Washington DC, The Walter E. Washington Convention Center, the afternoon of March 1, 2015. Around one hundred social justice activists affiliated with Code Pink, Jewish Voice For Justice, AVAAZ, US Campaign To End The Israeli Occupation, Boycott From Within, Answer Coaltion and other peace and faith groups demonstrate in front of the Convention Center to protest the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) yearly DC meeting. AIPAC is regarded by many as the most powerful lobbying group in town. AIPAC has a policy agenda that's out of step with the values of most Jewish Americans and other participants in civilized society but they call the tune because our corrupt political culture is fueled by money, not decency. In an act of peaceful civil disobedience, five demonstrators, all women, were arrested for failing to obey police orders to remove themselves from the granite in front of one of the Convention Center's many doorways. They were given three warnings before being arrested. I photographed one of women as she was being lead away in plastic handcuffs. "I'm a Jewish mother!" she proclaimed. I gave her the 'thumbs up'.

Most of the DC cops kept their cool but when some of the demonstrators got in their face a brief scuffle ensued. Some of us locked arms and and helped lift up one of the Code Pink ladies who was almost knocked down onto the steps by a DC officer who lost it.

Session Americana and Peter Wolf playing at the Lizard Lounge in Cambridge, MA.

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Wolf

www.peterwolf.com/

www.facebook.com/PeterWolfMusic?v=wall

Life and career

 

Wolf was born in the Bronx, New York. He planned a career as an artist, but he got a job in the late 1960s as a disc jockey on then-cutting edge Boston FM radio station WBCN and began exploring his interest in blues and rhythm and blues music, giving himself the nickname "the Wolfa Goofa", sometimes expanded to "the Wolfa Goofa with the Green Teeth" (as mentioned in the intro to "Must of Got Lost" on the Blow Your Face Out album). Later as solo artist he called himself Woofa Goofa Mama Toofa. He formed a group called the Hallucinations who performed with The Velvet Underground, Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, Van Morrison, John Lee Hooker, and Sun Ra. He then saw the J. Geils Blues Band in concert and quickly joined. He was the vocalist and frontman, and often acted as a sort of manager. Wolf was known for his charismatic stage antics of fast-talking quips and "pole-vaulting" with the microphone stand. He and keyboard player Seth Justman were responsible for most of the songwriting. Creative differences followed their Freeze-Frame album, causing the J. Geils Band and Peter Wolf to part ways in 1983.

 

Peter Wolf with the J. Geils Band in Candlestick Park, San Francisco, California Photo: Catharine Anderson

Wolf became a solo artist for the next 15 years, but in 1999 the J. Geils Band reunited for several appearances, with Wolf resuming his duties as lead vocalist. They separated again, and Wolf began touring once more, as a solo act.

Wolf's first solo record, Lights Out (1984) was produced by Michael Jonzun of the Jonzun Crew, features Adrian Belew, and has a somewhat funky, electro sound. The eponymous single became a hit single the same year, peaking at #12 on the Billboard Hot 100. He recorded many duets with the likes of Aretha Franklin, Little Milton, John Lee Hooker, Don Covay, and Wilson Pickett to name just a few.

Long Line was co-produced with two musician friends, Johnny A. and a Bob Dylan backup band member, Stu Kimball. Tim Archibald (Bass) and Brian Maes (keys and backing vocals) who are both members of "Ernie And The Automatics", played on the record and Toured in support of "Long Line." His next two solo albums, Fool's Parade and Sleepless (the latter featuring guest appearances from Mick Jagger and Keith Richards), were both highly praised by Jann Wenner in Rolling Stone, receiving four-and-a-half and five stars, respectively. Sleepless (2002) was noted as one of the 500 greatest albums of all time in Rolling Stone issue 937. He has performed on stage with such diverse people as Bruce Springsteen and Phil Lesh.

Wolf toured in 2008 with Kid Rock and Rev. Run on The Rock N Roll Revival Tour. He performed "Love Stinks" solo with Kid Rock's band. Then he joined Kid Rock for "Ain't Too Proud to Beg", "Musta Got Lost", "Centerfold" (from the J. Geils album Freeze Frame) and "For What It's Worth".

The J. Geils Band re-united for a series of shows in 2009, including opening night at the Boston House of Blues.

Wolf's 2010 album Midnight Souvenirs won Album of the Year at the Boston Music Awards.[2][3]

 

www.facebook.com/pages/Session-Americana/53199003969

 

www.sessionamericana.com

www.myspace.com/sessionamericana

www.hi-n-dry.com/session_americana

www.exploitboston.com/music-musings/grab-new-music-from-s...

Session Americana - www.sessionamericana.com

 

This ad hoc acoustic supergroup started around a table at a small pub in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where Ry Cavanaugh, Billy Conway, Sean Staples, Dinty Child, Jim Fitting and other friends gathered to swap songs and stories. Their lively performances and inspired versions of tunes from the dusty backroads of America's past were such a hit with fans that they decided to take their musical conversation into the studio. The two-CD debut Tabletop People ups the ante with stellar appearances by folksinger Rose Polenzani, Twinemen's Laurie Sargent, Dennis Brennan, Asa Brebner, Merrie Amsterburg, Dan Kellar, Presidents of the United States' Chris Ballew, Jabe Beyer, Tim Gearon and other luminaries. And the 18 gritty, funny, soulful performances included span a gamut of emotions and tastes that should please both adult and younger listeners.

 

"Genius ... Jaw-dropping vocals ... Session Americana is blessed in this regard:...musicianship that sets the standard for the genre in Boston

and vocals that do the same"

— Performer Magazine

 

Session Americana sit tightly around a small cafe table, ambient mics tuned to catch the whole sound of the voices and instruments. A suit-case drum kit, an old electric bass, a bunch of acoustic instruments, a field organ: This format feels very theatrical and though the musicians face each other, the audience feels drawn into the circle by the warmth, joy and camaraderie that emanate outwards by the all star cast of characters seated around the table. What keeps you coming back show after show is the same thing that any audience member longs for, great songs performed by a great band. The six core members of the band have brought enviable careers worth of experience to the “table”, featuring (current and former) members of Treat Her Right, Patty Griffin, Lori McKenna, The The, Dennis Brennan, Kris Delmhorst. The group has grown from a rag tag jam at a local pub to a regional institution, playing gigs from church coee houses to urban nightclubs to regional festival tents to large halls.

 

Band: Ry Cavanaugh, Billy Beard, Dinty Child, Jim Fitting, Sean Staples and Jon Bistline.

 

*Winner “2005 Best Folk Act” - The Boston Music Awards

*Winner “Best Roots Act 2006” - Improper Bostonian “Best of Boston” Issue

*Winner “Best CD” 2007 - Improper Bostonian

*Nominated “Best Roots Act” 2007 - WFNX/Boston Phoenix Best Music Poll

*Nominated Best Live Act 2007 - The Boston Music Awards

*Nominated Best Americana Act 2008 - The Boston Music Awards

 

“Genius ... Jaw-dropping vocals ... Session Americana is blessed in this regard: ...musicianship that sets the standard for the genre in Boston and vocals that do the same”

— NE Performer Magazine

 

“No egos, no big production, just some great songs stripped down to their bare essentials and performed with a real genuineness of spirit and emotional authenticity... it’s beautiful.” (Brian Mosher)

— The Noise

 

“An eclectic, swinging tour de force” — The Boston Globe

 

“[This] local country-folk megagroup’s double CD is one of the most loose, spontaneous, warm, and homespun acts of community and decency since the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s Will the Circle Be Unbroken.”

 

— The Boston Phoenix

“the cream of the Somerville/Cambridge community" - No Depression (read less)

 

German postcard by Terra-Color. Brigitte Bardot in Les bijoutiers du clair de lune / The Night Heaven Fell (Roger Vadim, 1958).

 

French actress Brigitte Bardot (1934) died on 28 December 2025, at the age of 91. In the 1950s, she was the sex kitten of the European film industry. BB starred in 48 films, performed in numerous musical shows, and recorded 80 songs. After her retirement in 1973, she established herself as an animal rights activist. In the coming weeks, we will continue to post a BB postcard every day to remember her as she once was.

 

Brigitte Bardot was born in Paris in 1934. Her father, Louis Bardot, had an engineering degree and worked with his father in the family business. Her mother, Ann-Marie Mucel, was 14 years younger than Brigitte's father, and they married in 1933. Brigitte's mother encouraged her daughter to take up music and dance. At the age of 13, she entered the Conservatoire Nationale de Danse to study ballet. By the time she was 15, Brigitte was trying a modelling career and found herself in May 1949 on the cover of the French magazine Elle. Her incredible beauty was readily apparent, and Brigitte was noticed by Roger Vadim, then an assistant to the film director Marc Allegrét. Vadim was infatuated with Bardot and encouraged her to start working as a film actress. BB was 18 when she debuted in the comedy Le Trou Normand / Crazy for Love (Jean Boyer, 1952). In the same year, she married Vadim. Brigitte wanted to marry him when she was 17, but her parents quashed any marriage plans until she turned 18. In April 1953, she attended the Cannes Film Festival, where she received massive media attention. She soon was every man's idea of the girl he'd like to meet in Paris. From 1952 to 1956, she appeared in seventeen films. Her films were generally lightweight romantic dramas in which she was cast as an ingénue or siren, often with an element of undress. In 1953, she made her first US production, Un acte d'amour / Act of Love (Anatole Litvak, 1953) with Kirk Douglas, but she continued to make films in France.

 

Roger Vadim was not content with the light fare his wife was offered. He felt Brigitte Bardot was being undersold. Looking for something more like an art film to push her as a serious actress, he showcased her in Et Dieu créa la femme / ...And God Created Woman (Roger Vadim, 1956). This film, about an immoral teenager in a respectable small-town setting, was a smash success on both sides of the Atlantic. Craig Butler at AllMovie: "It's easy enough to say that ...And God Created Woman is much more important for its historical significance than for its actual quality as a film, and that's true to an extent. The immense popularity, due to its willingness to directly embrace an exploration of sex as well as its willingness to show a degree of nudity that was remarkably daring for its day, demonstrated that audiences were willing to view subject matter that was considered too racy for the average moviegoer. This had both positive (freedom to explore, especially for the French filmmakers of the time) and negative (freedom to exploit) consequences, but its impact is undeniable. It's also true that Woman is not a great work of art, not with a story that is ultimately rather thin, some painful dialogue, and an attitude toward its characters and their sexuality that is unclear and inconsistent. Yet Woman is still fascinating, due in no small part to the presence of Brigitte Bardot in the role that made her an international star and sex symbol. She's not demonstrating great acting here, although her performance is actually good and much better than necessary, and her legendary mambo scene at the climax is nothing short of sensational." During the shooting of Et Dieu créa la femme / And God Created Woman (Roger Vadim, 1956), directed by her husband, Brigitte Bardot had an affair with her co-star Jean-Louis Trintignant, who at that time was married to French actress Stéphane Audran. Her divorce from Vadim followed, but they remained friends and collaborated in later work.

 

Et Dieu créa la femme / ...And God Created Woman (Roger Vadim, 1956) helped Brigitte Bardot's international status. The film took the USA by storm, her explosive sexuality being unlike anything seen in the States since the days of the 'flapper' in the 1920s. It gave rise to the phrase 'sex kitten', and fascination with her in America consisted of magazine photographs and dubbed over French films - good, bad or indifferent, her films drew audiences - mainly men - into theatres like lemmings. BB appeared in light comedies like Doctor at Large (Ralph Thomas, 1957) - the third of the British 'Doctor' series starring Dirk Bogarde - and Une Parisienne / La Parisienne (Michel Boisrond, 1957), which suited her acting skills best. However, she was a sensation in the crime drama En cas de malheur / Love is My Profession (Claude Autant-Lara, 1958). Hal Erickson at AllMovie: "This Brigitte Bardot vehicle ran into stiff opposition from the Catholic Legion of Decency, severely limiting its U.S. distribution. Bardot plays a nubile small-time thief named Yvette, who becomes the mistress of influential defence attorney Andre (Jean Gabin). Though Andre can shower Yvette with jewels and furs, he cannot "buy" her heart, and thus it is that it belongs to handsome young student Mazzetti (Franco Interlenghi). Alas, Yvette is no judge of human nature: attractive though Mazzetti can be, he has a dangerous and deadly side. En Cas de Malheur contains a nude scene that has since been reprinted in freeze-frame form innumerable times by both film-history books and girlie magazines." Photographer Sam Lévin's photos contributed considerably to her image of sensuality and slight immorality. One of Lévin's pictures shows Brigitte, dressed in a white corset. It is said that around 1960, postcards with this photograph outsold in Paris those of the Eiffel Tower.

 

Brigitte Bardot divorced Vadim in 1957, and in 1959 she married actor Jacques Charrier, with whom she starred in Babette s'en va-t-en guerre / Babette Goes to War (Christian-Jaque, 1959). The paparazzi preyed upon her marriage, while she and her husband clashed over the direction of her career

Her films became more substantial, but this brought a heavy pressure of dual celebrity as she sought critical acclaim while remaining a glamour model for most of the world. Vie privée / Private Life (1962), directed by Louis Malle, has more than an element of autobiography in it. James Travers at French Films: "Brigitte Bardot hadn’t quite reached the high point of her career when she agreed to make this film with high-profile New Wave film director Louis Malle. Even so, the pressure of being a living icon was obviously beginning to get to France’s sex goddess, and Vie privée is as much an attempt by Bardot to come to terms with her celebrity as anything else. Malle is clearly fascinated by Bardot, and the documentary approach he adopts for this film reinforces the impression that it is more a biography of the actress than a work of fiction. Of course, it’s not entirely biographical, but the story is remarkably close to Bardot’s own life and comes pretty close to predicting how her career would end." The scene in which, returning to her apartment, Bardot's character is harangued in the elevator by a middle-aged cleaning lady calling her offensive names was based on an actual incident, and is a resonant image of celebrity in the mid-20th century. Soon afterwards, Bardot withdrew to the seclusion of Southern France.

 

Brigitte Bardot's other husbands were German millionaire Playboy Gunter Sachs and right-wing politician Bernard d'Ormale. She is reputed to have had relationships with many other men, including Samy Frey, her co-star in La Vérité / The Truth (Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1960), and musicians Serge Gainsbourg and Sacha Distel. In 1963, Brigitte Bardot starred in Jean-Luc Godard's critically acclaimed film Le Mépris / Contempt (Jean-Luc Godard, 1963) opposite Michel Piccoli. She was also featured along with such notable actors as Alain Delon in Amours célèbres / Famous Love Affairs (Michel Boisrond, 1961) and Histoires extraordinaires /Tales of Mystery (Louis Malle, 1968), Jeanne Moreau in Viva Maria! (Louis Malle, 1965), Sean Connery in Shalako (Edward Dmytryk, 1968), and Claudia Cardinale in Les Pétroleuses / Petroleum Girls (Christian-Jaque, 1971). She participated in various musical shows and recorded many popular songs in the 1960s and 1970s, mostly in collaboration with Serge Gainsbourg, Bob Zagury and Sacha Distel, including 'Harley Davidson', 'Le Soleil De Ma Vie' (the cover of Stevie Wonder's 'You Are the Sunshine of My Life') and the notorious 'Je t'aime... moi non plus'.

 

Brigitte Bardot’s film career showed a steady decline in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In 1973, just before her fortieth birthday, she announced her retirement. She chose to use her fame to promote animal rights. In 1976, she established the Brigitte Bardot Foundation for the Welfare and Protection of Animals. She became a vegetarian and raised three million French francs to fund the foundation by auctioning off jewellery and many personal belongings. For this work, she was awarded the Légion d’honneur in 1984. During the 1990s, she was also outspoken in her criticism of immigration, interracial relationships, Islam in France and homosexuality. Her husband Bernard d'Ormal was a former adviser of the far-right Front National party. Bardot has been convicted five times for 'inciting racial hatred'. More fun is that Bardot is recognised for popularising bikini swimwear, in such early films as Manina / Woman without a Veil (Willy Rozier, 1952), in her appearances at Cannes and in many photo shoots. Bardot also brought into fashion the 'choucroute' ('Sauerkraut') hairstyle (a sort of beehive hairstyle) and gingham clothes after wearing a checkered pink dress, designed by Jacques Esterel, at her wedding to Charrier. The fashions of the 1960s looked effortlessly right and spontaneous on her. Time Magazine: "She is the princess of pout, the countess of come hither. Brigitte Bardot exuded a carefree, naïve sexuality that brought a whole new audience to French films."

 

Sources: Denny Jackson (IMDb), Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Craig Butler (AllMovie), James Travers (French Films), French Films, Wikipedia and IMDb.

 

And please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

Dutch postcard, no. AX 4004. Photo: N.V. City Film, Den Haag. Brigitte Bardot in Une Parisienne / The Parisian (Michel Boisrond, 1957).

 

French actress Brigitte Bardot (1934) died on 28 December 2025, at the age of 91. In the 1950s, she was the sex kitten of the European film industry. BB starred in 48 films, performed in numerous musical shows, and recorded 80 songs. After her retirement in 1973, she became an animal rights activist. In the coming weeks, we will continue to post a BB postcard every day to remember her as she once was.

 

Brigitte Bardot was born in Paris in 1934. Her father, Louis Bardot, had an engineering degree and worked with his father in the family business. Her mother, Ann-Marie Mucel, was 14 years younger than Brigitte's father, and they married in 1933. Brigitte's mother encouraged her daughter to take up music and dance. At the age of 13, she entered the Conservatoire Nationale de Danse to study ballet. By the time she was 15, Brigitte was trying to launch a modelling career and found herself on the cover of the French magazine Elle in May 1949. Her incredible beauty was readily apparent, and Brigitte was noticed by Roger Vadim, then an assistant to the film director Marc Allegrét. Vadim was infatuated with Bardot and encouraged her to start working as a film actress. BB was 18 when she debuted in the comedy Le Trou Normand / Crazy for Love (Jean Boyer, 1952). In the same year, she married Vadim. Brigitte wanted to marry him when she was 17, but her parents quashed any marriage plans until she turned 18. In April 1953, she attended the Cannes Film Festival, where she received massive media attention. She soon was every man's idea of the girl he'd like to meet in Paris. From 1952 to 1956, she appeared in seventeen films. Her films were generally lightweight romantic dramas in which she was cast as an ingénue or siren, often with an element of undress. In 1953, she made her first US production, Un acte d'amour / Act of Love (Anatole Litvak, 1953) with Kirk Douglas, but she continued to make films in France.

 

Roger Vadim was not content with the light fare his wife was offered. He felt Brigitte Bardot was being undersold. Looking for something more like an art film to push her as a serious actress, he showcased her in Et Dieu créa la femme / ...And God Created Woman (Roger Vadim, 1956). This film, about an immoral teenager in a respectable small-town setting, was a smash success on both sides of the Atlantic. Craig Butler at AllMovie: "It's easy enough to say that ...And God Created Woman is much more important for its historical significance than for its actual quality as a film, and that's true to an extent. The immense popularity, due to its willingness to directly embrace an exploration of sex as well as its willingness to show a degree of nudity that was remarkably daring for its day, demonstrated that audiences were willing to view subject matter that was considered too racy for the average moviegoer. This had both positive (freedom to explore, especially for the French filmmakers of the time) and negative (freedom to exploit) consequences, but its impact is undeniable. It's also true that Woman is not a great work of art, not with a story that is ultimately rather thin, some painful dialogue, and an attitude toward its characters and their sexuality that is unclear and inconsistent. Yet Woman is still fascinating, due in no small part to the presence of Brigitte Bardot in the role that made her an international star and sex symbol. She's not demonstrating great acting here, although her performance is actually good and much better than necessary, and her legendary mambo scene at the climax is nothing short of sensational." During the filming of Et Dieu créa la femme / And God Created Woman (Roger Vadim, 1956), directed by her husband, Brigitte Bardot had an affair with her co-star, Jean-Louis Trintignant, who at the time was married to French actress Stéphane Audran. Her divorce from Vadim followed, but they remained friends and collaborated in later work.

 

Et Dieu créa la femme / ...And God Created Woman (Roger Vadim, 1956) helped Brigitte Bardot's international status. The film took the USA by storm, her explosive sexuality being unlike anything seen in the States since the days of the 'flapper' in the 1920s. It gave rise to the phrase 'sex kitten', and fascination with her in America consisted of magazine photographs and dubbed over French films - good, bad or indifferent, her films drew audiences - mainly men - into theatres like lemmings. BB appeared in light comedies like Doctor at Large (Ralph Thomas, 1957) - the third of the British 'Doctor' series starring Dirk Bogarde - and Une Parisienne / La Parisienne (Michel Boisrond, 1957), which suited her acting skills best. However, she was a sensation in the crime drama En cas de malheur / Love is My Profession (Claude Autant-Lara, 1958). Hal Erickson at AllMovie: "This Brigitte Bardot vehicle ran into stiff opposition from the Catholic Legion of Decency, severely limiting its U.S. distribution. Bardot plays a nubile small-time thief named Yvette, who becomes the mistress of influential defence attorney Andre (Jean Gabin). Though Andre can shower Yvette with jewels and furs, he cannot "buy" her heart, and thus it is that it belongs to handsome young student Mazzetti (Franco Interlenghi). Alas, Yvette is no judge of human nature: attractive though Mazzetti can be, he has a dangerous and deadly side. En Cas de Malheur contains a nude scene that has since been reprinted in freeze-frame form innumerable times by both film-history books and girlie magazines." Photographer Sam Lévin's photos contributed considerably to her image of sensuality and slight immorality. One of Lévin's pictures shows Brigitte, dressed in a white corset. It is said that around 1960, postcards with this photograph outsold in Paris those of the Eiffel Tower.

 

Brigitte Bardot divorced Vadim in 1957, and in 1959 she married actor Jacques Charrier, with whom she starred in Babette s'en va-t-en guerre / Babette Goes to War (Christian-Jaque, 1959). The paparazzi preyed upon her marriage, while she and her husband clashed over the direction of her career

Her films became more substantial, but this brought a heavy pressure of dual celebrity as she sought critical acclaim while remaining a glamour model for most of the world. Vie privée / Private Life (1962), directed by Louis Malle, has more than an element of autobiography in it. James Travers at French Films: "Brigitte Bardot hadn’t quite reached the high point of her career when she agreed to make this film with high-profile New Wave film director Louis Malle. Even so, the pressure of being a living icon was obviously beginning to get to France’s sex goddess, and Vie privée is as much an attempt by Bardot to come to terms with her celebrity as anything else. Malle is clearly fascinated by Bardot, and the documentary approach he adopts for this film reinforces the impression that it is more a biography of the actress than a work of fiction. Of course, it’s not entirely biographical, but the story is remarkably close to Bardot’s own life and comes pretty close to predicting how her career would end." The scene in which, returning to her apartment, Bardot's character is harangued in the elevator by a middle-aged cleaning lady calling her offensive names was based on an actual incident, and is a resonant image of celebrity in the mid-20th century. Soon afterwards, Bardot withdrew to the seclusion of Southern France.

 

Brigitte Bardot's other husbands were German millionaire Playboy Gunter Sachs and right-wing politician Bernard d'Ormale. She is reputed to have had relationships with many other men, including Samy Frey, her co-star in La Vérité / The Truth (Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1960), and musicians Serge Gainsbourg and Sacha Distel. In 1963, Brigitte Bardot starred in Jean-Luc Godard's critically acclaimed film Le Mépris / Contempt (Jean-Luc Godard, 1963) opposite Michel Piccoli. She was also featured along with such notable actors as Alain Delon in Amours célèbres / Famous Love Affairs (Michel Boisrond, 1961) and Histoires extraordinaires /Tales of Mystery (Louis Malle, 1968), Jeanne Moreau in Viva Maria! (Louis Malle, 1965), Sean Connery in Shalako (Edward Dmytryk, 1968), and Claudia Cardinale in Les Pétroleuses / Petroleum Girls (Christian-Jaque, 1971). She participated in various musical shows and recorded many popular songs in the 1960s and 1970s, mostly in collaboration with Serge Gainsbourg, Bob Zagury and Sacha Distel, including 'Harley Davidson', 'Le Soleil De Ma Vie' (the cover of Stevie Wonder's 'You Are the Sunshine of My Life') and the notorious 'Je t'aime... moi non plus'.

 

Brigitte Bardot’s film career showed a steady decline in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In 1973, just before her fortieth birthday, she announced her retirement. She chose to use her fame to promote animal rights. In 1976, she established the Brigitte Bardot Foundation for the Welfare and Protection of Animals. She became a vegetarian and raised three million French francs to fund the foundation by auctioning off jewellery and many personal belongings. For this work, she was awarded the Légion d’honneur in 1984. During the 1990s, she was also outspoken in her criticism of immigration, interracial relationships, Islam in France and homosexuality. Her husband Bernard d'Ormal was a former adviser of the far-right Front National party. Bardot has been convicted five times for 'inciting racial hatred'. More fun is that Bardot is recognised for popularising bikini swimwear, in such early films as Manina / Woman without a Veil (Willy Rozier, 1952), in her appearances at Cannes and in many photo shoots. Bardot also brought into fashion the 'choucroute' ('Sauerkraut') hairstyle (a sort of beehive hairstyle) and gingham clothes after wearing a checkered pink dress, designed by Jacques Esterel, at her wedding to Charrier. The fashions of the 1960s looked effortlessly right and spontaneous on her. Time Magazine: "She is the princess of pout, the countess of come hither. Brigitte Bardot exuded a carefree, naïve sexuality that brought a whole new audience to French films."

 

Sources: Denny Jackson (IMDb), Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Craig Butler (AllMovie), James Travers (French Films), French Films, Wikipedia and IMDb.

 

And please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

Anne became Queen of England, Scotland and Ireland on 8 March 1702. On 1 May 1707, under the Acts of Union, two of her realms, the kingdoms of England and Scotland, united as a single sovereign state known as Great Britain.

 

Born: 6 February 1665, St James's Palace, St James's

Died: 1 August 1714, Kensington Palace, London

Coronation: 23 April 1702

Spouse: Prince George of Denmark (m. 1683–1708)

House: House of Stuart

Children: Prince William, Duke of Gloucester, Anne Sophia, Mary, George

 

Around 1671, Anne first made the acquaintance of Sarah Jennings, who later became her close friend and one of her most influential advisers. Jennings married John Churchill (the future Duke of Marlborough) in about 1678. His sister, Arabella Churchill, was the Duke of York's mistress, and he was to be Anne's most important general.

 

Anne and George of Denmark were married on 28 July 1683 in the Chapel Royal and Sarah Churchill was appointed one of Anne's ladies of the bedchamber.

 

In what became known as the "Glorious Revolution", William of Orange invaded England on 5 November 1688 in an action that ultimately deposed King James. Forbidden by James to pay Mary a projected visit in the spring of 1687, Anne corresponded with her and was aware of the plans to invade. On the advice of the Churchills, she refused to side with James after William landed and instead wrote to William on 18 November declaring her approval of his action. Churchill abandoned the unpopular king on the 24th. Prince George followed suit that night, and in the evening of the following day James issued orders to place Sarah Churchill under house arrest at St James's Palace. Anne and Sarah fled from Whitehall by a back staircase, putting themselves under the care of Bishop Compton. They spent one night in his house, and subsequently arrived at Nottingham on 1 December. Two weeks later and escorted by a large company, Anne arrived at Oxford, where she met Prince George in triumph.

 

In January 1689, a Convention Parliament assembled in England and declared that James had effectively abdicated when he fled, and that the thrones of England and Ireland were therefore vacant. The Parliament or Estates of Scotland took similar action, and William and Mary were declared monarchs of all three realms. The Bill of Rights 1689 and Claim of Right Act 1689 settled the succession. Anne and her descendants were to be in the line of succession after William and Mary, and they were to be followed by any descendants of William by a future marriage. On 24 July 1689, Anne gave birth to a son, Prince William, Duke of Gloucester, who, though ill, survived infancy. As King William and Queen Mary had no children, it looked as though Anne's son would eventually inherit the Crown.

 

Soon after their accession, William and Mary rewarded John Churchill by granting him the Earldom of Marlborough. Resentment soon grew between the sisters, Mary and Anne, over Anne's wish to become financially independent. From around this time, at Anne's request she and Sarah Churchill, Lady Marlborough, began to call each other the pet names Mrs. Morley and Mrs. Freeman respectively, to facilitate a relationship of greater equality between the two when they were alone. In January 1692, suspecting that Marlborough was secretly conspiring with James's followers, the Jacobites, William and Mary dismissed him from all his offices. In a public show of support for the Marlboroughs, Anne took Sarah to a social event at the palace, and refused her sister's request to dismiss Sarah from her household. Lady Marlborough was subsequently removed from the royal household by the Lord Chamberlain, and Anne angrily left her royal lodgings and took up residence at Syon House, the home of the Duke of Somerset.[69] Anne was stripped of her guard of honour; courtiers were forbidden to visit her, and civic authorities were instructed to ignore her. In April, Anne gave birth to a son who died within minutes. Mary visited her, but instead of offering comfort took the opportunity to berate Anne once again for her friendship with Sarah. The sisters never saw each other again.

 

When Mary died of smallpox in 1694, William continued to reign alone. Anne became his heir apparent and the two reconciled publicly. He restored her previous honours, allowed her to reside in St James's Palace, and gave her Mary's jewels but excluded her from government and refrained from appointing her regent during his absences abroad. Three months later, William restored Marlborough to his offices.

 

Soon after her accession, Anne appointed her husband Lord High Admiral, giving him nominal control of the Royal Navy. Anne gave control of the army to Lord Marlborough, whom she appointed Captain-General. Marlborough also received numerous honours from the Queen; he was created a Knight of the Garter and was elevated to the rank of duke. The Duchess of Marlborough was appointed Groom of the Stole, Mistress of the Robes, and Keeper of the Privy Purse.

 

The Whigs vigorously supported the War of the Spanish Succession and became even more influential after the Duke of Marlborough won a great victory at the Battle of Blenheim in 1704. Many of the High Tories, who opposed British involvement in the land war against France, were removed from office. Godolphin, Marlborough, and Harley, who had replaced Nottingham as Secretary of State for the Northern Department, formed a ruling "triumvirate". They were forced to rely more and more on support from the Whigs, and particularly from the Whig Junto—Lords Somers, Halifax, Orford, Wharton and Sunderland—whom Anne disliked. Sarah, the Duchess of Marlborough, incessantly badgered the Queen to appoint more Whigs and reduce the power of the Tories, whom she considered little better than Jacobites, and the Queen became increasingly discontented with her. In 1706, Godolphin and the Marlboroughs forced Anne to accept Lord Sunderland, a Junto Whig and the Marlboroughs' son-in-law, as Harley's colleague as Secretary of State for the Southern Department. Although this strengthened the ministry's position in Parliament, it weakened the ministry's position with the Queen, as Anne became increasingly irritated with Godolphin and with her former favourite, the Duchess of Marlborough, for supporting Sunderland and other Whig candidates for vacant government and church positions. The Queen turned for private advice to Harley, who was uncomfortable with Marlborough and Godolphin's turn towards the Whigs. She also turned to Abigail Hill, a woman of the bedchamber whose influence grew as Anne's relationship with Sarah deteriorated. Abigail was related to both Harley and the Duchess, but was politically closer to Harley, and acted as an intermediary between him and the Queen.

 

The division within the ministry came to a head on 8 February 1708, when Godolphin and the Marlboroughs insisted that the Queen had to either dismiss Harley or do without their services. When the Queen seemed to hesitate, Marlborough and Godolphin refused to attend a cabinet meeting. Harley attempted to lead business without his former colleagues, and several of those present including the Duke of Somerset refused to participate until they returned. Her hand forced, the Queen dismissed Harley.

 

The following month, Anne's Catholic half-brother, James Francis Edward Stuart, attempted to land in Scotland with French assistance in an attempt to establish himself as king. Anne withheld royal assent from the Scottish Militia Bill 1708 in case the militia raised in Scotland was disloyal and sided with the Jacobites. She was the last British sovereign to veto a parliamentary bill, although her action was barely commented upon at the time. The invasion fleet never landed and was chased away by British ships.

 

The Duchess of Marlborough was angered when Abigail moved into rooms at Kensington Palace that Sarah considered her own, though she rarely if ever used them. In July 1708, she came to court with a bawdy poem written by a Whig propagandist. that implied a lesbian relationship between Anne and Abigail. The Duchess wrote to Anne telling her she had damaged her reputation by taking up such a friend. Whilst some modern commentators have concluded Anne was a lesbian, most have rejected this analysis. In the opinion of Anne's biographers, she considered Abigail nothing more than a trusted servant, and was a woman of strong traditional beliefs, who was devoted to her husband.

 

At a thanksgiving service for a victory at the Battle of Oudenarde, Anne did not wear the jewels that Sarah had selected for her. At the door of St Paul's Cathedral, they had an argument that culminated in Sarah offending the Queen by telling her to be quiet. Anne was dismayed. When Sarah forwarded an unrelated letter from her husband to Anne, with a covering note continuing the argument, Anne wrote back pointedly, "After the commands you gave me on the thanksgiving day of not answering you, I should not have troubled you with these lines, but to return the Duke of Marlborough's letter safe into your hands, and for the same reason do not say anything to that, nor to yours which enclosed it."

 

Anne was devastated by her husband's death in October 1708 and the event proved a turning point in her relationship with the Duchess of Marlborough. The Duchess arrived at Kensington Palace shortly before George died, and after his death insisted that Anne leave Kensington for St James's Palace against her wishes. Anne resented the Duchess's intrusive actions, which included removing a portrait of George from the Queen's bedchamber and then refusing to return it. With Whigs now dominant in Parliament, and Anne distraught at the loss of her husband, they forced her to accept the Junto leaders Lords Somers and Wharton into the cabinet. Sarah continued to berate Anne for her friendship with Abigail, and in October 1709, Anne wrote to the Duke of Marlborough asking that his wife "leave off teasing & tormenting me & behave herself with the decency she ought both to her friend and Queen".[162] On Maundy Thursday 6 April 1710, Anne and Sarah saw each other for the last time. According to Sarah, the Queen was taciturn and formal, repeating the same phrases—"Whatever you have to say you may put in writing" and "You said you desired no answer, and I shall give you none"—over and over.

