This is a vintage live performance by Jeannie C. Riley of her hit song, "Harper Valley P.T.A.", written by Tom T. Hall. Riley was born in 1945 in Anson, Texas. This song immediately became a giant...
@mrjyn
May 9, 2009
Mickey Newbury - An American Trilogy
Mickey Newbury's songs (encompassing a wide variety of musical genres) have been recorded by hundreds, but he's most remembered for his creation of this song, "An American Trilogy". It's a medley that's since been recorded by many (including symphony orchestras), but most notably by Elvis Presley.
Mickey was born Milton Sim Newbury, Jr. in Houston, Texas. He wrote many songs recorded by artists such as Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison, Tennessee Ernie Ford, Bill Monroe, Hank Snow, Ray Charles, Jerry Lee Lewis, Tammy Wynette, Ray Price, Don Gibson, Brenda Lee, Charlie Rich, Sammi Smith, Joan Baez, Tom Jones, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, John Denver, Kenny Rogers, BB King, Linda Ronstadt, and Bobby "Blue" Bland, and many others.
Marlon Brando: 'Burn' + 'Mermaids of Tiburon' + 'HAUNTED WORLD of ED WOOD, Jr.' [Behind The Scenes of 'Orgy of The Dead']
Marlon Brando
'Burn'
You can't have everything, at least not in one format. While I was working on a piece about Marlon Brando ("Orpheus Ascending") for the Sept/Oct issue of FILM COMMENT, I bought (for $6.95 via Amazon ) a VHS copy of Gillo Pontecorvo's Burn! issued in 1991 by MGM/UA and currently out of print. The color is faded, the image not letterboxed. Nevertheless, it is an invaluable relic of one of Brando's most complicated performances. The VHS is the American version, which was regarded as "butchered" by both the director and the star (who managed to agree on little else). UA eliminated 20 minutes from Pontecorvo's cut (which was released in Europe under the title Queimada), thus undermining the sweep of the action and rendering the film's attempt to map the historic cycles of white colonialist oppression and black insurgency fairly incoherent.
Through October 7, Film Forum is screening a restored print of the uncut Italian version of Burn! (A DVD release of the restored version will likely follow.) In all respects save one, this Burn! is preferable to the out-of print VHS. For the first-time, American audiences will be able to appreciate Pontecorvo's blending of cinematic romanticism with an analysis of black revolutionary struggle which is part Marx and part Franz Fanon. Unlike The Battle of Algiers, which made use of a cinema vérité style to tell the story of an actual liberation struggle, Burn! is a political allegory, styled like a costume action-adventure picture. The setting is a fictional sugar cane-producing Caribbean Island named Queimada. In the original script, this fictive island was part of the Spanish empire, which would have been a more accurate historical conceit, since Spain, rather than Portugal, was the dominant European power in the Caribbean. But since Portugal accounts for a considerably smaller share of international box-office receipts than Spain, the producers did the economically expedient thing by making the Portuguese the bad guys.
As we learn in the opening scene, Queimada (which means "burn" in Portuguese) has had a history of conflagration. In the 17th century, the Portuguese put down an uprising of the indigenous population by killing almost everyone and reducing the cane fields to scorched earth. They then rebuilt the labor force with slaves imported from Africa. By the mid-19th century (the point at which Pontecorvo's narrative begins), a slave revolt is brewing. The British see an opportunity to send the Portuguese packing and gain control of the island. Enter Marlon Brando in plantation whites and creams as Sir William Walker, the 19th-century English equivalent of a CIA operative. Walker has been sent by the British government to fan the flames of the insurrection and simultaneously to whisper encouraging words to members of the mixed-race middle-class so that when the Portuguese are routed, they will be ready to seize the reins of power. Not real power, of course, because it is British wealth to which this puppet regime will be permanently indebted.
