Although I’m certain that I saw Bo Diddley’s classic performance on the Ed Sullivan show in November 1955, I was only 3 and too young to remember. My first memory of Ellis "Bo Diddley" McDaniel (adopted name, born Blake) was in the summer of 1959 on Bandstand. I remember it well because my mom was pregnant with my sister and we had just gotten a new console Black and White TV. His band included a white bass player, a black woman rhythm guitarist and a black drummer, certainly cutting edge for the time. My dad who was uncharacteristically home from work on a Saturday morning, walked through the room and in his Southern Illinois farm-boy ignorance proclaimed, "I didn't buy that TV to watch a bunch of jungle boogies play n***er music in my house". Those word ring clearly in my archival gray matter as the defining moment when I developed a deep love for "Rock and Roll" and the promise it held to be a source of vexation for my father and those of his generation.
The last time I saw "Bo Diddley" was in April 1999 when my brother called me up to tell me that he had broken up with his girlfriend and wasn't going to use the tickets he had for four nights of Tom Petty at the Fillmore. My wife, Glo and I attended all of the shows. On the Friday night show Petty announced a special guest, his favorite pioneer of Rock and Roll, "Bo Diddley" . A surreal moment at the least was then raised to the psychedelic when Bo approached the mike and said that the person responsible for him taking up the guitar "John Lee Hooker" was in the house. There I was 50 feet away from my favorite all time rocker, Petty, on stage with his all time favorite rocker Bo Diddley, with his mentor the blues great "John Lee Hooker" sitting about 8 feet above me in the mezzanine level of the Fillmore. Wow it still gives me chills just thinking about it. The Rock and Roll Triumvirate.
I remember clearly the day in June 2001 when during rehearsal with the blues band Greg Barker and Highway 61 bass player, Joe Graham announced that Hooker was dead. We all simultaneously looked over at the Fender Twin Reverb Amplifier Greg Barker was playing through each knowing that just two years earlier Hooker had played through that same amplifier during an impromptu performance at the Hayward Blues festival. Trancelike we tore into Boogie Chillin' as a spontaneous tribute to the king of the bay area blues.
Now comes the news that the second in the triumvirate of Rock and Roll has passed. Bo Diddley was a true innovator and almost single-handedly shifted the musical paradigm of a generation. Typical of a genuine ground breaker Diddley did not receive the accolades thrust upon his better known contemporaries. Self-promotion was typical of the Rock and Roll vanguard, but not of Diddley. While his musical lineage is securely ensconced in the technique of those who consciously and unconsciously emulate his shave and a haircut, hambone style. One can only hope that future generations will take the time to listen to the many recordings of the many incarnations of Bo Diddley and understand how he influenced the music of their contemporaries.
Tom Petty, the last of the Triumvirate, appears to have many good years ahead of him with no signs of slowing. His resurrection of Mudcrutch in 2007 and continuation of a 2008 tour with the Heartbreaker's insure that the direct lineage of Hooker, Diddley and Petty can still be experienced in a live venue.
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Kelly Lynched A Tiger
Kelly Tilghman’s off the cuff statement “Lynch him in a back alley” has been described as “a poorly-chosen remark” by the Golf Channel. Mike Cellzic’s blog: Open Mike on MSNBC.com calls it “an innocent verbal slip” and goes on to attack Al Sharpton for using the misogynistic term “this woman”.
Cellzic further explains that lynching is not automatically associated as a racist term and, for much of his life, thought lynching was what they did in the old West to cattle and horse rustlers. He had no clue it had racial connotations until later in life. Using Walter Van Tilburg Clark’s The Ox-Bow Incident as his moral compass he suggest every American, including Sharpton should read it because it’s all about lynching with “not a scrap of racism”.
If you read the book you would know that it is about many things: judgment, prejudice, hatred and testosterone laden anger. All of which are prime ingredients of racism. The three lynched men: Donald Martin, an amalgam of English Irish decent. Juan Moriz, a Mexican and Hardwick an old deranged man were all certainly subjected to the racism of 1885.
Another problem with Cellzic’s logic is the hugh difference between lynching and hanging. Lynching is the illegal execution of an accused person by a mob. Hanging is the legal execution of a person convicted and condemned by a state or federal court. Horse and cattle rustlers were hanged for their crimes after being convicted in a court. While there were certainly those who were hanged by a rancher and his ranch hands, this is a far cry from the lynchings committed in the Deep South. With the exception of the Ox-Bow Incident most references in Westerns are to the legal hanging of rustlers.