 

As the expensive War of the Spanish Succession grew unpopular, so did the Whig administration. The Duke of Marlborough was for the time being allowed to remain in charge of the army but in January 1711, Anne forced Sarah to resign her court offices, and Abigail took over as Keeper of the Privy Purse. Having lost her most trusted advisers, Anne created 12 new peers, Abigail's husband included and dismissed the Marlboroughs on the same day. The peace treaty was ratified and Britain's military involvement in the War of the Spanish Succession ended.

 

Anne was buried beside her husband and children in the Henry VII chapel on the South Aisle of Westminster Abbey on 24 August. Author David Green noted, "Hers was not, as used to be supposed, petticoat government. She had considerable power; yet time and time again she had to capitulate." Professor Edward Gregg concluded that Anne was often able to impose her will, even though, as a woman in an age of male dominance and preoccupied by her health, her reign was marked by an increase in the influence of ministers and a decrease in the influence of the Crown.[203] She attended more cabinet meetings than any of her predecessors or successors,[204] and presided over an age of artistic, literary, economic and political advancement that was made possible by the stability and prosperity of her reign.

 

Abridged (believe it or not) from en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne,_Queen_of_Great_Britain

   

Session Americana and Peter Wolf playing at the Lizard Lounge in Cambridge, MA.

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Wolf

www.peterwolf.com/

www.facebook.com/PeterWolfMusic?v=wall

Life and career

 

Wolf was born in the Bronx, New York. He planned a career as an artist, but he got a job in the late 1960s as a disc jockey on then-cutting edge Boston FM radio station WBCN and began exploring his interest in blues and rhythm and blues music, giving himself the nickname "the Wolfa Goofa", sometimes expanded to "the Wolfa Goofa with the Green Teeth" (as mentioned in the intro to "Must of Got Lost" on the Blow Your Face Out album). Later as solo artist he called himself Woofa Goofa Mama Toofa. He formed a group called the Hallucinations who performed with The Velvet Underground, Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, Van Morrison, John Lee Hooker, and Sun Ra. He then saw the J. Geils Blues Band in concert and quickly joined. He was the vocalist and frontman, and often acted as a sort of manager. Wolf was known for his charismatic stage antics of fast-talking quips and "pole-vaulting" with the microphone stand. He and keyboard player Seth Justman were responsible for most of the songwriting. Creative differences followed their Freeze-Frame album, causing the J. Geils Band and Peter Wolf to part ways in 1983.

 

Peter Wolf with the J. Geils Band in Candlestick Park, San Francisco, California Photo: Catharine Anderson

Wolf became a solo artist for the next 15 years, but in 1999 the J. Geils Band reunited for several appearances, with Wolf resuming his duties as lead vocalist. They separated again, and Wolf began touring once more, as a solo act.

Wolf's first solo record, Lights Out (1984) was produced by Michael Jonzun of the Jonzun Crew, features Adrian Belew, and has a somewhat funky, electro sound. The eponymous single became a hit single the same year, peaking at #12 on the Billboard Hot 100. He recorded many duets with the likes of Aretha Franklin, Little Milton, John Lee Hooker, Don Covay, and Wilson Pickett to name just a few.

Long Line was co-produced with two musician friends, Johnny A. and a Bob Dylan backup band member, Stu Kimball. Tim Archibald (Bass) and Brian Maes (keys and backing vocals) who are both members of "Ernie And The Automatics", played on the record and Toured in support of "Long Line." His next two solo albums, Fool's Parade and Sleepless (the latter featuring guest appearances from Mick Jagger and Keith Richards), were both highly praised by Jann Wenner in Rolling Stone, receiving four-and-a-half and five stars, respectively. Sleepless (2002) was noted as one of the 500 greatest albums of all time in Rolling Stone issue 937. He has performed on stage with such diverse people as Bruce Springsteen and Phil Lesh.

Wolf toured in 2008 with Kid Rock and Rev. Run on The Rock N Roll Revival Tour. He performed "Love Stinks" solo with Kid Rock's band. Then he joined Kid Rock for "Ain't Too Proud to Beg", "Musta Got Lost", "Centerfold" (from the J. Geils album Freeze Frame) and "For What It's Worth".

The J. Geils Band re-united for a series of shows in 2009, including opening night at the Boston House of Blues.

Wolf's 2010 album Midnight Souvenirs won Album of the Year at the Boston Music Awards.[2][3]

 

www.facebook.com/pages/Session-Americana/53199003969

 

www.sessionamericana.com

www.myspace.com/sessionamericana

www.hi-n-dry.com/session_americana

www.exploitboston.com/music-musings/grab-new-music-from-s...

Session Americana - www.sessionamericana.com

 

This ad hoc acoustic supergroup started around a table at a small pub in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where Ry Cavanaugh, Billy Conway, Sean Staples, Dinty Child, Jim Fitting and other friends gathered to swap songs and stories. Their lively performances and inspired versions of tunes from the dusty backroads of America's past were such a hit with fans that they decided to take their musical conversation into the studio. The two-CD debut Tabletop People ups the ante with stellar appearances by folksinger Rose Polenzani, Twinemen's Laurie Sargent, Dennis Brennan, Asa Brebner, Merrie Amsterburg, Dan Kellar, Presidents of the United States' Chris Ballew, Jabe Beyer, Tim Gearon and other luminaries. And the 18 gritty, funny, soulful performances included span a gamut of emotions and tastes that should please both adult and younger listeners.

 

"Genius ... Jaw-dropping vocals ... Session Americana is blessed in this regard:...musicianship that sets the standard for the genre in Boston

and vocals that do the same"

— Performer Magazine

 

Session Americana sit tightly around a small cafe table, ambient mics tuned to catch the whole sound of the voices and instruments. A suit-case drum kit, an old electric bass, a bunch of acoustic instruments, a field organ: This format feels very theatrical and though the musicians face each other, the audience feels drawn into the circle by the warmth, joy and camaraderie that emanate outwards by the all star cast of characters seated around the table. What keeps you coming back show after show is the same thing that any audience member longs for, great songs performed by a great band. The six core members of the band have brought enviable careers worth of experience to the “table”, featuring (current and former) members of Treat Her Right, Patty Griffin, Lori McKenna, The The, Dennis Brennan, Kris Delmhorst. The group has grown from a rag tag jam at a local pub to a regional institution, playing gigs from church coee houses to urban nightclubs to regional festival tents to large halls.

 

Band: Ry Cavanaugh, Billy Beard, Dinty Child, Jim Fitting, Sean Staples and Jon Bistline.

 

*Winner “2005 Best Folk Act” - The Boston Music Awards

*Winner “Best Roots Act 2006” - Improper Bostonian “Best of Boston” Issue

*Winner “Best CD” 2007 - Improper Bostonian

*Nominated “Best Roots Act” 2007 - WFNX/Boston Phoenix Best Music Poll

*Nominated Best Live Act 2007 - The Boston Music Awards

*Nominated Best Americana Act 2008 - The Boston Music Awards

 

“Genius ... Jaw-dropping vocals ... Session Americana is blessed in this regard: ...musicianship that sets the standard for the genre in Boston and vocals that do the same”

— NE Performer Magazine

 

“No egos, no big production, just some great songs stripped down to their bare essentials and performed with a real genuineness of spirit and emotional authenticity... it’s beautiful.” (Brian Mosher)

— The Noise

 

“An eclectic, swinging tour de force” — The Boston Globe

 

“[This] local country-folk megagroup’s double CD is one of the most loose, spontaneous, warm, and homespun acts of community and decency since the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s Will the Circle Be Unbroken.”

 

— The Boston Phoenix

“the cream of the Somerville/Cambridge community" - No Depression (read less)

 

Session Americana and Peter Wolf playing at the Lizard Lounge in Cambridge, MA.

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Wolf

www.peterwolf.com/

www.facebook.com/PeterWolfMusic?v=wall

Life and career

 

Wolf was born in the Bronx, New York. He planned a career as an artist, but he got a job in the late 1960s as a disc jockey on then-cutting edge Boston FM radio station WBCN and began exploring his interest in blues and rhythm and blues music, giving himself the nickname "the Wolfa Goofa", sometimes expanded to "the Wolfa Goofa with the Green Teeth" (as mentioned in the intro to "Must of Got Lost" on the Blow Your Face Out album). Later as solo artist he called himself Woofa Goofa Mama Toofa. He formed a group called the Hallucinations who performed with The Velvet Underground, Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, Van Morrison, John Lee Hooker, and Sun Ra. He then saw the J. Geils Blues Band in concert and quickly joined. He was the vocalist and frontman, and often acted as a sort of manager. Wolf was known for his charismatic stage antics of fast-talking quips and "pole-vaulting" with the microphone stand. He and keyboard player Seth Justman were responsible for most of the songwriting. Creative differences followed their Freeze-Frame album, causing the J. Geils Band and Peter Wolf to part ways in 1983.

 

Peter Wolf with the J. Geils Band in Candlestick Park, San Francisco, California Photo: Catharine Anderson

Wolf became a solo artist for the next 15 years, but in 1999 the J. Geils Band reunited for several appearances, with Wolf resuming his duties as lead vocalist. They separated again, and Wolf began touring once more, as a solo act.

Wolf's first solo record, Lights Out (1984) was produced by Michael Jonzun of the Jonzun Crew, features Adrian Belew, and has a somewhat funky, electro sound. The eponymous single became a hit single the same year, peaking at #12 on the Billboard Hot 100. He recorded many duets with the likes of Aretha Franklin, Little Milton, John Lee Hooker, Don Covay, and Wilson Pickett to name just a few.

Long Line was co-produced with two musician friends, Johnny A. and a Bob Dylan backup band member, Stu Kimball. Tim Archibald (Bass) and Brian Maes (keys and backing vocals) who are both members of "Ernie And The Automatics", played on the record and Toured in support of "Long Line." His next two solo albums, Fool's Parade and Sleepless (the latter featuring guest appearances from Mick Jagger and Keith Richards), were both highly praised by Jann Wenner in Rolling Stone, receiving four-and-a-half and five stars, respectively. Sleepless (2002) was noted as one of the 500 greatest albums of all time in Rolling Stone issue 937. He has performed on stage with such diverse people as Bruce Springsteen and Phil Lesh.

Wolf toured in 2008 with Kid Rock and Rev. Run on The Rock N Roll Revival Tour. He performed "Love Stinks" solo with Kid Rock's band. Then he joined Kid Rock for "Ain't Too Proud to Beg", "Musta Got Lost", "Centerfold" (from the J. Geils album Freeze Frame) and "For What It's Worth".

The J. Geils Band re-united for a series of shows in 2009, including opening night at the Boston House of Blues.

Wolf's 2010 album Midnight Souvenirs won Album of the Year at the Boston Music Awards.[2][3]

 

www.facebook.com/pages/Session-Americana/53199003969

 

www.sessionamericana.com

www.myspace.com/sessionamericana

www.hi-n-dry.com/session_americana

www.exploitboston.com/music-musings/grab-new-music-from-s...

Session Americana - www.sessionamericana.com

 

This ad hoc acoustic supergroup started around a table at a small pub in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where Ry Cavanaugh, Billy Conway, Sean Staples, Dinty Child, Jim Fitting and other friends gathered to swap songs and stories. Their lively performances and inspired versions of tunes from the dusty backroads of America's past were such a hit with fans that they decided to take their musical conversation into the studio. The two-CD debut Tabletop People ups the ante with stellar appearances by folksinger Rose Polenzani, Twinemen's Laurie Sargent, Dennis Brennan, Asa Brebner, Merrie Amsterburg, Dan Kellar, Presidents of the United States' Chris Ballew, Jabe Beyer, Tim Gearon and other luminaries. And the 18 gritty, funny, soulful performances included span a gamut of emotions and tastes that should please both adult and younger listeners.

 

"Genius ... Jaw-dropping vocals ... Session Americana is blessed in this regard:...musicianship that sets the standard for the genre in Boston

and vocals that do the same"

— Performer Magazine

 

Session Americana sit tightly around a small cafe table, ambient mics tuned to catch the whole sound of the voices and instruments. A suit-case drum kit, an old electric bass, a bunch of acoustic instruments, a field organ: This format feels very theatrical and though the musicians face each other, the audience feels drawn into the circle by the warmth, joy and camaraderie that emanate outwards by the all star cast of characters seated around the table. What keeps you coming back show after show is the same thing that any audience member longs for, great songs performed by a great band. The six core members of the band have brought enviable careers worth of experience to the “table”, featuring (current and former) members of Treat Her Right, Patty Griffin, Lori McKenna, The The, Dennis Brennan, Kris Delmhorst. The group has grown from a rag tag jam at a local pub to a regional institution, playing gigs from church coee houses to urban nightclubs to regional festival tents to large halls.

 

Band: Ry Cavanaugh, Billy Beard, Dinty Child, Jim Fitting, Sean Staples and Jon Bistline.

 

*Winner “2005 Best Folk Act” - The Boston Music Awards

*Winner “Best Roots Act 2006” - Improper Bostonian “Best of Boston” Issue

*Winner “Best CD” 2007 - Improper Bostonian

*Nominated “Best Roots Act” 2007 - WFNX/Boston Phoenix Best Music Poll

*Nominated Best Live Act 2007 - The Boston Music Awards

*Nominated Best Americana Act 2008 - The Boston Music Awards

 

“Genius ... Jaw-dropping vocals ... Session Americana is blessed in this regard: ...musicianship that sets the standard for the genre in Boston and vocals that do the same”

— NE Performer Magazine

 

“No egos, no big production, just some great songs stripped down to their bare essentials and performed with a real genuineness of spirit and emotional authenticity... it’s beautiful.” (Brian Mosher)

— The Noise

 

“An eclectic, swinging tour de force” — The Boston Globe

 

“[This] local country-folk megagroup’s double CD is one of the most loose, spontaneous, warm, and homespun acts of community and decency since the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s Will the Circle Be Unbroken.”

 

— The Boston Phoenix

“the cream of the Somerville/Cambridge community" - No Depression (read less)

 

Session Americana and Peter Wolf playing at the Lizard Lounge in Cambridge, MA.

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Wolf

www.peterwolf.com/

www.facebook.com/PeterWolfMusic?v=wall

Life and career

 

Wolf was born in the Bronx, New York. He planned a career as an artist, but he got a job in the late 1960s as a disc jockey on then-cutting edge Boston FM radio station WBCN and began exploring his interest in blues and rhythm and blues music, giving himself the nickname "the Wolfa Goofa", sometimes expanded to "the Wolfa Goofa with the Green Teeth" (as mentioned in the intro to "Must of Got Lost" on the Blow Your Face Out album). Later as solo artist he called himself Woofa Goofa Mama Toofa. He formed a group called the Hallucinations who performed with The Velvet Underground, Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, Van Morrison, John Lee Hooker, and Sun Ra. He then saw the J. Geils Blues Band in concert and quickly joined. He was the vocalist and frontman, and often acted as a sort of manager. Wolf was known for his charismatic stage antics of fast-talking quips and "pole-vaulting" with the microphone stand. He and keyboard player Seth Justman were responsible for most of the songwriting. Creative differences followed their Freeze-Frame album, causing the J. Geils Band and Peter Wolf to part ways in 1983.

 

Peter Wolf with the J. Geils Band in Candlestick Park, San Francisco, California Photo: Catharine Anderson

Wolf became a solo artist for the next 15 years, but in 1999 the J. Geils Band reunited for several appearances, with Wolf resuming his duties as lead vocalist. They separated again, and Wolf began touring once more, as a solo act.

Wolf's first solo record, Lights Out (1984) was produced by Michael Jonzun of the Jonzun Crew, features Adrian Belew, and has a somewhat funky, electro sound. The eponymous single became a hit single the same year, peaking at #12 on the Billboard Hot 100. He recorded many duets with the likes of Aretha Franklin, Little Milton, John Lee Hooker, Don Covay, and Wilson Pickett to name just a few.

Long Line was co-produced with two musician friends, Johnny A. and a Bob Dylan backup band member, Stu Kimball. Tim Archibald (Bass) and Brian Maes (keys and backing vocals) who are both members of "Ernie And The Automatics", played on the record and Toured in support of "Long Line." His next two solo albums, Fool's Parade and Sleepless (the latter featuring guest appearances from Mick Jagger and Keith Richards), were both highly praised by Jann Wenner in Rolling Stone, receiving four-and-a-half and five stars, respectively. Sleepless (2002) was noted as one of the 500 greatest albums of all time in Rolling Stone issue 937. He has performed on stage with such diverse people as Bruce Springsteen and Phil Lesh.

Wolf toured in 2008 with Kid Rock and Rev. Run on The Rock N Roll Revival Tour. He performed "Love Stinks" solo with Kid Rock's band. Then he joined Kid Rock for "Ain't Too Proud to Beg", "Musta Got Lost", "Centerfold" (from the J. Geils album Freeze Frame) and "For What It's Worth".

The J. Geils Band re-united for a series of shows in 2009, including opening night at the Boston House of Blues.

Wolf's 2010 album Midnight Souvenirs won Album of the Year at the Boston Music Awards.[2][3]

 

www.facebook.com/pages/Session-Americana/53199003969

 

www.sessionamericana.com

www.myspace.com/sessionamericana

www.hi-n-dry.com/session_americana

www.exploitboston.com/music-musings/grab-new-music-from-s...

Session Americana - www.sessionamericana.com

 

This ad hoc acoustic supergroup started around a table at a small pub in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where Ry Cavanaugh, Billy Conway, Sean Staples, Dinty Child, Jim Fitting and other friends gathered to swap songs and stories. Their lively performances and inspired versions of tunes from the dusty backroads of America's past were such a hit with fans that they decided to take their musical conversation into the studio. The two-CD debut Tabletop People ups the ante with stellar appearances by folksinger Rose Polenzani, Twinemen's Laurie Sargent, Dennis Brennan, Asa Brebner, Merrie Amsterburg, Dan Kellar, Presidents of the United States' Chris Ballew, Jabe Beyer, Tim Gearon and other luminaries. And the 18 gritty, funny, soulful performances included span a gamut of emotions and tastes that should please both adult and younger listeners.

 

"Genius ... Jaw-dropping vocals ... Session Americana is blessed in this regard:...musicianship that sets the standard for the genre in Boston

and vocals that do the same"

— Performer Magazine

 

Session Americana sit tightly around a small cafe table, ambient mics tuned to catch the whole sound of the voices and instruments. A suit-case drum kit, an old electric bass, a bunch of acoustic instruments, a field organ: This format feels very theatrical and though the musicians face each other, the audience feels drawn into the circle by the warmth, joy and camaraderie that emanate outwards by the all star cast of characters seated around the table. What keeps you coming back show after show is the same thing that any audience member longs for, great songs performed by a great band. The six core members of the band have brought enviable careers worth of experience to the “table”, featuring (current and former) members of Treat Her Right, Patty Griffin, Lori McKenna, The The, Dennis Brennan, Kris Delmhorst. The group has grown from a rag tag jam at a local pub to a regional institution, playing gigs from church coee houses to urban nightclubs to regional festival tents to large halls.

 

Band: Ry Cavanaugh, Billy Beard, Dinty Child, Jim Fitting, Sean Staples and Jon Bistline.

 

*Winner “2005 Best Folk Act” - The Boston Music Awards

*Winner “Best Roots Act 2006” - Improper Bostonian “Best of Boston” Issue

*Winner “Best CD” 2007 - Improper Bostonian

*Nominated “Best Roots Act” 2007 - WFNX/Boston Phoenix Best Music Poll

*Nominated Best Live Act 2007 - The Boston Music Awards

*Nominated Best Americana Act 2008 - The Boston Music Awards

 

“Genius ... Jaw-dropping vocals ... Session Americana is blessed in this regard: ...musicianship that sets the standard for the genre in Boston and vocals that do the same”

— NE Performer Magazine

 

“No egos, no big production, just some great songs stripped down to their bare essentials and performed with a real genuineness of spirit and emotional authenticity... it’s beautiful.” (Brian Mosher)

— The Noise

 

“An eclectic, swinging tour de force” — The Boston Globe

 

“[This] local country-folk megagroup’s double CD is one of the most loose, spontaneous, warm, and homespun acts of community and decency since the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s Will the Circle Be Unbroken.”

 

— The Boston Phoenix

“the cream of the Somerville/Cambridge community" - No Depression (read less)

 

This photo has been cropped in the interests of public decency. Most of the rest of the photos from this event have been "moderated". This means you have to be logged in to flickr and have your safe search setting set to off.

Washington DC, The Walter E. Washington Convention Center, the afternoon of March 1, 2015. Around one hundred social justice activists affiliated with Code Pink, Jewish Voice For Justice, AVAAZ, US Campaign To End The Israeli Occupation, Boycott From Within, Answer Coaltion and other peace and faith groups demonstrate in front of the Convention Center to protest the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) yearly DC meeting. AIPAC is regarded by many as the most powerful lobbying group in town. AIPAC has a policy agenda that's out of step with the values of most Jewish Americans and other participants in civilized society but they call the tune because our corrupt political culture is fueled by money, not decency. In an act of peaceful civil disobedience, five demonstrators, all women, were arrested for failing to obey police orders to remove themselves from the granite in front of one of the Convention Center's many doorways. They were given three warnings before being arrested. I photographed one of women as she was being lead away in plastic handcuffs. "I'm a Jewish mother!" she proclaimed. I gave her the 'thumbs up'. It was great to see Jews, Muslims, Christians and others joining together to promote peace. Maybe the people themselves will do what governments apparently no longer can? Am I just dreaming?

Most of the DC cops kept their cool but when some of the demonstrators got in their face a brief scuffle ensued. Some of us locked arms and and helped lift up one of the Code Pink ladies who was almost knocked down onto the steps by a DC officer who lost it.

  

Literary sources of the tooth filing ceremony is lontar Kala Pati, Kala tattwa, Semaradhana, and the Hyang Yama. Lontar Kala Pati mentioned that cutting teeth as a sign of changing one’s status to be a real man that is righteous and holy man, so later in life when die from the spirit world can meet with the ancestors in heaven Loka. Lontar Kala Kala Bathara tattwa mention that as the son of Lord Shiva with Goddess Uma could not meet his father in heaven before the fangs cut.Therefore, man should obey trail Bathara time that the spirit may be met with the ancestral spirits in heaven. In lontar Semaradhana Bethara Gana noted that as the son of Lord Shiva can defeat the other giants who attacked Nilarudraka paradise with a piece of fangs.

 

Besides mentioning that Bethara Gana was born of the Goddess Uma after Lord Shiva was woken by the god of asceticism semadhinya Semara (Asmara), but then punishing god Shiva Semara with his wife, Lady Ruth, by burning it to ashes, and then spread the ashes into the world and condemned man that can not live without in pairs (male-female) in a husband and wife. In ejection Sang Hyang yama mentioned that the tooth filing ceremony be performed when it is an adult, marked by menstruation for women and for men grow sound. Usually this occurs at a time when the age of 14 years.

 

The purpose Ceremony Cut Teeth

 

Purpose of the tooth filing ceremony can be listened to more than Kala palm starch, which is said that the teeth are buffed or trim of the serration is six pieces: two canines and four incisors above. Cutting six teeth that represents the symbol of the sad Ripu control (six enemies in man). Sad Ripu includes Kama (lust), Loba (greedy), Krodha (anger), Mada (drunk), Moha (confusion), and Matsarya (envy). Sad Ripu uncontrolled it will endanger human life, the obligation to advise any parent their children and pleaded with Widhi Hyang Wasa to avoid the influence of Sad Ripu. The implied meaning of mythology Pati Kala, Kala Tattwa, and this is the right Semaradhana human life is always careful not to stray from the religious teachings (Dharma), so in the future to the holy spirit can reach heaven workshops with the holy spirit of the ancestors, together with Brahman (Hyang Widhi). Young people in the association was set up so as not to cross the line of decency as implied from the ejection Semaradhana.

 

Tooth filing ceremony is usually combined with a ceremonial Ngeraja Sewala or mentioned as well as ceremonial “menek kelih”, the thanksgiving ceremony for the child reaches adulthood, leaving the children towards adulthood.

 

Order of ceremony

 

1. After Sulinggih ngarga tirta, mereresik and mapiuning in Sangah Surya, then those who will mepandes dilukat with padudusan middle, after which they worship Hyang raitya to invoke safety in performing the ceremony.

 

2. Cut the hair and tattooing performed with the aim to purify themselves and mark an increase in status as human beings is leaving childhood to adolescence.

 

3. Rise to the bale where mepandes by first stepping caru as a symbol of harmony, tapping a crowbar three times (Ang, Ung, Mang) as a symbol for strength to Hyang Widhi and clamping the left armpit as a symbol caket determination to be aware of Sad Ripu.

 

4. During mepandes, rinse water disposed of in an ivory nyuh order not to cause keletehan.

 

5. Followed by Mebiakala as a means of purification and removes mala to commemorate the life of adolescence.

 

6. Mapedamel derived from the word “dama” which means wise. Mapedamel goal after the teeth are cut so that the child in the teen years and beyond the life of a wise man, the stage facing the ups and downs of life, always adhering to the teachings of Hindu religion, has a broad vision, and can determine a good attitude, being able to understand what called Dharma and what is called Adharma. Symbolically when mepadamel, do the following:

 

- Wearing a white cloth, a yellow shawl, and sash ratih vague as a symbol of the blessing of god and goddess Semara Ratih (based on the ejection Semaradhana).

 

- Using colored yarn Pawitra tridatu (red, white, black) as a symbol of binding themselves to religious norms.

 

- Sad tasting flavors are six flavors of bitter and sour flavors as symbols so tough to face life events are sometimes unpleasant, pungent flavor as a symbol in order not to become angry or when experiencing a frustrating thing to hear, taste Sepat as a symbol to obey any regulations or the prevailing norms, the taste of salt as a symbol of wisdom, always improving the quality of knowledge because learning itself, and a sweet taste as a symbol of a happy life mentally and physically fit the ideal would be obtained if able to face the bitter bitter life, liberal-minded, disciplined, and constantly alert to the Sad Ripu in man.

 

7. Natab offerings, the intent to invoke the grace Hyang Widhi what is the purpose of performing the ceremony can be achieved.

 

8. Metapak, sign implies that the obligations of parents towards their children began to be in mother’s womb to be spiritually mature is complete, meaning the other is the child thanks to his parents for having to maintain it well, and begged forgiveness for the mistakes of the child to parents, also asked for prayers for the blessing of taking one life saved for the future.

 

So at a glance the meaning of the ceremony cutting teeth or mependes. Other terms used for this ceremony in Bali is mesangih.

  

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Session Americana and Peter Wolf playing at the Lizard Lounge in Cambridge, MA.

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Wolf

www.peterwolf.com/

www.facebook.com/PeterWolfMusic?v=wall

Life and career

 

Wolf was born in the Bronx, New York. He planned a career as an artist, but he got a job in the late 1960s as a disc jockey on then-cutting edge Boston FM radio station WBCN and began exploring his interest in blues and rhythm and blues music, giving himself the nickname "the Wolfa Goofa", sometimes expanded to "the Wolfa Goofa with the Green Teeth" (as mentioned in the intro to "Must of Got Lost" on the Blow Your Face Out album). Later as solo artist he called himself Woofa Goofa Mama Toofa. He formed a group called the Hallucinations who performed with The Velvet Underground, Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, Van Morrison, John Lee Hooker, and Sun Ra. He then saw the J. Geils Blues Band in concert and quickly joined. He was the vocalist and frontman, and often acted as a sort of manager. Wolf was known for his charismatic stage antics of fast-talking quips and "pole-vaulting" with the microphone stand. He and keyboard player Seth Justman were responsible for most of the songwriting. Creative differences followed their Freeze-Frame album, causing the J. Geils Band and Peter Wolf to part ways in 1983.

 

Peter Wolf with the J. Geils Band in Candlestick Park, San Francisco, California Photo: Catharine Anderson

Wolf became a solo artist for the next 15 years, but in 1999 the J. Geils Band reunited for several appearances, with Wolf resuming his duties as lead vocalist. They separated again, and Wolf began touring once more, as a solo act.

Wolf's first solo record, Lights Out (1984) was produced by Michael Jonzun of the Jonzun Crew, features Adrian Belew, and has a somewhat funky, electro sound. The eponymous single became a hit single the same year, peaking at #12 on the Billboard Hot 100. He recorded many duets with the likes of Aretha Franklin, Little Milton, John Lee Hooker, Don Covay, and Wilson Pickett to name just a few.

Long Line was co-produced with two musician friends, Johnny A. and a Bob Dylan backup band member, Stu Kimball. Tim Archibald (Bass) and Brian Maes (keys and backing vocals) who are both members of "Ernie And The Automatics", played on the record and Toured in support of "Long Line." His next two solo albums, Fool's Parade and Sleepless (the latter featuring guest appearances from Mick Jagger and Keith Richards), were both highly praised by Jann Wenner in Rolling Stone, receiving four-and-a-half and five stars, respectively. Sleepless (2002) was noted as one of the 500 greatest albums of all time in Rolling Stone issue 937. He has performed on stage with such diverse people as Bruce Springsteen and Phil Lesh.

Wolf toured in 2008 with Kid Rock and Rev. Run on The Rock N Roll Revival Tour. He performed "Love Stinks" solo with Kid Rock's band. Then he joined Kid Rock for "Ain't Too Proud to Beg", "Musta Got Lost", "Centerfold" (from the J. Geils album Freeze Frame) and "For What It's Worth".

The J. Geils Band re-united for a series of shows in 2009, including opening night at the Boston House of Blues.

Wolf's 2010 album Midnight Souvenirs won Album of the Year at the Boston Music Awards.[2][3]

 

www.facebook.com/pages/Session-Americana/53199003969

 

www.sessionamericana.com

www.myspace.com/sessionamericana

www.hi-n-dry.com/session_americana

www.exploitboston.com/music-musings/grab-new-music-from-s...

Session Americana - www.sessionamericana.com

 

This ad hoc acoustic supergroup started around a table at a small pub in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where Ry Cavanaugh, Billy Conway, Sean Staples, Dinty Child, Jim Fitting and other friends gathered to swap songs and stories. Their lively performances and inspired versions of tunes from the dusty backroads of America's past were such a hit with fans that they decided to take their musical conversation into the studio. The two-CD debut Tabletop People ups the ante with stellar appearances by folksinger Rose Polenzani, Twinemen's Laurie Sargent, Dennis Brennan, Asa Brebner, Merrie Amsterburg, Dan Kellar, Presidents of the United States' Chris Ballew, Jabe Beyer, Tim Gearon and other luminaries. And the 18 gritty, funny, soulful performances included span a gamut of emotions and tastes that should please both adult and younger listeners.

 

"Genius ... Jaw-dropping vocals ... Session Americana is blessed in this regard:...musicianship that sets the standard for the genre in Boston

and vocals that do the same"

— Performer Magazine

 

Session Americana sit tightly around a small cafe table, ambient mics tuned to catch the whole sound of the voices and instruments. A suit-case drum kit, an old electric bass, a bunch of acoustic instruments, a field organ: This format feels very theatrical and though the musicians face each other, the audience feels drawn into the circle by the warmth, joy and camaraderie that emanate outwards by the all star cast of characters seated around the table. What keeps you coming back show after show is the same thing that any audience member longs for, great songs performed by a great band. The six core members of the band have brought enviable careers worth of experience to the “table”, featuring (current and former) members of Treat Her Right, Patty Griffin, Lori McKenna, The The, Dennis Brennan, Kris Delmhorst. The group has grown from a rag tag jam at a local pub to a regional institution, playing gigs from church coee houses to urban nightclubs to regional festival tents to large halls.

 

Band: Ry Cavanaugh, Billy Beard, Dinty Child, Jim Fitting, Sean Staples and Jon Bistline.

 

*Winner “2005 Best Folk Act” - The Boston Music Awards

*Winner “Best Roots Act 2006” - Improper Bostonian “Best of Boston” Issue

*Winner “Best CD” 2007 - Improper Bostonian

*Nominated “Best Roots Act” 2007 - WFNX/Boston Phoenix Best Music Poll

*Nominated Best Live Act 2007 - The Boston Music Awards

*Nominated Best Americana Act 2008 - The Boston Music Awards

 

“Genius ... Jaw-dropping vocals ... Session Americana is blessed in this regard: ...musicianship that sets the standard for the genre in Boston and vocals that do the same”

— NE Performer Magazine

 

“No egos, no big production, just some great songs stripped down to their bare essentials and performed with a real genuineness of spirit and emotional authenticity... it’s beautiful.” (Brian Mosher)

— The Noise

 

“An eclectic, swinging tour de force” — The Boston Globe

 

“[This] local country-folk megagroup’s double CD is one of the most loose, spontaneous, warm, and homespun acts of community and decency since the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s Will the Circle Be Unbroken.”

 

— The Boston Phoenix

“the cream of the Somerville/Cambridge community" - No Depression (read less)

 

Italian postcard in the Rotalcolor series by Rotalfoto, Milano, no. N 47. Photo: Sam Lévin.

 

French actress Brigitte Bardot (1934) died on 28 December 2025, at the age of 91. In the 1950s, she was the sex kitten of the European film industry. BB starred in 48 films, performed in numerous musical shows, and recorded 80 songs. After her retirement in 1973, she became an animal rights activist. In the coming weeks, we will continue to post a BB postcard every day to remember her as she once was.

