission, she claimed Davenport, Iowa as her birthplace & was accepted • she died 5 days shy of her 90th birthday • was buried under the name "Mary K. Cummings" in the Home's Cemetery—“Big Nose Kate, Independent Woman of the Wild West” —Kyla Cathey
• the Mascot Mine closed in 1930
• the Mascot & WesternRailroad discontinued operations in 1931 — the tracks were taken up four years later
• 1940s Dos Cabezas photos
• in 1949, the U.S. Postal Dept. corrected its spelling of the town's post office from Dos Cabezos to Dos Cabezas
• mid-20th c. Dos Cabezas family [photos]
• the Dos Cabezas's post office was discontinued in 1960
• in 1964 the town's population was down to 12
• McCauley's Mascot Hospitality House was repurposed as part of the Dos Cabezas Spirit & Nature Retreat Bed & Breakfast [photo]
• today, Dos Cabezas is considered a ghost town, its cemetery the town's main attraction
Three cheers for public libraries. Every year for I am not sure how long, maybe since I retired as a school librarian in 2013, I have been reviewing children's literature new in the year. Many of these books are vying for the title of Caldecott Gold and Silver - for the best illustrated book of the year. I belong to a Caldecott Study Group in GoodReads. We play a Mock Caldecott Award voting event in January of each year, a week before the Caldecott Committee votes and announces the winners at the American Library Association. Our choices are often very close to the real committee's choices.
I do enjoy reading and reviewing the new books. I am so fortunate to belong to the Des Moines Public Library System. Any book that I would like to read, it seems like one of their libraries in the system has the book or has it on order. The librarians wave to me when I come in. My books are waiting on a reserve shelf. We book talk the books. I am so happy to share ideas with them. I usually walk out of the library with a stack full of books.
As I picked up this first set to read and review for 2022 at GoodReads, the librarian told me that they are already hoping ONE of these will carry through to the award ceremony in January 2023 and win the coveted award! Time will tell!
i started the day thinking about one cast of characters and am ending it thinking about another entirely... although there are some similarities. a whole lot of things done and a whole lot let go.
"If our friendship depends on things like space and time, then when we finally overcome space and time, we've destroyed our own brotherhood! But overcome space, and all we have left is Here. Overcome time, and all we have left is Now. And in the middle of Here and Now, don't you think that we might see each other once or twice?"
— Richard Bach (Jonathan Livingston Seagull)
Practicing photography without studying it is like wanting to become a writer without reading. If I have learned a thing about photography appreciation in the last two years, themes, techniques, composition, tone, and all these things are important. Still, without heart or purpose, they contribute little to nothing to our expressive needs.
I read recently A Photo Journal by the great Ruth Orkin: www.goodreads.com/book/show/2308237.A_Photo_Journal
Page 139 shows three photos of her children Mary and Andy. Just great photography. This is what she wrote: " 'Lollipops,' Mary at three and a half nursing and injured 'cowboy,' Andy at six and a half." Sweet moments, beautiful photography.
Jadeiah had a thing for chewing any decorations I put near her. Good thing these are plastic.
If you are interested in a print of this image, or christmas cards please email me and I will list one in My Store just for you!
© Julia Grace Arts
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I finally managed to get back in touch with the family who's children I photographed at the park in the first week of school to take a family portrait for my final portfolio (talk about a full circle!) I managed to convince them to wear matching clothes instead of striped and or pink. It turned out pretty nice I think.
This piece was part of my Final Portfolio at Hallmark Institute of Photography.
© Julia Grace Arts
Do NOT reproduce, use, or distribute without permission. Check out my usage guidelines here.
Please DO Feature on Flickr, Pin, Share, or Tweet my work!