All this comes to pass in the first half of the film in scenes that are sometimes overly schematic but just as often thrilling. Here, as in The Battle of Algiers, Pontecorvo is masterful at conjoining camera movement and the choreography of large groups of people so that the screen becomes charged with collective desire. Ennio Morricone's score, similar in its insistence and repetitiveness to the one he composed for The Battle of Algiers, employs the choral harmonies and modalities of Gregorian chants with a syncopated beat that has you just about leaping out of your seat when the victorious slave army, ragtag and radiant, comes dancing and prancing on the backs of plumed horses to claim the prize for their hard-won, bloody rebellion. The prize, of course, will not be theirs. The fork-tongued Walker will convince José Dolores (Evaristo Márquez), the rebel general he has mentored, that he's gone as far as he can go - that blacks cannot govern themselves or trade on the world market. "Who will buy your sugar, José?" he asks, even as the British have imposed a boycott on the island. Part I ends in compromise. Dolores is persuaded to lay down his weapons and take his army back to the cane fields. No longer slaves, they will be paid for their work, and in addition, there will be schools and hospitals - and you know the rest of that line.
Twelve years pass in a few seconds of black screen. The second half of the film is the mirror inverse of the first. Walker is sent back to Queimada to put down the insurgency he once fomented. The British have treated their freed workers no better than the Portuguese did their slaves. Dolores and his men have once again taken up arms and are fighting the government troops from hideouts in the mountains. When he refuses to negotiate with Walker, it's all-out war. As in the 17th century, the island is torched so that the fires of revolution will not spread throughout the Caribbean and beyond. Rather than the triumphant march that climaxed Part I, Pontecorvo gives us an equally riveting set piece, but this time of prolonged horror. Dolores's followers are smoked out of the burning brush. As they are forced into the open, they are slaughtered one by one as Walker watches through his spyglass.
Burn! is such an ambitious film and parts of it are so inspiring that one can't help forgiving its unresolved contradictions, the largest of which is the attempt to fit a dialectical reading of history into the form of an action drama with the opposing forces of colonizer and colonized embodied in the two leading characters. Brando often remarked that he was proudest of his work in Burn!, and certainly it's his performance that makes the film more than just a series of visually spectacular set pieces, and riveting from beginning to end. In terms of Brando's career, one can look at Burn! as a match with Reflections in a Golden Eye, which was made just two years earlier. In both films, Brando plays a member of the ruling elite who is eaten up by self-loathing and fights desperately against his attraction to another man. Reflection is specifically about repressed homosexuality. In Burn!, sexual desire is an undercurrent of the power game between Walker and Dolores.
Brando plants the notion right at the start when we see him looking at Queimada from a boat arriving in the harbor and fingering a lavender scarf flung casually around his throat. Brando knew how to communicate entire subtexts through a prop and the way he handled it. You can bet he didn't choose lavender because it was a pretty color. There is, however, a behind-the-scenes story: Pontecorvo, who was reputed to be highly superstitious, felt about lavender the way John Ashcroft feels about calico cats - that they are signs of the devil. Brando was at war with Pontecorvo throughout the production, and he may have chosen to make that bit of lavender silk the focus of the film's opening shot just to spite him. Nevertheless, a suggestion has been planted in the viewer's mind, and it's reinforced in the scenes that follow where we begin to see that Walker conducts his power games as he would a seduction. Walker seduces Dolores into becoming an outlaw and then the general of an insurgent army; having gotten what he wants, he subsequently abandons him. When he comes back and tries the game a second time, Dolores has become his own man and will have none of it.
And so Walker has to bring him to his knees by killing his followers. But at the last moment, he can't bring himself to kill the opponent he has been so obsessed with. If Dolores dies, he will not only become a martyr for the cause of freedom, he will escape Walker's power. One of the most amazing moments in Brando's performance comes when Walker is preparing himself for a last ditch effort to persuade Dolores to escape hanging by going into exile. Walker is aware that he has already lost the game, and as he tries to pull himself together to confront Dolores, he notices his own belly - a belly that he has most carefully concealed beneath tight pants and jackets buttoned - he knows how power is invested in the presentation of self. It's this belly, now bulging out in the open, that signals his loss of control over his own and Dolores's destiny. And then he makes the most extraordinary decision. Rather than trying to conceal the betrayal of the flesh, he lets it show, perhaps because he has nothing to lose but more likely because he seizes on letting it all hang out - as they were wont to say in 1968 - as the only manipulative strategy left in his arsenal.