 

Brigitte Bardot was born in Paris in 1934. Her father, Louis Bardot, had an engineering degree and worked with his father in the family business. Her mother, Ann-Marie Mucel, was 14 years younger than Brigitte's father, and they married in 1933. Brigitte's mother encouraged her daughter to take up music and dance. At the age of 13, she entered the Conservatoire Nationale de Danse to study ballet. By the time she was 15, Brigitte was trying to launch a modelling career and found herself on the cover of the French magazine Elle in May 1949. Her incredible beauty was readily apparent, and Brigitte was noticed by Roger Vadim, then an assistant to the film director Marc Allegrét. Vadim was infatuated with Bardot and encouraged her to start working as a film actress. BB was 18 when she debuted in the comedy Le Trou Normand / Crazy for Love (Jean Boyer, 1952). In the same year, she married Vadim. Brigitte wanted to marry him when she was 17, but her parents quashed any marriage plans until she turned 18. In April 1953, she attended the Cannes Film Festival, where she received massive media attention. She soon was every man's idea of the girl he'd like to meet in Paris. From 1952 to 1956, she appeared in seventeen films. Her films were generally lightweight romantic dramas in which she was cast as an ingénue or siren, often with an element of undress. In 1953, she made her first US production, Un acte d'amour / Act of Love (Anatole Litvak, 1953) with Kirk Douglas, but she continued to make films in France.

 

Roger Vadim was not content with the light fare his wife was offered. He felt Brigitte Bardot was being undersold. Looking for something more like an art film to push her as a serious actress, he showcased her in Et Dieu créa la femme / ...And God Created Woman (Roger Vadim, 1956). This film, about an immoral teenager in a respectable small-town setting, was a smash success on both sides of the Atlantic. Craig Butler at AllMovie: "It's easy enough to say that ...And God Created Woman is much more important for its historical significance than for its actual quality as a film, and that's true to an extent. The immense popularity, due to its willingness to directly embrace an exploration of sex as well as its willingness to show a degree of nudity that was remarkably daring for its day, demonstrated that audiences were willing to view subject matter that was considered too racy for the average moviegoer. This had both positive (freedom to explore, especially for the French filmmakers of the time) and negative (freedom to exploit) consequences, but its impact is undeniable. It's also true that Woman is not a great work of art, not with a story that is ultimately rather thin, some painful dialogue, and an attitude toward its characters and their sexuality that is unclear and inconsistent. Yet Woman is still fascinating, due in no small part to the presence of Brigitte Bardot in the role that made her an international star and sex symbol. She's not demonstrating great acting here, although her performance is actually good and much better than necessary, and her legendary mambo scene at the climax is nothing short of sensational." During the filming of Et Dieu créa la femme / And God Created Woman (Roger Vadim, 1956), directed by her husband, Brigitte Bardot had an affair with her co-star, Jean-Louis Trintignant, who at the time was married to French actress Stéphane Audran. Her divorce from Vadim followed, but they remained friends and collaborated in later work.

 

Et Dieu créa la femme / ...And God Created Woman (Roger Vadim, 1956) helped Brigitte Bardot's international status. The film took the USA by storm, her explosive sexuality being unlike anything seen in the States since the days of the 'flapper' in the 1920s. It gave rise to the phrase 'sex kitten', and fascination with her in America consisted of magazine photographs and dubbed over French films - good, bad or indifferent, her films drew audiences - mainly men - into theatres like lemmings. BB appeared in light comedies like Doctor at Large (Ralph Thomas, 1957) - the third of the British 'Doctor' series starring Dirk Bogarde - and Une Parisienne / La Parisienne (Michel Boisrond, 1957), which suited her acting skills best. However, she was a sensation in the crime drama En cas de malheur / Love is My Profession (Claude Autant-Lara, 1958). Hal Erickson at AllMovie: "This Brigitte Bardot vehicle ran into stiff opposition from the Catholic Legion of Decency, severely limiting its U.S. distribution. Bardot plays a nubile small-time thief named Yvette, who becomes the mistress of influential defence attorney Andre (Jean Gabin). Though Andre can shower Yvette with jewels and furs, he cannot "buy" her heart, and thus it is that it belongs to handsome young student Mazzetti (Franco Interlenghi). Alas, Yvette is no judge of human nature: attractive though Mazzetti can be, he has a dangerous and deadly side. En Cas de Malheur contains a nude scene that has since been reprinted in freeze-frame form innumerable times by both film-history books and girlie magazines." Photographer Sam Lévin's photos contributed considerably to her image of sensuality and slight immorality. One of Lévin's pictures shows Brigitte, dressed in a white corset. It is said that around 1960, postcards with this photograph outsold in Paris those of the Eiffel Tower.

 

Brigitte Bardot divorced Vadim in 1957, and in 1959 she married actor Jacques Charrier, with whom she starred in Babette s'en va-t-en guerre / Babette Goes to War (Christian-Jaque, 1959). The paparazzi preyed upon her marriage, while she and her husband clashed over the direction of her career

Her films became more substantial, but this brought a heavy pressure of dual celebrity as she sought critical acclaim while remaining a glamour model for most of the world. Vie privée / Private Life (1962), directed by Louis Malle, has more than an element of autobiography in it. James Travers at French Films: "Brigitte Bardot hadn’t quite reached the high point of her career when she agreed to make this film with high-profile New Wave film director Louis Malle. Even so, the pressure of being a living icon was obviously beginning to get to France’s sex goddess, and Vie privée is as much an attempt by Bardot to come to terms with her celebrity as anything else. Malle is clearly fascinated by Bardot, and the documentary approach he adopts for this film reinforces the impression that it is more a biography of the actress than a work of fiction. Of course, it’s not entirely biographical, but the story is remarkably close to Bardot’s own life and comes pretty close to predicting how her career would end." The scene in which, returning to her apartment, Bardot's character is harangued in the elevator by a middle-aged cleaning lady calling her offensive names was based on an actual incident, and is a resonant image of celebrity in the mid-20th century. Soon afterwards, Bardot withdrew to the seclusion of Southern France.

 

Brigitte Bardot's other husbands were German millionaire Playboy Gunter Sachs and right-wing politician Bernard d'Ormale. She is reputed to have had relationships with many other men, including Samy Frey, her co-star in La Vérité / The Truth (Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1960), and musicians Serge Gainsbourg and Sacha Distel. In 1963, Brigitte Bardot starred in Jean-Luc Godard's critically acclaimed film Le Mépris / Contempt (Jean-Luc Godard, 1963) opposite Michel Piccoli. She was also featured along with such notable actors as Alain Delon in Amours célèbres / Famous Love Affairs (Michel Boisrond, 1961) and Histoires extraordinaires /Tales of Mystery (Louis Malle, 1968), Jeanne Moreau in Viva Maria! (Louis Malle, 1965), Sean Connery in Shalako (Edward Dmytryk, 1968), and Claudia Cardinale in Les Pétroleuses / Petroleum Girls (Christian-Jaque, 1971). She participated in various musical shows and recorded many popular songs in the 1960s and 1970s, mostly in collaboration with Serge Gainsbourg, Bob Zagury and Sacha Distel, including 'Harley Davidson', 'Le Soleil De Ma Vie' (the cover of Stevie Wonder's 'You Are the Sunshine of My Life') and the notorious 'Je t'aime... moi non plus'.

 

Brigitte Bardot’s film career showed a steady decline in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In 1973, just before her fortieth birthday, she announced her retirement. She chose to use her fame to promote animal rights. In 1976, she established the Brigitte Bardot Foundation for the Welfare and Protection of Animals. She became a vegetarian and raised three million French francs to fund the foundation by auctioning off jewellery and many personal belongings. For this work, she was awarded the Légion d’honneur in 1984. During the 1990s, she was also outspoken in her criticism of immigration, interracial relationships, Islam in France and homosexuality. Her husband Bernard d'Ormal was a former adviser of the far-right Front National party. Bardot has been convicted five times for 'inciting racial hatred'. More fun is that Bardot is recognised for popularising bikini swimwear, in such early films as Manina / Woman without a Veil (Willy Rozier, 1952), in her appearances at Cannes and in many photo shoots. Bardot also brought into fashion the 'choucroute' ('Sauerkraut') hairstyle (a sort of beehive hairstyle) and gingham clothes after wearing a checkered pink dress, designed by Jacques Esterel, at her wedding to Charrier. The fashions of the 1960s looked effortlessly right and spontaneous on her. Time Magazine: "She is the princess of pout, the countess of come hither. Brigitte Bardot exuded a carefree, naïve sexuality that brought a whole new audience to French films."

 

Sources: Denny Jackson (IMDb), Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Craig Butler (AllMovie), James Travers (French Films), French Films, Wikipedia and IMDb.

 

And please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

ROMA ARCHEOLOGICA & RESTAURO ARCHITETTURA. ROME – “ANYTHING GOES IN ROME”, CORRIERE DELLA SERA 18 JUNE (2015). ROME = Olympics 2024 & Jubilee 2016 & Mafia Capital of Italy & The City is Just Filthy!

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Italiano = IL GRANDE DEGRADO - Roma e le regole svanite: abusivi anche gli hotel - Video - Foto. La prima puntata dell’inchiesta. La trattoria che chiede 579 euro (più 115 di mancia) a una coppia di giapponesi L’impero ambulante della dinastia Tredicine e i centurioni minacciosi Così la Capitale tratta i turisti «Tanto vengono lo stesso», CORRIERE DELLA SERA (18|06|2015).

 

roma.corriere.it/notizie/cronaca/15_giugno_18/a-busivi-an...

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ROMA - CAPITAL DECAY "Anything Goes in Rome" - Even hotels are unlicensed. Trattoria presented Japanese couple with bill for €579 plus €115 tip. Tredicine dynasty of street traders and Colosseum’s aggressive centurions. Tourists-will-be-back-anyway attitude di Sergio Rizzo and Gian Antonio Stella. CORRIERE DELLA SERA 18 JUNE (2015).

 

“You’ll be holding your guts in your hands”. A threat, the kind that no respectable person would make, gives you some idea of the bad Rome that has shouldered its way into the tourism business, like the “bulli” of old. Those 17th-century thugs were described by Antonio Pardi in “The stupendous strength and bravery of Captain Skullcrusher and Boltspitter”: “I am the great Skullcrusher, tall and proud, / before whose strength all other strength yields, / I smash, I break, I wreck, I shatter, I destroy”.

 

A few years ago, Francesco Merlo went to Rome with his British wife after six of the unofficial centurions were arrested: “The Colosseum area outside the Colosseum itself is a lawless place where people eat, cheat and quickly come to blows, as they did in [dialect poet Giacomo Gioachino] Belli’s day, ‘to get the ackers in the bag’”. The Merlos were quickly approached by fake ancient Romans: The question “Could you take a photo of me wearing your cucullus?” produced a Roman reply: “What about a photo of me in your cucullus?”

 

Free-for-all of unlicensed traders at Colosseum

 

The archaeological heart of the world is a sort of free-trade area dominated by the powerful Tredicine family, which followed old Donato Tredicine from Abruzzo in the Fifties. Donato sold roast chestnuts but today the Tredicines own most of the sixty-nine mobile bars dotted around tourist-rich zones. Their kingdom has expanded to include the souk of unlicensed postcard, carpet and eyewear sellers and above all the “urtisti”. Today, there are 112 of these hawkers who bear the name of the Jewish street traders who - with papal authorisation - “bumped” [“urtare”in Italian - Trans.] into passers-by with a tray of souvenirs slung round their neck and resting on their stomach.

 

Mayor Ignazio Marino has declared war on the Tredicines, who pay €325 a month to park big lorries in the best spots (€10 a day, the price of two rolls) and €250 for the smaller vehicles (€8 a day, or a roll and a soft drink). In the name of public decency, the mobile bars will soon be moved on to less obtrusive spots. At last. You can imagine the protests. The arguments. The fits of anger.

 

Tourists, the resource that Rome treats badly

 

Statistics tell us that tourism is big business all over the planet. Since 1990, the number of international holidaymakers has risen from 444 million to 1.138 billion. Growth last year was 51 million. If you do the maths, that’s a rise of 158%. Over the same period, Italy has grown only half as much, from 26.7 million to 48.6 million, or +82%. But Rome has hit the jackpot. Despite cash-strapped Italian holidaymakers having thinned out in recent years, total arrivals have spiked from 4 million to almost 16.5 million in the last quarter century. A fourfold rise. Overnight stays have gone from 11 million to 39 million.

 

Obviously, organised international tourism is concentrated in bare-bones standard packages. But if you are selling a Canadian or Korean a two-week Europe package, how can you skip Rome? Particularly with instability on the rise in some parts of the world. The result is that too many Romans already overconfident about Rome’s Caput Mundi status (former deputy mayor Mauro Cutrufo went so far as to claim that “Rome has 30-40% of the world’s artistic assets”. Wow!) have seen their conviction that “they’ve got to come here” amply confirmed.

 

And if the planet’s tourists have got to go to Rome, the Romans are doing them a favour letting them sleep in dirty hotels, charging them a fortune to eat badly, drive them around in often wallet-crippling taxis (“Meter broken, sorry”) or sell them three slices of tiramisù and three cappuccinos for €72, as one bar in Via Cavour did. Leading the rip-off rankings is the Trattoria Passetto near Piazza Navona, closed for presenting a Japanese couple with a bill for €695, including an unauthorised tip of €115.50.

 

What sense is there in treating people who provide 11% of the GDP of a city that is far weaker in other areas of the economy, starting with industry? Yet that’s how it is. For many Romans, tourists are sheep waiting to be shorn. This was pointed out a few months ago by Trivago, the online meta-search engine that compares the prices of 700,000 hotels and B&Bs around the world. A comparison of Italy’s hotel prices with those of eight other European countries showed Italian prices averaging €144 compared to the UK’s €139, Germany’s €112 and €108 in Spain. France was more expensive at €152. But what about the service?

 

A survey of customer satisfaction by online bookings site hotel.info provides the answer, endorsing the thousands of web-vehicled complaints about the apparently random distribution of hotel stars. One respondent lamented that the room didn’t deserve four, or even three, stars (perhaps two). There was no air conditioning. One of the two drawers in the wardrobe wouldn’t open while the other was full of crackers and other scraps of food. The minibar had an elderly sandwich in it, the TV didn’t work, the bathroom was microscopic and the shower was the kind you expect in a hostel. In short, poor value for money.

 

Poor or non-compliant services and no controls

 

The survey ranks Warsaw the best city in Europe with 7.92 points, followed by Helsinki (7.64), Berlin (7.59) and the rest. Italy’s top city is Bologna and bringing up the rear, behind Naples, are Milan and Rome. We’re talking about official hotels here, so imagine what the rest are like. It sounds incredible but one of the many unauthorised activities in Rome is keeping hotels.

 

The capital has 1,041 registered hotels, bed and breakfasts and residences but the Federalberghi association chair Giuseppe Roscioli reckons there could be 4,000 undeclared establishments with at least 25,000 beds, which are set to double. He says: “Since the municipal authorities were unable to do it, we mapped the web for them and said now go and inspect them. A waste of time. There are self-proclaimed B&Bs with websites that say: ‘Last five rooms still free’. But B&Bs can only have a maximum of three rooms!” It’s so chaotic that “you could end up staying at Pacciani’s house”, with the Monster of Florence.

 

An exaggeration? “Not at all. The international chains - and I’m speaking from experience - make inspections once a year in nit-picking detail. They arrive out of the blue, look for dust under the beds, measure the microclimate in bathrooms and count how many times the phone rings before reception answers. If anything’s wrong, they withdraw approval”. What about Italy? “No inspections at all. Haven’t been for years. Two stars, three stars, four stars don’t mean a thing if you don’t make checks. A hotel may have been excellent twenty years ago but now... It’s such a mess that with the Jubilee coming up and the risk of international terrorism, we have alerted even the prefect to the issue of customer registration.

Official tourism employs 143,000 people in Rome, more than the chemical industry in the whole of Italy. Then there are the undeclared workers, presumably at least 20,000 of them. Some are the self-proclaimed “decent people” who find it normal not to take credit cards (“Oh dear. Line’s down”) to get paid in cash and dodge taxes while the rest are borderline criminal or actual members of an underworld organisation.

 

Security alerts on foreign consulate websites

 

In a nutshell the flood of tourists pouring into Italy since 1990 has been used not badly but appallingly. A waste. As well as international embarrassments such as value for money - the latest Brand Index says that from 2012 to 2014 Italy slipped from 28th place to 57th, with much of the blame going to Rome - and even security. Remember how in the wake of the 2009 TripAdvisor warning about theft in Rome, the UK government site gov.uk warned about crime a few months ago: “Take care on public transport and in crowded areas in Rome, especially around the main railway station ‘Termini’ and on the number 64 bus, which goes to and from St Peter’s Square (...) Use a hotel safe for valuables where possible”.

Yet Rome is so beautiful, so packed with breath-taking views, evocative atmospheres, renaissance piazzas, archaeological sites and medieval remains that it deserves everyone’s love. Wolfgang Goethe was one of the many to fall under Rome’s spell. Recalling a still, bright moon over the Forum, he wrote: “The sight was magical. In such a light one ought also to see the Pantheon, the Capitol, the Portico of St. Peter’s, and the grand streets and squares. And so sun and moon, as well as the human mind, have to do here a very different job from what they do elsewhere, here where vast yet elegant masses ...”

 

Heritage ministry figures indicate that in the twenty years since 1996, tourist numbers at Castel Sant’Angelo have doubled, tripled at the Galleria Borghese and quadrupled at the once separately managed circuit of the Colosseum, Palatine and Forum, where they have gone from fewer than a million and a half to six million. Then there is the Pantheon, which has shot from just over a million visitors to six and a half million. The boom prompts you to wonder why even if it is still a church, no one has ever thought of charging a euro or two, what with all the worries over arts funding.

 

Those same figures show that the mass tourism boom that packs unfeasible numbers of tables onto the pavements also denies the masses access to anything a little out of the way, such as the baths of Caracalla, the villa of the Quintili or the mausoleum of Cecilia Metella. Today, they receive more or less the same number of visitors as in 2006, despite a cumulative ticket costing just €6. There is also the Ostia Antica site, which has recorded a modest +27% even though tourist numbers have quadrupled. And let’s not linger over the superb Hadrian’s Villa, which has managed to lose a quarter of its visitors in the past two decades.

 

Turf wars over city-centre archaeological sites

 

Even more striking is the fact that city-centre sites like the Colosseum, the Palatine or the Forum have not been given the tidying up that in any other country would have been a matter of course. Hard though it is to believe, the world’s most celebrated archaeological site is split between two administrations, part being run by the municipality and the rest by central government. Nero’s Domus Aurea, for example, belongs almost entirely to the state but the walls of the baths of Trajan, built on top of Nero’s residence, are the competence of the municipality. So, too, is the garden above, where a Himalayan pine was planted eighty years ago. The tree’s roots have penetrated so deep that they pose a threat to one of the Domus Aurea’s most sublime features, the vault depicting Ulysses and Polyphemus. The pine has to go but who is going to remove it? The municipality, to which the garden belongs. But since a residents’ committee is opposed to the pine’s removal, the city authorities have appointed a cultural mediator to sort things out. Tree or frescoes? The residents of Collio Oppio have a vote, like everyone else.

 

It’s a ridiculous situation. The mausoleum of Augustus belongs to Rome and the Colosseum - but not the surrounding area, which is in Roma Capitale’s remit -to the state, as has been the case since 1925. Politicians have steered well clear. The situation culminates at the Forum, where the part on the right as you go from Piazza Venezia towards the Colosseum belongs to the state. On the left, the remains are municipal. Two superintendencies. Two administrations. Two ticketing systems.

 

Heritage minister Dario Franceschini has urged the creation of a consortium to share management of the Forum, if nothing else. Everyone knows the best solution would be to merge the administrations. But who is going to tell the workers? Who is going to take on the prickly task of merging two sites belonging to different public bodies? And who is going to tell the plethora of private companies that have everything to gain from the long-standing division?

 

FONTE SOURCE:

 

-- CORRIERE DELLA SERA (18|06|2015).

 

www.corriere.it/english/15_giugno_18/anything-goes-rome-9...

 

FOTO FONTE SOURCE:

 

-- ROME - The Neglect of Rome's Cultural Heritage by the Ministry of Culture (2008-11), and the City of Rome (2005 - 11): The Piazza Trilussa - The New York Times, The Corriere Della Sera, The Il Messaggero, The La Repubblica (09/2009).

 

www.flickr.com/photos/imperial_fora_of_rome/3896639848/

 

S.V.,

 

1). ROME, ARCHAEOLOGY & CULTURAL HERITAGE: Political Corruption, Neglect & Abandonment of Rome's Cultural Heritage & Priorities of the Tourist Industry by the Political Administration of the Ministry of Culture & the City of Rome (2005 – 2015). FOTO AND NEWS 1 THRU 606 ITEMS.

 

www.flickr.com/photos/imperial_fora_of_rome/sets/72157600...

 

1.1). ROMA ARCHEOLOGICA & RESTAURO ARCHITECTURA. Roma sotto Marino, Roma Mafia Capitale, Roma Degrado Vista Dal Mondo: la città di incompetenza perpetua e la corruzione (2013-15). Foto & stampa 1 di 616.

 

www.flickr.com/photos/imperial_fora_of_rome/sets/72157634...

 

'Decency in speech and conduct is the key to being a successful spiritual candidate.' - His Holiness Younus AlGohar

 

Washington DC, The Walter E. Washington Convention Center, the afternoon of March 1, 2015. Around one hundred social justice activists affiliated with Code Pink, Jewish Voice For Justice, AVAAZ, US Campaign To End The Israeli Occupation, Boycott From Within, Answer Coaltion and other peace and faith groups demonstrate in front of the Convention Center to protest the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) yearly DC meeting. AIPAC is regarded by many as the most powerful lobbying group in town.AIPAC has a policy agenda that's out of step with the values of most Jewish Americans and other participants in civilized society but they call the tune because our corrupt political culture is fueled by money, not decency. In an act of peaceful civil disobedience, five demonstrators, all women, were arrested for failing to obey police orders to remove themselves from the granite in front of one of the Convention Center's many doorways. They were given three warnings before being arrested. I photographed one of women as she was being lead away in plastic handcuffs. "I'm a Jewish mother!" she proclaimed. I gave her the 'thumbs up'.

Most of the DC cops kept their cool but when some of the demonstrators got in their face a brief scuffle ensued. Some of us locked arms and and helped lift up one of the Code Pink ladies who was almost knocked down onto the steps by a DC officer who lost it.

Session Americana and Peter Wolf playing at the Lizard Lounge in Cambridge, MA.

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Wolf

www.peterwolf.com/

www.facebook.com/PeterWolfMusic?v=wall

Life and career

 

Wolf was born in the Bronx, New York. He planned a career as an artist, but he got a job in the late 1960s as a disc jockey on then-cutting edge Boston FM radio station WBCN and began exploring his interest in blues and rhythm and blues music, giving himself the nickname "the Wolfa Goofa", sometimes expanded to "the Wolfa Goofa with the Green Teeth" (as mentioned in the intro to "Must of Got Lost" on the Blow Your Face Out album). Later as solo artist he called himself Woofa Goofa Mama Toofa. He formed a group called the Hallucinations who performed with The Velvet Underground, Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, Van Morrison, John Lee Hooker, and Sun Ra. He then saw the J. Geils Blues Band in concert and quickly joined. He was the vocalist and frontman, and often acted as a sort of manager. Wolf was known for his charismatic stage antics of fast-talking quips and "pole-vaulting" with the microphone stand. He and keyboard player Seth Justman were responsible for most of the songwriting. Creative differences followed their Freeze-Frame album, causing the J. Geils Band and Peter Wolf to part ways in 1983.

 

Peter Wolf with the J. Geils Band in Candlestick Park, San Francisco, California Photo: Catharine Anderson

Wolf became a solo artist for the next 15 years, but in 1999 the J. Geils Band reunited for several appearances, with Wolf resuming his duties as lead vocalist. They separated again, and Wolf began touring once more, as a solo act.

Wolf's first solo record, Lights Out (1984) was produced by Michael Jonzun of the Jonzun Crew, features Adrian Belew, and has a somewhat funky, electro sound. The eponymous single became a hit single the same year, peaking at #12 on the Billboard Hot 100. He recorded many duets with the likes of Aretha Franklin, Little Milton, John Lee Hooker, Don Covay, and Wilson Pickett to name just a few.

Long Line was co-produced with two musician friends, Johnny A. and a Bob Dylan backup band member, Stu Kimball. Tim Archibald (Bass) and Brian Maes (keys and backing vocals) who are both members of "Ernie And The Automatics", played on the record and Toured in support of "Long Line." His next two solo albums, Fool's Parade and Sleepless (the latter featuring guest appearances from Mick Jagger and Keith Richards), were both highly praised by Jann Wenner in Rolling Stone, receiving four-and-a-half and five stars, respectively. Sleepless (2002) was noted as one of the 500 greatest albums of all time in Rolling Stone issue 937. He has performed on stage with such diverse people as Bruce Springsteen and Phil Lesh.

Wolf toured in 2008 with Kid Rock and Rev. Run on The Rock N Roll Revival Tour. He performed "Love Stinks" solo with Kid Rock's band. Then he joined Kid Rock for "Ain't Too Proud to Beg", "Musta Got Lost", "Centerfold" (from the J. Geils album Freeze Frame) and "For What It's Worth".

The J. Geils Band re-united for a series of shows in 2009, including opening night at the Boston House of Blues.

Wolf's 2010 album Midnight Souvenirs won Album of the Year at the Boston Music Awards.[2][3]

 

www.facebook.com/pages/Session-Americana/53199003969

 

www.sessionamericana.com

www.myspace.com/sessionamericana

www.hi-n-dry.com/session_americana

www.exploitboston.com/music-musings/grab-new-music-from-s...

Session Americana - www.sessionamericana.com

 

This ad hoc acoustic supergroup started around a table at a small pub in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where Ry Cavanaugh, Billy Conway, Sean Staples, Dinty Child, Jim Fitting and other friends gathered to swap songs and stories. Their lively performances and inspired versions of tunes from the dusty backroads of America's past were such a hit with fans that they decided to take their musical conversation into the studio. The two-CD debut Tabletop People ups the ante with stellar appearances by folksinger Rose Polenzani, Twinemen's Laurie Sargent, Dennis Brennan, Asa Brebner, Merrie Amsterburg, Dan Kellar, Presidents of the United States' Chris Ballew, Jabe Beyer, Tim Gearon and other luminaries. And the 18 gritty, funny, soulful performances included span a gamut of emotions and tastes that should please both adult and younger listeners.

 

"Genius ... Jaw-dropping vocals ... Session Americana is blessed in this regard:...musicianship that sets the standard for the genre in Boston

and vocals that do the same"

— Performer Magazine

 

Session Americana sit tightly around a small cafe table, ambient mics tuned to catch the whole sound of the voices and instruments. A suit-case drum kit, an old electric bass, a bunch of acoustic instruments, a field organ: This format feels very theatrical and though the musicians face each other, the audience feels drawn into the circle by the warmth, joy and camaraderie that emanate outwards by the all star cast of characters seated around the table. What keeps you coming back show after show is the same thing that any audience member longs for, great songs performed by a great band. The six core members of the band have brought enviable careers worth of experience to the “table”, featuring (current and former) members of Treat Her Right, Patty Griffin, Lori McKenna, The The, Dennis Brennan, Kris Delmhorst. The group has grown from a rag tag jam at a local pub to a regional institution, playing gigs from church coee houses to urban nightclubs to regional festival tents to large halls.

 

Band: Ry Cavanaugh, Billy Beard, Dinty Child, Jim Fitting, Sean Staples and Jon Bistline.

 

*Winner “2005 Best Folk Act” - The Boston Music Awards

*Winner “Best Roots Act 2006” - Improper Bostonian “Best of Boston” Issue

*Winner “Best CD” 2007 - Improper Bostonian

*Nominated “Best Roots Act” 2007 - WFNX/Boston Phoenix Best Music Poll

*Nominated Best Live Act 2007 - The Boston Music Awards

*Nominated Best Americana Act 2008 - The Boston Music Awards

 

“Genius ... Jaw-dropping vocals ... Session Americana is blessed in this regard: ...musicianship that sets the standard for the genre in Boston and vocals that do the same”

— NE Performer Magazine

 

“No egos, no big production, just some great songs stripped down to their bare essentials and performed with a real genuineness of spirit and emotional authenticity... it’s beautiful.” (Brian Mosher)

— The Noise

 

“An eclectic, swinging tour de force” — The Boston Globe

 

“[This] local country-folk megagroup’s double CD is one of the most loose, spontaneous, warm, and homespun acts of community and decency since the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s Will the Circle Be Unbroken.”

 

— The Boston Phoenix

“the cream of the Somerville/Cambridge community" - No Depression (read less)

 

Manhattan, New York City, New York, United States

 

The Everett Building is a sixteen-story commercial structure located on the northwest corner of East 17th Street and Park Avenue South. Named for Union Square's nineteenth-century Everett Hotel, and built in 1908 for the Everett Investing Company, it was designed by Goldwin Starrett & Van Vleck, a firm known for its commercial architecture.

 

It is a quintessential example of a building type defined by A. C. David (writing in Architectural Record in 1910): functional, fireproof, speedy to construct, while also demonstrating a concern for "architectural decency;" as such, this building is a uniquely American architectural expression. In its design, the Everett Building synthesizes classical elements with key aspects of both the New York and the Chicago styles; Goldwin Starrett was familiar with the Chicago style as a result of his years in Daniel Burnham's Chicago office.

 

The building reflects its structure in its cladding, while employing a design vocabulary that includes classical motifs. The Everett Building is prominently located on a site on the north side of Union Square and, together with the monumental Germania (now Guardian) Life Insurance Company Building directly across the avenue, forms an imposing terminus to Park Avenue South.

 

The Development of Union Square

 

The Commissioners Map of 1807-11, which first laid out the grid plan of Manhattan above Houston Street, allowed for certain existing thoroughfares to retain their original configuration. Bloomingdale Road, (now Broadway), and the Bowery intersected at 16th Street.

 

The acute angle formed by this "union" was set aside by the Commissioners and named Union Place.

 

Initially Union Place extended from 10th to 17th Streets, on land owned by the Manhattan Bank:

 

It then presented to the eye of the tourist and pedestrian a shapeless and ill-looking collection of lots, where garden sauce flourished — devoid of symmetry, and around which were reared a miserable group of shanties.

 

In 1815, the state legislature reduced the size of Union Place by making 14th Street its southern boundary. As the city expanded northward and land use intensified, the need for open spaces became apparent. A report drafted by the street committee in 1831 states the need for public squares "for purposes of military, and civic parades, and festivities, and ... to serve as ventilators to a densely populated city."

 

Designated a public space in 1832 at the urging of local residents, additional land was acquired so that the area could be regularized.

 

Graded, paved, and fenced, Union Place was finally opened to the public in July, 1839. Throughout much of its history, the square has been used for public gatherings, political rallies, and demonstrations.

 

By the 1850s, Union Square (as it came to be known) was completely surrounded by buildings including some of the city's most splendid mansions; but, "already by 1860, the dramatic march of commerce had begun." Theaters, hotels, and luxury retailers predominated in the 1870s. By the 1890s, the vestiges of the fashionable residential area, as well as the elegant stores and theaters, had been supplanted on Union Square by taller buildings that catered to the needs of publishers and manufacturers who had moved uptown.

 

The land on which the Everett Building stands was originally part of Cornelius Tiebout's farm. From 1853 on, the site was occupied by the Everett House, a hotel frequented by the singers and musicians performing at the new opera house, the Academy of Music (1854, architect Alexander Saeltzer).

 

Like the Belvedere and the Clarendon, hotels which were also demolished to make way for 'modern' office and loft buildings, the Everett House was razed to clear the site for the Everett Building.

 

The Everett Building is prominently situated on the northwest corner of East 17th Street and Union Square North, at the base of Park Avenue South (then called Fourth Avenue). Stations for major subway, surface, and "El" lines were close to the site, which was characterized by Real Estate Record & Guide in 1908 as "one of the most accessible locations for modern office buildings in the city."

 

Although when built, the Everett Building was associated with a possible transformation of Union Square to be effected by the construction of a new courthouse, the building was later seen as evidence of the concentration of the silk, woolen, cotton, and dry goods trades on Fourth Avenue, the area around the Square and lateral streets.

 

By September, 1910, about seventeen new loft and office buildings (generally restricted to office and salesroom needs, as opposed to manufacturing) had been erected, conveniently located near hotels and transportation.

 

In October 1911, Real Estate Record & Guide noted that "the Everett Building and those along the avenue, in which dry goods people are tenants, are all filled up."

 

Larger than the late nineteenth-century buildings on Union Square West, the new loft and office buildings, such as the Everett Building, altered the scale of structures on the Square's northern and southern ends and formed the core of a new mercantile district developed as an economical alternative to the commercial district along lower Fifth Avenue.

 

Notice of Goldwin Starrett & Van Vleck's selection as the recipients of the commission to design the Everett Building appeared in Real Estate Record & Guide for August 1, 1908.

 

The Everett Building was built for the Everett Investing Company; included among its early tenants were a wide variety of businesses and occupations, including William Skinner & Sons, an operating establishment "in the broad silk end"; the firm of W. G. Cornell, which was responsible for the plumbing for the new Gimbel Building and the offices of Goldwin Starrett & Van Vleck.

 

Goldwin Starrett & Van Vleck

 

The firm was founded in 1907 by Goldwin Starrett (1867-1918) and Ernest Allen Van Vleck (1875-1956). Starrett was one of five brothers, all active in the construction and architectural fields. Born in Lawrence, Kansas, his family later moved to Chicago. Starrett attended the engineering school of the University of Michigan, graduating in 1894. He then entered the architectural offices of D. H. Burnham & Co. , as had his two older brothers, Theodore and Paul. He remained in Burnham's employ for four years, rising to be one of Burnham's principal assistants.