Quick Links
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Memphis, TN, est. 1819, pop. 650,000
• in the 1950s, in a small studio on Union, Ave., Sam C. Phillips (1923-2003) recorded music that is "one of the true touchstones of American culture" —Escott, Hawkins, Good Rockin' Tonight: Sun Records and the Birth of Rock 'N' Roll
• this two-story corner bldg. is located in Memphis's Edge district • before becoming the Sun Studio Café, the 1st floor housed Taylor's Fine Food restaurant (1948-1981) [photo] • owned by Dell Taylor (1911-2003) & husband, Carlos (1914-1976) • 2nd floor was a rooming house
• the 1908 bldg. shares a partywall with a 1-story storefront at no. 706, built in 1916 [photos] • this small adjacent structure became Memphis Recording Service & later, Sun Studio [discography], where Elvis Presley (1935-1977) began his recording career
"Dell M. Taylor served up country fried steak and gentle mothering to the emerging stars of Sun Studio… Mrs. Taylor saw to it that Elvis Presley, Rufus Thomas, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash, Charlie Rich and Carl Perkins, — along with the mechanics and other workers from the auto dealership row on Union — had the freshest greens and vegetables… Many a song was written in the booths, as the musicians would come in to eat during a break in recording at Sun Studio next door… Sun Studio founder Sam Phillips, credited with discovering Elvis and others, often did his bookkeeping at the restaurant." —Chris Conley, The Commercial Appeal (Memphis), 24 Feb., 2003
• Sam Phillips, who claimed he didn't have a desk, had his own booth at Taylor's to pore over paperwork • "That's where all the guys did their writing and talking, and that's where the Sun sound was really born." –Jack Clement (1931-2013), Sun Studio producer
• exhausted musicians often spent the night in one of "Miss Taylor's" upstairs rooms • while recording at Sun the mid-1950s, Roy Orbison had a two-room apartment there
• the bldg. now serves as visitor center for the recording studio, which is open to the public for tours
Marker: Elvis Presley and Sun Records
In July 1954 Sun Records released Elvis Presley's first recording. That record, and Elvis' four that followed on the Sun label, changed popular music. Elvis developed an innovative and different sound combining blues, gospel, and country. That quality made Elvis a worldwide celebrity within two years. He went on to become one of the most famous and beloved entertainers in history. Sun Records introduced many well known people in all fields of music. Generations of musicians have been affected by those who recorded here and especially by the music Elvis Presley first sang at Sun Records
National Historic Landmark Nomination: (unedited version with citations available here)
Marion Keisker (1917-1989), Phillips's sole assistant & employee when he started his business said he "would talk about this idea he had, this dream, I suppose, to have a facility where black people could come and play their own music, a place where they would feel free and relaxed to do it. One day we were riding along, and he saw that spot on Union, and he said, 'That's the spot I want.' With many difficulties we got the place, and we raised the money, and between us we did everything. We laid all the tile, we painted the acoustic boards, I put in the bathroom, Sam put in the control room—what little equipment he had always had to be the best." — quoted by Peter Guralnick, Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley
Phillips started his own record company, Sun Records, in 1952, "the first great rock 'n' roll record label." • Some of the artists Phillips recorded would redefine the musical genres in which they worked. Many of them made for Phillips not only their first recordings but also their best.
Before World War II most black music was blues, and a lot of those were country blues of the Mississippi Delta, the raw, gut-wrenching folk music of rural African Americans… Black migration out of the rural South accelerated during the First World War and exploded after World War II when manual cotton picking came to an end. Synthetic materials took over the market after the discovery of nylon in 1939, and the mechanical cotton picker, able to do the work of fifty people, arrived soon after. "The main musical result of the great migration was the blues came to town, and not to any old town: to Memphis, which acted as the local focus for migration from the Delta." — Sir Peter Hall, Cities in Civilization
In Memphis, WDIA started out in 1947 as a popular and country music radio station. The station switched formats in 1948 and began programming for a black audience after the success of a show called "Black America Speaks," hosted by Memphis's first black on-air personality, Nat Williams (1907-1983) [editorial: Color the Issue, A Point of View by Nat L. Williams]
Also in 1948, Dewey Phillips (1926-1968), a white radio announcer from rural Tennessee, began to host a show on WHBQ. "Red Hot and Blue" [listen] expanded from fifteen minutes to three hours daily during its first year on the air. Phillips played "an eclectic mix of blues, hillbilly, and pop that would become an institution in Memphis, and his importance to the cross-cultural miscegenation that became Rock 'n' Roll is incalculable." By 1951, word began to spread that white kids were buying "race records."
Sam Phillips was born on January 5, 1923 in the northwest corner of Alabama near Florence, about 150 miles east of Memphis. He got his first radio job in 1940 at WLAY in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, and later took correspondence courses in radio engineering. He worked at WMSL in Decatur, Alabama, and at WLAC in Nashville before moving to Memphis in 1945.