Brando's greatness rests in his ability to invest his body and his gaze with multiple layers of meaning. His voice was part of that physical apparatus. Walker is vocally one of Brando's most risky and inspired constructs - the English accent plummy to the point of self-mockery (or mockery of the privilege it signifies), its whispery tone oddly intimate as if the person he is talking to is the only person special enough to understand what he's saying. The great deficiency in the restored version of Burn! is that all the actors' voices - Brando's included - have been dubbed into Italian. Which is why I suggest that in addition to going to the Film Forum you get hold of one of those few remaining VHS copies.
of
ED WOOD Jr.
Paula & Raiford's Disco MEMPHIS 14th South Second
Paula & Raiford's Disco
14 South Second
MEMPHIS, TN
Looking For Colonel Parker Doc. 1/5 [NPS - Het uur van de wolf]
Andreas Cornelis van Kuijk was not even twenty years old when he left Holland for America as a stowaway. He had no education, no money and knowledge of English. Twenty-five years later, he was the celebrated and feared manager of the King of Rock and Roll, Elvis Presley, and known to the world as Colonel Tom Parker.
Despite Parker's dubious life and despite the accusation that profited shamelessly from Elvis and took no steps to prevent his downfall, In LOOKING FOR COLONEL PARKER, Constant Meijers came to the conclusion, after a journey right across the United States, that the name Colonel Parker can rightly be mentioned in the same breath as that of the King of Rock'n Roll. The succes of the gifted singer Elvis is inextricably linked to the gifted salesman that Parker still was even after Elvis' death.
script and director: Constant Meijers
producer: Pieter van Huystee
First aired on Dutch Television (NPS, Het uur van de wolf) January 18th 1999.
Interviews this part:
- Loanna Miller (Colonel Parker's wife)
- Marie Gort - van Kuijk (Colonel Parker's sister)
- Larry Davis (carnival director)
Elvis Presley - Making Of Jailhouse Rock (documentary) 2/2
The Scene That Stole Jailhouse Rock
Documentary 2007.
Interviews:
- Peter Guralnick (author)
- Joe Levy (editor, Rolling Stone Magazine)
- Steve Pond (author)
- Robert Relyea (director)
- George Klein (Elvis friend)
- Jerry Leiber (songwriter)
- Mike Stoller (songwriter)
- Russ Tamblyn (actor/dancer)
- Harry Kubernik (author)
- Bill Rock (host, Elvis radio)
Elvis Presley - Making Of Jailhouse Rock (documentary) 1/2
The Scene That Stole Jailhouse Rock
Documentary 2007.
Interviews:
- Peter Guralnick (author)
- Joe Levy (editor, Rolling Stone Magazine)
- Steve Pond (author)
- Robert Relyea (director)
- George Klein (Elvis friend)
- Jerry Leiber (songwriter)
- Mike Stoller (songwriter)
- Russ Tamblyn (actor/dancer)
- Harry Kubernik (author)
- Bill Rock (host, Elvis radio)
Elvis Presley - Behind The Gates Of Graceland (documentary)
Very rare documentary probably from the early eighties.
An inside look on Elvis's home Gracland.
Tour-guide are a young Jerry Schilling and Joe Esposito.
This footage is available on the 2-Disc Special Edition of "This Is Elvis".
May 8, 2009
LINDA GAIL LEWIS: [VIDEOGRAPHY] THE EARLY YEARS WITH JERRY LEE LEWIS AND SOLO CAREER [PT. 1]
Born July 18, 1947
Ferriday, LA
daughterElmo and Mamie Lewissister of
Jerry Lee Lewis
and
Frankie Jean LewisHusbandsBobby Goza
Jim Bushland
Cecil Harrelson (twice)
Kenny Lovelace
Brent Dolan
Robert Ellis (aka Bobby Memphis)
Eddie Braddock
Children
Cecil Jr.