 

In 1898 Goldwin entered the New York offices of the George A. Fuller Construction Co. as superintendent and assistant manager, joining his brother Theodore.

 

In 1901, along with Theodore, and his brothers, Ralph and William A., he formed the Thompson-Starrett Construction Company; he remained with the firm for four years, during which time he designed the Algonquin Hotel, a designated New York City Landmark, for Albert Foster of the Puritan Realty Company. Goldwin then entered into a four-year association with the E. B. Ellis Granite Company, which had its quarries in Vermont. In the construction business, Goldwin was associated with many important buildings, including Union Station in Washington, D.C. and the Woolworth Building in New York, a designated New York City Landmark.

 

In 1907, Ernest Allen Van Vleck joined Starrett to form the firm of Goldwin Starrett & Van Vleck. A native of Bell Creek, Nebraska, Van Vleck received a degree from the Cornell School of Architecture in 1897. He then traveled to Europe on a fellowship.

 

About 1908, Orrin Rice was admitted to the partnership, and in 1913, William A. Starrett joined the firm, which then became known as Starrett & Van Vleck, with Goldwin Starrett becoming the senior partner.

 

Starrett & Van Vleck specialized in commercial buildings and schools but also designed many other structures. Among the firm's ma j or commissions were the Lord & Taylor department store, a building that was termed "frankly commercial as well as dignified" in contrast to the residential nature of most other contemporary commercial designs; Saks Fifth Avenue, a designated New York City Landmark; a major expansion of Bloomingdale's; the facade of the Curb (now the American Stock) Exchange Building; the Downtown Athletic Club; the La Salle & Koch store in Toledo, Ohio (1916); the Court & Remsen Street Building in Brooklyn; The Equitable Life Assurance Society Building, and the Royal Insurance Building.

 

The firm was also responsible for designing the Hale Publishing Co. Building, the Berkeley Building, and the twelve-story neo-Italian Renaissance apartment houses at 82 0 and 817 Fifth Avenue, within the Upper East Side Historic District.

 

Other works by the firm include the Mills-Gibb Building, a mercantile building at Fourth Avenue and 22nd Street; a building for John T. Underwood, president of Underwood Typewriter Co. located at Church and Vesey Streets; the Mercantile Building at Fifth Avenue and 38th Street; 28-30 West 38th Street, a twelve-story building for Capt. W. H. Wheeler; and the twelve-story Sixteenth Street Building, at Irving Place and 16th Street.

 

Loft and Commercial Building

 

The Everett Building is a quintessential example of the new commercial style of architecture built around 1910 in New York and concentrated on Fourth Avenue from Union Square to 30th Street.

 

Its design was considered innovative when it was illustrated in the Architectural Record (Dec. 1910), as part of a tribute to the new corridor of commercial buildings in what is now Park Avenue South.

 

These buildings termed "thoroughly contemporary" and "strictly commercial" were erected with exceptional rapidity; the Everett Building "was ready for occupants within four months from the time the first column shoe was set."

 

In "The New Architecture," A. C. David specified a tall order for architects of these loft and commercial buildings, one which Starrett & Van Vleck fulfilled. Tenants required a maximum amount of clear, preferably square or rectangular, floor space so that large numbers of employees could be supervised by a floor manager.

 

In order to secure the greatest amount of natural light, a corner site, large windows, and high ceilings were imperative. In addition, the planning of building services affected the amount of "clear and available" floor space. These new structures had to meet the specifications of the insurance companies and of the building laws for fireproofing, in order to obtain the lowest insurance rates (as the Everett Building did).

 

Combining the stairway and fire escape provisions of the building law and omission of power plants in the building were additional ways to cut costs. At the same time, the building must be economical to operate. Speedy construction, a goal facilitated by granolithic or concrete floors, the use of metal trim, the omission of ornamental plastering, and the standardization of detail, was also essential.

 

In his article, David also suggested that attention to the building's design was necessary because "a structure which presents a good appearance sells better."

 

The Everett Building fulfilled these specifications as well. Like the Everett Building, the ideal loft and commercial structure was to consist of "a frame work, usually about sixteen stories high of piers and floors, the lines of both of which are separated by fixed distances, and both of which cannot be disguised by much ornamentation."

 

An ornamental cornice was not merely permitted but encouraged, even if the natural light on the top floor was impaired. The employment of glazed orange and green terra-cotta panels and medallions brings this desired attention to the Everett Building's crown.

 

According to David, windows should be grouped in order to emphasize the corners and to convey an impression of solidity; a building could thus be made to resemble a tower rather than a cage.

 

Face brick, laid in patterns, and architectural terra cotta were recommended for the cladding of the shaft. In other instances, exemplified by the Everett Building, "white glazed terra cotta decorated with superficial ornamental patterns has been effectively employed."

 

David continues that these buildings were a specific and original American type, "the only genuine commercial architecture in the world." These characteristics constitute what may be called a New York style.

 

Classical Aspects of the Building's Design

 

The Everett Building incorporates many classical elements in its design. As in other nearby skyscrapers including Bruce Price's Bank of the Metropolis, a designated New York City Landmark, the tripartite skyscraper elevation inspired by the parts of a classical column is employed in the Everett Building. A rusticated base is surmounted by a decorative transitional story; an eleven-story shaft leads to yet another transitional story, which is capped by a two-story attic crowned by an elaborate bracketed cornice.

 

The two-story base is articulated by rusticated piers which carry a classically-derived entablature that is embellished with stylized triglyphs and metopes. The building's two-story crown evokes a giant order; the elements of the pilasters are articulated and embellished by abstract terracotta elements. The doorway as built was pedimented with acroteria at center and sides.

 

William H. Jordy has observed that such commercial buildings retain "something of the blocky quality of the Renaissance palace format" which permitted the anonymity and interchangeability of functions.Real Estate Record & Guide concluded that the building "an investor might expect for $900,000," would be a structure "not — gaudy ... the whole with its straight, Renaissance architecture giving the impression of commercial utility."

 

Influence of the Chicago School

 

Goldwin Starrett's years working in Daniel Burnham's prestigious office (in the 1890s, the largest in Chicago, with branch offices in New York and San Francisco) are of clear influence to the design of the Everett Building which frankly expresses function. Starrett doubtless knew such monuments of Chicago architecture as Burnham & Root's Rand McNally Building (1888-90) and Burnham & Atwood's Reliance Building (1895).

 

Starrett's Chicago connections also would have insured his familiarity with the Carson, Pirie, Scott Store (the first two parts designed by Louis Sullivan, 1899, 1903-04; third part designed by Daniel Burnham, 1906). All three buildings contain innovations later incorporated in the Everett Building. The Rand McNally by Burnham & Root was formed of a consistent steel frame with facades "of terra cotta produced specifically to fit the frame."

 

The steel and terra cotta combination introduced in the Rand McNally was further refined after Root's death by Burnham and his designer Charles Atwood in the Reliance Building (1895).

 

Terra cotta, which although lighter, less expensive, and more solid than masonry, had heretofore been employed only as a fireproof undercoating to masonry and for ornamental embellishment. Its use as sheathing for the skyscraper was a precedent followed by Goldwin Starrett & Van Vleck and in many contemporary office and loft buildings in New York City.

 

By creating the appearance of a grid on the elevations, Starrett incorporated a major tenet of the Chicago School: the articulation on the exterior of interior structure. In this building, verticals are juxtaposed against horizontals and thus serve as visible surrogates for the concealed skeletal frame; such a system is one of the most important characteristics of the Chicago School.

 

The panels which emphasize the spandrel beams, the use of textured, ribbed moldings to articulate the panels themselves, and the vertical alignment of the windows is, in some respects, reminiscent of Carson, Pirie, Scott's structural expressiveness.

 

In Carson, Pirie, Scott, the terra-cotta panels and the fenestration create the impression of a grid and of horizontality; like the Chicago structure, the Everett Building can be viewed as both grids "expressing the frame" and as bands of horizontals.

 

The Everett Building, however, is more overtly classical than Carson, Pirie, Scott. In contrast to the receding two-story loggia which originally capped the two portions of the store designed by Sullivan, Starrett's design articulates the top two stories (which do not recede) with terra-cotta moldings.

 

Starrett topped the building with an avowedly classical cresting that features acroteria (as did the pedimented portico over the doorway as originally completed) and rests the building on rusticated piers.

 

Starrett and Van Vleck also render the Chicago idiom more traditionally. For example, the tripartite "Chicago window" with wide central pane and two narrow sash windows has here been translated into a bay containing three equally sized one-over-one windows. Although the end piers of the Everett Building are of the same width as those between bays, an additional textured molding has been added to their outer edges. Moreover, at the intersection of the Park Avenue South and Union Square elevations, the rusticated pier emphasizes the effect of the corner.

 

Description

 

Prominently located at the corner of East 17th Street and Park Avenue South, fronting on Union Square, the Everett Building is a sixteen-story, steel-framed office and loft building. A seventeenth story is concealed beneath the cornice and is evident only on the north and west walls. The building is sheathed in white terra-cotta panels and has applied green and orange architectural terra-cotta ornament. It is rectangular in shape with a rectangular light-court in the northwestern portion.

 

There are six bays on the Union Square side; the Park Avenue South elevation consists of eight bays. Each bay is divided into three parts, (with the exception of one bay on the Park Avenue South side which only contains two), each of which contains a window; above each first story window (with the exception of the second from the right on the Park Avenue South elevation which contains only two) and framed by the rusticated piers are three narrow, rectangular panels.

 

A two-story base with rusticated piers (each resting on a pink polished marble base and topped by a geometrical molding) is set off from the rest of the building by a cornice embellished with stylized triglyphs and metopes. Mullions separating windows in the bays of the second story resemble pilasters; they are set on blocks and feature consoles supporting pyramid-shaped blocks that reiterate the rustication on the piers and serve as capitals. A cornice with mutules completes the frieze above the second story. On the Union Square facade, atop the aperture of the bay on the extreme left, the original overdoor consisting of several thin moldings (two of which are embellished by small applied bosses in the shape of flowers) remains. On the Park Avenue South elevation, the bay to the extreme right contains the original transom treatment: above the shop windows and entrance (which are new), the transom area is divided into three panels each consisting of twelve lights, arranged in three rows of four. Two faciae separate each group of twelve lights; directly above these faciae, on the beltcourse, two dark bezants appear, serving both to embellish and to link the dark frames of the glazed panels below and the windows above.

 

The third story consists of ornamented piers (which separate the bays) demarcating the transition from the two-story base to the eleven-story shaft above. Set atop a plain base, the shaft of each pier is ornamented by borders with foliated and ribboned embellishments and palmette accents set diagonally into the corners.

 

Pilasters between the windows are also set atop plain bases; they are ornamented by long, thin recessed panels. The capitals of both piers and pilasters are both embellished by palmettes. A frieze embellished by garlands draped over bezants completes the transitional story and signals the beginning of the shaft.

 

On the eleven-story shaft, the crossings of the ribbed mullions and the outer textured edges of the panels which cover the spandrel beams establishes a grid, which reflects the building's construction and underscores the grid created by the intersection of windows, spandrel beams, and piers. On the Union Square facade, spandrel bands below each window are three panels wide and two panels high; each such group "of six panels is outlined by raised moldings.

 

Each bay consists of a total of three such groups. On the Park Avenue South elevation, each group is two panels wide and two panels high; each such group of four panels is outlined by raised moldings. On both elevations, the moldings which separate each group of panels are both continuations of the window mullions and indications of the window's outer edges. Piers are also indicated (when they intersect with the spandrel beam) by outlined terra-cotta panels, one panel wide and two panels high.

 

The intersection of the horizontal spandrel demarcation and the window's mullions and outer edges sets up a grid motif. The regularity of the grid deflects attention from the bay (second from the right on the Park Avenue South elevation) which consists of only two windows and from the change from a width of three panels for each subsection of each bay on the Union Square facade to two panels for each subsection on the Park Avenue South elevation.

 

A beltcourse tops the eleven-story shaft and sets off the two-story crown, which corresponds to the "capital" of the "tripartite column," from the body of the building. The piers are transformed into abstract pilasters by the application of applied reiterating polychrome terra-cotta ornament.

 

Within raised borders of white terra cotta that extend the length of both stories, orange rectangular panels embellished at their midpoints by applied green circles appear.

 

The spandrel beams between the two stories are covered with white terra-cotta panels within which are rectangular orange panels. Mullions (and their extensions) which abut spandrel beams are also embellished with recessed panels. The two-story section is topped with several moldings including one incorporating applied polychrome geometric motifs: in this scheme, paired and single green and orange rectangular lozenges alternate with green circular motifs. An elaborate dentilled cornice crested by acroteria tops the building.

 

On the west elevation, a brick wall pierced by four-over-four sash windows is visible from the ninth story upward; two windows indicate the seventeenth story. Bands demarcate borders that correspond to the terra-cotta spandrel beam covers on the facade. This elevation features interpretations of the stringcourse separating the top two stories and of the polychrome panelling and cornice treatment on the Union Square facade. To the right of and above the seventeenth story windows, a substantial amount of replacement brick appears.

 

On the north elevation visible above the ninth story, a buff brick wall features eight windows per floor; the remaining originals have four-over-four sash. From the visible base of this elevation through the fourteenth story, a terra-cotta border appears; above this, the border continues as panels. On this elevation, windows indicate the presence of the seventeenth story. A significant portion of the top two stories appears to be resurfaced. With its essential architectural features unchanged, this building continues to function as an office building with retail spaces at the ground story.

 

- From the 1988 NYCLPC Landmark Designation Report

The thing about The Mole was that he knew all of the players.

 

He knew everyone in the department.

 

Shit... he even knew the people they knew.

 

The Mole knew their wives, their girlfreinds, their mistresses, their enemies, their kids... he went to their weddings, their kids communions and their funerals... he gave them advice when they found themselves all jammed up.

 

The Mole used to be 'family.'

 

He knew who owed who a favor too.

 

And why.

 

The Mole rose through the ranks and was being groomed for the Chief's position until he got screwed because of politics and he was forced to retire.

 

He blamed it all on 'The Old Man.'

 

And he genuinely felt wronged.

 

The Mole was pretty bitter about it even after all these years.

 

He felt used and let's face it... no one likes to feel used.

 

That kinda goes without saying but that feeling was really the core of his motivation here.

 

About half of the department hated the guy and the other half loved him.

 

The guy was 'politics' personified.

 

He had connections everywhere though.

 

Solid connections.

 

Even on other departments.

 

The Mole knew who could be trusted and who could not.

 

And if he didn't, The Mole knew who to call to find out.

 

If he said a guy was good... the guy was good.

 

He never seemed to be wrong.

 

Not once.

 

If he told me to 'watch out for that guy' you can bet I'd be careful with that one.

 

He was right on that note more than a few times and his advice definitely saved me from some grief.

 

The thing was... like me... The Mole had a score to settle too.

 

He was 'the enemy of my enemy' and that's what made everything fall into place.

 

'What they did to you and your family was wrong' he said... 'these people got no sense of decency... all you asked 'em to do was the right thing and they just couldn't bring themselves to do it... my heart goes out to you."

 

Then he'd tell me all about what they did to him.

 

We had a common enemy in the 'regime.'

 

And it would bring us both untold amounts of joy and satisfaction to see that regime fall.

 

It would also bring us a lot of hurt before it was over.

 

The Mole told me about Skeevy... the former Chief who now worked for another department... he was still pretty much running Deadwood... because Deadwood's chief was an idiot.

 

Skeevy was the guy that got the idiot the job.

 

And he did it to maintain some power within the regime... the new chief was his 'made man.'

 

He was his 'representative' on the inside now that he was out.

 

Skeevy had interests to protect and secrets to keep.

 

And the new chief 'Hot Dog' owed him everything.

 

Chief Hot Dog would fall too before it was all over.

 

The Mole was always there for Skeevy when they worked together... but Skeevy threw the Mole to the jackals after he had no more use for him.

 

The Mole really resented that on a deeply personal level.

 

It was one of the things that I could tell really hurt him inside.

 

Knowing where the strings were being pulled from and who was pulling them helped me a lot.

 

Now I could understand the 'why.'

 

The first time The Mole and I hooked up on the phone I was really nervous... I mean... I didn't know the guy... I didn't know if he was one of them or what.

 

It was true that 'Double D', my Godfather vouched for him and all, but still...

 

I could be spillin' to an infiltrator.

 

I could be tellin' them everything I knew.

 

It left me feelin' kinda exposed.

 

So the first few conversations were just us 'feelin' each other out.'

 

I kept the information tight in the beginning... I had some good dirt... I had loads of really good dirt but I'd let it out a little at a time to see if the mole was leaky.

 

Sometime's I'd let go of a juicy piece of 'misinformation.'

 

Just to see if it got out there.

 

I'm sure The Mole did the same thing.

 

There were a half a dozen guys feeding me information... but none of them were as dedicated to screwing these guys as The Mole was.

 

And none of them had as much information.

 

I was always really protective of my sources and no matter how much I trusted anyone I never let out the names... that was pretty much a given from all directions.

 

If I guy thought you were a 'loose cannon' he'd dry up with the information right away.

 

The Mole knew I wasn't a plant or anything... the story was all over the newspapers and on tv.

 

My picture was in the papers too.

 

They interviewed me on TV.

 

They had me talkin' on the radio.

 

In London even.

 

It was pretty obvious that I had a score to settle.

 

The Mole saw our working together as an opportunity to advance his agenda and I saw him as a great resource in understanding the relationships behind the names.

 

I knew the 'who' but it was only because of The Mole that I'd know the 'why.'

 

All along I'd been taunting them on the internet.

 

I wanted to shift the 'battle' there after the firebomb incident.

 

It was always David versus Goliath and the internet was my slingshot.

 

I let them know I wasn't going to back down... that I wasn't afraid of them and their badges and their guns.

 

The media was on my side too.

 

They loved the story.

 

At least the parts of the story that they knew... and that was just the tip of the iceberg.

 

The whole thing was such an irony and it made for great soundbites.

 

It didn't take long for The Mole and I to gain each others trust and respect.

 

I genuinely liked the guy... we became good friends and we looked out for each other... we had each other's backs through the whole thing.

 

Our relationship was like two guys playing a very important and strategic game of chess against the regime.

 

We started to bounce every move off of each other.

 

We'd discuss the ramifications of putting this information out... who that would piss off... whose toes would get stepped on by that comment... where it would seem like that information came from...

 

We debated what hand that we'd play... what cards we'd hold and where we better fold.

 

The Mole was ever cool and The Mole was always calculated.

 

The Mole was also pretty paranoid about things.

 

He'd pause when we spoke on the phone and there was a strange clicking sound... 'did you hear that' he'd say.

 

He thought that they were tappin' the phones.

 

At first I just kinda laughed it off as conspiracy babble but later The Mole'd be proven right.

 

The Mole was always right.

 

He knew what these people were capable of.

 

He knew what they'd done before.

 

The Mole always told me to watch my back.

 

He'd been to hell and back in Vietnam in the late sixties and he would say 'man if I had you on my side when I was over there we'da won that war.'

 

The Mole loved to tell stories about what went on there on the inside.

 

He told them really well... he was a great story teller and I really enjoyed listening to the tales.

 

Some of them scared the shit out of me.

 

He told me about 'Secret Squirrell'... the officer with a fetish for high powered weaponry... the one who drove around with a trunk full of weapons that would make Al Quieda jealous.

 

Wasn't it Jesus who said 'know your enemy so you can screw them better'?

 

Wait, that was Sun Tzu... the ancient Chinese General that wrote the book 'The Art of War' which sat next to my computer on my desk through this entire debacle.

 

I'd find myself referring to 'The Art of War' almost on a daily basis.

 

Jesus said 'love your enemy' and that was just as good.

 

Ask anyone going through a divorce.

 

I loved to hear the stories about their exploits.

 

The stories painted a picture in my head.

 

And I'd use that picture to get in their heads.

 

After a while I started to feel like I knew people I had never met.

 

I knew who left her checkbook in the mayor's truck.

 

I knew that the mayor's wife found it.

 

I knew that the mayor's wife knew about it and she said to a friend 'why would I want to divorce a millionairre?'

 

I also knew that that woman who left her checkbook in the mayor's truck later 'won' the village's charity raffle for the Jeep Wrangler.

 

Legend had it that she was actually ordering the options before the raffle even took place.

 

She insisted on leather seats and a CD player.

 

The Old Man was the one who drew the 'winning' ticket.

 

The Jeep was 'hush money' and everyone knew it.

 

That's how this kind of corruption works... the people doing it don't consider it evil... but they know it's wrong... kinda like lying to a chick you really wanna score with... tellin' her you know somebody you really don't just to impress her...

 

What they do know is that if they get you in to it they can keep you there.

 

You'll be on the inside forever... or at least until they don't want you there.

 

I make it so you win the Jeep, you ain't gonna say I'm corrupt.

 

You might whisper it... elbow it around in closed company and stuff... but you ain't gonna go on some 'anti corruption crusade.'

 

Because you're just as dirty now.

 

You're one of us.

 

Corrupt is corrupt and the only difference is in the amount of the corruption.

 

The Old Man was the king of corruption.

 

I don't even think he did it so much for 'personal gain.'

 

I haven't heard a single tale of him putting any dough into his bank account.

 

It was pretty clear he was using the taxpayers money to maintain some of his property... even improve it... but I think he looked at that as makin' the town a better place to live.

 

He just happened to make a lot of money off of it at some point.

 

'The Old Man' graduated from the 'Polish School' of politics... the philosophy was 'we're all gonna work really hard... we'll cut up the pie and everybody who tows the line'll get a piece... but if you don't tow the line not only will you not get any pie but I'll crush you with my iron fist.'

 

The Old Man liked to tell people that he 'ran this town with an iron fist.'

 

At a council meeting once when he was trying to get a garbage incinerator built on some property he owned... a deal that would've made him a substantial amount of money... and he wouldn't let opponents of the deal speak... he said:

 

'This is my democracy.. I started it' he said 'if YOU want a democracy you can go start your own.'

 

He was a tough old bag... I really kinda admired him for that... and in almost forty years of runnin' the place he'd never gotten a 'no' vote from his rubber-stamp council.

 

If you were on The Old Man's good side you were golden.

 

You got on his bad side and you'd come to learn what he meant by 'iron fist.'

 

The Old Man got rich in trucking and transportation.

 

He didn't need the money that all the corruption around him made.

 

I don't think he took a penny directly.

 

He spread it around.

 

He gave it back to the people in the form of a tax rebate.

 

It was in his mind the way that Robin Hood would do it.

 

Which was ironic because the Old Man was rich.

 

'Turning his head' and spreading out the money became the source of all of his political power and he knew that better than anybody.

 

Until I came along nobody had ever gotten in his way.

 

It all started in that dark parking lot on a cold December evening.

 

They were the ones who started it.

 

Nobody ever thought that would be the spark that brought it all down.

 

Like most wars, nobody involved at the beginning even knew that a war had been started.

 

Not even me.

 

And I just happened to find myself right there at 'ground zero.'

Washington DC, The Walter E. Washington Convention Center, the afternoon of March 1, 2015. Around one hundred social justice activists affiliated with Code Pink, Jewish Voice For Justice, AVAAZ, US Campaign To End The Israeli Occupation, Boycott From Within, Answer Coaltion and other peace and faith groups demonstrate in front of the Convention Center to protest the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) yearly DC meeting. AIPAC is regarded by many as the most powerful lobbying group in town. AIPAC has a policy agenda that's out of step with the values of most Jewish Americans and other participants in civilized society but they call the tune because our corrupt political culture is fueled by money, not decency. In an act of peaceful civil disobedience, five demonstrators, all women, were arrested for failing to obey police orders to remove themselves from the granite in front of one of the Convention Center's many doorways. They were given three warnings before being arrested. I photographed one of women as she was being lead away in plastic handcuffs. "I'm a Jewish mother!" she proclaimed. I gave her the 'thumbs up'.

Most of the DC cops kept their cool but when some of the demonstrators got in their face a brief scuffle ensued. Some of us locked arms and and helped lift up one of the Code Pink ladies who was almost knocked down onto the steps by a DC officer who lost it.

UN staff in New York gather at the “Knotted Gun” sculpture at the UN Visitor’s Centre entrance at 12:00 noon on Wednesday 15 March to call for an end to the six years of conflict in Syria. Staff held signs with photos of six year old Syrian children with the hashtag #notatarget as part of their action to stand in solidarity with the people of Syria.

 

Pictured: Khetsiwe Dlamini, Chief of Staff, UN Women, addresses the gathering

 

Text of the UN Staff Statement:

We, the staff of the United Nations wish to express our profound concern and outrage over the suffering of the people and especially the children of Syria.

 

The crucible of war continues to hold the people, and especially the children of Syria, hostage. For six years, Syrians have experienced appalling violence and flagrant disregard for human life. For six years, the world has watched in horror. Human decency and conscience demands that we end the carnage now.

 

The United Nations was founded on principles of human rights and respect for humanitarian values. It is our duty as individuals and as a collective to uphold these principles. We therefore stand in solidarity with the civilians and particularly the children who are suffering from abuses, indignity and destruction caused by ongoing violations of international norms. We stand united in solidarity with the people and especially the children of Syria.

 

We call upon the Member States of the United Nations, in particular the Security Council, to take urgent action to end the bloodshed in Syria.

 

Photo: UN Women/Ryan Brown

 

Henry Carey, 2nd earl of Monmouth; Elizabeth Trevannion, Countess of Monmouth; Robert Carey, Earl of Monmouth; Philadelphia Carey; Thomas Carey

 

Attributed to Paul Van Somer,painting,circa 1617

 

Robert Carey, 1st Earl of Monmouth (c. 1560 – 12 April 1639), youngest son of Henry Carey, 1st Baron Hunsdon (Chamberlain and first cousin/brother of Queen Elizabeth I) and Anne Morgan daughter of Sir Thomas Morgan and Anne Whitney.

 

As a young man he accompanied several diplomatic missions abroad and took part in military expeditions. In 1587 he joined in the attempt to relieve Sluys, in 1588 served as a volunteer against the Spanish Armada, and commanded a regiment in the Earl of Essex's expedition to Normandy in support of the Protestant Henry IV of France in 1591, taking part in the siege of Rouen. He was knighted by Essex the same year for having by his intercession with the Queen procured his recall.

 

In the parliaments of 1586 and 1588 he represented Morpeth; in that of 1593, Callington; and in those of 1596 and 1601, Northumberland. From 1593 till the end of Elizabeth's reign he occupied various posts in the government of the Scottish borders, succeeding to his father's appointment of Lord Warden of the Marches in 1596, which he held till February 1598.

 

This was some of the most important work of his life, and he was largely responsible for easing the troubles and the depredations of the Border Reivers. His conflict with the Scottish fyrebrande Robert Ker, 1st Earl of Roxburghe was only settled after great skill and tact on Carey's part.

 

In March 1603 he visited the court, and witnessed Queen Elizabeth I's last illness, which he described in his memoirs. Anxious to recommend himself to her successor James I, and disobeying the orders of the council, he started on horseback immediately after the Queen's death on the morning of 24 March 1603, in order to be the first to communicate the tidings to James, arrived at Holyrood late on 26 March, and was appointed by the King a Gentleman of the Bedchamber. But his conduct met with general and merited censure as "contrary to all decency, good manners and respect," and on James's arrival in England he was dismissed from his new post. On 23 February 1605, however, he was made governor of Prince Charles, in 1611 his master of the robes, in 1617 his Chamberlain, and on 6 February 1622, he was created Baron Carey of Leppington. In 1623 he followed Charles in his visit to Philip IV of Spain. Following Charles' succession to the throne he was created Earl of Monmouth in 1626.

 

He died on 12 April 1639. His eldest son Henry Carey, 2nd Earl of Monmouth (1596–1661) succeeded him, and on his death without surviving male issue the peerage became extinct.

 

His Memoirs were published first by John Boyle, 5th Earl of Cork in 1759. A second edition, annotated by Sir Walter Scott, was printed in 1808.

Session Americana and Peter Wolf playing at the Lizard Lounge in Cambridge, MA.

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Wolf

www.peterwolf.com/

www.facebook.com/PeterWolfMusic?v=wall

Life and career

 

Wolf was born in the Bronx, New York. He planned a career as an artist, but he got a job in the late 1960s as a disc jockey on then-cutting edge Boston FM radio station WBCN and began exploring his interest in blues and rhythm and blues music, giving himself the nickname "the Wolfa Goofa", sometimes expanded to "the Wolfa Goofa with the Green Teeth" (as mentioned in the intro to "Must of Got Lost" on the Blow Your Face Out album). Later as solo artist he called himself Woofa Goofa Mama Toofa. He formed a group called the Hallucinations who performed with The Velvet Underground, Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, Van Morrison, John Lee Hooker, and Sun Ra. He then saw the J. Geils Blues Band in concert and quickly joined. He was the vocalist and frontman, and often acted as a sort of manager. Wolf was known for his charismatic stage antics of fast-talking quips and "pole-vaulting" with the microphone stand. He and keyboard player Seth Justman were responsible for most of the songwriting. Creative differences followed their Freeze-Frame album, causing the J. Geils Band and Peter Wolf to part ways in 1983.

 

Peter Wolf with the J. Geils Band in Candlestick Park, San Francisco, California Photo: Catharine Anderson

Wolf became a solo artist for the next 15 years, but in 1999 the J. Geils Band reunited for several appearances, with Wolf resuming his duties as lead vocalist. They separated again, and Wolf began touring once more, as a solo act.

Wolf's first solo record, Lights Out (1984) was produced by Michael Jonzun of the Jonzun Crew, features Adrian Belew, and has a somewhat funky, electro sound. The eponymous single became a hit single the same year, peaking at #12 on the Billboard Hot 100. He recorded many duets with the likes of Aretha Franklin, Little Milton, John Lee Hooker, Don Covay, and Wilson Pickett to name just a few.

Long Line was co-produced with two musician friends, Johnny A. and a Bob Dylan backup band member, Stu Kimball. Tim Archibald (Bass) and Brian Maes (keys and backing vocals) who are both members of "Ernie And The Automatics", played on the record and Toured in support of "Long Line." His next two solo albums, Fool's Parade and Sleepless (the latter featuring guest appearances from Mick Jagger and Keith Richards), were both highly praised by Jann Wenner in Rolling Stone, receiving four-and-a-half and five stars, respectively. Sleepless (2002) was noted as one of the 500 greatest albums of all time in Rolling Stone issue 937. He has performed on stage with such diverse people as Bruce Springsteen and Phil Lesh.

Wolf toured in 2008 with Kid Rock and Rev. Run on The Rock N Roll Revival Tour. He performed "Love Stinks" solo with Kid Rock's band. Then he joined Kid Rock for "Ain't Too Proud to Beg", "Musta Got Lost", "Centerfold" (from the J. Geils album Freeze Frame) and "For What It's Worth".

The J. Geils Band re-united for a series of shows in 2009, including opening night at the Boston House of Blues.

Wolf's 2010 album Midnight Souvenirs won Album of the Year at the Boston Music Awards.[2][3]

 

www.facebook.com/pages/Session-Americana/53199003969

 

www.sessionamericana.com

www.myspace.com/sessionamericana

www.hi-n-dry.com/session_americana

www.exploitboston.com/music-musings/grab-new-music-from-s...

Session Americana - www.sessionamericana.com

 

This ad hoc acoustic supergroup started around a table at a small pub in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where Ry Cavanaugh, Billy Conway, Sean Staples, Dinty Child, Jim Fitting and other friends gathered to swap songs and stories. Their lively performances and inspired versions of tunes from the dusty backroads of America's past were such a hit with fans that they decided to take their musical conversation into the studio. The two-CD debut Tabletop People ups the ante with stellar appearances by folksinger Rose Polenzani, Twinemen's Laurie Sargent, Dennis Brennan, Asa Brebner, Merrie Amsterburg, Dan Kellar, Presidents of the United States' Chris Ballew, Jabe Beyer, Tim Gearon and other luminaries. And the 18 gritty, funny, soulful performances included span a gamut of emotions and tastes that should please both adult and younger listeners.

 

"Genius ... Jaw-dropping vocals ... Session Americana is blessed in this regard:...musicianship that sets the standard for the genre in Boston

and vocals that do the same"

— Performer Magazine

 

Session Americana sit tightly around a small cafe table, ambient mics tuned to catch the whole sound of the voices and instruments. A suit-case drum kit, an old electric bass, a bunch of acoustic instruments, a field organ: This format feels very theatrical and though the musicians face each other, the audience feels drawn into the circle by the warmth, joy and camaraderie that emanate outwards by the all star cast of characters seated around the table. What keeps you coming back show after show is the same thing that any audience member longs for, great songs performed by a great band. The six core members of the band have brought enviable careers worth of experience to the “table”, featuring (current and former) members of Treat Her Right, Patty Griffin, Lori McKenna, The The, Dennis Brennan, Kris Delmhorst. The group has grown from a rag tag jam at a local pub to a regional institution, playing gigs from church coee houses to urban nightclubs to regional festival tents to large halls.

 

Band: Ry Cavanaugh, Billy Beard, Dinty Child, Jim Fitting, Sean Staples and Jon Bistline.

 

*Winner “2005 Best Folk Act” - The Boston Music Awards

*Winner “Best Roots Act 2006” - Improper Bostonian “Best of Boston” Issue

*Winner “Best CD” 2007 - Improper Bostonian

*Nominated “Best Roots Act” 2007 - WFNX/Boston Phoenix Best Music Poll

*Nominated Best Live Act 2007 - The Boston Music Awards

*Nominated Best Americana Act 2008 - The Boston Music Awards

 

“Genius ... Jaw-dropping vocals ... Session Americana is blessed in this regard: ...musicianship that sets the standard for the genre in Boston and vocals that do the same”

— NE Performer Magazine

 

“No egos, no big production, just some great songs stripped down to their bare essentials and performed with a real genuineness of spirit and emotional authenticity... it’s beautiful.” (Brian Mosher)

— The Noise

 

“An eclectic, swinging tour de force” — The Boston Globe

 

“[This] local country-folk megagroup’s double CD is one of the most loose, spontaneous, warm, and homespun acts of community and decency since the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s Will the Circle Be Unbroken.”