In January 1950, Phillips started his own recording business in addition to his regular jobs. The Memphis Recording Service opened at 706 Union Avenue, about a mile east of the downtown area. The small one-story brick building had a reception area/office at the front of the building, a recording studio in the middle section, and a small control room in the rear. The entire building is only about 18 feet wide and 57 feet long. Phillips's business card read "We Record Anything—Anywhere—Anytime." Initially that included weddings, funerals, bar mitzvahs, advertisements for radio, etc., in addition to musicians in his studio.
"I opened the Memphis Recording Service with the intention of recording singers and musicians from Memphis and the locality who I felt had something that people should be able to hear. I'm talking about blues—both the country style and the rhythm style—and also about gospel or spiritual music and about white country music. I always felt that people who played this type of music had not been given the opportunity to reach an audience . . . My aim was to try and record the blues and other music I liked and to prove whether I was right or wrong about this music. I knew, or I felt I knew, that there was a bigger audience for blues than just the black man of the mid-South. There were city markets to be reached, and I knew that whites listened to blues surreptitiously." —Escott, op. cit.
Phillips also functioned as a folklorist, documenting music that was fading into the past. "With the jet age coming on, with cotton-picking machines as big as a building going down the road, with society changing, I knew that this music wasn't going to be available in a pure sense forever."
Recording the Blues
video: Sam Phillips: The Man who Invented Rock & Roll Part 1 (44:22) & Part 2 (45:59)
His first deal, with 4 Star/Gilt Edge Records, was a song by a blind pianist from south Memphis. Lost John Hunter's "Boogie for Me Baby" [listen] was "a crude boogie blues that could pick up some southern juke coin," according to the review in Billboard, a record business trade publication.
In late summer 1950, Phillips launched his own record company with partner Dewey Phillips (the hot Memphis radio announcer, no relation) in order to issue and promote his own products. They called their label Phillips, but it only lasted a few weeks, issuing three hundred copies of Joe Hill Louis's "Boogie in the Park" in August 1950 [listen]
Phillips soon began working with Modern Records of Los Angeles, owned and operated by the Bihari brothers. Their new subsidiary, RPM Records, was looking for "new music with a down- home feel." Jules Bihari sent a guitar player from Indianola, Mississippi, to Sam Phillips to record. Riley King was already popular locally and known as B.B. King (for Blues Boy, or more likely, Black Boy). Phillips recorded King, one of the first artists on the new RPM label, from mid-1950 until mid-1951 [listen].
Even at this early stage in his career, Sam Phillips used recording techniques that were soon recognized as hallmarks of his records. He put up-tempo boogies on the front sides of records, slow numbers on back sides, and overamplified on faster songs to get a primitive fuzzy sound… These early recording sessions with King also document Phillips's skill as a record producer. King's version of a Tampa Red song had an explosiveness missing from the original record.
"Rocket '88'," a song about a hot Oldsmobile, is one of the contenders for the title "first rock 'n' roll record." It featured Jackie Brenston, the singer, and Ike Turner, the bandleader, on piano. "Rocket '88'" [listen] was released in April 1951. It hit number 1 on Billboard's R&B chart in June and eventually became the second biggest R&B hit of the year. According to Sam Phillips, "Rocket '88'" was the record that really kicked it off for me as far as broadening the base of music and opening up wider markets for our local music." Phillips resigned from WREC in June 1951 after "Rocket '88'" became a hit. — [more] on the history of “Rocket 88”
The Commercial Appeal (Memphis), 28 Mar, 1951: "[Sam Phillips] has agreements with two recording companies to locate and record hillbilly and race music. Race numbers are those tailored for the Negro trade. Sam auditions musicians with original songs. When he finds something he's sure will sell, he gets it on acetate and sends it to one of the companies. He doesn't charge the musicians anything . . . Sam may branch out one day, so he says if anyone wants to bring him a pop song, he'll be glad to look it over." • full article
• Sam Phillips first recorded Chester Burnett (The Howlin' Wolf) in the spring of 1951. Born near Aberdeen, Mississippi, Howlin' Wolf (1910-1976) was a singer who gave the traditional Delta blues another dimension. They recorded "Moanin' at Midnight" and "How Many More Years" [listen] in August 1951… In Phillips's estimation, the Wolf was his greatest discovery.
