RIP Duck Dunn and Chuck Brown

Donald "Duck" Dunn, bassist for Booker T. and the MGs, Stax studio ace who played with many of the greats of rock, soul, and blues died over the weekend. He was featured in the Blues Brothers movies. One of my favorites was his playing on Fathers and Sons, the Chess double LP that featured Muddy Waters and other Chicago blues veterans with up and comers Paul Butterfield and Mike Bloomfield. Naturally, they picked Duck to play bass.

 Check out his website, wikipedia entry, and allmusic.com bio. 

I love this early 1960s clip of the Booker T. hit "Green Onions" espeically how animated Duck is. The camera focuses on him during Steve Cropper's guitar solo.



Chuck Brown's death, also this weekend, will attract only a fraction of the notice given to Dunn's passing. Brown, a fixture on the DC music scene for decades, was known as the "godfather of go-go" was an immensely creative musician, guitarist, singer and bandleader. I've never quite understood why "go-go" never caught on the way rap did.

Here is Brown's website (down at the moment), wikipedia entry , allmusic.com pages, and Stephen Crocket's tribute in the Washington Post tribute.

Here is a video of his big hit "We Need Some Money"

 

Zombie Ayn Rand

HT Taner Edis at The Secular Outpost

Cinco de Mayo: an American Tradition

The Cinco de Mayo holiday dates from the Civil War era and was first embraced in California. UCLA professor David Hayes-Bautista is the author of "El Cinco de Mayo: An American Tradition."




 In Spanish


 

 According to a news release from UCLA

In the process of extracting Latino demographic data from nearly a dozen Spanish-language newspapers published in California since the 1850s, UCLA professor David Hayes-Bautista stumbled upon the answer to a question that for years had puzzled scholars and amateur historians alike: Why is Cinco de Mayo — a holiday commemorating the Mexican victory over the French at the battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862 — so widely celebrated in California and the United States, when it is scarcely observed in Mexico?

As Hayes-Bautista explains in "El Cinco de Mayo: An American Tradition" (University of California Press), his new book on the origins of the holiday, which publishes May 5, Cinco de Mayo isn't Mexican at all.

Rather, it is an American holiday, rooted in the Civil War era and commemorated today because a network of Latino groups in California known as the juntas patrióticas mejicanas (Mexican patriotic assemblies) deliberately created a public memory of it

Blues on a Saturday: Nina Simone "Backlash Blues"

With lyrics by Langston Hughes

Reading List

 Michael Kazin says that American politics won't improved much unless we Revive Socialism. Interestingly, his piece appeared not only on Dissent's blog, but also in the New Republic. Kazin believes

an opportunity for radicals to offer the public, for the first time in decades, an argument for socialism grounded in ideals most Americans already cherish: communal responsibility and equal rights. As Michael Harrington, the last great leader of socialists in the United States, wrote back in 1966, “The democratization of concentrated economic, social, and political power is the only hope for the achievement of Western humanist ideals…[to the] possibility of a new order of things in which the people actually decide their own destiny.” It should be a good time to start such a discussion, since most Americans are rightfully disgusted with the order we have.

 Another historian Eli Zaretsky, also on Arguing the World, says that the US needs a resurgent left

What drives American history forward, then, are not horse-swaps, “grand bargains,” and “pragmatic” compromises between centrist liberals and centrist rightists but rather a struggle between the Center and the Left over the meaning of equality. The implications for understanding America today are clear. Obama’s first term disappointed not only because his pursuit of a center-right dialogue was still-born and vacuous, but also because it wound up empowering the Right. The immediate and welcoming response to Occupy Wall Street demonstrated how much Americans have missed the presence of a leftist voice; it was as if we had been waiting for someone to raise the question of equality again. We need the spirit of Occupy Wall Street to speak not only to our moment of national crisis but also to inspire a permanent radical presence in American life, one that builds on the egalitarian tradition at the core of our identity. Only a genuinely independent, radical Left can revitalize centrist politics and relegate the extreme Right to the marginal place it has historically occupied.