Mary Jean
Annie
OliverLinda Gail Lewis is the younger sister of one of music's great performers, Jerry Lee Lewis. After decades of lingering in his shadow, she finally achieved a measure of fame in 2000 with a critically acclaimed album of duets performed with Irish rocker Van Morrison. Living a life every bit as tumultuous as her piano-thumping brother's, Lewis has toured the world repeatedly, married eight times, nearly died from drug overdoses, and has fought the ongoing battle of family-versus-career. In the course of her musical career she has written and sung a variety of music, some good and some comically bad. Her style, which has embraced hard-core honky-tonk music, 1950s rock'n'roll, and touches of Memphis soul, has made her a favorite in Europe.Like her brother Jerry Lee, Linda Gail Lewis soaked up the sounds of hillbilly music and rhythm and blues in the rural areas of Ferriday and Black River, Louisiana. Although the Lewis family was poor, they always had enough to eat because of father Elmo Lewis's skill at farming. When Jerry Lee began to score hits with "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On" and "Great Balls of Fire" in 1957, he singlehandedly lifted the family from dire poverty to a life of relative ease. "Jerry shared everything he had with us," Linda Gail remarked in a personal interview. "He'd call my mama up and say, 'Mama, I want you and daddy and Frankie Jean and Linda Gail to have everything that I have.' And we did!. ... I don't know how many people would say that. He meant it too." Linda Gail's chief inspiration was Jerry Lee, but later, as the era of rock 'n' roll came into play, she also tuned into the sounds of Brenda Lee, Patsy Cline, and Lavern Baker. Like her famed elder brother, she was married many times, and her first marriages were at ages 14 and 15.
Toured with Brother
Lewis's official recording debut came when she performed as Jerry Lee's duet partner for Sun Records in 1963, where her defiantly off-key vocals turned their rendition of George Jones's "Seasons Of My Heart" into one of the worst records ever made.
"I've gotten a lot of criticism for the vocals I did early on," Linda Gail said in an interview. "I hate to say it was a mistake to do it, because it is a part of history and something I remember in a fond way, but I wish I could've sung that song a little bit better."As a teenager Lewis joined her brother on the road, playing in numerous tank towns and dives. Yet according to Lewis, her brother shielded her from the late night parties and exploits that were common to a touring rock 'n' roll band.
"Oh yeah, he did take care of me," she remarked. "He protected me.... I knew that after the gigs I wasn't welcome to be at these parties. I knew I was just going to be watching the late, late show if I was lucky enough for one to be on in my motel room."
Wolverton Mountain
The near-constant touring provided Lewis with valuable experience and a chance to sharpen her vocal skills, and resulted in a unique opportunity--a steady gig with the road company of ABC-TV's mid-1960s teenfest Shindig.
Don't Be Cruel (1965)
"It was great," remembered Lewis. "Jack Good [Shindig's producer] actually asked for me. My brother didn't have to give them the hard-sell and say 'Would you please have my sister on too?'"
Recorded with Jerry Lee Lewis
Lewis's first solo release, the ABC-Paramount single "Small Red Diary," sank into obscurity, as did a lone single for Columbia, a remake of LaVern Baker's "Jim Dandy."
Meanwhile, Lewis made several duet appearances on her brother's b-sides and albums for Smash records. It was only after Jerry Lee mounted his late-1960s comeback via country music that Lewis was finally able to ride his coattails onto the charts.
Recording with her brother, she scored her lone top ten country hit with a version of Carl and Pearl Butler's "Don't Let Me Cross Over."A rousing duet remake of Chuck Berry's "Roll Over Beethoven," a staple of her act, followed it onto the lower chart regions. The Lewis duo's 1969 Smash LP Together featured their rowdy duet style on a variety of country standards and rockers.
When You Wore a Tulip
[Duet w/JLL]
This led to Lewis's debut solo album for the label, The Two Sides Of Linda Gail Lewis, a hard sung but poor-selling country album.
Son of a Preacher Man
(1969)
In addition to composing material for her brother's top-selling Smash and Mercury discs, Lewis also garnered an ASCAP award for her song "Smile, Somebody Loves You," her only solo top 40 country hit.
She was growing artistically, but her label did not seem to notice. "Nobody was really serious about my career," declared Lewis. The best pure country singles of her career, 1970's "Before The Snow Flies," which featured a rare appearance by brother Jerry Lee on rhythm guitar, and 1973's "I Wanna Be a Sensuous Woman," which she debuted on ABC-TV's In Concert, received no meaningful push from the label.
Mercury 73463
Linda Gail Lewis:
I Wanna Be A Sensuous Woman
While her recording career languished, Lewis toured almost non-stop as part of her brother's show. She twice married and divorced his best friend and road manager, Cecil Harrelson, and then married Jerry Lee's guitarist/fiddle player Kenny Lovelace, with whom she often wrote songs. The constant touring wreaked havoc on her relationship with her two children, and her drug use took a toll on her health. The drugs were prescribed by several physicians, none of whom knew she was under treatment by others. Lewis recalled that a mistake may have saved her life.