• Even though he preferred the creative side of the business, Phillips started his own record company early in 1952… With his own label, Phillips could run the business like he wanted and release records that other labels rejected.
"When I was leasing to other labels, they wanted me to compromise. They wanted a fuller blues sound than I did. They were selling excitement. I was recording the feel I found in the blues. I wanted to get that gut feel onto record. I realized that it was going to be much more difficult to merchandise than what Atlantic or Specialty, for example, were doing, but I was willing to go with it."
Phillips named his new company Sun Records and selected an eye-catching record label [photo] designed by John G. Parker (1925-2012), who also designed the tiger stripe helmet for the Cincinnati Bengals football team and packages for Alka-Seltzer and Super Bubble gum… "The sun to me—even as a kid back on the farm—was a universal kind of thing. A new day, a new opportunity." —Sam Phillips
The first record issued on the new Sun label (March 27, 1952), Sun number 175, was an original instrumental, "Drivin' Slow," by alto saxophonist Johnny London.
"Even on this first release, all the hallmarks of a Sam Phillips Sun record were in place: the raw sound, the experimental origin, the dark texture, even the trademark echo. Phillips and London created the illusion of a sax heard down a long hallway on a humid night by rigging something like a telephone booth over London's head while he played. The record's appeal had more to do with feeling than virtuosity—in short, it offered everything music buyers could expect from Sun for the remainder of the decade." [listen]
The first recording on the Sun label considered to be a classic was Easy, an instrumental released in March 1953 by Walter Horton (1921-1981) (Little Walter, and later, Big Walter).
". . . Horton played the same theme five times, with mounting intensity. By the fourth chorus, he was playing with such intensity that his harmonica sounded like a tenor saxophone. Phillips' virtuosity with tape delay echo was rarely used to better advantage: he made three instruments [harmonica, guitar, drums] sound as full as an orchestra. Any other instrument would have been redundant." [listen]
Sun Records had its first national hit in the spring of 1953 with "Bear Cat," [listen] which went to number 3 on the national R&B chart. It was an "answer song" to "Hound Dog" by Big Mama Thornton aka Willie Mae Thornton (1926-1984), sung by local radio announcer Rufus Thomas. "Bear Cat" was the first record to make money for Sun Records and it put the company on the map. "Feelin' Good" by Little Junior's Blue Flames (released in July 1953), was also commercially successful, reaching number 5 on the national R&B chart.
Sun's next hit was "Just Walkin' in the Rain" [listen] by The Prisonaires, a black vocal group of five inmates from the Tennessee State Penitentiary in Nashville. They sang close-harmony gospel style and came under armed guard to record at 706 Union on June 1, 1953. As part of the warden's rehabilitation program, they were allowed to perform on radio, in concerts, and at the Governor's mansion, but "Just Walkin' in the Rain" was their only hit.
Phillips recorded a number of important blues artists in the early 1950s, including "Sleepy" John Estes, Little Milton Campbell, Rosco Gordon, Dr. Ross, Harmonica Frank Floyd, Willie Nix, Billy "The Kid" Emerson, and Bobby "Blue" Bland.
". . . It's safe to say that the blues has never sounded as mean, raw, or intense as it did on countless days and nights at 706 Union Avenue. Amplifiers were cranked way past the point of distortion, guitars slashed like straight razors, rickety drum kits were pounded with fury and abandon, and the stories both sung and shouted spanned the gamut of the black Southern experience…
"Even if he'd never issued a record on the shining yellow Sun label, even if Elvis Presley had never entered his small recording studio..., Phillips would rank as one of the most visionary record producers of our time on the basis of his early fifties blues work." —John Floyd, Sun Records: An Oral History
In May 1954, Phillips recorded "Cotton Crop Blues" with James Cotton on vocals and Auburn "Pat" Hare on guitar. This was "one of the truly great blues recordings," but recording of traditional blues at 706 Union fell off in 1954 with the growing popularity of R&B music. Sun Records soon became synonymous with rock 'n' roll, overshadowing Phillips's role in blues recording "and the insight that [he] brought to recording the blues. He worked hard to get the best from his artists . . . Phillips would sit behind his tape deck until sunup if he thought the musicians on the studio floor might capture the sound that he heard in his head."
Phillips struggled to make money in the record business for almost six years. Eventually he saw that the market at that time was too small for the kind of music he was recording.