 On the French Presidential election, Left Foot Forward and a couple from Tendance Coatesy here on Sarkozy's pitch to Le Pen's voters and here with an analysis.


The Forward has two roundtables on their recent interview with Hamas leader Mousa Abu Marzook. The first round features  Laura Kam of The Israel Project; Israeli security analyst Yossi Alpher; Lara Friedman of Americans for Peace Now; and Princeton University Prof. Daoud Kuttab.  The second features Laura Kam of The Israel Project; Israeli security analyst Yossi Alpher; Lara Friedman of Americans for Peace Now; and Princeton University Prof. Daoud Kuttab The links will take you to a page with teasers from the responders, click through to their entire responses.

Tim Murphy at Mother Jones on Mitt's nutty professor.

Bill  Fletcher is frustrated when he talks to (some) leftists about electoral politics.

Blues on a Saturday: Otis Rush It's My Own Fault

Blues on a Saturday: Delbert McClinton-- Can't Lie No Better

Ted Koppel Channels Alan West

Ted Koppel is a widely respected newsman, but this week in an NPR interview he channeled crazy right-wing Congressman Alan West who has been widely ridiculed for claiming that 80 members of the U.S. House of Representatives are members of the Communist Party. The standard form of this smear has been to claim that members of the Progressive Caucus are members of the Democratic Socialists of America.  Again and sadly, untrue. The inability of the far right to distinguish between liberals, progressives, democratic socialists, and Communists is a habitual deficiency that is, I suspect, scoffed at by the elite media like Koppel and NPR.

Koppel was talking about Sunday's French Presidential election, but he showed a similar ignorance of French politics. Here is what Koppel said, after a week in France preparing for a special report for NBC.

Jean-Luc Melenchon, who is the communist, who runs the leftist front way on the fringes - huge rallies, Neal, with tens of thousands of French communists who are coming out there.

Melenchon, however, is not a Communist. He is not even a former Commununist. He is a former member of the French Socialist Party. He was a Minister of Vocational Education is a Socialist government and former Socialist Senator. In 2008, Melenchon and others on the left the SP, exited and formed the Left Party, which is democratic socialist in its orientation. The Left Party has formed an electoral alliance with the much diminished Communist Party and other smaller groups.  That does not make Melenchon a Communist and it does not make the hundreds of thousands who have attended his rallies Communists. It should also be added that there are at least two Presidential candidates more on the left fringe than Melenchon.

(

Levon Helm, drummer and vocalist for The Band, died today at age 71. Here is The Band performing "The Weight" at Woodstock

Blues on a Saturday: Joe Turner Wee Baby Blues

Bill Dahl writes in his biography of Joe Turner on allmusic.com

The premier blues shouter of the postwar era, Big Joe Turner's roar could rattle the very foundation of any gin joint he sang within -- and that's without a microphone. Turner was a resilient figure in the history of blues -- he effortlessly spanned boogie-woogie, jump blues, even the first wave of rock & roll, enjoying great success in each genre

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Occupy Havana?

According to a March 23 report in the Havana Times, human rights activists entered several Catholic churches a week ago and planned to stay there as a protest reminiscent of the Occupy movement in the US and globally. After they refused to leave, Catholic Bishop Jaime Ortega called on the police to have them removed.

Congressional Stall Over Tax Break Could Cost Kansas a Vital Wind Energy Project

by Chaz Bolte

 

 Congress’ willingness to extend a tax break for wind energy may predict the future of Kansas’ flourishing wind power industry. Republican Senator Jerry Moran of Kansas proposed a one-year extension over two weeks ago but it has yet to be voted on. The tax break, which has been in effect since 1992, was part of President Obama’s stimulus plan and therefore is likely to gain opposition from both deficit hawks and Obama detractors running for re-election.