Between 1882 and 1930 there were 2805 documented victims of lynching in 2,018 separate incidents. Of those lynched 2462 were African-American of which 2314 were at the hands of white lynch mobs. The lynchings included men, women and children and averaged one per week for five decades. The catalyst for the lynchings ranged from scaring a white woman to murder. None were with the benefit of a legal trial. Source: Stewart E. Tolnay and E.M. Beck, A Festival of Violence: An Analysis of Southern Lynchings, 1882-1930.
I am a 55 year old white man named after Dana Andrews who played Donald Martin one of the three men lynched in the Ox-Bow Incident movie and for me there is no gray area here, lynching is purely a racist term.
Kelly Tilghman’s words were racist and it is certain that she would not have used the term “lynch” had she been speaking about a dominating white golfer. Only because she had a prior relationship with Tiger was Kelly given a pass on her racism.
Racism is so deeply rooted in our vernacular that we use it subconsciously in appropriate context. It is only when brought to our attention that we recognize it for what it truly is, racism. Kelly’s “poorly-chosen remark” was actually what she meant to say although I’m certain that she didn’t mean it to be hurtful. However “Lynching in a back alley” is a statement that would only be said about an African-American man. It’s our history and we all know it . Kelly knows it. Tiger knows it. Cellzic knows it. Al Sharpton knows it.
The Golf Channel also knows it. They got it right with the two week suspension and their statement "There is simply no place on our network for offensive language like this. While we believe that Kelly's choice of words were inadvertent and that she did not intend them in an offensive manner, the words were hurtful and grossly inappropriate." I applaud them for their courage and appropriate response. Somebody there gets it.
Cellzic further explains that lynching is not automatically associated as a racist term and, for much of his life, thought lynching was what they did in the old West to cattle and horse rustlers. He had no clue it had racial connotations until later in life. Using Walter Van Tilburg Clark’s The Ox-Bow Incident as his moral compass he suggest every American, including Sharpton should read it because it’s all about lynching with “not a scrap of racism”.
If you read the book you would know that it is about many things: judgment, prejudice, hatred and testosterone laden anger. All of which are prime ingredients of racism. The three lynched men: Donald Martin, an amalgam of English Irish decent. Juan Moriz, a Mexican and Hardwick an old deranged man were all certainly subjected to the racism of 1885.
Another problem with Cellzic’s logic is the hugh difference between lynching and hanging. Lynching is the illegal execution of an accused person by a mob. Hanging is the legal execution of a person convicted and condemned by a state or federal court. Horse and cattle rustlers were hanged for their crimes after being convicted in a court. While there were certainly those who were hanged by a rancher and his ranch hands, this is a far cry from the lynchings committed in the Deep South. With the exception of the Ox-Bow Incident most references in Westerns are to the legal hanging of rustlers.
Between 1882 and 1930 there were 2805 documented victims of lynching in 2,018 separate incidents. Of those lynched 2462 were African-American of which 2314 were at the hands of white lynch mobs. The lynchings included men, women and children and averaged one per week for five decades. The catalyst for the lynchings ranged from scaring a white woman to murder. None were with the benefit of a legal trial. Source: Stewart E. Tolnay and E.M. Beck, A Festival of Violence: An Analysis of Southern Lynchings, 1882-1930.
I am a 55 year old white man named after Dana Andrews who played Donald Martin one of the three men lynched in the Ox-Bow Incident movie and for me there is no gray area here, lynching is purely a racist term.
Kelly Tilghman’s words were racist and it is certain that she would not have used the term “lynch” had she been speaking about a dominating white golfer. Only because she had a prior relationship with Tiger was Kelly given a pass on her racism.
Racism is so deeply rooted in our vernacular that we use it subconsciously in appropriate context. It is only when brought to our attention that we recognize it for what it truly is, racism. Kelly’s “poorly-chosen remark” was actually what she meant to say although I’m certain that she didn’t mean it to be hurtful. However “Lynching in a back alley” is a statement that would only be said about an African-American man. It’s our history and we all know it . Kelly knows it. Tiger knows it. Cellzic knows it. Al Sharpton knows it.
The Golf Channel also knows it. They got it right with the two week suspension and their statement "There is simply no place on our network for offensive language like this. While we believe that Kelly's choice of words were inadvertent and that she did not intend them in an offensive manner, the words were hurtful and grossly inappropriate." I applaud them for their courage and appropriate response. Somebody there gets it.
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