"The base wasn't broad enough because of racial prejudice. It wasn't broad enough to get the amount of commercial play and general acceptance overall—not just in the South . . . Now these were basically good people, but conceptually they did not understand the kinship between black and white people in the South. So I knew what I had to do to broaden the base of acceptance." —Escott, op. cit.
Elvis Presley
Elvis Presley graduated from Humes High School in north Memphis on June 3, 1953 and went to work at M.B. Parker Machinists on July 1. Later that summer, he recorded a personal record at the Memphis Recording Service. Presley paid $3.98 for an acetate with two sides, both ballads. While he was there, Presley talked with Marion Keisker, a long-time Memphis radio personality who helped Sam Phillips run his businesses at 706 Union, and asked if she knew of a band that needed a singer.
He made an impression on Keisker which she later remembered well, especially his answer to her question about which hillbilly singer he sounded like: "I don't sound like nobody." At that time, Presley had a child's guitar that he played in the park, on his porch steps, and in a band with his buddies around their housing project. He soon aspired to be a member of the Songfellows, an amateur church quartet. —Guralnick, op. cit.
Presley dropped by 706 Union a number of times after that initial meeting to see if Ms. Keisker had any leads for him. In January 1954, Presley paid for a second personal record, and tried out for a professional band that spring. Eddie Bond (1933-2003), the band leader, told him to keep driving a truck because he would never make it as a singer. Presley later revealed that Bond's rejection "broke my heart." —Guralnick, op. cit.
". . . There is little question that he stepped through the doorway [at 706 Union] with the idea, if not of stardom . . . at the very least of being discovered. In later years he would always say that he wanted to make a personal record "to surprise my mother." Or "I just wanted to hear what I sounded like." But, of course, if he had simply wanted to record his voice, he could have paid twenty-five cents at W. T. Grant's on Main Street . . . Instead, Elvis went to a professional facility, where a man who had been written up in the papers would hear him sing." —Guralnick, op. cit.
Marion Keisker finally called Presley on Saturday, June 26 to set up an appointment, almost a year after he recorded his first personal disc. On a recent trip to Nashville, Phillips had gotten an acetate of a song that reminded him of Presley's voice. They worked on "Without You" [listen] for a long time that afternoon, and Phillips had Presley sing a number of other songs after his unsuccessful attempts with "Without You."
A week later, Phillips set Presley up with two members of the Starlite Wranglers [photos], Scotty Moore (guitar) and Bill Black (bass), and the three of them went to the studio on Monday, July 5 so Phillips could hear them on tape. Nothing special happened at the session until they took a break and Presley began fooling around and playing an old blues song by Arthur Crudup, "That's All Right [Mama] [listen]."
"Sam recognized it right away. He was amazed that the boy even knew Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup—nothing in any of the songs he had tried so far gave any indication that he was drawn to this kind of music at all. But this was the sort of music that Sam had long ago wholeheartedly embraced . . . And the way the boy performed it, it came across with a freshness and an exuberance, it came across with the kind of clear-eyed, unabashed originality that Sam sought in all the music that he recorded—it was "different," it was itself." —Guralnick, op. cit.
Phillips got his friend and kindred spirit, disc jockey Dewey Phillips, to play "That's All Right" [listen] on his radio show "Red Hot and Blue," then near the height of its popularity. The response was immediate—hundreds of phone calls and telegrams. Dewey played the song a number of times that night and also interviewed Presley during the show.
By the time the record was pressed and ready for release, there were 6,000 orders for it locally. Sun record number 209 was released on Monday, July 17, 1954. Phillips had been "looking for something that nobody could categorize," and this song did not sound exclusively black or white or country or pop. Initially, many people who heard the song thought that Presley was a black man. —Guralnick, op. cit.
Elvis Presley's first big public appearance with Scotty and Bill, the Blue Moon Boys, was on Friday, July 30 at Memphis's outdoor amphitheater in Overton Park [photos]. The show featured Slim Whitman, a star from the Louisiana Hayride, which some called the Grand Ole Opry's "farm club." He drew a hillbilly crowd, but they went wild when Elvis shook and wiggled his legs, his natural way of performing.