"I slipped up by calling one doctor who found out about the other doctors---about three or four of 'em were giving me these things."Lewis was hospitalized as a result of her drug habit, and Jerry Lee picked up the tab, but her efforts to stay clean and sober alienated her from her brother. By 1977 she had had enough---she quit the act, married a man outside the music industry and started a new family.
[STAY TUNED FOR HER 80's COMEBACK, VAN MORRISON ALBUM AND CURRENT TOUR INFO, PLUS FULL DISCOGRAPHY AND MORE VIDEOS]
END PT. 1
Harry Smith: "Early Abstractions" (1946-57), Pt. 1
Short animations by Harry Smith.
No. 1: A Strange Dream (l946)
No. 2: Message from the Sun (1946-48)
No. 3: Interwoven (1947-49) (Part 1)
Todd Bentley: DENNY'S Drunk Power Anointing
Todd Dauntlessness Nondiscrimination Denny's a churchman drunk noisemaker depreciating Inward Argumentativeness
Todd Bentley: PUNCHES COLON CANCER IN THE STOMACH
Todd Bentley shows you how to keep people alert for the unexpected injury. It is a Florida Outpouring of violence! The ministry of assault and battery goes on! Todd Bentley Revival miracles raging revival Florida outpouring angels false doctrine warfare preaching exploding tumor dead kick drunk tumor assault punch cancer
7-Headed Vampire Voodoo Demon: TODD BENTLEY [Dead raised]
Seven headed vampire voodoo demon. Claims of dead raised.
Church-Feathers FALLING [Test on Church-Feathers (where allowed) came up, "Bird Feathers" Oslo, Norway]
This is a short video clip recorded at a service held in Oslo, Norway. The video captures a manifestation of feathers and supposed angelic activity These feathers not seen by all in attendance but were recorded on video to testify of how people would make a religious icon of a chicken feather. Any test on church-feather (where allowed) came up, "Bird Feathers"
BENNY HINN: MIRACLE VISION WALL [TBN 1980's]
See how it all started in Orlando, Florida - TBN 1980's or early 90's EXCLUSIVE
A Church on Fire
Witness how Strange Fire can destroy a church. Coming to a Church near you? Rodney-Howard Brown South Africa Todd Bentley fresh fire Lakefront Raging Revival Florida Outpouring drunk scream manifesto...
Psycho Rotoscoped
My midterm for Intermediate VFX II. We had to do a basic 30 second rotoscope. I did a rotoscope from the movie "Psycho" to show Norman Bates insanity.
Take it Easy ! Maxime Avet Bday
The lauching of the new fetish fashion party in Lille (north of France) during the Maxime Avet's Bday.
Freyagushi Animal Hospital Show [Torture Garden Valentines 2008 Pt 1]
Freyagushi Fashion show at Torture Garden Valentines 2008.
Maya Hansen - Cake Corsets Around the World [from vexter]
Funny and really colourful corsets collection based on the flavours, mixes and colours of the cupcakes, candies and sweets! Delicious! http://www.mayahansen.com
Bibleman - Shadow Of Doubt
Say what you want about the Bibleman...the villians are downright awesome.
Mama Cass Elliott - Dream A Little Dream Live
Mama Cass Elliott singing "Dream A Little Dream Of Me" on the Smothers Brothers Show, from 1968 I believe.
The Fat Boys - Are You Ready For Freddy Krueger?
The Fat Boys get busy with the one and only Freddy Krueger! Bust a move!
May 7, 2009
Spun Ducky + Arabic Speed Reading + Autobahn + TGV Retour Paris + Naked Wine Show
SPUN DUCKY FOOFOO-FIED
Arabic Speed Reading
Autobahn
TGV Retour Paris
Naked Wine Show
Henry of Pelham's Sibling Rivalry
It has a medium intensity nose of coconut oil, pineapple, candied citrus and some green apple. On the palate, notes of pineapple, green apple skin, papaya and tangerine come though.Great, complex wine for under $15!