 

— The Boston Phoenix

“the cream of the Somerville/Cambridge community" - No Depression (read less)

 

that now famous command, issued by the Italian Coast Guard Comandante Gregorio De Falco, to the cruise ship Capitan Schettino. Literally, "climb onboard, (expletive!)".

 

I'm sure that's on a t-shirt somewhere, and I was tempted to get one, but the tragedy of the event rinses away any humor for me.

 

Now the news reports the 14-story luxury Princess Star cruise ship passed by 3 Panamanian fisherman, whose small boat was spotted adrift. A Portland birdwatcher onboard spotted the dying men, but the ship's crew and captain ignored maritime law, and basic human decency, and steamed on.

 

There's a special commitment to being captain of a ship, people step aboard, subscribing to a certain understanding. From the smallest kayak to an aircraft carrier--there's a Code that these "cruise ship captains" ignored. They're "Captains" in name only, Night Motel Desk Operators in performance. (no criticism of night hosting staff here, many have befriended me over the years--not unlike Pizza Delivery guys!)

 

My boatyard buddy, enjoying a siesta on the water, understands the distinction. "You're either on the bus or off the bus. You do what you must. To the Ships! Damn the Torpedoes, Full Steam Ahead." My Jolly Sailor Bold

           

WALMART WORKERS, TAXPAYERS ARRESTED CALLING FOR WALMART OWNERS TO STOP ROBBING AMERICA

 

Group calls on Walton family to stop taking advantage of taxpayer programs to support low-wage model & instead, pay workers $15 an hour and provide full-time work

 

If the Waltons fail to respond, protestors promise to return to Walmart stores on Black Friday

 

New York and Washington, DC – Forty-two Walmart workers and their supporters were arrested today calling on Walmart’s owners to stop robbing workers a fair wage and passing the bill on to taxpayers. Without a public commitment from the Waltons to raise pay at Walmart, the group refused to disperse, shutting down Park Avenue in front of Alice Walton’s new penthouse in New York and K Street in front of the Walton Family Foundation in DC. Last year, Walmart’s former CEO confirmed that the majority of Walmart workers are paid less than $25,000 a year.

 

“My grandkids go hungry because of low pay at Walmart,” said Sandra Sok, a Walmart worker in Phoenix. “I’ll do whatever it takes to make these billionaires and Walmart see what they’re doing to our families.”

 

“We are tired of seeing the Waltons enjoy every luxury this world can offer while the workers that build their wealth are unable to pay their bills,” said Interfaith Worker Justice Executive Director Kim Bobo. “Income inequality will only be addressed when the Waltons and Walmart provide fair pay and regular hours to their workers. I’m here today taking a stand for Walmart workers, and I’ll be back on Black Friday with thousands of others who have had enough of Walmart’s destruction of the American Dream.”

 

Before the arrests, the group delivered a petition signed by workers from 1,710 of Walmart stores in all 50 states. The petition calls on Walmart to publicly commit raise pay to $15 an hour and provide consistent, full-time hours. The actions today follow protests yesterday in Phoenix, AZ, where Walmart associates and community members delivered the petition to Walmart chair Rob Walton.

 

“The Waltons have made it impossible for me to get ahead and make sure my daughter goes to bed in a warm home,” said Fatmata Jabbie,a Walmart worker who delivered the petition to the Walton Family Foundation in Washington, DC. “The Waltons can choose to turn things around and stop robbing working Americans like me who just want to raise our families. We need $15 an hour and consistent full-time work—now.”

 

The Walton family, which controls the Walmart empire, is the richest family in the U.S.—with the wealth of 43% of American families combined. While many Walmart workers are unable to feed and clothe their families on their pay of less than $25,000 a year, the Walton family takes in $8.6 million a day in Walmart dividends alone to build on its $150 billion in wealth. Walmart brings in $16 billion in annual profits.

 

“Right now, corporate profits are at an all-time high while wages are lower than any time since 1948,” said Rep. Grijalva. “Walmart alone rakes in $16 billion a year while enjoying $8 billion in tax breaks and subsidies, but refuses to pay employees enough to put food on the table or clothes on their back. Many of their employees are forced to rely on taxpayer-funded programs, meaning the American taxpayers are paying for the Walton family’s refusal to pay a decent wage. It’s time to end this scam, and ensure all workers have the decency of a livable wage and full-time work.”

 

Walmart workers depend on food stamps and other taxpayer-supported programs to support their families. Walmart—the standard-setter for jobs in the retail industry—has created a norm of erratic, part-time scheduling that is keeping workers from getting the hours they need, holding down second jobs, arranging child care, going to school or managing health conditions.

 

The protests today come at a time when OUR Walmart members have made significant strides creating change at the country’s largest employer. OUR Walmart member Richard Reynoso, who sent a letter to Walmart about the new dress code policy, not only pushed the company to live up to its Buy America commitment with the new vests; his manager gave him full-time hours in response to his concerns about affording new clothing on his low pay. OUR Walmart members have had similar hours victories—through petitions and meetings with managers—in the San Francisco Bay Area, Dallas, Florida, Southern California, Louisiana and Chicago. Walmart improved its pregnancy policy recently after OUR Walmart members, who are also shareholders, submitted a resolution to the company about its pregnancy policy. And, responding to OUR Walmart members’ growing calls on the retailer to improve access to hours, Walmart rolled out a new system nationwide that allows workers to sign up for open shifts in their stores online.

 

Background

 

A report released earlier this year by Americans for Tax Fairness showed that by dodging taxes, exploiting loopholes and taking advantage of taxpayer subsidies, Walmart and the Waltons received an estimated $7.8 billion in tax breaks and subsidies in 2013. And while many taxpayers struggle to stretch paychecks, the richest family in the country has avoided an estimated $3 billion in taxes by using specialized trusts to dodge estate taxes.

 

National public policy organization Demos released a report this year showing low-pay and erratic scheduling keep millions of hard-working Americans—particularly women—near poverty. The report finds that establishing a new wage floor equivalent to $25,000 per year for fulltime, year round work at retail companies employing at least 1,000 workers would improve the lives of more than 3.2 million female retail workers and lift 900,000 women and their families directly out of poverty or near poverty.

 

###

LEGAL DISCLAIMER: UFCW and OUR Walmart have the purpose of helping Wal-Mart employees as individuals or groups in their dealings with Wal-Mart over labor rights and standards and their efforts to have Wal-Mart publically commit to adhering to labor rights and standards. UFCW and OUR Walmart have no intent to have Walmart recognize or bargain with UFCW or OUR Walmart as the representative of Walmart employees.

 

Session Americana and Peter Wolf playing at the Lizard Lounge in Cambridge, MA.

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Wolf

www.peterwolf.com/

www.facebook.com/PeterWolfMusic?v=wall

Life and career

 

Wolf was born in the Bronx, New York. He planned a career as an artist, but he got a job in the late 1960s as a disc jockey on then-cutting edge Boston FM radio station WBCN and began exploring his interest in blues and rhythm and blues music, giving himself the nickname "the Wolfa Goofa", sometimes expanded to "the Wolfa Goofa with the Green Teeth" (as mentioned in the intro to "Must of Got Lost" on the Blow Your Face Out album). Later as solo artist he called himself Woofa Goofa Mama Toofa. He formed a group called the Hallucinations who performed with The Velvet Underground, Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, Van Morrison, John Lee Hooker, and Sun Ra. He then saw the J. Geils Blues Band in concert and quickly joined. He was the vocalist and frontman, and often acted as a sort of manager. Wolf was known for his charismatic stage antics of fast-talking quips and "pole-vaulting" with the microphone stand. He and keyboard player Seth Justman were responsible for most of the songwriting. Creative differences followed their Freeze-Frame album, causing the J. Geils Band and Peter Wolf to part ways in 1983.

 

Peter Wolf with the J. Geils Band in Candlestick Park, San Francisco, California Photo: Catharine Anderson

Wolf became a solo artist for the next 15 years, but in 1999 the J. Geils Band reunited for several appearances, with Wolf resuming his duties as lead vocalist. They separated again, and Wolf began touring once more, as a solo act.

Wolf's first solo record, Lights Out (1984) was produced by Michael Jonzun of the Jonzun Crew, features Adrian Belew, and has a somewhat funky, electro sound. The eponymous single became a hit single the same year, peaking at #12 on the Billboard Hot 100. He recorded many duets with the likes of Aretha Franklin, Little Milton, John Lee Hooker, Don Covay, and Wilson Pickett to name just a few.

Long Line was co-produced with two musician friends, Johnny A. and a Bob Dylan backup band member, Stu Kimball. Tim Archibald (Bass) and Brian Maes (keys and backing vocals) who are both members of "Ernie And The Automatics", played on the record and Toured in support of "Long Line." His next two solo albums, Fool's Parade and Sleepless (the latter featuring guest appearances from Mick Jagger and Keith Richards), were both highly praised by Jann Wenner in Rolling Stone, receiving four-and-a-half and five stars, respectively. Sleepless (2002) was noted as one of the 500 greatest albums of all time in Rolling Stone issue 937. He has performed on stage with such diverse people as Bruce Springsteen and Phil Lesh.

Wolf toured in 2008 with Kid Rock and Rev. Run on The Rock N Roll Revival Tour. He performed "Love Stinks" solo with Kid Rock's band. Then he joined Kid Rock for "Ain't Too Proud to Beg", "Musta Got Lost", "Centerfold" (from the J. Geils album Freeze Frame) and "For What It's Worth".

The J. Geils Band re-united for a series of shows in 2009, including opening night at the Boston House of Blues.

Wolf's 2010 album Midnight Souvenirs won Album of the Year at the Boston Music Awards.[2][3]

 

www.facebook.com/pages/Session-Americana/53199003969

 

www.sessionamericana.com

www.myspace.com/sessionamericana

www.hi-n-dry.com/session_americana

www.exploitboston.com/music-musings/grab-new-music-from-s...

Session Americana - www.sessionamericana.com

 

This ad hoc acoustic supergroup started around a table at a small pub in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where Ry Cavanaugh, Billy Conway, Sean Staples, Dinty Child, Jim Fitting and other friends gathered to swap songs and stories. Their lively performances and inspired versions of tunes from the dusty backroads of America's past were such a hit with fans that they decided to take their musical conversation into the studio. The two-CD debut Tabletop People ups the ante with stellar appearances by folksinger Rose Polenzani, Twinemen's Laurie Sargent, Dennis Brennan, Asa Brebner, Merrie Amsterburg, Dan Kellar, Presidents of the United States' Chris Ballew, Jabe Beyer, Tim Gearon and other luminaries. And the 18 gritty, funny, soulful performances included span a gamut of emotions and tastes that should please both adult and younger listeners.

 

"Genius ... Jaw-dropping vocals ... Session Americana is blessed in this regard:...musicianship that sets the standard for the genre in Boston

and vocals that do the same"

— Performer Magazine

 

Session Americana sit tightly around a small cafe table, ambient mics tuned to catch the whole sound of the voices and instruments. A suit-case drum kit, an old electric bass, a bunch of acoustic instruments, a field organ: This format feels very theatrical and though the musicians face each other, the audience feels drawn into the circle by the warmth, joy and camaraderie that emanate outwards by the all star cast of characters seated around the table. What keeps you coming back show after show is the same thing that any audience member longs for, great songs performed by a great band. The six core members of the band have brought enviable careers worth of experience to the “table”, featuring (current and former) members of Treat Her Right, Patty Griffin, Lori McKenna, The The, Dennis Brennan, Kris Delmhorst. The group has grown from a rag tag jam at a local pub to a regional institution, playing gigs from church coee houses to urban nightclubs to regional festival tents to large halls.

 

Band: Ry Cavanaugh, Billy Beard, Dinty Child, Jim Fitting, Sean Staples and Jon Bistline.

 

*Winner “2005 Best Folk Act” - The Boston Music Awards

*Winner “Best Roots Act 2006” - Improper Bostonian “Best of Boston” Issue

*Winner “Best CD” 2007 - Improper Bostonian

*Nominated “Best Roots Act” 2007 - WFNX/Boston Phoenix Best Music Poll

*Nominated Best Live Act 2007 - The Boston Music Awards

*Nominated Best Americana Act 2008 - The Boston Music Awards

 

“Genius ... Jaw-dropping vocals ... Session Americana is blessed in this regard: ...musicianship that sets the standard for the genre in Boston and vocals that do the same”

— NE Performer Magazine

 

“No egos, no big production, just some great songs stripped down to their bare essentials and performed with a real genuineness of spirit and emotional authenticity... it’s beautiful.” (Brian Mosher)

— The Noise

 

“An eclectic, swinging tour de force” — The Boston Globe

 

“[This] local country-folk megagroup’s double CD is one of the most loose, spontaneous, warm, and homespun acts of community and decency since the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s Will the Circle Be Unbroken.”

 

— The Boston Phoenix

“the cream of the Somerville/Cambridge community" - No Depression (read less)

 

Washington DC, The Walter E. Washington Convention Center, the afternoon of March 1, 2015. Around one hundred social justice activists affiliated with Code Pink, Jewish Voice For Justice, AVAAZ, US Campaign To End The Israeli Occupation, Boycott From Within, Answer Coaltion and other peace and faith groups demonstrate in front of the Convention Center to protest the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) yearly DC meeting. AIPAC is regarded by many as the most powerful lobbying group in town. AIPAC has a policy agenda that's out of step with the values of most Jewish Americans and other participants in civilized society but they call the tune because our corrupt political culture is fueled by money, not decency. In an act of peaceful civil disobedience, five demonstrators, all women, were arrested for failing to obey police orders to remove themselves from the granite in front of one of the Convention Center's many doorways. They were given three warnings before being arrested. I photographed one of women as she was being lead away in plastic handcuffs. "I'm a Jewish mother!" she proclaimed. I gave her the 'thumbs up'. It was great to see Jews, Muslims, Christians and others joining together to promote peace. Maybe the people themselves will do what governments apparently no longer can? Am I just dreaming?

Most of the DC cops kept their cool but when some of the demonstrators got in their face a brief scuffle ensued. Some of us locked arms and and helped lift up one of the Code Pink ladies who was almost knocked down onto the steps by a DC officer who lost it.

Walking in my shoes on YouTubehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGs6rkKf-lk

 

Walking in my shoes by Depeche Mode:

 

I would tell you about the things

They put me through

The pain I've been subjected to

But the Lord himself would blush

The countless feasts laid at my feet

Forbidden fruits for me to eat

But I think your pulse would start to rush

 

Now I'm not looking for absolution

Forgiveness for the things I do

But before you come to any conclusions

Try walking in my shoes

Try walking in my shoes

 

You'll stumble in my footsteps

Keep the same appointments I kept

If you try walking in my shoes

If you try walking in my shoes

 

Morality would frown upon

Decency look down upon

The scapegoat fate's made of me

But I promise now, my judge and jurors

My intentions couldn't have been purer

My case is easy to see

 

I'm not looking for a clearer conscience

Peace of mind after what I've been through

And before we talk of any repentance

Try walking in my shoes

Try walking in my shoes

 

You'll stumble in my footsteps

Keep the same appointments I kept

If you try walking in my shoes

If you try walking in my shoes

Try walking in my shoes

 

Now I'm not looking for absolution

Forgiveness for the things I do

But before you come to any conclusions

Try walking in my shoes

Try walking in my shoes

 

You'll stumble in my footsteps

Keep the same appointments I kept

If you try walking in my shoes

 

You'll stumble in my footsteps

Keep the same appointments I kept

If you try walking in my shoes

Try walking in my shoes

If you try walking in my shoes

Try walking in my shoes

Joseph R. McCarthy was born in Grand Chute, Wisconsin, November 14, 1908, on his Irish Catholic parents' dairy farm. A restless student, he dropped out of high school at sixteen to start his own poultry farm on land he had rented from a friend.

 

After a brutal winter killed all his flock, he returned to school in 1929, focused and determined to graduate with his class, which required completing four years of course work in half that time. In 1930, he enrolled in Marquette University and developed a reputation as a card shark and heavyweight boxer.

 

After earning a law degree in 1935 (financed by gambling winnings and wages from odd jobs), he returned home to open his practice and begin a career in politics.

 

When McCarthy lost his first campaign as the Democratic nominee for district attorney, he decided to seek a nonpartisan position. He soon sought a circuit judgeship and challenged a twenty-year incumbent who dismissed McCarthy as a long shot, an unelectable rookie.

 

McCarthy campaigned with a vengeance and over the course of the election deliberately inflated his opponent's age and salary. His tactics worked and, in 1937, the twenty-nine year old McCarthy became the youngest judge in Wisconsin history.

 

Five years later, even though his service on the bench excluded him for military service, McCarthy joined the Marines, hoping that his combat experience would enhance his political stature.

 

As an intelligence officer stationed in the Pacific, he spent the war debriefing pilots after they returned from bombing raids over Japan.

 

Yet, when he returned to campaign at home, he transformed himself into "tail-gunner Joe," the battle-scarred veteran who survived hazardous missions over Japanese-held territory and, in the process, "fired more bullets than any marine in history" during his fourteen (a figure he later changed to seventeen and then thirty-two) engagements with the enemy.

 

To prove his courage, he asked to receive (and was awarded) the Distinguished Flying Cross.

 

Capitalizing on his war record, McCarthy narrowly defeated the overconfident Senator Robert La Follette in the 1946 Republican senatorial primary and assailed his Democratic opponent, Howard McMurray, as a man so desperate for election that he would accept communist support.

 

The baseless charge worked. McCarthy trounced McMurray and, in 1947, became the junior U.S. senator from Wisconsin.

 

He quickly alienated his colleagues (especially after he tried to court the German-American vote by criticizing the prosecution of Nazis accused of slaughtering American troops during the Battle of the Bulge) and he soon feared that he could not be re-elected without a major issue to improve his political standing.

 

Consequently, on February 7, 1950, he told a group of Republican women assembled in Wheeling, West Virginia, that there was serious "communist influence" in the Truman administration, declaring, " I have here in my hand a list of 205 . . . names that were known to the Secretary of State and who nevertheless are still working and shaping the policy of the State Department."

 

Even though no such list existed, McCarthy's accusations gripped the media and he soon became a national figure, promoted on the covers of national news magazines.

 

Alleged communist infiltration of government agencies became McCarthy's political calling card. By the 1952 election, he had called Sinologist Owen Lattimore America's "top Russian spy," labeled Secretary of State George C. Marshall "a traitor," nicknamed Secretary of State Dean Acheson the "Red Dean of Fashion," attacked President Truman as a drunkard and "a son of a bitch [who] should be impeached," and repeatedly referred to Democratic nominee Adlai Stevenson as "Alger . . . I mean Adlai."

 

His tactics worked and, when reelected, McCarthy gained the chairmanship of the Senate Committee on Government Operations, a position he used, according to biographer David Oshinksy, "to undermine government morale, damage numerous reputations, and make America look sinister in the eyes of the world."

 

In 1953, McCarthy announced that he would investigate alleged communist infiltration of the U.S. Army and savaged the Army for "coddling Communists."

 

On March 11, 1954 McCarthy called Annie Lee Moss, a black civilian clerk in the Army Signal Corps, and accused her of having communist ties while handling classified information.

 

McCarthy left the hearing leaving the questioning to his hatchet-man Roy Cohn who quickly bungled the interrogation. Moss came across as an honest, victimized government worker while Cohn came across as someone caught without facts making unsubstantiated accusations in a vicious manner.

 

In truth, Moss handled only encrypted documents and not readable classified information. Her only contact with communists seemed to come through her former union Cafeteria Local 471, CIO.

 

The episode was filmed by the television show See It Now produced by renowned journalist Edward Murrow and broadcast nationwide the following week. The public began to turn against McCarthy after the show and an unflattering portrait of McCarthy broadcast the previous week by Murrow.

 

Disturbed by McCarthy's staccato accusations and worried that he had unjustly damaged the reputation of innocent civilians (as well as the image of the Senate), his senatorial colleagues coalesced to investigate both McCarthy and his allegations.

 

Agreeing with Eisenhower that televised hearings would expose the real McCarthy in a way that print coverage could not, Republican leaders decided to let the cameras inside the chambers to televise the thirty-six day Army hearings.

 

Forty million viewers watched the Army-McCarthy hearings and the national mood began to turn against the senator when, on June 9, 1954, the audience in the Senate Caucus room applauded army counsel Louis Welch's outburst ("Have you no sense of decency, sir?") after the senator tried to attack Welch's young assistant.

 

Six months later, the Senate voted 67-22 to censure McCarthy.

.

McCarthy ended his career, lonely and out of the political limelight. It was revealed later he had been a morphine addict throughout the 1940s. He died at the Bethesda Naval Hospital May 2, 1957 at age 48 from complications due to alcoholism and hepatitis.

 

--McCarthy biography largely excerpted from George Washington University Eleanor Roosevelt website.

 

For more information and related images, see flic.kr/s/aHsk72YVXD

 

The television cameraman is unknown. The image is from CBS television, but the distributor is unknown. The image is housed in the D.C. Public Library Washington Star Collection.

 

East-German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 229/70. Gregory Peck in Mackenna's Gold (J. Lee Thompson, 1969).

 

American actor Gregory Peck (1916-2003) was one of the most popular film stars from the 1940s to the 1960s. Peck received five nominations for Academy Award for Best Actor and won once – for his performance as Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird (1962). He almost always played courageous, nobly heroic good guys who saw injustice and fought it. Among his best known films are Spellbound (1945), The Yearling (1946), Gentleman's Agreement (1947), Roman Holiday (1953), The Guns of Navarone (1961), and Cape Fear (1962).

 

Eldred Gregory Peck was born in 1916 in La Jolla, California (now in San Diego). His parents were Bernice Mary (Ayres) and Gregory Pearl Peck, a chemist, and druggist in San Diego. His parents divorced when he was five years old. An only child, he was sent to live with his grandmother. He never felt he had a stable childhood. His fondest memories are of his grandmother taking him to the cinema every week and of his dog, which followed him everywhere. Peck's father encouraged him to take up medicine. He studied pre-med at UC-Berkeley and, while there, got bitten by the acting bug and decided to change the focus of his studies. He enrolled in the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York and debuted on Broadway after graduation. His debut was in Emlyn Williams' play 'The Morning Star' (1942). By 1943, he was in Hollywood, where he debuted in the RKO film Days of Glory (Jacques Tourneur, 1944). Stardom came with his next film, The Keys of the Kingdom (John M. Stahl, 1944), for which he was nominated for an Oscar. Tony Fontana at IMDb: "Peck's screen presence displayed the qualities for which he became well known. He was tall, rugged and heroic, with a basic decency that transcended his roles." He appeared opposite Ingrid Bergman in Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound (1945) as an amnesia victim accused of murder. In The Yearling (Clarence Brown, 1946), he was again nominated for an Oscar and won the Golden Globe. He was especially effective in Westerns and appeared in such varied fare as David O. Selznick's critically blasted Duel in the Sun (King Vidor, 1946), the somewhat better received Yellow Sky (William A. Wellman, 1948), and the acclaimed The Gunfighter (Henry King, 1950). He was nominated again for the Academy Award for his roles in Gentleman's Agreement (Elia Kazan, 1947), which dealt with anti-Semitism, and Twelve O'Clock High (Henry King, 1949), a story of high-level stress in an Air Force bomber unit in World War II. In 1947, Peck, along with Dorothy McGuire, David O'Selznick, and Mel Ferrer, founded the La Jolla Playhouse, located in his hometown, and produced many of the classics there. Due to film commitments, he could not return to Broadway but whet his appetite for live theatre on occasion at the Playhouse, keeping it firmly established with a strong, reputable name over the years.

 

With a string of hits to his credit, Gregory Peck made the decision to only work in films that interested him. He continued to appear as the heroic, larger-than-life figures in such films as Captain Horatio Hornblower (Raoul Walsh, 1951) with Virginia Mayo, and Moby Dick (John Huston, 1956) with Richard Basehart. He worked with Audrey Hepburn in her debut film, Roman Holiday (William Wyler, 1953). While filming The Bravados (Henry King, 1958), he decided to become a cowboy in real life, so he purchased a vast working ranch near Santa Barbara, California - already stocked with 600 head of prize cattle. In the early 1960s, he gave a powerful performance as Captain Keith Mallory in The Guns of Navarone (J. Lee Thompson, 1961) opposite David Niven and Anthony Quinn. The film was one of the biggest box-office hits of that year. Peck finally won the Oscar, after four nominations, for his performance as lawyer Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird (Robert Mulligan, 1962). He also appeared in two darker films than he usually made, Cape Fear (J. Lee Thompson, 1962) opposite Robert Mitchum, and Captain Newman, M.D. (David Miller, 1963) with Tony Curtis, which dealt with the way people live. The financial failure of Cape Fear (1962) ended his company, Melville Productions. After making Arabesque (Stanley Donen, 1966) with Sophia Loren, Peck withdrew from acting for three years in order to concentrate on various humanitarian causes, including the American Cancer Society. In the early 1970s, he produced two films, The Trial of the Catonsville Nine (Gordon Davidson, 1972) and The Dove (Charles Jarrott, 1974), when his film career stalled. He made a comeback playing, somewhat woodenly, Ambassador Robert Thorn in the horror film The Omen (Richard Donner, 1976) with Lee Remick. After that, he returned to the bigger-than-life roles he was best known for, such as MacArthur (Joseph Sargent, 1977) and the infamous Nazi war criminal Dr. Josef Mengele in the huge hit The Boys from Brazil (Franklin J. Schaffner, 1978) with Laurence Olivier and James Mason. In the 1980s, he moved into television with the miniseries The Blue and the Gray (Andrew V. McLaglen, 1982) in which he played Abraham Lincoln, and The Scarlet and the Black (Jerry London, 1983) with Christopher Plummer and John Gielgud. In 1991, he appeared in the remake of his 1962 film, playing a different role, in Martin Scorsese's Cape Fear (1991). He was also cast as the progressive-thinking owner of a wire and cable business in Other People's Money (Norman Jewison, 1991), starring Danny DeVito. In 1967, Peck received the Academy's Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award. He was also been awarded the US Presidential Medal of Freedom. Always politically progressive, he was active in such causes as anti-war protests, workers' rights, and civil rights. In 2003, Peck's portrayal of Atticus Finch was named the greatest film hero of the past 100 years by the American Film Institute, only two weeks before his death. Atticus beat out Indiana Jones, who was placed second, and James Bond who came third. Gregory Peck died in 2003 in Los Angeles, California. He was 87. Peck was married twice. From 1942 till 1955, he was married to Greta Kukkonen. They had three children: Jonathan Peck (1944-1975), Stephen Peck (1946), and Carey Paul Peck (1949). His second wife was Veronique Passani, whom he met at the set of Roman Holliday. They married in 1955 and had two children: Tony Peck (1956) and Cecilia Peck (1958). The couple remained together till his death.

 

Sources: Tony Fontana (IMDb), and IMDb.

 

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

John Lennon and Yoko Ono's Two Virgins. In the name of decency, I've photoshopped out the naughty bits!

Louisiana Irises weren't the only interesting things on display in the Sculpture Garden at the New Orleans City Park.

 

Would have photographed from other angles but that might have affected my Flickr decency setting LOL.

 

Elisabeth Frink, Riace Warriors, I, II, III, IV, 1983-88

 

Follow my travels and photographic adventures at: www.MegapixelTravel.com

Bondi Beach is a popular beach and the name of the surrounding suburb in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Bondi Beach is located 7 kilometres east of the Sydney central business district, in the local government area of Waverley Council, in the Eastern Suburbs. It has a population of 11,656 residents. Its postcode is 2026. Bondi, North Bondi, and Bondi Junction are neighboring suburbs. Bondi Beach is one of the most visited tourist sites in Australia sparking two hit tv series Bondi Rescue and Bondi Vet.

"Bondi," originally "Boondi" is an Aboriginal word which has the same meaning as the word "surf" in English. The first record of "bondi" by European-ancestry Australians was made between 1899 and 1903. It describes the meaning as "noise made by sea waves breaking on the beach," which is essentially the definition of "surf" in contemporary American English. The Australian Museum records that Bondi means place where a fight using bondi sticks (nulla nullas or fighting sticks) took place.

In 1809 the road builder William Roberts received a grant of land in the area. In 1851 Edward Smith Hall and Francis O'Brien purchased 200 acres (0.8 square kilometres) of the Bondi area that included most of the beach frontage, which was named "The Bondi Estate." Hall was O'Brien's father-in-law. Between 1855 and 1877 O'Brien purchased his father-in-law's share of the land, renamed the land the "O'Brien Estate," and made the beach and the surrounding land available to the public as a picnic ground and amusement resort. As the beach became increasingly popular, O'Brien threatened to stop public beach access. However, the Municipal Council believed that the Government needed to intervene to make the beach a public reserve. In mid-1882, Bondi Beach became a public beach. The first tramway to the beach was established in 1884. The Waverley Council was responsible for building the first surf bathing sheds on the beach in 1903. By 1929 an estimated 60,000 people were visiting the beach on a summer weekend day. The opening of the pavilion in the same year attracted a huge crowd of 200,000.

On 6 February 1938 five people drowned and over 250 people were rescued or resuscitated after a series of large waves struck the beach and pulled people back into the sea, a day that became known as "Black Sunday".

Bondi Beach was a working class suburb throughout most of the twentieth century with migrant people from New Zealand comprising the majority of the local population. Following World War II, Bondi Beach and the Eastern Suburbs became home for Jewish migrants from Poland, Russia, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Germany. A stream of Jewish immigration continued into the 21st century and the area has a number of synagogues and a kosher butcher. The multicultural migration funded and drove the growth of the suburb throughout the 1990s into the turn of the century, moving it steadily from its working-class roots towards an upper/middle-class enclave similar to its neighbors of Rose Bay and Bellevue Hill which was listed as the most expensive postcode in the country from 2003 to 2005.

Bondi Beach was long a center for efforts to fight indecency in beach attire. The beach was a focal point of the 1907 Sydney bathing costume protests, organized to oppose proposed dress standards for beachgoers. The Local Government Act, Ordinance No. 52 (1935) governed the decency of swimming costumes and was in force between 1935 and 1961, and resulted in public controversy as the two-piece "bikini" became popular after World War II. Waverley Council's beach inspectors, including the Aub Laidlaw, were responsible for enforcing the law and were required to measure the dimensions of swimwear and order offenders against public decency off the beach. While vacationing in Australia during 1951, American movie actress Jean Parker made international headlines when she was escorted off the beach after Laidlaw determined her bikini was too skimpy. The rule became increasingly anachronistic during the 1950s and was replaced in 1961 with one requiring bathers be "clad in a proper and adequate bathing costume", allowing for more subjective judgement of decency. By the 1980s topless bathing had become common at Bondi Beach, especially at the southern end.

Sydney's Water Board maintained an untreated sewage outlet not far from the north end of the beach until the 1960s when a sewage treatment plant was built. In the mid-1990s the plant was upgraded & a deepwater ocean outfall was completed to meet water quality standards.

In March 2007, Waverley Council started proceedings to evict a hermit who was living in squalor on a cliff overlooking the beach. Peter James Paul Millhouse, calling himself Jhyimy "Two Hats" Mhiyles, came to the beach during the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games and became a local celebrity for his lifestyle and poetry recitals to visitors. Residents and tourists put together a "save the caveman" petition to allow him to continue residing but under certain rules. In 2009, he was arrested and charged for the rape of a tourist. While he was in custody, Waverley Council under then-mayor Liberal Sally Betts removed his belongings from the cliff. In September 2011, charges against Jhyimy were dropped by the Director of Public Prosecutions over concerns of the reliability of the witness. Waverley Council has not offered recompense for his eviction from his home or loss of belongings.

In March 2020, the NSW Government closed Bondi Beach after a number of people there exceeded Australia's outdoor-gathering limit imposed to slow the spread of the coronavirus in New South Wales.

Session Americana and Peter Wolf playing at the Lizard Lounge in Cambridge, MA.

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Wolf

www.peterwolf.com/

www.facebook.com/PeterWolfMusic?v=wall

Life and career

 

Wolf was born in the Bronx, New York. He planned a career as an artist, but he got a job in the late 1960s as a disc jockey on then-cutting edge Boston FM radio station WBCN and began exploring his interest in blues and rhythm and blues music, giving himself the nickname "the Wolfa Goofa", sometimes expanded to "the Wolfa Goofa with the Green Teeth" (as mentioned in the intro to "Must of Got Lost" on the Blow Your Face Out album). Later as solo artist he called himself Woofa Goofa Mama Toofa. He formed a group called the Hallucinations who performed with The Velvet Underground, Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, Van Morrison, John Lee Hooker, and Sun Ra. He then saw the J. Geils Blues Band in concert and quickly joined. He was the vocalist and frontman, and often acted as a sort of manager. Wolf was known for his charismatic stage antics of fast-talking quips and "pole-vaulting" with the microphone stand. He and keyboard player Seth Justman were responsible for most of the songwriting. Creative differences followed their Freeze-Frame album, causing the J. Geils Band and Peter Wolf to part ways in 1983.

 

Peter Wolf with the J. Geils Band in Candlestick Park, San Francisco, California Photo: Catharine Anderson

Wolf became a solo artist for the next 15 years, but in 1999 the J. Geils Band reunited for several appearances, with Wolf resuming his duties as lead vocalist. They separated again, and Wolf began touring once more, as a solo act.