John Graham, CEO of BP Wind Energy, the company which runs Kansas’ Flat Ridge Phase I and II wind farms, says the tax credit is an excellent stimulant to the industry at a minimal cost to the government.

The tax credit, Graham said, costs the government $3.5 billion a year and attracts $15 billion to $20 billion in investment. Sixty percent of wind energy components are now made in the U.S. “We think it’s a very good return,” he said. 

In Kansas, where wind energy has taken off in part thanks to the tax credit, investors are waiting to see the result of the political process before committing the next round of resources. Historically, when this tax credit has been cancelled, which happened in 1999, 2001 and 2003, new construction plummeted between 73 and 93 percent the following year. Kansas and the wind industry can ill afford a hiccup of this magnitude.

“There is no state in the country that has more at stake in this than Kansas,” Sen. Moran said.
Without renewal, the tax credit will end on January 1st, 2013. This is a rare opportunity to flex bipartisan muscle in the interest of the environment. Alternative energy is a tricky issue on Capitol Hill, but if Washington can get its act together for a few moments the wind industry and Kansas’ economy will continue to witness growth and employ more people.

Below, video of the Flat Ridge wind farm with cattle grazing…

  

Chaz Bolte is a native of Pittsburgh, PA where he attended Slippery Rock University. He currently contributes to WePartyPatriots, where this post originally appeared.

Blues on a Saturday: Big Joe Turner with Johnny Otis

There's a great clip from the documentary Last of the Blue Devils featuring Big Joe Turner with Jay McShann and others in a lively, relaxed setting at the Kansas City Musicians Union Hall. Unfortunately, embedding is disabled. So, I've found a 1980 clip of Big Joe Turner with the Johnny Otis band.

Hutchinson News On Kobach

The Hutchinson News had a great editorial last week on Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach

...Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach made yet another incomprehensible move that puts his own interests above the residents of Kansas and further erodes the integrity of the office of the state's top election official.

Kobach - the elected gatekeeper of fair and impartial elections in Kansas - has created a political action committee, naming himself as chairman. Its name is Prairie Fire PAC, and its purpose is to raise money for Kansas candidates. While Kobach said no decisions have been made about whom the PAC might support, he wouldn't rule out casting behind potential GOP candidates in upcoming primary elections, especially those "who are serious about fighting voter fraud."

And, here is the conclusion

...it is starting to seem like the person Kansans should fear most is not the one who comes to the polls without identification but the one who will go to seemingly any length to control the ballot before voters ever arrive.  

Read the whole thing.

The Wonders of G+ Juxtaposition

Wow, these two posts showed up nest to each other in my G+ account today. I think, Karl Jung called in synchronicity.

Here's the link to the story on Wisconsin Gov. Walker's official time records showing very little time spent on official job duties and much more spent on "personal time" Here's the link for the item on shorter work week.

Blues on a Saturday: Smith, Burrell, Turrentine "Jumpin' Blues"

Three giants of the hard-bop, soul jazz moment take on "Jumpin' Blues," a song first recorded by the Jay McShann band in the 1940s. That Jimmy Smith on organ, Kenny Burrell on guitar, and Stanley Turrentine on tenor sax.

International Women's Day: The Dream of Equality

Rannfrid Thelle, co-chair of Wichita Democratic Socialists, discusses the origins of International Women's Day and the history of womens' movements to achieve equality. In case you wondered, this program was on March 7, 2012--a day before IWD.

Labor Journalist Mike Elk at WSU SLAP

In These Times staff writer Mike Elk spoke to a meeting of the Wichita Sate Universtity Student Labor Project and Young Democratic Socialists on February 16, 2012. Elk is a prolific reporter who has broken many important stories.

Blues on a Saturday: Albert King "Pretty Woman"

Albert King, introduced by Bill Graham, in 1970 at. I'm guessing, the Filmore West.

Blues on a Saturday: Sonny Williamson "Your Funeral and My Tril