The new record made Billboard's regional charts by the end of August, but it was the B side that was more popular. Phillips backed "That's All Right" with an unorthodox version of "Blue Moon of Kentucky" [listen], a waltz that was a hit in 1946 for Bill Monroe, country music's elder statesman. By early September, "Blue Moon" was number 1 on the Memphis C&W chart and "That's All Right" was number 7. —Guralnick, op. cit.
Sun released Presley's second record in late September. "It was . . . an even bolder declaration of intent than the first, especially the strident blues number 'Good Rockin' Tonight' [listen], which rocked more confidently than anything they could have imagined in those first, uncertain days in the studio." The original jump blues version was written and recorded by Roy Brown in 1947 [listen]
Presley's growing popularity enabled Phillips to arrange a guest appearance on the Grand Ole Opry for October 2, even though the Opry had never before scheduled a performer at such an early stage in his career. The performance of "Blue Moon of Kentucky" by Elvis Presley, Scotty and Bill received a "polite, but somewhat tepid, reception," and the Opry's manager told Phillips that Presley "just did not fit the Opry mold."
It was a big disappointment for Elvis. But soon they were off to Louisiana for Presley's first appearance on the Louisiana Hayride, "the Opry's more innovative rival in Shreveport" that had a show every Saturday night. On the third Saturday of the month the show broadcast with a 50,000 watt signal that reached up to twenty-eight states.48 After only one guest appearance, Presley signed a standard one year contract to be one of the Hayride's regular members, and he and his band quit their day jobs. —Guralnick, op. cit.
For the next year, Elvis Presley and the Blue Moon Boys toured almost constantly... Presley took his first airplane flight and first trip to New York City on March 23, 1955 to try out for Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts contest, but he did not pass the audition. [A] tour with Hank Snow/Jamboree Attractions began on May 1 in New Orleans, visiting twenty cities in three weeks, including a number of stops in Florida. There was a "riot" backstage after the concert in Jacksonville …
The audiences had never heard music like Presley played before, and they had never seen anyone who performed like Presley either. The shy, polite, mumbling boy gained self-confidence with every appearance, which soon led to a transformation on stage. People watching the show were astounded and shocked, both by the "ferocity of his performance,"49 and the crowd's reaction to it.
Even in the early days, Elvis almost always stole the show from the headliners, and concert lineups had to be rearranged accordingly. Nobody followed Elvis. Roy Orbison saw Presley for the first time in Odessa, Texas: "His energy was incredible, his instinct was just amazing . . . I just didn't know what to make of it. There was just no reference point in the culture to compare it."—Guralnick, op. cit.
"'He's the new rage,' said a Louisiana radio executive… 'Sings hillbilly in R&B time. Can you figure that out? He wears pink pants and a black coat . . .'" —Guralnick, op. cit.
Elvis caused a great commotion everywhere he went. Throughout the South, Presley had girls screaming and fainting and chasing after him.
Sam Phillips was also on the road constantly after the Overton Park performance in July 1954, promoting the new records to distributors, disc jockeys, record store owners, and jukebox operators. His experiences, however, were entirely different. Time and again, disc jockeys who were old friends and/or long-standing business associates told Phillips they could not play the Presley records. A country deejay said "Sam, they'll run me out of town." To an R&B deejay, "That's All Right" was a country song. A major pop station disc jockey told Phillips, "your music is just so ragged. I just can't handle it right now. Maybe later on." —Guralnick, op. cit.
WELO in Tupelo, Mississippi, Presley's hometown, would not even play the record, in spite of many requests from teenagers, because the deejay did not like the new music. —Guralnick, op. cit.
Sam Phillips persevered in spite of all the rejection he was getting, and kept trying to turn it around. "I needed the attention that I got from the people that hated what I was doing, that acted like: 'Here is somebody trying to thrust junk on us and classify it as our music.'"—Guralnick, op. cit.
"He was a man swept up by a belief, in a sound and in an idea. And as discouraged as he might sometimes get, as harsh as the reality of selling this new music might be, he never strayed from his belief, he never allowed himself to be distracted from his main goal. Which was to get them to listen." —Guralnick, op. cit.
Phillips could feel a revolution was on the way. There were already lots of country boys coming to his studio to play the new music, which initially got the name rockabilly. "Sam knew that a day was coming . . . when the music would prevail." —Guralnick, op. cit.