Wolf's first solo record, Lights Out (1984) was produced by Michael Jonzun of the Jonzun Crew, features Adrian Belew, and has a somewhat funky, electro sound. The eponymous single became a hit single the same year, peaking at #12 on the Billboard Hot 100. He recorded many duets with the likes of Aretha Franklin, Little Milton, John Lee Hooker, Don Covay, and Wilson Pickett to name just a few.

Long Line was co-produced with two musician friends, Johnny A. and a Bob Dylan backup band member, Stu Kimball. Tim Archibald (Bass) and Brian Maes (keys and backing vocals) who are both members of "Ernie And The Automatics", played on the record and Toured in support of "Long Line." His next two solo albums, Fool's Parade and Sleepless (the latter featuring guest appearances from Mick Jagger and Keith Richards), were both highly praised by Jann Wenner in Rolling Stone, receiving four-and-a-half and five stars, respectively. Sleepless (2002) was noted as one of the 500 greatest albums of all time in Rolling Stone issue 937. He has performed on stage with such diverse people as Bruce Springsteen and Phil Lesh.

Wolf toured in 2008 with Kid Rock and Rev. Run on The Rock N Roll Revival Tour. He performed "Love Stinks" solo with Kid Rock's band. Then he joined Kid Rock for "Ain't Too Proud to Beg", "Musta Got Lost", "Centerfold" (from the J. Geils album Freeze Frame) and "For What It's Worth".

The J. Geils Band re-united for a series of shows in 2009, including opening night at the Boston House of Blues.

Wolf's 2010 album Midnight Souvenirs won Album of the Year at the Boston Music Awards.[2][3]

 

www.facebook.com/pages/Session-Americana/53199003969

 

www.sessionamericana.com

www.myspace.com/sessionamericana

www.hi-n-dry.com/session_americana

www.exploitboston.com/music-musings/grab-new-music-from-s...

Session Americana - www.sessionamericana.com

 

This ad hoc acoustic supergroup started around a table at a small pub in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where Ry Cavanaugh, Billy Conway, Sean Staples, Dinty Child, Jim Fitting and other friends gathered to swap songs and stories. Their lively performances and inspired versions of tunes from the dusty backroads of America's past were such a hit with fans that they decided to take their musical conversation into the studio. The two-CD debut Tabletop People ups the ante with stellar appearances by folksinger Rose Polenzani, Twinemen's Laurie Sargent, Dennis Brennan, Asa Brebner, Merrie Amsterburg, Dan Kellar, Presidents of the United States' Chris Ballew, Jabe Beyer, Tim Gearon and other luminaries. And the 18 gritty, funny, soulful performances included span a gamut of emotions and tastes that should please both adult and younger listeners.

 

"Genius ... Jaw-dropping vocals ... Session Americana is blessed in this regard:...musicianship that sets the standard for the genre in Boston

and vocals that do the same"

— Performer Magazine

 

Session Americana sit tightly around a small cafe table, ambient mics tuned to catch the whole sound of the voices and instruments. A suit-case drum kit, an old electric bass, a bunch of acoustic instruments, a field organ: This format feels very theatrical and though the musicians face each other, the audience feels drawn into the circle by the warmth, joy and camaraderie that emanate outwards by the all star cast of characters seated around the table. What keeps you coming back show after show is the same thing that any audience member longs for, great songs performed by a great band. The six core members of the band have brought enviable careers worth of experience to the “table”, featuring (current and former) members of Treat Her Right, Patty Griffin, Lori McKenna, The The, Dennis Brennan, Kris Delmhorst. The group has grown from a rag tag jam at a local pub to a regional institution, playing gigs from church coee houses to urban nightclubs to regional festival tents to large halls.

 

Band: Ry Cavanaugh, Billy Beard, Dinty Child, Jim Fitting, Sean Staples and Jon Bistline.

 

*Winner “2005 Best Folk Act” - The Boston Music Awards

*Winner “Best Roots Act 2006” - Improper Bostonian “Best of Boston” Issue

*Winner “Best CD” 2007 - Improper Bostonian

*Nominated “Best Roots Act” 2007 - WFNX/Boston Phoenix Best Music Poll

*Nominated Best Live Act 2007 - The Boston Music Awards

*Nominated Best Americana Act 2008 - The Boston Music Awards

 

“Genius ... Jaw-dropping vocals ... Session Americana is blessed in this regard: ...musicianship that sets the standard for the genre in Boston and vocals that do the same”

— NE Performer Magazine

 

“No egos, no big production, just some great songs stripped down to their bare essentials and performed with a real genuineness of spirit and emotional authenticity... it’s beautiful.” (Brian Mosher)

— The Noise

 

“An eclectic, swinging tour de force” — The Boston Globe

 

“[This] local country-folk megagroup’s double CD is one of the most loose, spontaneous, warm, and homespun acts of community and decency since the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s Will the Circle Be Unbroken.”

 

— The Boston Phoenix

“the cream of the Somerville/Cambridge community" - No Depression (read less)

 

Session Americana and Peter Wolf playing at the Lizard Lounge in Cambridge, MA.

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Wolf

www.peterwolf.com/

www.facebook.com/PeterWolfMusic?v=wall

Life and career

 

Wolf was born in the Bronx, New York. He planned a career as an artist, but he got a job in the late 1960s as a disc jockey on then-cutting edge Boston FM radio station WBCN and began exploring his interest in blues and rhythm and blues music, giving himself the nickname "the Wolfa Goofa", sometimes expanded to "the Wolfa Goofa with the Green Teeth" (as mentioned in the intro to "Must of Got Lost" on the Blow Your Face Out album). Later as solo artist he called himself Woofa Goofa Mama Toofa. He formed a group called the Hallucinations who performed with The Velvet Underground, Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, Van Morrison, John Lee Hooker, and Sun Ra. He then saw the J. Geils Blues Band in concert and quickly joined. He was the vocalist and frontman, and often acted as a sort of manager. Wolf was known for his charismatic stage antics of fast-talking quips and "pole-vaulting" with the microphone stand. He and keyboard player Seth Justman were responsible for most of the songwriting. Creative differences followed their Freeze-Frame album, causing the J. Geils Band and Peter Wolf to part ways in 1983.

 

Peter Wolf with the J. Geils Band in Candlestick Park, San Francisco, California Photo: Catharine Anderson

Wolf became a solo artist for the next 15 years, but in 1999 the J. Geils Band reunited for several appearances, with Wolf resuming his duties as lead vocalist. They separated again, and Wolf began touring once more, as a solo act.

Wolf's first solo record, Lights Out (1984) was produced by Michael Jonzun of the Jonzun Crew, features Adrian Belew, and has a somewhat funky, electro sound. The eponymous single became a hit single the same year, peaking at #12 on the Billboard Hot 100. He recorded many duets with the likes of Aretha Franklin, Little Milton, John Lee Hooker, Don Covay, and Wilson Pickett to name just a few.

Long Line was co-produced with two musician friends, Johnny A. and a Bob Dylan backup band member, Stu Kimball. Tim Archibald (Bass) and Brian Maes (keys and backing vocals) who are both members of "Ernie And The Automatics", played on the record and Toured in support of "Long Line." His next two solo albums, Fool's Parade and Sleepless (the latter featuring guest appearances from Mick Jagger and Keith Richards), were both highly praised by Jann Wenner in Rolling Stone, receiving four-and-a-half and five stars, respectively. Sleepless (2002) was noted as one of the 500 greatest albums of all time in Rolling Stone issue 937. He has performed on stage with such diverse people as Bruce Springsteen and Phil Lesh.

Wolf toured in 2008 with Kid Rock and Rev. Run on The Rock N Roll Revival Tour. He performed "Love Stinks" solo with Kid Rock's band. Then he joined Kid Rock for "Ain't Too Proud to Beg", "Musta Got Lost", "Centerfold" (from the J. Geils album Freeze Frame) and "For What It's Worth".

The J. Geils Band re-united for a series of shows in 2009, including opening night at the Boston House of Blues.

Wolf's 2010 album Midnight Souvenirs won Album of the Year at the Boston Music Awards.[2][3]

 

www.facebook.com/pages/Session-Americana/53199003969

 

www.sessionamericana.com

www.myspace.com/sessionamericana

www.hi-n-dry.com/session_americana

www.exploitboston.com/music-musings/grab-new-music-from-s...

Session Americana - www.sessionamericana.com

 

This ad hoc acoustic supergroup started around a table at a small pub in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where Ry Cavanaugh, Billy Conway, Sean Staples, Dinty Child, Jim Fitting and other friends gathered to swap songs and stories. Their lively performances and inspired versions of tunes from the dusty backroads of America's past were such a hit with fans that they decided to take their musical conversation into the studio. The two-CD debut Tabletop People ups the ante with stellar appearances by folksinger Rose Polenzani, Twinemen's Laurie Sargent, Dennis Brennan, Asa Brebner, Merrie Amsterburg, Dan Kellar, Presidents of the United States' Chris Ballew, Jabe Beyer, Tim Gearon and other luminaries. And the 18 gritty, funny, soulful performances included span a gamut of emotions and tastes that should please both adult and younger listeners.

 

"Genius ... Jaw-dropping vocals ... Session Americana is blessed in this regard:...musicianship that sets the standard for the genre in Boston

and vocals that do the same"

— Performer Magazine

 

Session Americana sit tightly around a small cafe table, ambient mics tuned to catch the whole sound of the voices and instruments. A suit-case drum kit, an old electric bass, a bunch of acoustic instruments, a field organ: This format feels very theatrical and though the musicians face each other, the audience feels drawn into the circle by the warmth, joy and camaraderie that emanate outwards by the all star cast of characters seated around the table. What keeps you coming back show after show is the same thing that any audience member longs for, great songs performed by a great band. The six core members of the band have brought enviable careers worth of experience to the “table”, featuring (current and former) members of Treat Her Right, Patty Griffin, Lori McKenna, The The, Dennis Brennan, Kris Delmhorst. The group has grown from a rag tag jam at a local pub to a regional institution, playing gigs from church coee houses to urban nightclubs to regional festival tents to large halls.

 

Band: Ry Cavanaugh, Billy Beard, Dinty Child, Jim Fitting, Sean Staples and Jon Bistline.

 

*Winner “2005 Best Folk Act” - The Boston Music Awards

*Winner “Best Roots Act 2006” - Improper Bostonian “Best of Boston” Issue

*Winner “Best CD” 2007 - Improper Bostonian

*Nominated “Best Roots Act” 2007 - WFNX/Boston Phoenix Best Music Poll

*Nominated Best Live Act 2007 - The Boston Music Awards

*Nominated Best Americana Act 2008 - The Boston Music Awards

 

“Genius ... Jaw-dropping vocals ... Session Americana is blessed in this regard: ...musicianship that sets the standard for the genre in Boston and vocals that do the same”

— NE Performer Magazine

 

“No egos, no big production, just some great songs stripped down to their bare essentials and performed with a real genuineness of spirit and emotional authenticity... it’s beautiful.” (Brian Mosher)

— The Noise

 

“An eclectic, swinging tour de force” — The Boston Globe

 

“[This] local country-folk megagroup’s double CD is one of the most loose, spontaneous, warm, and homespun acts of community and decency since the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s Will the Circle Be Unbroken.”

 

— The Boston Phoenix

“the cream of the Somerville/Cambridge community" - No Depression (read less)

 

Session Americana and Peter Wolf playing at the Lizard Lounge in Cambridge, MA.

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Wolf

www.peterwolf.com/

www.facebook.com/PeterWolfMusic?v=wall

Life and career

 

Wolf was born in the Bronx, New York. He planned a career as an artist, but he got a job in the late 1960s as a disc jockey on then-cutting edge Boston FM radio station WBCN and began exploring his interest in blues and rhythm and blues music, giving himself the nickname "the Wolfa Goofa", sometimes expanded to "the Wolfa Goofa with the Green Teeth" (as mentioned in the intro to "Must of Got Lost" on the Blow Your Face Out album). Later as solo artist he called himself Woofa Goofa Mama Toofa. He formed a group called the Hallucinations who performed with The Velvet Underground, Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, Van Morrison, John Lee Hooker, and Sun Ra. He then saw the J. Geils Blues Band in concert and quickly joined. He was the vocalist and frontman, and often acted as a sort of manager. Wolf was known for his charismatic stage antics of fast-talking quips and "pole-vaulting" with the microphone stand. He and keyboard player Seth Justman were responsible for most of the songwriting. Creative differences followed their Freeze-Frame album, causing the J. Geils Band and Peter Wolf to part ways in 1983.

 

Peter Wolf with the J. Geils Band in Candlestick Park, San Francisco, California Photo: Catharine Anderson

Wolf became a solo artist for the next 15 years, but in 1999 the J. Geils Band reunited for several appearances, with Wolf resuming his duties as lead vocalist. They separated again, and Wolf began touring once more, as a solo act.

Wolf's first solo record, Lights Out (1984) was produced by Michael Jonzun of the Jonzun Crew, features Adrian Belew, and has a somewhat funky, electro sound. The eponymous single became a hit single the same year, peaking at #12 on the Billboard Hot 100. He recorded many duets with the likes of Aretha Franklin, Little Milton, John Lee Hooker, Don Covay, and Wilson Pickett to name just a few.

Long Line was co-produced with two musician friends, Johnny A. and a Bob Dylan backup band member, Stu Kimball. Tim Archibald (Bass) and Brian Maes (keys and backing vocals) who are both members of "Ernie And The Automatics", played on the record and Toured in support of "Long Line." His next two solo albums, Fool's Parade and Sleepless (the latter featuring guest appearances from Mick Jagger and Keith Richards), were both highly praised by Jann Wenner in Rolling Stone, receiving four-and-a-half and five stars, respectively. Sleepless (2002) was noted as one of the 500 greatest albums of all time in Rolling Stone issue 937. He has performed on stage with such diverse people as Bruce Springsteen and Phil Lesh.

Wolf toured in 2008 with Kid Rock and Rev. Run on The Rock N Roll Revival Tour. He performed "Love Stinks" solo with Kid Rock's band. Then he joined Kid Rock for "Ain't Too Proud to Beg", "Musta Got Lost", "Centerfold" (from the J. Geils album Freeze Frame) and "For What It's Worth".

The J. Geils Band re-united for a series of shows in 2009, including opening night at the Boston House of Blues.

Wolf's 2010 album Midnight Souvenirs won Album of the Year at the Boston Music Awards.[2][3]

 

www.facebook.com/pages/Session-Americana/53199003969

 

www.sessionamericana.com

www.myspace.com/sessionamericana

www.hi-n-dry.com/session_americana

www.exploitboston.com/music-musings/grab-new-music-from-s...

Session Americana - www.sessionamericana.com

 

This ad hoc acoustic supergroup started around a table at a small pub in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where Ry Cavanaugh, Billy Conway, Sean Staples, Dinty Child, Jim Fitting and other friends gathered to swap songs and stories. Their lively performances and inspired versions of tunes from the dusty backroads of America's past were such a hit with fans that they decided to take their musical conversation into the studio. The two-CD debut Tabletop People ups the ante with stellar appearances by folksinger Rose Polenzani, Twinemen's Laurie Sargent, Dennis Brennan, Asa Brebner, Merrie Amsterburg, Dan Kellar, Presidents of the United States' Chris Ballew, Jabe Beyer, Tim Gearon and other luminaries. And the 18 gritty, funny, soulful performances included span a gamut of emotions and tastes that should please both adult and younger listeners.

 

"Genius ... Jaw-dropping vocals ... Session Americana is blessed in this regard:...musicianship that sets the standard for the genre in Boston

and vocals that do the same"

— Performer Magazine

 

Session Americana sit tightly around a small cafe table, ambient mics tuned to catch the whole sound of the voices and instruments. A suit-case drum kit, an old electric bass, a bunch of acoustic instruments, a field organ: This format feels very theatrical and though the musicians face each other, the audience feels drawn into the circle by the warmth, joy and camaraderie that emanate outwards by the all star cast of characters seated around the table. What keeps you coming back show after show is the same thing that any audience member longs for, great songs performed by a great band. The six core members of the band have brought enviable careers worth of experience to the “table”, featuring (current and former) members of Treat Her Right, Patty Griffin, Lori McKenna, The The, Dennis Brennan, Kris Delmhorst. The group has grown from a rag tag jam at a local pub to a regional institution, playing gigs from church coee houses to urban nightclubs to regional festival tents to large halls.

 

Band: Ry Cavanaugh, Billy Beard, Dinty Child, Jim Fitting, Sean Staples and Jon Bistline.

 

*Winner “2005 Best Folk Act” - The Boston Music Awards

*Winner “Best Roots Act 2006” - Improper Bostonian “Best of Boston” Issue

*Winner “Best CD” 2007 - Improper Bostonian

*Nominated “Best Roots Act” 2007 - WFNX/Boston Phoenix Best Music Poll

*Nominated Best Live Act 2007 - The Boston Music Awards

*Nominated Best Americana Act 2008 - The Boston Music Awards

 

“Genius ... Jaw-dropping vocals ... Session Americana is blessed in this regard: ...musicianship that sets the standard for the genre in Boston and vocals that do the same”

— NE Performer Magazine

 

“No egos, no big production, just some great songs stripped down to their bare essentials and performed with a real genuineness of spirit and emotional authenticity... it’s beautiful.” (Brian Mosher)

— The Noise

 

“An eclectic, swinging tour de force” — The Boston Globe

 

“[This] local country-folk megagroup’s double CD is one of the most loose, spontaneous, warm, and homespun acts of community and decency since the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s Will the Circle Be Unbroken.”

 

— The Boston Phoenix

“the cream of the Somerville/Cambridge community" - No Depression (read less)

 

ANTICA GRECIA ARCHEOLOGICA & RESTAURO ARCHITETTURA. Parthenon marbles: Greece furious over British loan to Russia, THE GUARDIAN (05-07|12|2014).

---

s.v., ITALIA BENI CULTURALI: "OPINION - The Great Giveback," THE NEW YORK TIMES (03 February & 26 JANUARY 2013), p. SR12

 

www.flickr.com/photos/imperial_fora_of_rome/8447312869/in...

---

 

Parthenon marbles: Greece furious over British loan to Russia - Greek prime minister says loan of statue from pillaged frieze puts end to British Museum argument that disputed antiquities are immovable, THE GUARDIAN (05|12|2014).

  

Greece has reacted with outrage to the British Museum’s surprise move to loan one of the disputed Parthenon marbles to Russia.

  

Within hours of learning of the unexpected decision to send the monumental statue of the river god Ilissos to the State Hermitage museum in St Petersburg, the Greek prime minister, Antonis Samaris, hit back.

  

“[It] provokes the Greek people,” he said on Friday, insisting that the loan effectively ended the British Museum’s argument that the Greek antiquities were immovable.

  

“The last British dogma about immovability has ceased to exist … the Parthenon and its sculptures were the object of pillage. We Greeks are identified with our history and culture which cannot be torn apart, loaned and ceded.”

  

News of the move elicited shock and fury with Greek officials, and activists abroad, describing the gesture, variously, as sly, arrogant, provocative and rude. Campaigners suggested it would give added impetus to Athens to pursue the legal route in its quest to reclaim the Golden Age treasures from London.

  

Samaras’ conservative-dominated coalition is currently seeking advice from the human rights lawyer Amal Clooney, and two of Britain’s leading experts in cultural restitution, Geoffrey Robertson and Norman Palmer, in the fight to repatriate antiquities seen as the high point of classical art.

  

“[The loan is] appalling, no one had any idea whatsoever,” said Elena Korka, a senior culture ministry policymaker involved in restitution efforts since 1986. “For so many years they have argued that the sculptures could not be moved. At the end of the day this will turn against them,” she told the Guardian.

  

Veiled in secrecy until its announcement late on Thursday, the unprecedented step saw the collection being broken up for the first time since the British Museum took possession of the 5th century BC masterpieces in 1816. Roughly half of the 160-metre-long frieze has been in London since Thomas Bruce, the 7th Earl of Elgin, oversaw its removal from the Parthenon as the British ambassador to the Ottoman empire more than 200 years ago.

  

Neil MacGregor, the British Museum’s director, said the loan would reinforce the argument that the museum was a universal institution with global outreach.

  

The headless river god, among the most recognisable of the classical carvings, is due to be unveiled at the Hermitage on Friday in celebration of its 250th anniversary.

  

Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Friday morning, MacGregor said he hoped the Greek government would be delighted that the sculpture would now be on display to a new audience.

  

“I hope that they will be very pleased that a huge new public can engage with the great achievements of ancient Greece. People who will never be able to come to Athens or London will now, here in Russia, understand something of those great achievements in Greek civilization.”

  

But Greek officials said if they were to be delighted it would be “for other reasons”.

  

With a purpose-built museum constructed at the foot of the Acropolis to exhibit the sculptures, the move not only boosted the argument that the marbles should be “reunited” for ethical, aesthetic and scholarly reasons, but provided the first glimmer of hope that, one day, they would return to the place where they were created.

  

“It’s a change of attitude,” Korka said. “Now that they have taken this decision, they can pack up the rest and bring them here where the climate suits them and where they belong. And when the [two-month] exhibition at the Hermitage is over they can bring the Ilissos over too.”

  

She rejected the British Museum’s claim that Greece had consistently refused to enter into talks over loaning the antiquities to Athens. “We have never said ‘never’ to anything. We have said, so many times, we are open to mediation and that means we are open to loans as well.”

  

Macgregor repeated the museum’s claim on Friday, saying: “The Greek government has always refused to borrow, to date, but the trustees’ position is very clear that they will consider any request from anyone who is prepared to return the object.”

  

Discussions with the Hermitage are believed to have begun in October before the deal was sealed two weeks ago.

  

Campaigners for the return of the marbles to Athens said the loan was all the more inflammatory for its timing. In July 2013, Greece called on Unesco, the United Nations’ cultural organisation, to intervene, urging David Cameron’s government to participate in mediation in an attempt to settle the long-dispute. London has yet to respond.

  

“It is not just rude, provocative and arrogant, it is a highly offensive thing to do when Britain has completely ignored a Greek request to mediate this issue through Unesco,” said David Hill, the Australian president of the International Association for the Reunification of the Parthenon Sculptures. “For the best part of 18 months Unesco has been waiting for a reply,” he told the Guardian from Sydney. “The only thing this will do is aggravate the situation. It’s extremely inflammatory.”

  

FONTE | SOURCE:

  

-- THE GUARDIAN (05|12|2014).

  

www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/dec/05/parthenon-ma...

  

ANTICA GRECIA ARCHEOLOGICA & RESTAURO ARCHITETTURA. Parthenon marbles: Squalid saga of Parthenon marbles loan to Russia, THE GUARDIAN (05-07|12|2014).

  

In loaning the Parthenon marbles statue of Ilissos to Russia (Loan shatters Elgin marbles claim, says Athens, 6 December), the British Museum has acted insensitively and foolishly. It is unseemly and squalid, after unanswered Greek requests for the marbles’ return, for the statue’s first move outside Britain to be to a country we ourselves have placed under sanctions after the invasion of Ukraine. At a stroke the museum has legitimised Putin’s Russia at a time when the latter’s unpredictable aggression threatens Ukraine’s existence and Europe’s wider security.

  

Does the museum think itself exempt from the dynamics of contemporary European politics, and that cultural diplomacy will smooth over the current crisis? Consider this: right now the Netherlands is refusing to return Scythian gold, loaned before the illegal annexation of Crimea, to four museums now under Russian control there. What is to stop Russia holding Ilissos hostage in return? In April the Russian Itar-Tass agency reported that the refusal to return the gold would result in non-cooperation between Russian and EU museums. The British Museum may well have placed one of its most priceless artefacts in serious danger. Putin has shown himself indifferent about far more.

Tony King

Barnt Green, Worcestershire

  

• If British people want to understand the point of view of the Greeks on the so-called “Elgin marbles”, please consider this hypothetical scenario: in the 15th century, Britain is occupied by the French. British people fall under oppressive French rule. Four centuries later, the Greek Mr Papadopoulos buys permission from French authorities to care for Big Ben. He moves half of it to his estate in Greece. Twenty years later, the British people start a revolution against the French and soon they acquire their independence. At the end of the 20th century, Britain asks for the repatriation of the “Papadopoulos steel”. Greece refuses to talk. The “Greek Museum” causes irreparable damage in the 1930s (see the Guardian, 14 April 2001), organises glamorous parties in the rooms where Big Ben (sorry: Papadopoulos Steel) is displayed in 1999 (see the Guardian, 8 November 1999) and it even gives some objects (say, the number 10 from the clock face) as a loan to a Chinese museum in 2014, while refusing to sit down with Unesco to discuss an offer of mediation on the issue in October 2013.

  

The director of the Greek Museum says publicly that the British government should be “delighted” with the loan, and that “the greatest things in the world should be shared and enjoyed by as many people in as many countries as possible”. Well done, Mr Director. The British public would certainly appreciate your views.

Andreas Stalidis

Bath

  

• Greece’s prime minister Antonis Samaras fulminates about Britain’s retention of parts of the Parthenon frieze. Meanwhile, one of the fragments of the frieze that remained in Greece, newly mounted in the Acropolis museum, is eroded by pollution and so horribly neglected by that long independent country that it can hardly be recognised.

  

Apart from other issues surrounding the marbles, how dare Greece put that sorry fragment on display and try to take the moral high ground about custodianship of the rest of the marbles? What is more, after years of overseas funding assistance, the Acropolis itself, the most famous archeological site in the western world, is still a dusty, un-energetic-looking, and disappointing mess. Where has all the money gone?

Richard Wilson

Oxford

  

• If someone stole my family heirlooms (don’t worry, I don’t have any) I’d be unimpressed if the thief then loaned them to someone else, on condition that they went back to the thief after two months. I’d be even less impressed if the thief asked me if I’d like to borrow them, so long as I returned them all safely to him.

Alan Burkitt-Gray

London

  

• I’m wondering if the British Museum has checked on the potential for Greece to initiate legal proceedings in Russia to recover this item of the Elgin marbles. Does anyone out there really believe that Vladimir Putin thinks like a museum curator? The French have already said he can’t have the brand new French-built carrier that has been undergoing sea trials, with Russian sailors on board; they are contractually obliged to hand that over to Russia, but are refusing to do so.

Vaughan Thomas

Norwich

  

• British Museum lends Elgin marbles to Hermitage; later, Putin forwards it to Athens: two fingers to London. You read it here first.

John Smith

Lindfield, West Sussex

  

• The British Museum’s attempts to improve the “frosty relations between Russia and the west in the wake of the invasion of eastern Ukraine” would have had more impact if the works of art loaned to the Hermitage museum actually belonged to Britain. Lending the Parthenon marbles, instead of, for example, some Turner landscapes or samples from the royal family’s vast collection, is simply provocative, and will do nothing but cause resentment in Greece, and display our hypocrisy to the world. How quick we are to offer judgments when Jewish-owned artwork is discovered in ex-Nazis’ homes (Modernist art haul, ‘looted by Nazis’, recovered by German police, 4 November).

  

Jonathan Jones has rightly argued that British museums must “face up to reality” and that “cultural imperialism” belongs in history’s dustbin, but clearly his passionate plea fell on deaf ears (The art world’s shame: why Britain must give its colonial booty back, 4 November). How can anyone justify, in the 21st century, the looting of Greek treasure by a greedy, profiteering British aristocrat, 210 years ago?

  

The return of the marbles is long overdue, would provide a welcome boost to an impoverished Greek economy, and would display some British acceptance of guilt for its imperial past. Lending some of the pieces to Russia is simply shameful, and questions must be asked about the role played in this by the secretary of state for culture.

  

Any political party with a sense of decency would include a promise to return the marbles to their rightful home in its election manifesto.

Bernie Evans

Liverpool

  

FONTE | SOURCE:

  

--THE GUARDIAN (05-07|12|2014).

  

www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/parthenon-marbles

   

Washington DC, The Walter E. Washington Convention Center, the afternoon of March 1, 2015. Around one hundred social justice activists affiliated with Code Pink, Jewish Voice For Justice, AVAAZ, US Campaign To End The Israeli Occupation, Boycott From Within, Answer Coaltion and other peace and faith groups demonstrate in front of the Convention Center to protest the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) yearly DC meeting. AIPAC is regarded by many as the most powerful lobbying group in town. AIPAC has a policy agenda that's out of step with the values of most Jewish Americans and other participants in civilized society but they call the tune because our corrupt political culture is fueled by money, not decency. In an act of peaceful civil disobedience, five demonstrators, all women, were arrested for failing to obey police orders to remove themselves from the granite in front of one of the Convention Center's many doorways. They were given three warnings before being arrested. I photographed one of women as she was being lead away in plastic handcuffs. "I'm a Jewish mother!" she proclaimed. I gave her the 'thumbs up'.

Most of the DC cops kept their cool but when some of the demonstrators got in their face a brief scuffle ensued. Some of us locked arms and and helped lift up one of the Code Pink ladies who was almost knocked down onto the steps by a DC officer who lost it.

Washington DC, The Walter E. Washington Convention Center, the afternoon of March 1, 2015. Around one hundred social justice activists affiliated with Code Pink, Jewish Voice For Justice, AVAAZ, US Campaign To End The Israeli Occupation, Boycott From Within, Answer Coaltion and other peace and faith groups demonstrate in front of the Convention Center to protest the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) yearly DC meeting. AIPAC is regarded by many as the most powerful lobbying group in town. AIPAC has a policy agenda that's out of step with the values of most Jewish Americans and other participants in civilized society but they call the tune because our corrupt political culture is fueled by money, not decency. In an act of peaceful civil disobedience, five demonstrators, all women, were arrested for failing to obey police orders to remove themselves from the granite in front of one of the Convention Center's many doorways. They were given three warnings before being arrested. I photographed one of women as she was being lead away in plastic handcuffs. "I'm a Jewish mother!" she proclaimed. I gave her the 'thumbs up'.

Most of the DC cops kept their cool but when some of the demonstrators got in their face a brief scuffle ensued. Some of us locked arms and and helped lift up one of the Code Pink ladies who was almost knocked down onto the steps by a DC officer who lost it.

Sikhism originated in the 15th century, in the Punjab region by Guru Nanak, who preached ideas that were radical for his age: he denounced Hinduism's oppressive caste system and Islam's gender discrimination, preaching that all people can commune with the divine equally, without the intervention of rituals or priests. The Sikh faith is a monotheistic religion, meaning Sikhs worship one God. The three core pillars of Sikhism are: vaṇḍ chakkō (sharing with others, helping those in need, as well as participating as part of a community), kirat karō (earning/making a living honestly, without exploitation or fraud, and speaking the truth at all times) and naam japna (meditating on God’s name to live a life of decency and humility).

The temporary distractions of the material world are seen as an illusion. The qualities of ego, anger, greed, attachment and lust are known as the Five Thieves that rob a person of their ability to realize their oneness with God and creation. Sikhs work to counteract the temptations of these qualities through the values of service, equality, and seeking justice for all. Sikhs also believe that one’s form on Earth is only a temporary vessel for the eternal soul. Thus, the death of the physical body is a natural part of the life cycle, while the soul remains. Death is not an end, but merely the progression of the soul on its journey toward God.

Nine more gurus succeeded Guru Nanak (Angad, Amar Das, Ram Das, Arjan, Har Gobind, Har Rai, Har Krishan, Tegh Bahadur, and Gobind Singh), and continued to spread his teachings across the world.

The last guru, Guru Gobind Singh, named the Sikh sacred text, the Guru Granth Sahib, to be the eternal Guru that would guide the Sikhs going forward. It consists of 1,430 Anks, or pages, and 6,000 Sabads, or line compositions, all are written in poetic verse and are aligning to the rhythmic forms of ancient north Indian classical music. At the core of the Guru Granth Sahib is a yearning for a world governed by divine justice, without oppression of any kind.

The final living guru, Gobind Singh, also established the Khalsa, or order of Sikh soldier-saints. They are recognizable by "The 5 k's," their physical articles of faith: Kesh (unshorn hair and beard), Kirpan (ceremonial sword), Kangha (comb), Kara (steel bracelet) and Kachha (drawers). The Dastar, or turban, is considered a spiritual crown, a token of remembrance of the Sikh principles.

 

Subathu, Himachal Pradesh, India

WALMART WORKERS, TAXPAYERS ARRESTED CALLING FOR WALMART OWNERS TO STOP ROBBING AMERICA

 

Group calls on Walton family to stop taking advantage of taxpayer programs to support low-wage model & instead, pay workers $15 an hour and provide full-time work

 

If the Waltons fail to respond, protestors promise to return to Walmart stores on Black Friday

 

New York and Washington, DC – Forty-two Walmart workers and their supporters were arrested today calling on Walmart’s owners to stop robbing workers a fair wage and passing the bill on to taxpayers. Without a public commitment from the Waltons to raise pay at Walmart, the group refused to disperse, shutting down Park Avenue in front of Alice Walton’s new penthouse in New York and K Street in front of the Walton Family Foundation in DC. Last year, Walmart’s former CEO confirmed that the majority of Walmart workers are paid less than $25,000 a year.

 

“My grandkids go hungry because of low pay at Walmart,” said Sandra Sok, a Walmart worker in Phoenix. “I’ll do whatever it takes to make these billionaires and Walmart see what they’re doing to our families.”

 

“We are tired of seeing the Waltons enjoy every luxury this world can offer while the workers that build their wealth are unable to pay their bills,” said Interfaith Worker Justice Executive Director Kim Bobo. “Income inequality will only be addressed when the Waltons and Walmart provide fair pay and regular hours to their workers. I’m here today taking a stand for Walmart workers, and I’ll be back on Black Friday with thousands of others who have had enough of Walmart’s destruction of the American Dream.”

 

Before the arrests, the group delivered a petition signed by workers from 1,710 of Walmart stores in all 50 states. The petition calls on Walmart to publicly commit raise pay to $15 an hour and provide consistent, full-time hours. The actions today follow protests yesterday in Phoenix, AZ, where Walmart associates and community members delivered the petition to Walmart chair Rob Walton.