Presley was still a regional sensation and unknown to the national market when he got the record industry's attention. By the summer of 1955, almost all the major and independent record labels were inquiring about him. Sam Phillips had mixed feelings about selling Presley's contract, but his operations could not accommodate the Presley phenomenon, his finances were very tight, and he had other artists who needed his attention.
Presley's parents signed a contract in August which soon forced the issue. Col. Tom Parker (1909-1997) became "special adviser to Elvis Presley." He was the head of Jamboree Attractions, one of the major promoters and bookers of country and western talent, and had booked Presley on the Hank Snow package tours earlier that year. At that time, Parker was known as the best promoter in the business. In October Parker asked Phillips to name his price for Presley's contract, and Parker made sure that it was met.
The deal was signed at 706 Union Avenue on November 21, 1955. RCA-Victor bought Elvis Presley's contract from Sun Records for $35,000, plus $5,000 in back royalties owed to Presley. The story ran in the Memphis Press-Scimitar the next day:
"Elvis Presley, 20, Memphis recording star and entertainer who zoomed into big- time and the big money almost overnight, has been released from his contract with Sun Record Co. of Memphis . . . . Phillips and RCA officials did not reveal terms but said the money involved is probably the highest ever paid for a contract release for a country-western recording artist. 'I feel Elvis is one of the most talented youngsters today,' Phillips said, 'and by releasing his contract to RCA-Victor we will give him the opportunity of entering the largest organization of its kind in the world, so his talents can be given the fullest opportunity.'" —quoted in Guralnick, op. cit.
Sam Phillips never regretted his decision to sell Elvis Presley's contract. In many ways, Presley's departure was like a new beginning for Sun Records. Many country musicians aspiring to play rockabilly began to make their way to 706 Union Avenue. As Johnny Cash said many years later, "Elvis was a beacon that brought us all there." —Peter Guralnick, "Sam Phillips: The Man Who Invented Rock 'n' Roll," VHS (A&E Biography, 2000)
Sun Studio
After Sam Phillips moved his companies to the new location on Madison Avenue, 706 Union Avenue housed a number of different businesses in the 1960s and 1970s, including a barber shop, an auto parts store, and a scuba shop. The building was vacant in 1985 when it became the site of a family reunion of sorts. An album entitled “Class of '55: Memphis Rock 'n' Roll Homecoming“ was recorded here to celebrate and remember the "Class of '55" on their 30th "anniversary." Record producer Chips Moman convened Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, and Roy Orbison to record together for the first time at the Sun studio in September 1985.
Not long after that event, 706 Union Avenue became a stop for visitors on tours to Graceland, the home of Elvis Presley, which opened to the public in 1982. The building opened as the Sun Studio for tours in 1987—the name Sun Records and the original Sun record label design still belong to Shelby Singleton, who bought the company in 1969. The current property owner also purchased the adjacent two-story brick building that housed a café and a boarding house in the 1950s. That building now serves as a soda shop, gallery, and gift shop for visitors to Sun Studio.
The Sun Studio also operates as a full service 24-track recording studio for professional musicians, as well as anyone who wants to make a personal record, just like Elvis. In 1987, the Irish rock band U2 recorded several songs here for their album "Rattle and Hum," including "When Love Comes to Town" featuring B.B. King. Several hundred thousand visitors have made the pilgrimage to this extraordinary place.
• National Register # 03001031, 2003 • designated a National Historic Landmark, 2003
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"تَجري الأيامُ سريعاً ..
أسرعً مما ينبغي .. ! .. ظننتُ بأننا سنكون في عُمرنا هذا معاً .. ! .. وطفلنا الصغير يلعب بيننا .. !! ..
لكني أجلس اليوم بجوارك , أندبُ أحلامي الحمقى ! ..غارقة في حُبي لك ..
ولا قدرة لي على انتشال بقايا أحلامي من بين حُطامك .. ! ..
أشعر وكأنك تخنقني بيدك القوية ياعزيز ! تخنقني وأنت تبكي حُباً .. ! ..
لا أدري لماذا تتركني عالقة بين السماءِ والأرض ! ..
لكني أدرك أنك تسكنُ أطرافي .. وبأنك ( عزيزُ ) كما كُنت ..
أحببتك أكثر مما ينبغي , وأحببتني أقل مما أستحق .. ! .."
أثير عبدالله النشمي / أحببتك أكثر ممآ ينبغي
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It's almost time for the Caldecott Medal for Best Illustrated Picture Book of the year to be announced by the American Library Association. Many librarians, retired librarians and teachers, schools and students across the country hop on board to predict the winner! That's called Mock Caldecott (MoCal)! Here are a few of the MOST OUTSTNADING books written in 2017. My list of potential winners... www.goodreads.com/list/user_vote/5887155
As part of her collection of stories called The Dog of the Marriage. She's a fantastic writer if you are looking for a modern female who writes short stories in a way that captures the essence of what she is saying rather quickly and effectively. I highly enjoy her words. Recommended by my friend Nicholas Szczepanik, who will also be regarded as one of the great writers someday.
Goodreads link to this collection:
www.goodreads.com/book/show/33301.The_Dog_of_the_Marriage
**All photos are copyrighted. Please don't use without permission**
Not sure about this one. Took this while in Vermont. Feeling a little down; its showing in my work. This might not stay, comment/favorite if you like!
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a Book by Barbara Seaman
Barbara Seaman, author of The Greatest Experiment Ever Performed on Women, previously wrote a book entitled The Doctor's Case Against the Pill, which was almost single-handedly responsible for calling the attention of Senator Nelson and his committee on drugs, as well as that of the public, to the dangers of hormone contraceptives for women, as well as to the indifference and perhaps denial of the medical profession generally. Now, in the Women and the Crisis in Sex Hormones book coauthored by her husband, a psychiatrist and psychopharmacologist, the subject is extended to a comprehensive examination of the entire contraceptive field.
Written with a biting and sardonic humor at times, it is a remarkable piece of investigative reporting, comprehensive enough to serve as a reliable reference work. It considers alternatives to hormonal contraception, including the diaphragm, cervical cap, intrauterine device, foam, current rhythm methods, sterilization, abortion, the condom, vasectomy, and a pill for men. It considers menopause and the use of hormones in relation to it. Sources JAMA 1978;239(20):2179. doi:10.1001/jama.1978.03280470091039
The first chapters of this book are about DES history.
* Watch DES videos, read more about DES Daughters and DES Sons.
* DES DiEthylSilbestrol Resources by NCBI: Cancer and Pregnancy.
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Ruled by a “hideous thing of tangled, oily machinery, and black, snaky arms” on a motorcycle, machines of all imaginable shapes and sizes from passenger cars to tractors have gone mad. And the thing wants to rule the world! – AI’s worst nightmare.
“When Davy Breckenridge stowed away aboard a mysterious cargo ship, he sought to solve the enigma of John Kaspar. The richest man in the world, John Kaspar and his fortune had disappeared 40 years before. Arriving on Kaspar's secret island, Davy found a paradise on Earth. The people of the City of Beauty were graceful and artistic; pampered with automatic houses, self-driving cars and every conceivable luxury. But there was a mechanical snake in this idyllic Eden.
“Beneath the surface, this supposedly carefree people lived in nameless terror. The best and the brightest among them were disappearing. A net of total surveillance entrapped the community. Who was behind this sinister control? Davy Breckenridge knew that the answers lay in the forbidden City of Smoke, the industrial complex on the other side of the island. No one who had tried to discover its secrets had ever returned. Davy was willing to risk it. But should he risk his new love - and his very life - to save a people too lazy to save themselves?” www.goodreads.com/book/show/55825736-paradise-and-iron
[Note 1: Hard to believe the story is over 90 years old. The possible danger of artificial intelligence is only now making news.]
[Note 2: Then there's HAL, the artificially intelligent, homicidal computer onboard the Jupiter space mission in the 1968 film 2001: "I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that."]
[Note 3: The 1970s gave us "Colossus: The Forbin Project" in which an impenetrable supercomputer is given total control over nuclear missile launches. Guess what it does with that power?]
"O Dionysus, we feel you near,
stirring like molten lava
under the ravaged earth,
flowing from the wounds of your trees
in tears of sap,
screaming with the rage
of your hunted beasts."
— Euripides (The Bacchae)
The volcano Mt Ruapehu is clearly visible on the horizon, some 320 kms/200 miles away, as the dawn light reflects on the breaking surf on the black volcanic sand of the Kapiti Coast, New Zealand.
* Pentax K20D + Pentax 18-55mm Lens - Single Shot
Selected images are available high res and unframed at RedBubble