 

“The Waltons have made it impossible for me to get ahead and make sure my daughter goes to bed in a warm home,” said Fatmata Jabbie,a Walmart worker who delivered the petition to the Walton Family Foundation in Washington, DC. “The Waltons can choose to turn things around and stop robbing working Americans like me who just want to raise our families. We need $15 an hour and consistent full-time work—now.”

 

The Walton family, which controls the Walmart empire, is the richest family in the U.S.—with the wealth of 43% of American families combined. While many Walmart workers are unable to feed and clothe their families on their pay of less than $25,000 a year, the Walton family takes in $8.6 million a day in Walmart dividends alone to build on its $150 billion in wealth. Walmart brings in $16 billion in annual profits.

 

“Right now, corporate profits are at an all-time high while wages are lower than any time since 1948,” said Rep. Grijalva. “Walmart alone rakes in $16 billion a year while enjoying $8 billion in tax breaks and subsidies, but refuses to pay employees enough to put food on the table or clothes on their back. Many of their employees are forced to rely on taxpayer-funded programs, meaning the American taxpayers are paying for the Walton family’s refusal to pay a decent wage. It’s time to end this scam, and ensure all workers have the decency of a livable wage and full-time work.”

 

Walmart workers depend on food stamps and other taxpayer-supported programs to support their families. Walmart—the standard-setter for jobs in the retail industry—has created a norm of erratic, part-time scheduling that is keeping workers from getting the hours they need, holding down second jobs, arranging child care, going to school or managing health conditions.

 

The protests today come at a time when OUR Walmart members have made significant strides creating change at the country’s largest employer. OUR Walmart member Richard Reynoso, who sent a letter to Walmart about the new dress code policy, not only pushed the company to live up to its Buy America commitment with the new vests; his manager gave him full-time hours in response to his concerns about affording new clothing on his low pay. OUR Walmart members have had similar hours victories—through petitions and meetings with managers—in the San Francisco Bay Area, Dallas, Florida, Southern California, Louisiana and Chicago. Walmart improved its pregnancy policy recently after OUR Walmart members, who are also shareholders, submitted a resolution to the company about its pregnancy policy. And, responding to OUR Walmart members’ growing calls on the retailer to improve access to hours, Walmart rolled out a new system nationwide that allows workers to sign up for open shifts in their stores online.

 

Background

 

A report released earlier this year by Americans for Tax Fairness showed that by dodging taxes, exploiting loopholes and taking advantage of taxpayer subsidies, Walmart and the Waltons received an estimated $7.8 billion in tax breaks and subsidies in 2013. And while many taxpayers struggle to stretch paychecks, the richest family in the country has avoided an estimated $3 billion in taxes by using specialized trusts to dodge estate taxes.

 

National public policy organization Demos released a report this year showing low-pay and erratic scheduling keep millions of hard-working Americans—particularly women—near poverty. The report finds that establishing a new wage floor equivalent to $25,000 per year for fulltime, year round work at retail companies employing at least 1,000 workers would improve the lives of more than 3.2 million female retail workers and lift 900,000 women and their families directly out of poverty or near poverty.

 

###

LEGAL DISCLAIMER: UFCW and OUR Walmart have the purpose of helping Wal-Mart employees as individuals or groups in their dealings with Wal-Mart over labor rights and standards and their efforts to have Wal-Mart publically commit to adhering to labor rights and standards. UFCW and OUR Walmart have no intent to have Walmart recognize or bargain with UFCW or OUR Walmart as the representative of Walmart employees.

 

Session Americana and Peter Wolf playing at the Lizard Lounge in Cambridge, MA.

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Wolf

www.peterwolf.com/

www.facebook.com/PeterWolfMusic?v=wall

Life and career

 

Wolf was born in the Bronx, New York. He planned a career as an artist, but he got a job in the late 1960s as a disc jockey on then-cutting edge Boston FM radio station WBCN and began exploring his interest in blues and rhythm and blues music, giving himself the nickname "the Wolfa Goofa", sometimes expanded to "the Wolfa Goofa with the Green Teeth" (as mentioned in the intro to "Must of Got Lost" on the Blow Your Face Out album). Later as solo artist he called himself Woofa Goofa Mama Toofa. He formed a group called the Hallucinations who performed with The Velvet Underground, Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, Van Morrison, John Lee Hooker, and Sun Ra. He then saw the J. Geils Blues Band in concert and quickly joined. He was the vocalist and frontman, and often acted as a sort of manager. Wolf was known for his charismatic stage antics of fast-talking quips and "pole-vaulting" with the microphone stand. He and keyboard player Seth Justman were responsible for most of the songwriting. Creative differences followed their Freeze-Frame album, causing the J. Geils Band and Peter Wolf to part ways in 1983.

 

Peter Wolf with the J. Geils Band in Candlestick Park, San Francisco, California Photo: Catharine Anderson

Wolf became a solo artist for the next 15 years, but in 1999 the J. Geils Band reunited for several appearances, with Wolf resuming his duties as lead vocalist. They separated again, and Wolf began touring once more, as a solo act.

Wolf's first solo record, Lights Out (1984) was produced by Michael Jonzun of the Jonzun Crew, features Adrian Belew, and has a somewhat funky, electro sound. The eponymous single became a hit single the same year, peaking at #12 on the Billboard Hot 100. He recorded many duets with the likes of Aretha Franklin, Little Milton, John Lee Hooker, Don Covay, and Wilson Pickett to name just a few.

Long Line was co-produced with two musician friends, Johnny A. and a Bob Dylan backup band member, Stu Kimball. Tim Archibald (Bass) and Brian Maes (keys and backing vocals) who are both members of "Ernie And The Automatics", played on the record and Toured in support of "Long Line." His next two solo albums, Fool's Parade and Sleepless (the latter featuring guest appearances from Mick Jagger and Keith Richards), were both highly praised by Jann Wenner in Rolling Stone, receiving four-and-a-half and five stars, respectively. Sleepless (2002) was noted as one of the 500 greatest albums of all time in Rolling Stone issue 937. He has performed on stage with such diverse people as Bruce Springsteen and Phil Lesh.

Wolf toured in 2008 with Kid Rock and Rev. Run on The Rock N Roll Revival Tour. He performed "Love Stinks" solo with Kid Rock's band. Then he joined Kid Rock for "Ain't Too Proud to Beg", "Musta Got Lost", "Centerfold" (from the J. Geils album Freeze Frame) and "For What It's Worth".

The J. Geils Band re-united for a series of shows in 2009, including opening night at the Boston House of Blues.

Wolf's 2010 album Midnight Souvenirs won Album of the Year at the Boston Music Awards.[2][3]

 

www.facebook.com/pages/Session-Americana/53199003969

 

www.sessionamericana.com

www.myspace.com/sessionamericana

www.hi-n-dry.com/session_americana

www.exploitboston.com/music-musings/grab-new-music-from-s...

Session Americana - www.sessionamericana.com

 

This ad hoc acoustic supergroup started around a table at a small pub in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where Ry Cavanaugh, Billy Conway, Sean Staples, Dinty Child, Jim Fitting and other friends gathered to swap songs and stories. Their lively performances and inspired versions of tunes from the dusty backroads of America's past were such a hit with fans that they decided to take their musical conversation into the studio. The two-CD debut Tabletop People ups the ante with stellar appearances by folksinger Rose Polenzani, Twinemen's Laurie Sargent, Dennis Brennan, Asa Brebner, Merrie Amsterburg, Dan Kellar, Presidents of the United States' Chris Ballew, Jabe Beyer, Tim Gearon and other luminaries. And the 18 gritty, funny, soulful performances included span a gamut of emotions and tastes that should please both adult and younger listeners.

 

"Genius ... Jaw-dropping vocals ... Session Americana is blessed in this regard:...musicianship that sets the standard for the genre in Boston

and vocals that do the same"

— Performer Magazine

 

Session Americana sit tightly around a small cafe table, ambient mics tuned to catch the whole sound of the voices and instruments. A suit-case drum kit, an old electric bass, a bunch of acoustic instruments, a field organ: This format feels very theatrical and though the musicians face each other, the audience feels drawn into the circle by the warmth, joy and camaraderie that emanate outwards by the all star cast of characters seated around the table. What keeps you coming back show after show is the same thing that any audience member longs for, great songs performed by a great band. The six core members of the band have brought enviable careers worth of experience to the “table”, featuring (current and former) members of Treat Her Right, Patty Griffin, Lori McKenna, The The, Dennis Brennan, Kris Delmhorst. The group has grown from a rag tag jam at a local pub to a regional institution, playing gigs from church coee houses to urban nightclubs to regional festival tents to large halls.

 

Band: Ry Cavanaugh, Billy Beard, Dinty Child, Jim Fitting, Sean Staples and Jon Bistline.

 

*Winner “2005 Best Folk Act” - The Boston Music Awards

*Winner “Best Roots Act 2006” - Improper Bostonian “Best of Boston” Issue

*Winner “Best CD” 2007 - Improper Bostonian

*Nominated “Best Roots Act” 2007 - WFNX/Boston Phoenix Best Music Poll

*Nominated Best Live Act 2007 - The Boston Music Awards

*Nominated Best Americana Act 2008 - The Boston Music Awards

 

“Genius ... Jaw-dropping vocals ... Session Americana is blessed in this regard: ...musicianship that sets the standard for the genre in Boston and vocals that do the same”

— NE Performer Magazine

 

“No egos, no big production, just some great songs stripped down to their bare essentials and performed with a real genuineness of spirit and emotional authenticity... it’s beautiful.” (Brian Mosher)

— The Noise

 

“An eclectic, swinging tour de force” — The Boston Globe

 

“[This] local country-folk megagroup’s double CD is one of the most loose, spontaneous, warm, and homespun acts of community and decency since the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s Will the Circle Be Unbroken.”

 

— The Boston Phoenix

“the cream of the Somerville/Cambridge community" - No Depression (read less)

 

Session Americana and Peter Wolf playing at the Lizard Lounge in Cambridge, MA.

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Wolf

www.peterwolf.com/

www.facebook.com/PeterWolfMusic?v=wall

Life and career

 

Wolf was born in the Bronx, New York. He planned a career as an artist, but he got a job in the late 1960s as a disc jockey on then-cutting edge Boston FM radio station WBCN and began exploring his interest in blues and rhythm and blues music, giving himself the nickname "the Wolfa Goofa", sometimes expanded to "the Wolfa Goofa with the Green Teeth" (as mentioned in the intro to "Must of Got Lost" on the Blow Your Face Out album). Later as solo artist he called himself Woofa Goofa Mama Toofa. He formed a group called the Hallucinations who performed with The Velvet Underground, Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, Van Morrison, John Lee Hooker, and Sun Ra. He then saw the J. Geils Blues Band in concert and quickly joined. He was the vocalist and frontman, and often acted as a sort of manager. Wolf was known for his charismatic stage antics of fast-talking quips and "pole-vaulting" with the microphone stand. He and keyboard player Seth Justman were responsible for most of the songwriting. Creative differences followed their Freeze-Frame album, causing the J. Geils Band and Peter Wolf to part ways in 1983.

 

Peter Wolf with the J. Geils Band in Candlestick Park, San Francisco, California Photo: Catharine Anderson

Wolf became a solo artist for the next 15 years, but in 1999 the J. Geils Band reunited for several appearances, with Wolf resuming his duties as lead vocalist. They separated again, and Wolf began touring once more, as a solo act.

Wolf's first solo record, Lights Out (1984) was produced by Michael Jonzun of the Jonzun Crew, features Adrian Belew, and has a somewhat funky, electro sound. The eponymous single became a hit single the same year, peaking at #12 on the Billboard Hot 100. He recorded many duets with the likes of Aretha Franklin, Little Milton, John Lee Hooker, Don Covay, and Wilson Pickett to name just a few.

Long Line was co-produced with two musician friends, Johnny A. and a Bob Dylan backup band member, Stu Kimball. Tim Archibald (Bass) and Brian Maes (keys and backing vocals) who are both members of "Ernie And The Automatics", played on the record and Toured in support of "Long Line." His next two solo albums, Fool's Parade and Sleepless (the latter featuring guest appearances from Mick Jagger and Keith Richards), were both highly praised by Jann Wenner in Rolling Stone, receiving four-and-a-half and five stars, respectively. Sleepless (2002) was noted as one of the 500 greatest albums of all time in Rolling Stone issue 937. He has performed on stage with such diverse people as Bruce Springsteen and Phil Lesh.

Wolf toured in 2008 with Kid Rock and Rev. Run on The Rock N Roll Revival Tour. He performed "Love Stinks" solo with Kid Rock's band. Then he joined Kid Rock for "Ain't Too Proud to Beg", "Musta Got Lost", "Centerfold" (from the J. Geils album Freeze Frame) and "For What It's Worth".

The J. Geils Band re-united for a series of shows in 2009, including opening night at the Boston House of Blues.

Wolf's 2010 album Midnight Souvenirs won Album of the Year at the Boston Music Awards.[2][3]

 

www.facebook.com/pages/Session-Americana/53199003969

 

www.sessionamericana.com

www.myspace.com/sessionamericana

www.hi-n-dry.com/session_americana

www.exploitboston.com/music-musings/grab-new-music-from-s...

Session Americana - www.sessionamericana.com

 

This ad hoc acoustic supergroup started around a table at a small pub in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where Ry Cavanaugh, Billy Conway, Sean Staples, Dinty Child, Jim Fitting and other friends gathered to swap songs and stories. Their lively performances and inspired versions of tunes from the dusty backroads of America's past were such a hit with fans that they decided to take their musical conversation into the studio. The two-CD debut Tabletop People ups the ante with stellar appearances by folksinger Rose Polenzani, Twinemen's Laurie Sargent, Dennis Brennan, Asa Brebner, Merrie Amsterburg, Dan Kellar, Presidents of the United States' Chris Ballew, Jabe Beyer, Tim Gearon and other luminaries. And the 18 gritty, funny, soulful performances included span a gamut of emotions and tastes that should please both adult and younger listeners.

 

"Genius ... Jaw-dropping vocals ... Session Americana is blessed in this regard:...musicianship that sets the standard for the genre in Boston

and vocals that do the same"

— Performer Magazine

 

Session Americana sit tightly around a small cafe table, ambient mics tuned to catch the whole sound of the voices and instruments. A suit-case drum kit, an old electric bass, a bunch of acoustic instruments, a field organ: This format feels very theatrical and though the musicians face each other, the audience feels drawn into the circle by the warmth, joy and camaraderie that emanate outwards by the all star cast of characters seated around the table. What keeps you coming back show after show is the same thing that any audience member longs for, great songs performed by a great band. The six core members of the band have brought enviable careers worth of experience to the “table”, featuring (current and former) members of Treat Her Right, Patty Griffin, Lori McKenna, The The, Dennis Brennan, Kris Delmhorst. The group has grown from a rag tag jam at a local pub to a regional institution, playing gigs from church coee houses to urban nightclubs to regional festival tents to large halls.

 

Band: Ry Cavanaugh, Billy Beard, Dinty Child, Jim Fitting, Sean Staples and Jon Bistline.

 

*Winner “2005 Best Folk Act” - The Boston Music Awards

*Winner “Best Roots Act 2006” - Improper Bostonian “Best of Boston” Issue

*Winner “Best CD” 2007 - Improper Bostonian

*Nominated “Best Roots Act” 2007 - WFNX/Boston Phoenix Best Music Poll

*Nominated Best Live Act 2007 - The Boston Music Awards

*Nominated Best Americana Act 2008 - The Boston Music Awards

 

“Genius ... Jaw-dropping vocals ... Session Americana is blessed in this regard: ...musicianship that sets the standard for the genre in Boston and vocals that do the same”

— NE Performer Magazine

 

“No egos, no big production, just some great songs stripped down to their bare essentials and performed with a real genuineness of spirit and emotional authenticity... it’s beautiful.” (Brian Mosher)

— The Noise

 

“An eclectic, swinging tour de force” — The Boston Globe

 

“[This] local country-folk megagroup’s double CD is one of the most loose, spontaneous, warm, and homespun acts of community and decency since the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s Will the Circle Be Unbroken.”

 

— The Boston Phoenix

“the cream of the Somerville/Cambridge community" - No Depression (read less)

 

Two memorials - one ornate, the other plain . The one on the left was erected in Westminster Abbey nave south aisle designed by James Gibbs and sculpted by Rysbrack. On either side of her portrait are the figures of Faith, with a book, and Prudence who once held a mirror

"To the memory of Mrs KATHARINA BOVEY whose person & understanding would have become the highest ranke in female life & whose vivacity would have recommended her in the best conversation. But by judgment as well as inclination she chose such a retirement as gave her great opportunitys for reading and reflection: which she made use of to the wisest purposes of improvement in knowledge and religion. Upon other subjects she ventured far out of the common way of thinking, but in religious matters she made the Holy Scriptures, in which she was well skilled, the rule and guide of her faith & actions: esteeming it more safe to rely upon the plain Word of God than to run into any freedoms of thought upon revealed truths. The great share of time allowed to the closet was not perceived in her economy: for she had always a well ordered & well instructed family, from the happy influence as well of her temper and conduct, as of her uniform & exemplary Christian life. It pleased God to bless her with a considerable estate, which with a liberal hand guide by wisdom and piety, she imployed to His glory & the good of her neighbours. Her domestic expenses were managed with a decency & dignity suitable to her fortune; but with a frugality that made her income abound to all proper objects of charity; to the relief of the necessitous, the incouragement of the industrious & instruction of the ignorant. She distributed not only with cheerfulness but with joy, which upon some occasions of raising & refreshing the spirit of the afflicted, she could not refrain from breaking forth into tears flowing from a heart throughly affected with compassion & benevolence. Thus did many of her good works, while she lived, go up as a memorial before God & some she left to follow her. She dyed Jan.21 1726 in the 57th year of her age at Flaxley, her seat in Glocestershire & was buryed there, where her name will be long remembered & where several of her benefactions at that place, as well as others, are more particularly recorded.

This monument was erected with the utmost respect to her memory and justice to her character by her executrix Mrs MARY POPE who lived with her near 40 years in perfect friendship never once interrupted till her much lamented death"

 

On the right is a plain wall memorial here at Flaxley where she was buried

"In the vault near this Chapel is reposited the Body of Mrs CATHARINA BOVEY, Daughter of JOHN RICHES, Esq. of London, Merchant. She was married to WILLIAM BOVEY, Esq. Lord of this Mannor of Flaxley, at the Age of 15, was left a Widow, without Children, at the Age of 22, and continued so all the rest of her Life. She entertained her Friends and Neighbours with a most agreeable Hospitality; but always took Care to have a large Reserve for Charity, which she bestowed, not only on such Occasions as offered, but studied how to employ it so as to make it useful and advantageous. Her Disposition to do good was so well known in the District about her, that she easily became acquainted with the Circumstances of those that wanted; and, as she preserved many Families from Ruin, by seasonable Loans or Gifts, so she conveyed her Assistance to some of better Rank, in such a Manner as made it doubly acceptable. How far her Bounty extended was known to herself alone; but much of it appeared, to her Honour and God`s Glory, in frequent Distributions to the Poor, and especially to the Charity Schools Round about the Country, in relieving those in Prison, and delivering many out of it, in contributing to the Churches of the English Establishment abroad, as well as aiding several at home, in cloathing and feeding her indigent Neighbours, and teaching their Children, some of whom every Sunday, by Turns, she entertained at her House, and condescended to examine them herself; besides this continual, it might be said this daily, Course of Liberality during her Life. She bequeathed at her Death, towards founding a College in the Island of Bermudas £500; to the Grey Coat Hospital, in St. Margaret`s, Westminster, £500; to the Blue Coat Hospital in Westminster, £500; to the Charity School of Christ Church, Parish of Southwark, £400; to augment the Living of this Place, £1200; to put out poor Children Apprentices, the Interest of £400 for ever; of which Summe £160 had been left by Mr. CLARKE and Mr. BOVEY; to be distributed, as her Executrix should think fit, among those whom she had put out Apprentices in her Life-time £400; lastly, she designed the re-building of this Chapel, which pious Design of hers was speedily"executed by Mrs. MARY POPE

She dyed January 21st 1726/7 in the 57th year of her age at FLAXLEY her seat in GLOCESTERSHIRE & was bury'd there wherre her name will be long remembered & where several of her benefactions at that place as well as others are more particularly recorded

This monument was erected with the utmost respect ot her memory and justice to her character, by her executrix MRS MARY POPE who liv'd with her near 40 years in perfect friendship never once interrupted till her much lamented death

She dyed January 21st 1726 in the 57th year of her age at FLAXLEY her seat in GLOCESTERSHIRE & was bury'd there wherre her name will be long remembered & where several of her benefactions at that place as well as others are more particularly recorded

This monument was erected with the utmost respect ot her memory and justice to her character, by her executrix MRS MARY POPE who liv'd with her near 40 years in perfect friendship never once interrupted till her much lamented death"

 

Catharina 1669-1726 was the daughter of John Riches 1718 by 2nd wife Anne daughter of Thomas Davall, merchant of Amsterdam, by Anna Potts

Katharina was baptised on 1 May 1670 at All Hallows Lombard Street, London. Her father was a wealthy merchant originally of Amsterdam who settled in the parish of St Laurence Pountney in London. He was member of the Grocers Company and a Common Councilman of Dowgate (1678–83, 1689) and a Deputy in 1685.

Her siblings were John Riches (dvp.1676) and sister Anne d1689 who also has monument here inscribed "ANNE RICHES, Daughter of JOHN RICHES, Esq. and only sister to Mrs. BOVEY, of Flaxley, departed this Life 5 Oct. 1689, which she had passed in a religious Observance of her Duty towards God and her Parents; in tender Affection to her Relations; in Charity and Kindness to all; endued with this early Habit of Vertue, Death, however suddain, did not surprise her unprepared"

 

Catharina was a great beauty and is also described as "one of those lofty, black, and lasting beauties that strike with reverence and yet delight" having "great genius and good judgement", derived from her reading

 

She m 1685 William Boevey 1657- 1692 www.flickr.com/gp/52219527@N00/038atU the son of merchant lawyer James Boevey 1696 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Boevey#/media/File:JamesBoeve... and 2nd wife Isabel de Visscher who the In 1683 had inherited Flaxley Abbey estates from his cousin Abraham Clark www.flickr.com/gp/52219527@N00/S327RG who had died without issue.

William was 28 & she was 15

 

Sadly husband William was given to "excesses, both in debauch and ill-humour," bringing much suffering to his wife; who never complained, but supported it all "like a martyr, cheerful under her very sufferings". The short marriage was childless and Catherina was widowed aged 22 , and as now mistress of Flaxley estate and sole heiress of her wealthy father, she at once became the centre of a crowd of wooers; but remaining unmarried for the rest of her long life.

 

By c 1686, aged 17, she had formed a strong friendship with Mrs. Mary Pope www.flickr.com/gp/52219527@N00/038atU who joined her in her philanthropic life.

 

She died at Flaxley Hall on Saturday, 18 January 1726, and was buried "in a most private manner", according to her own directions

The small chapel at the Abbey's gate , dedicated to St. Mary the Virgin, was extended by Mary Pope funded by a bequest in her will.

 

On Catherina's death, the estate passed to a kinsman Thomas Crawley 1741 www.flickr.com/gp/52219527@N00/9AU0X8 who assumed the name Crawley-Boevey, and thence to his son Thomas Crawley-Boevey who enlarged the estate in the 1760s by purchasing land in Westbury-on-Severn adjoining the main part of Flaxley.

 

www.westminster-abbey.org/abbey-commemorations/commemorat...

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catherina_Boevey en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Boevey<

 

www.westminster-abbey.org/abbey-commemorations/commemorat... - Church of St Mary the Virgin Flaxley Gloucestershire

Nearly halfway through the month, and it's the weekend again, and the the good news is that the sore throat I had on Friday went and did not return.

 

Which is nice.

 

Jools's cough, however, which seemed like it was getting better, returned slightly on Friday evening, and would again on Saturday. We had tockets to see Public Service Bradcasting again, this time in Margate, but our hearts were not in it, if I'm honest, and in the end we decided not to go in light of her coughing, but also as I said, we saw them a month back, though this would be a different show.

 

And Norwich were on the tellybox, what could be better than watching that?

 

Anything, as it turned out.

 

But that was for later.

 

We went to Tesco, a little later than usual, as we had slept in rather, then back home for breakfast before the decision on what to do for the day. Jools decided to stay home to bead and read, I would go out.

 

There are three churches near to home that I feel I needed to revisit, St Margaret's itself I should be able to get the key from the village shop at any time, but St Mary in Dover hasn't been open the last few times I have been in town, and Barfrestone was closed most of the year due to vandalism.

 

But Saturday morning there is usually a coffee morning in St Mary, so I went down armed with camera and lenses to take more shots of the details, especially of the windows.

 

There was a small group with the Vicar, talking in one of the chapels, so I made busy getting my shots, just happy that the church was open. I left a fiver with the vicar, and walked back to the car, passing the old guy supping from a tin of cider sitting outside the church hall.

 

-------------------------------------------------

 

In the heart of the town with a prominent twelfth-century tower. From the outside it is obvious that much work was carried out in the nineteenth century. The church has major connections with the Lord Wardens of the Cinque Ports and is much used for ceremonial services. The western bays of the nave with their low semi-circular arches are contemporary with the tower, while the pointed arches to the east are entirely nineteenth century. The scale and choice of stone is entirely wrong, although the carving is very well done. However the east end, with its tall narrow lancet windows, is not so successful. The Royal Arms, of the reign of William and Mary, are of carved and painted wood, with a French motto - Jay Maintendray - instead of the more usual Dieu et Mon Droit. The church was badly damaged in the Second World War, but one of the survivors was the typical Norman font of square Purbeck marble construction. One of the more recent additions to the church is the Herald of Free Enterprise memorial window of 1989 designed by Frederick Cole.

 

www.kentchurches.info/church.asp?p=Dover+1

 

-------------------------------------------

 

THE TOWN AND PORT OF DOVER.

DOVER lies at the eastern extremity of Kent, adjoining to the sea, the great high London road towards France ending at it. It lies adjoining to the parish of Charlton last-described, eastward, in the lath of St. Augustine and eastern division of the county. It is within the liberty of the cinque ports, and the juristion of the corporation of the town and port of Dover.

 

DOVER, written in the Latin Itinerary of Antonine, Dubris. By the Saxons, Dorsa, and Dofris. By later historians, Doveria; and in the book of Domesday, Dovere; took its name most probably from the British words, Dufir, signifying water, or Dusirrha, high and steep, alluding to the cliffs adjoining to it. (fn. 1)

 

It is situated at the extremity of a wide and spacious valley, inclosed on each side by high and steep hills or cliffs, and making allowance for the sea's withdrawing itself from between them, answers well to the description given of it by Julius Cæfar in his Commentaries.

 

In the middle space, between this chain of high cliffs, in a break or opening, lies the town of Dover and its harbour, which latter, before the sea was shut out, so late as the Norman conquest, was situated much more within the land than it is at present, as will be further noticed hereafter.

 

ON THE SUMMIT of one of these cliffs, of sudden and stupendous height, close on the north side of the town and harbour, stands DOVER CASTLE, so famous and renowned in all the histories of former times. It is situated so exceeding high, that it is at most times plainly to be seen from the lowest lands on the coast of France, and as far beyond as the eye can discern. Its size, for it contains within it thirty five acres of ground, six of which are taken up by the antient buildings, gives it the appearance of a small city, having its citadel conspicuous in the midst of it, with extensive fortifications, around its walls. The hill, or rather rock, on which it stands, is ragged and steep towards the town and harbour; but towards the sea, it is a perpendicular precipice of a wonderful height, being more than three hundred and twenty feet high, from its basis on the shore.

 

Common tradition supposes, that Julius Cæfar was the builder of this castle, as well as others in this part of Britain, but surely without a probability of truth; for our brave countrymen found Cæfar sufficient employment of a far different sort, during his short stay in Britain, to give him any opportunity of erecting even this one fortress. Kilburne says, there was a tower here, called Cæsar's tower, afterwards the king's lodgings; but these, now called the king's keep, were built by king Henry II. as will be further mentioned hereafter; and he further says, there were to be seen here great pipes and casks bound with iron hoops, in which was liquor supposed to be wine, which by long lying had become as thick as treacle, and would cleave like birdlime; salt congealed together as hard as stone; cross and long bows and arrows, to which brass was fastened instead of feathers, and they were of such size, as not to be fit for the use of men of that or any late ages. These, Lambarde says, the inhabitants shewed as having belonged to Cæfar, and the wine and salt as part of the provision he had brought with him hither; and Camden relates, that he was shewn these arrows, which he thinks were such as the Romans used to shoot out of their engines, which were like to large crossbows. These last might, no doubt, though not Cæsar's, belong to the Romans of a later time; and the former might, perhaps, be part of the provisions and stores which king Henry VIII. laid in here, at a time when he passed from hence over sea to France. But for many years past it has not been known what is become of any of these things.

 

Others, averse to Cæsar's having built this castle, and yet willing to give the building of it to the empire of the Romans of a later time, suppose, and that perhaps with some probability, it was first erected by Arviragus, (or Arivog, as he is called on his coin) king of Britain, in the time of Claudius, the Roman emperor. (fn. 2)

 

That there was one built here, during the continuance of the Roman empire in Britain, must be supposed from the necessity of it, and the circumstances of those times; and the existence of one plainly appears, from the remains of the tower and other parts of the antient church within it, and the octagon tower at the west end, in which are quantities of Roman brick and tile. These towers are evidently the remains of Roman work, the former of much less antiquity than the latter, which may be well supposed to have been built as early as the emperor Claudius, whose expedition hither was about or immediately subsequent to the year of Christ 44. Of these towers, probably the latter was built for a speculum, or watch-tower, and was used, not only to watch the approach of enemies, but with another on the opposite hill, to point out the safe entrance into this port between them, by night as well as by day.

 

In this fortress, the Romans seem afterwards to have kept a garrison of veterans, as we learn from Pancirollus, who tells us that a company of soldiers under their chief, called Præpositus Militum Tungricanorum, was stationed within this fortess.

 

Out of the remains of part of the above-mentioned Roman buildings here, a Christian church was erected, as most historians write, by Lucius, king of Britain, about the year 161; but it is much to be doubted whether there ever was such a king in Britain; if there was, he was only a tributary chief to the Roman emperor, under whose peculiar government Britain was then accounted. This church was built, no doubt, for the use of that part of the garrison in particular, who were at that time believers of the gospel, and afterwards during the different changes of the Christian and Pagan religions in these parts, was made use of accordingly, till St. Augustine, soon after the year 597, at the request of king Ethelbert, reconsecrated it, and dedicated it anew, in honour of the blessed Virgin Mary.

 

¶His son and successor Eadbald, king of Kent, founded a college of secular canons and a provost in this church, whose habitations, undoubtedly near it, there are not the least traces of. These continued here till after the year 691; when Widred, king of Kent, having increated the fortifications, and finding the residence of the religious within them an incumbrance, removed them from hence into the town of Dover, to the antient church of St. Martin; in the description of which hereafter, a further account of them will be given.

  

DOVER does not seem to have been in much repute as a harbour, till some time after Cæsar's expedition hither; for the unfitness, as well as insecurity of the place, especially for a large fleet of shipping, added to the character which he had given of it, deterred the Romans from making a frequent use of it, so that from Boleyne, or Gessoriacum, their usual port in Gaul, they in general failed with their fleets to Richborough, or Portus Rutupinus, situated at the mouth of the Thames, in Britain, and thence back again; the latter being a most safe and commodious haven, with a large and extensive bay.

 

Notwithstanding which, Dover certainly was then made use of as a port for smaller vessels, and a nearer intercourse for passengers from the continent; and to render the entrance to it more safe, the Romans built two Specula, or watch-towers, here, on the two hills opposite to each other, to point out the approach to it, and one likewise on the opposite hill at Bologne, for the like purpose there; and it is mentioned as a port by Antoninus, in his Itinerary, in which, ITER III. is A Londinio ad Portum Dubris, i. e. from London to the port of Dover.

 

After the departure of the Romans from Britain, when the port of Bologne, as well as Richborough, fell into decay and disuse, and instead of the former a nearer port came into use, first at Whitsan, and when that was stopped up, a little higher at Calais, Dover quickly became the more usual and established port of passage between France and Britain, and it has continued so to the present time.

 

When the antient harbour of Dover was changed from its antient situation is not known; most probably by various occurrences of nature, the sea left it by degrees, till at last the farmer scite of it became entirely swallowed up by the beach. That the harbour was much further within land, even at the time of the conquest than it is at present, seems to be confirmed by Domesday, in which it is said, that at the entrance of it, there was a mill which damaged almost every ship that passed by it, on account of the great swell of the sea there. Where the scite of this mill was, is now totally unknown, though it is probable it was much within the land, and that by the still further accumulation of the beach, and other natural causes, this haven was in process of time so far filled up towards the inland part of it, as to change its situation still more to the south-west, towards the sea.

 

From the time of the Norman conquest this port continued the usual passage to the continent, and to confine the intercourse to this port only, there was a statute passed anno 4 Edward IV. that none should take shipping for Calais, but at Dover. (fn. 20) But in king Henry VII.'s time, which was almost the next reign, the harbour was become so swerved up, as to render it necessary for the king's immediate attention, to prevent its total ruin, and he expended great sums of money for its preservation. But it was found, that all that was done, would not answer the end proposed, without the building of a pier to seaward, which was determined on about the middle of Henry VIII.'s reign, and one was constructed, which was compiled of two rows of main posts, and great piles, which were let into holes hewn in the rock underneath, and some were shod with iron, and driven down into the main chalk, and fastened together with iron bands and bolts. The bottom being first filled up with great rocks of stone, and the remainder above with great chalk stones, beach, &c. During the whole of this work, the king greatly encouraged the undertaking, and came several times to view it; and in the whole is said to have expended near 63,000l. on it. But his absence afterwards abroad, his ill health, and at last his death, joined to the minority of his successor, king Edward VI. though some feeble efforts were made in his reign, towards the support of this pier, put a stop to, and in the end exposed this noble work to decay and ruin.

 

Queen Mary, indeed, attempted to carry it on again, but neither officers nor workmen being well paid, it came to nothing, so that in process of time the sea having brought up great quantities of beach again upon it, the harbour was choaked up, and the loss of Calais happening about the same time, threatened the entire destruction of it. Providentially the shelf of beach was of itself became a natural defence against the rage of the sea, insomuch, that if a passage could be made for ships to get safely within it, they might ride there securely.

 

To effect this, several projects were formed, and queen Elizabeth, to encourage it, gave to the town the free transportation of several thousand quarters of corn and tuns of beer; and in the 23d of her reign, an act passed for giving towards the repair of the harbour, a certain tonnage from every vessel above twenty tons burthen, passing by it, which amounted to 1000l. yearly income; and the lord Cobham, then lordwarden, and others, were appointed commissioners for this purpose; and in the end, after many different trials to effect it, a safe harbour was formed, with a pier, and different walls and sluices, at a great expence; during the time of which a universal diligence and public spirit appeared in every one concerned in this great and useful work. During the whole of the queen's reign, the improvement of this harbour continued without intermission, and several more acts passed for that purpose; but the future preservation of it was owing to the charter of incorporation of the governors of it, in the first year of king James I. by an act passed that year, by the name of the warden and assistants of the harbour of Dover, the warden being always the lord-warden of the cinque ports for the time being, and his assistants, his lieutenant, and the mayor of Dover, for the time being, and eight others, the warden and assistants only making a quorum; six to be present to make a session; at any of which, on a vacancy, the assistants to be elected; and the king granted to them his land or waste ground, or beach, commonly called the Pier, or Harbour ground, as it lay without Southgate, or Snargate, the rents of which are now of the yearly value of about three hundred pounds.

 

Under the direction of this corporation, the works and improvements of this harbour have been carried on, and acts of parliament have been passed in almost every reign since, to give the greater force to their proceedings.

 

From what has been said before, the reader will observe, that this harbour has always been a great national object, and that in the course of many ages, prodigious sums of money have been from time to time expended on it, and every endeavour used to keep it open, and render it commodious; but after all these repeated endeavours and expences, it still labours under such circumstances, as in a very great degree renders unsuccessful all that has ever been done for that purpose.

 

DOVER, as has been already mentioned, was of some estimation in the time of the Roman empire in Britain, on account of its haven, and afterwards for the castle, in which they kept a strong garrison of sol. diers, not only to guard the approach to it, but to keep the natives in subjection; and in proof of their residence here, the Rev. Mr. Lyon some years since discovered the remains of a Roman structure, which he apprehended to have been a bath, at the west end of the parish-church of St. Mary, in this town, which remains have since repeatedly been laid open when interments have taken place there.

 

This station of the Romans is mentioned by Antonine, in his Itinerary of the Roman roads in Britain, by the name of Dubris, as being situated from the station named Durovernum, or Canterbury, fourteen miles; which distance, compared with the miles as they are now numbered from Canterbury, shews the town, as well as the haven, for they were no doubt contiguous to each other, to have both been nearer within land than either of them are at present, the present distance from Canterbury being near sixteen miles as the road now goes, The sea, indeed, seems antiently to have occupied in great part the space where the present town of Dover, or at least the northwest part of it, now stands; but being shut out by the quantity of beach thrown up, and the harbour changed by that means to its present situation, left that place a dry ground, on which the town of Dover, the inhabitants following the traffic of the harbour, was afterwards built.

 

This town, called by the Saxons, Dofra, and Dofris; by later historians, Doveria; and in Domesday, Dovere; is agreed by all writers to have been privileged before the conquest; and by the survey of Domesday, appears to have been of ability in the time of king Edward the Confessor, to arm yearly twenty vessels for sea service. In consideration of which, that king granted to the inhabitants, not only to be free from the payment of thol and other privileges throughout the realm, but pardoned them all manner of suit and service to any of his courts whatsoever; and in those days, the town seems to have been under the protection and government of Godwin, earl of Kent, and governor of this castle.

 

Soon after the conquest, this town was so wasted by fire, that almost all the houses were reduced to ashes, as appears by the survey of Domesday, at the beginning of which is the following entry of it:

 

DOVERE, in the time of king Edward, paid eighteen pounds, of which money, king E had two parts, and earl Goduin the third. On the other hand, the canons of St. Martin had another moiety. The burgesses gave twenty ships to the king once in the year, for fifteen days; and in each ship were twenty and one men. This they did on the account that he had pardoned them sac and soc. When the messengers of the king came there, they gave for the passage of a horse three pence in winter, and two in summer. But the burgesses found a steerman, and one other assistant, and if there should be more necessary, they were provided at his cost. From the festival of St. Michael to the feast of St. Andrew, the king's peace was in the town. Sigerius had broke it, on which the king's bailiff had received the usual fine. Whoever resided constantly in the town paid custom to the king; he was free from thol throughout England. All these customs were there when king William came into England. On his first arrival in England, the town itself was burnt, and therefore its value could not be computed how much it was worth, when the bishop of Baieux received it. Now it is rated at forty pounds, and yet the bailiff pays from thence fifty-four pounds to the king; of which twenty-four pounds in money, which were twenty in an one, but thirty pounds to the earl by tale.

 

In Dovere there are twenty-nine plats of ground, of which the king had lost the custom. Of these Robert de Romenel has two. Ralph de Curbespine three. William, son of Tedald, one. William, son of Oger, one. William, son of Tedold, and Robert niger, six. William, son of Goisfrid, three, in which the guildhall of the burgesses was. Hugo de Montfort one house. Durand one. Rannulf de Colubels one. Wadard six. The son of Modbert one. And all these vouch the bishop of Baieux as the protector and giver of these houses. Of that plat of ground, which Rannulf de Colubels holds, which was a certain outlaw, they agree that the half of the land was the king's, and Rannulf himself has both parts. Humphry the lame man holds one plat of ground, of which half the forfeiture is the king's. Roger de Ostrabam made a certain house over the king's water, and held to this time the custom of the king; nor was a house there in the time of king Edward. In the entrance of the port of Dovere, there is one mill, which damages almost every ship, by the great swell of the sea, and does great damage to the king and his tenants; and it was not there in the time of king Edward. Concerning this, the grandson of Herbert says, that the bishop of Baieux granted it to his uncle Herbert, the son of Ivo.

 

And a little further, in the same record, under the bishop's possessions likewise:

 

In Estrei hundred, Wibertus holds half a yoke, which lies in the gild of Dover, and now is taxed with the land of Osbert, the son of Letard, and is worth per annum four shillings.

 

From the Norman conquest, the cities and towns of this realm appear to have been vested either in the crown, or else in the clergy or great men of the laity, and they were each, as such, immediately lords of the same. Thus, when the bishop of Baieux, to whom the king had, as may be seen by the above survey, granted this town, was disgraced. It returned into the king's hands by forfeiture, and king Richard I. afterwards granted it in ferme to Robt. Fitz-bernard. (fn. 21)

 

After the time of the taking of the survey of Domesday, the harbour of Dover still changing its situation more to the south-westward, the town seems to have altered its situation too, and to have been chiefly rebuilt along the sides of the new harbour, and as an encouragement to it, at the instance, and through favour especially to the prior of Dover, king Edward I. in corporated this town, the first that was so of any of the cinque ports, by the name of the mayor and commonalty. The mayor to be chosen out of the latter, from which body he was afterwards to chuse the assistants for his year, who were to be sworn for that purpose. At which time, the king had a mint for the coinage of money here; and by patent, anno 27 of that reign, the table of the exchequer of money was appointed to be held here, and at Yarmouth. (fn. 22) But the good effects of these marks of the royal favour were soon afterwards much lessened, by a dreadful disaster; for the French landed here in the night, in the 23d year of that reign, and burnt the greatest part of the town, and several of the religious houses, in it, and this was esteemed the more treacherousk, as it was done whilst the two cardinals were here, treating for a peace between England and France; which misfortune, however, does not seem to have totally impoverished it, for in the 17th year of the next reign of king Edward II it appears in some measure to have recovered its former state, and to have been rebuilt, as appears by the patent rolls of that year, in which the town of Dover is said to have then had in it twenty-one wards, each of which was charged with one ship for the king's use; in consideration of which, each ward had the privilege of a licensed packetboat, called a passenger, from Dover across the sea to Whitsan, in France, the usual port at that time of embarking from thence.

 

The state of this place in the reign of Henry VIII. is given by Leland, in his Itinerary, as follows:

 

"Dovar ys xii myles fro Canterbury and viii fro Sandwich. Ther hath bene a haven yn tyme past and yn taken ther of the ground that lyith up betwyxt the hilles is yet in digging found wosye. Ther hath bene found also peeces of cabelles and anchores and Itinerarium Antonini cawlyth hyt by the name of a haven. The towne on the front toward the se hath bene right strongly walled and embateled and almost al the residew; but now yt is parly fawlen downe and broken downe. The residew of the towne as far as I can perceyve was never waulled. The towne is devided into vi paroches. Wherof iii be under one rose at S. Martines yn the hart of the town. The other iii stand that yt hath be walled abowt but not dyked. The other iii stand abrode, of the which one is cawled S. James of Rudby or more likely Rodeby a statione navium. But this word ys not sufficient to prove that Dovar showld be that place, the which the Romaynes cawlled Portus Rutupi or Rutupinum. For I cannot yet se the contrary but Retesboro otherwise cawlled Richeboro by Sandwich, both ways corruptly, must neades be Rutupinum. The mayne strong and famose castel of Dovar stondeth on the loppe of a hille almost a quarter of a myle of fro the towne on the lyst side and withyn the castel ys a chapel, yn the sides wherof appere sum greate Briton brykes. In the town was a great priory of blacke monkes late suppressed. There is also an hospitalle cawlled the Meason dew. On the toppe of the hye clive betwene the towne and the peere remayneth yet abowt a slyte shot up ynto the land fro the very brymme of the se clysse as ruine of a towr, the which has bene as a pharos or a mark to shyppes on the se and therby was a place of templarys. As concerning the river of Dovar it hath no long cowrse from no spring or hedde notable that descendith to that botom. The principal hed, as they say is at a place cawled Ewelle and that is not past a iii or iiii myles fro Dovar. Ther be springes of frech waters also at a place cawled Rivers. Ther is also a great spring at a place cawled …… and that once in a vi or vii yeres brasted owt so abundantly that a great part of the water cummeth into Dovar streme, but als yt renneth yn to the se betwyxt Dovar and Folchestan, but nerer to Folchestan that is to say withyn a ii myles of yt. Surely the hedde standeth so that it might with no no great cost be brought to run alway into Dovar streame." (fn. 23)

Cougate Crosse-gate Bocheruy-gate stoode with toures toward the se. There is beside Beting-gate and Westegate.

Howbeyt MTuine tol me a late that yt hath be walled abowt but not dyked.

 

This was the state of Dover just before the time of the dissolution of religious houses, in Henry VIII.'s reign, when the abolition of private masses, obits, and such like services in churches, occasioned by the reformation, annillilated the greatest part of the income of the priests belonging to them, in this as well as in other towns, in consequence of which most of them were deserted, and falling to ruin, the parishes belonging to them were united to one or two of the principal ones of them. Thus, in this town, of the several churches in it, two only remained in use for divine service, viz. St. Mary's and St. James's, to which the parishes of the others were united.

 

After this, the haven continuting to decay more than ever, notwithstanding the national assistance afforded to it, the town itself seemed hastening to impoverishment. What the state of it was in the 8th year of queen Elizabeth, may be seen, by the certificate returned by the queen's order of the maritime places, in her 8th year, by which it appears that there were then in Dover, houses inhabited three hundred and fifty-eight; void, or lack of inhabiters, nineteen; a mayor, customer, comptroller of authorities, not joint but several; ships and crayers twenty, from four tons to one hundred and twenty.

 

¶This probable ruin of the town, however, most likely induced the queen, in her 20th year, to grant it a new charter of incorporation, in which the manner of chusing mayor, jurats, and commoners, and of making freemen, was new-modelled, and several surther liberties and privileges granted, and those of the charter of king Edward I. confirmed likewise by inspeximus. After which, king Charles II. in his 36th year, anno 1684, granted to it a new charter, which, however, was never inrolled in chancery, and in consequence of a writ of quo warranto was that same year surrendered, and another again granted next year; but this last, as well as another charter granted by king James II. and forced on the corporation, being made wholly subservient to the king's own purposes, were annulled by proclamation, made anno 1688, being the fourth and last year of his reign: but none of the above charters being at this time extant, (the charters of this corporation, as well as those of the other cinque ports, being in 1685, by the king's command, surrendered up to Col. Strode, then governor of Dover castle, and never returned again, nor is it known what became of them,) Dover is now held to be a corporation by prescription, by the stile of the mayor, jurats, and commonalty of the town and port of Dover. It consists at present of a mayor, twelve jurats, and thirty-six commoners, or freemen, together with a chamberlain, recorder, and town-clerk. The mayor, who is coroner by virtue of his office, is chosen on Sept. 8, yearly, in St. Mary's church, and together with the jurats, who are justices within this liberty, exclusive of all others, hold a court of general sessions of the peace and gaol delivery, together with a court of record, and it has other privileges, mostly the same as the other corporations, within the liberties of the cinque ports. It has the privilege of a mace. The election of mayor was antiently in the church of St. Peter, whence in 1581 it was removed to that of St. Mary, where it has been, as well as the elections of barons to serve in parliament, held ever since. These elections here, as well as elsewhere in churches, set apart for the worship of God, are certainly a scandal to decency and religion, and are the more inexcusable here, as there is a spacious court-hall, much more fit for the purposes. After this, there was another byelaw made, in June, 1706, for removing these elections into the court-hall; but why it was not put in execution does not appear, unless custom prevented it—for if a decree was of force to move them from one church to another, another decree was of equal force to remove them from the church to the courthall. Within these few years indeed, a motion was made in the house of commons, by the late alderman Sawbridge, a gentlemand not much addicted to speak in favour of the established church, to remove all such elections, through decency, from churches to other places not consecrated to divine worship; but though allowed to be highly proper, yet party resentment against the mover of it prevailed, and the motion was negatived by a great majority.

 

The mayor is chosen by the resident freemen. The jurats are nominated from the common-councilmen by the jurats, and appointed by the mayor, jurats, and common-councilmen, by ballot.

  

THE CHURCH OF ST. Mary stands at some distance from the entrance into this town from Canterbury, near the market-place. It is said to have been built by the prior and convent of St. Martin, (fn. 47) in the year 1216; but from what authority, I know not.—Certain it is, that it was in king John's reign, in the gift of the king, and was afterwards given by him to John de Burgh; but in the 8th year of Richard II.'s reign, anno 1384, it was become appropriated to the abbot of Pontiniac. After which, by what means, I cannot discover, this appropriation, as well as the advowson of the church, came into the possession of the master and brethren of the hospital of the Maison Dieu, who took care that the church should be daily served by a priest, who should officiate in it for the benefit of the parish. In which state it continued till the suppression of the hospital, in the 36th year of king Henry VIII.'s reign, when it came into the hands of the crown, at which time the parsonage was returned by John Thompson, master of the hospital, to be worth six pounds per annum.

 

Two years after which, the king being at Dover, at the humble entreaty of the inhabitants of this parish, gave to them, as it is said, this church, with the cemetery adjoining to it, to be used by them as a parochial church; at the same time he gave the pews of St. Martin's church for the use of it; and on the king's departure, in token of possession, they sealed up the church doors; since which, the patronage of it, which is now esteemed as a perpetual curacy, the minister of it being licensed by the archbishop, has been vested in the inhabitants of this parish. Every parishioner, paying scot and lot, having a vote in the chusing of the minister, whose maintenance had been from time to time, at their voluntary option, more or less. It is now fixed at eighty pounds per annum. Besides which he has the possession of a good house, where he resides, which was purchased by the inhabitants in 1754, for the perpetual use of the minister of it. It is exempt from the jurisdiction of the archdeacon. (fn. 48)

 

There is a piece of ground belonging, as it is said, to the glebe of this church, rented annually at ten pounds, which is done by vestry, without the minister being at all concerned in it. In 1588 here were eight hundred and twenty-one communicants. This parish contains more than five parts out of six of the whole town, and a greater proportion of the inhabitants.

 

The church of St. Mary is a large handsome building of three isles, having a high and south chancel, all covered with lead, and built of flints, with ashler windows and door cases, which are arched and ornamented. At the west end is the steeple, which is a spire covered with lead, in which are eight bells, a clock, and chimes. The pillars in the church are large and clumsy; the arches low and semicircular in the body, but eliptical in the chancel; but there is no separation between the body and chancel, and the pews are continued on to the east end of the church. In the high chancel, at the eastern extremity of it, beyond the altar, are the seats for the mayor and jurats; and here the mayor is now chosen, and the barons in parliament for this town and port constantly elected.

 

In 1683, there was a faculty granted to the churchwardens, to remove the magistrates seats from the east end of the church to the north side, or any other more convenient part of it, and for the more decent and commodious placing the communion table: in consequence of which, these seats were removed, and so placed, but they continued there no longer than 1689, when, by several orders of vestry, they were removed back again to where they remain at present.

 

The mayor was antiently chosen in St. Peter's church; but by a bye-law of the corporation, it was removed to this church in 1583, where it has ever since been held. In 1706, another bye law was made, to remove, for the sake of decency, all elections from this church to the court-hall, but it never took place. More of which has been mentioned before.

 

From the largeness, as well as the populousness of this parish, the church is far from being sufficient to contain the inhabitants who resort to it for public worship, notwithstanding there are four galleries in it, and it is otherwise well pewed. This church was paved in 1642, but it was not ceiled till 1706. In 1742, there was an organ erected in it. The two branches in it were given, one by subscription in 1738, and the other by the pilots in 1742.

 

Thomas Toke, of Dover, buried in the chapel of St. Katharine, in this church, by his will in 1484, gave seven acres of land at Dugate, under Windlass-down, to the wardens of this church, towards the repairs of it for ever.

 

¶The monuments and memorials in this church and church yard, are by far too numerous to mention here. Among them are the following: A small monument in the church for the celebrated Charles Churchill, who was buried in the old church-yard of St. Martin in this town, as has been noticed before; and a small stone, with a memorial for Samuel Foote, esq. the celebrated comedian, who died at the Ship inn, and had a grave dug for him in this church, but was afterwards carried to London, and buried there. A monument and several memorials for the family of Eaton; arms, Or, a sret, azure. A small tablet for John Ker, laird of Frogden, in Twit dale, in Scotland, who died suddenly at Dover, in his way to France, in 1730. Two monuments for Farbrace, arms, Azure, a bend, or, between two roses, argent, seeded, or, bearded vert. A monument in the middle isle, to the memory of the Minet family. In the north isle are several memorials for the Gunmans, of Dover; arms,. … a spread eagle, argent, gorged with a ducal coronet, or. There are others, to the memory of Broadley, Rouse, and others, of good account in this town.

 

www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-kent/vol9/pp475-548

WALMART WORKERS, TAXPAYERS ARRESTED CALLING FOR WALMART OWNERS TO STOP ROBBING AMERICA

 

Group calls on Walton family to stop taking advantage of taxpayer programs to support low-wage model & instead, pay workers $15 an hour and provide full-time work

 

If the Waltons fail to respond, protestors promise to return to Walmart stores on Black Friday

 

New York and Washington, DC – Forty-two Walmart workers and their supporters were arrested today calling on Walmart’s owners to stop robbing workers a fair wage and passing the bill on to taxpayers. Without a public commitment from the Waltons to raise pay at Walmart, the group refused to disperse, shutting down Park Avenue in front of Alice Walton’s new penthouse in New York and K Street in front of the Walton Family Foundation in DC. Last year, Walmart’s former CEO confirmed that the majority of Walmart workers are paid less than $25,000 a year.

 

“My grandkids go hungry because of low pay at Walmart,” said Sandra Sok, a Walmart worker in Phoenix. “I’ll do whatever it takes to make these billionaires and Walmart see what they’re doing to our families.”

 

“We are tired of seeing the Waltons enjoy every luxury this world can offer while the workers that build their wealth are unable to pay their bills,” said Interfaith Worker Justice Executive Director Kim Bobo. “Income inequality will only be addressed when the Waltons and Walmart provide fair pay and regular hours to their workers. I’m here today taking a stand for Walmart workers, and I’ll be back on Black Friday with thousands of others who have had enough of Walmart’s destruction of the American Dream.”

 

Before the arrests, the group delivered a petition signed by workers from 1,710 of Walmart stores in all 50 states. The petition calls on Walmart to publicly commit raise pay to $15 an hour and provide consistent, full-time hours. The actions today follow protests yesterday in Phoenix, AZ, where Walmart associates and community members delivered the petition to Walmart chair Rob Walton.

 

“The Waltons have made it impossible for me to get ahead and make sure my daughter goes to bed in a warm home,” said Fatmata Jabbie,a Walmart worker who delivered the petition to the Walton Family Foundation in Washington, DC. “The Waltons can choose to turn things around and stop robbing working Americans like me who just want to raise our families. We need $15 an hour and consistent full-time work—now.”

 

The Walton family, which controls the Walmart empire, is the richest family in the U.S.—with the wealth of 43% of American families combined. While many Walmart workers are unable to feed and clothe their families on their pay of less than $25,000 a year, the Walton family takes in $8.6 million a day in Walmart dividends alone to build on its $150 billion in wealth. Walmart brings in $16 billion in annual profits.

 

“Right now, corporate profits are at an all-time high while wages are lower than any time since 1948,” said Rep. Grijalva. “Walmart alone rakes in $16 billion a year while enjoying $8 billion in tax breaks and subsidies, but refuses to pay employees enough to put food on the table or clothes on their back. Many of their employees are forced to rely on taxpayer-funded programs, meaning the American taxpayers are paying for the Walton family’s refusal to pay a decent wage. It’s time to end this scam, and ensure all workers have the decency of a livable wage and full-time work.”

 

Walmart workers depend on food stamps and other taxpayer-supported programs to support their families. Walmart—the standard-setter for jobs in the retail industry—has created a norm of erratic, part-time scheduling that is keeping workers from getting the hours they need, holding down second jobs, arranging child care, going to school or managing health conditions.

 

The protests today come at a time when OUR Walmart members have made significant strides creating change at the country’s largest employer. OUR Walmart member Richard Reynoso, who sent a letter to Walmart about the new dress code policy, not only pushed the company to live up to its Buy America commitment with the new vests; his manager gave him full-time hours in response to his concerns about affording new clothing on his low pay. OUR Walmart members have had similar hours victories—through petitions and meetings with managers—in the San Francisco Bay Area, Dallas, Florida, Southern California, Louisiana and Chicago. Walmart improved its pregnancy policy recently after OUR Walmart members, who are also shareholders, submitted a resolution to the company about its pregnancy policy. And, responding to OUR Walmart members’ growing calls on the retailer to improve access to hours, Walmart rolled out a new system nationwide that allows workers to sign up for open shifts in their stores online.

 

Background

 

A report released earlier this year by Americans for Tax Fairness showed that by dodging taxes, exploiting loopholes and taking advantage of taxpayer subsidies, Walmart and the Waltons received an estimated $7.8 billion in tax breaks and subsidies in 2013. And while many taxpayers struggle to stretch paychecks, the richest family in the country has avoided an estimated $3 billion in taxes by using specialized trusts to dodge estate taxes.

 

National public policy organization Demos released a report this year showing low-pay and erratic scheduling keep millions of hard-working Americans—particularly women—near poverty. The report finds that establishing a new wage floor equivalent to $25,000 per year for fulltime, year round work at retail companies employing at least 1,000 workers would improve the lives of more than 3.2 million female retail workers and lift 900,000 women and their families directly out of poverty or near poverty.

 

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LEGAL DISCLAIMER: UFCW and OUR Walmart have the purpose of helping Wal-Mart employees as individuals or groups in their dealings with Wal-Mart over labor rights and standards and their efforts to have Wal-Mart publically commit to adhering to labor rights and standards. UFCW and OUR Walmart have no intent to have Walmart recognize or bargain with UFCW or OUR Walmart as the representative of Walmart employees.

 

After seeing this striped skunk (Mephitis mephitis) on one of my security cameras quite a bit I was hoping it'd show up to my backyard camera trap at some point. On this night when it finally did arrive it did its best to wear out all my batteries as it sniffed around on the other side of the log with only its tail showing over the top while triggering the sensor about 25 times. At least it finally did have the decency to show its face over the top once. I find it rather interesting how the flashes reflect back sort of "prismatic" off its fur. I did a quick read on this and found there are several factors in why this happens, notably the lack of much pigment in the animal's guard hairs making them quite translucent and the fact that their fur is just generally oily.

 

A striped skunk peering over an old log in the California high desert, its fur catching the flash in an oddly beautiful iridescent glow. For the wildlife enthusiast who appreciates the less-glamorous nocturnal visitors — and for anyone who'd actually hang a skunk on their wall.

Washington DC, The Walter E. Washington Convention Center, the afternoon of March 1, 2015. Around one hundred social justice activists affiliated with Code Pink, Jewish Voice For Justice, AVAAZ, US Campaign To End The Israeli Occupation, Boycott From Within, Answer Coaltion and other peace and faith groups demonstrate in front of the Convention Center to protest the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) yearly DC meeting. AIPAC is regarded by many as the most powerful lobbying group in town. AIPAC has a policy agenda that's out of step with the values of most Jewish Americans and other participants in civilized society but they call the tune because our corrupt political culture is fueled by money, not decency. In an act of peaceful civil disobedience, five demonstrators, all women, were arrested for failing to obey police orders to remove themselves from the granite in front of one of the Convention Center's many doorways. They were given three warnings before being arrested. I photographed one of women as she was being lead away in plastic handcuffs. "I'm a Jewish mother!" she proclaimed. I gave her the 'thumbs up'.

Most of the DC cops kept their cool but when some of the demonstrators got in their face a brief scuffle ensued. Some of us locked arms and and helped lift up one of the Code Pink ladies who was almost knocked down onto the steps by a DC officer who lost it.

Washington DC, The Walter E. Washington Convention Center, the afternoon of March 1, 2015. Around one hundred social justice activists affiliated with Code Pink, Jewish Voice For Justice, AVAAZ, US Campaign To End The Israeli Occupation, Boycott From Within, Answer Coaltion and other peace and faith groups demonstrate in front of the Convention Center to protest the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) yearly DC meeting. AIPAC is regarded by many as the most powerful lobbying group in town. AIPAC has a policy agenda that's out of step with the values of most Jewish Americans and other participants in civilized society but they call the tune because our corrupt political culture is fueled by money, not decency. In an act of peaceful civil disobedience, five demonstrators, all women, were arrested for failing to obey police orders to remove themselves from the granite in front of one of the Convention Center's many doorways. They were given three warnings before being arrested. I photographed one of women as she was being lead away in plastic handcuffs. "I'm a Jewish mother!" she proclaimed. I gave her the 'thumbs up'.

Most of the DC cops kept their cool but when some of the demonstrators got in their face a brief scuffle ensued. Some of us locked arms and and helped lift up one of the Code Pink ladies who was almost knocked down onto the steps by a DC officer who lost it.

Session Americana and Peter Wolf playing at the Lizard Lounge in Cambridge, MA.

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Wolf

www.peterwolf.com/

www.facebook.com/PeterWolfMusic?v=wall

Life and career

 

Wolf was born in the Bronx, New York. He planned a career as an artist, but he got a job in the late 1960s as a disc jockey on then-cutting edge Boston FM radio station WBCN and began exploring his interest in blues and rhythm and blues music, giving himself the nickname "the Wolfa Goofa", sometimes expanded to "the Wolfa Goofa with the Green Teeth" (as mentioned in the intro to "Must of Got Lost" on the Blow Your Face Out album). Later as solo artist he called himself Woofa Goofa Mama Toofa. He formed a group called the Hallucinations who performed with The Velvet Underground, Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, Van Morrison, John Lee Hooker, and Sun Ra. He then saw the J. Geils Blues Band in concert and quickly joined. He was the vocalist and frontman, and often acted as a sort of manager. Wolf was known for his charismatic stage antics of fast-talking quips and "pole-vaulting" with the microphone stand. He and keyboard player Seth Justman were responsible for most of the songwriting. Creative differences followed their Freeze-Frame album, causing the J. Geils Band and Peter Wolf to part ways in 1983.

 

Peter Wolf with the J. Geils Band in Candlestick Park, San Francisco, California Photo: Catharine Anderson

Wolf became a solo artist for the next 15 years, but in 1999 the J. Geils Band reunited for several appearances, with Wolf resuming his duties as lead vocalist. They separated again, and Wolf began touring once more, as a solo act.

Wolf's first solo record, Lights Out (1984) was produced by Michael Jonzun of the Jonzun Crew, features Adrian Belew, and has a somewhat funky, electro sound. The eponymous single became a hit single the same year, peaking at #12 on the Billboard Hot 100. He recorded many duets with the likes of Aretha Franklin, Little Milton, John Lee Hooker, Don Covay, and Wilson Pickett to name just a few.

Long Line was co-produced with two musician friends, Johnny A. and a Bob Dylan backup band member, Stu Kimball. Tim Archibald (Bass) and Brian Maes (keys and backing vocals) who are both members of "Ernie And The Automatics", played on the record and Toured in support of "Long Line." His next two solo albums, Fool's Parade and Sleepless (the latter featuring guest appearances from Mick Jagger and Keith Richards), were both highly praised by Jann Wenner in Rolling Stone, receiving four-and-a-half and five stars, respectively. Sleepless (2002) was noted as one of the 500 greatest albums of all time in Rolling Stone issue 937. He has performed on stage with such diverse people as Bruce Springsteen and Phil Lesh.

Wolf toured in 2008 with Kid Rock and Rev. Run on The Rock N Roll Revival Tour. He performed "Love Stinks" solo with Kid Rock's band. Then he joined Kid Rock for "Ain't Too Proud to Beg", "Musta Got Lost", "Centerfold" (from the J. Geils album Freeze Frame) and "For What It's Worth".

The J. Geils Band re-united for a series of shows in 2009, including opening night at the Boston House of Blues.

Wolf's 2010 album Midnight Souvenirs won Album of the Year at the Boston Music Awards.[2][3]

 

www.facebook.com/pages/Session-Americana/53199003969

 

www.sessionamericana.com

www.myspace.com/sessionamericana

www.hi-n-dry.com/session_americana

www.exploitboston.com/music-musings/grab-new-music-from-s...

Session Americana - www.sessionamericana.com

 

This ad hoc acoustic supergroup started around a table at a small pub in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where Ry Cavanaugh, Billy Conway, Sean Staples, Dinty Child, Jim Fitting and other friends gathered to swap songs and stories. Their lively performances and inspired versions of tunes from the dusty backroads of America's past were such a hit with fans that they decided to take their musical conversation into the studio. The two-CD debut Tabletop People ups the ante with stellar appearances by folksinger Rose Polenzani, Twinemen's Laurie Sargent, Dennis Brennan, Asa Brebner, Merrie Amsterburg, Dan Kellar, Presidents of the United States' Chris Ballew, Jabe Beyer, Tim Gearon and other luminaries. And the 18 gritty, funny, soulful performances included span a gamut of emotions and tastes that should please both adult and younger listeners.

 

"Genius ... Jaw-dropping vocals ... Session Americana is blessed in this regard:...musicianship that sets the standard for the genre in Boston

and vocals that do the same"

— Performer Magazine

 

Session Americana sit tightly around a small cafe table, ambient mics tuned to catch the whole sound of the voices and instruments. A suit-case drum kit, an old electric bass, a bunch of acoustic instruments, a field organ: This format feels very theatrical and though the musicians face each other, the audience feels drawn into the circle by the warmth, joy and camaraderie that emanate outwards by the all star cast of characters seated around the table. What keeps you coming back show after show is the same thing that any audience member longs for, great songs performed by a great band. The six core members of the band have brought enviable careers worth of experience to the “table”, featuring (current and former) members of Treat Her Right, Patty Griffin, Lori McKenna, The The, Dennis Brennan, Kris Delmhorst. The group has grown from a rag tag jam at a local pub to a regional institution, playing gigs from church coee houses to urban nightclubs to regional festival tents to large halls.

 

Band: Ry Cavanaugh, Billy Beard, Dinty Child, Jim Fitting, Sean Staples and Jon Bistline.

 

*Winner “2005 Best Folk Act” - The Boston Music Awards

*Winner “Best Roots Act 2006” - Improper Bostonian “Best of Boston” Issue

*Winner “Best CD” 2007 - Improper Bostonian

*Nominated “Best Roots Act” 2007 - WFNX/Boston Phoenix Best Music Poll

*Nominated Best Live Act 2007 - The Boston Music Awards

*Nominated Best Americana Act 2008 - The Boston Music Awards

 

“Genius ... Jaw-dropping vocals ... Session Americana is blessed in this regard: ...musicianship that sets the standard for the genre in Boston and vocals that do the same”

— NE Performer Magazine

 

“No egos, no big production, just some great songs stripped down to their bare essentials and performed with a real genuineness of spirit and emotional authenticity... it’s beautiful.” (Brian Mosher)

— The Noise

 

“An eclectic, swinging tour de force” — The Boston Globe

 

“[This] local country-folk megagroup’s double CD is one of the most loose, spontaneous, warm, and homespun acts of community and decency since the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s Will the Circle Be Unbroken.”

 

— The Boston Phoenix

“the cream of the Somerville/Cambridge community" - No Depression (read less)