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Dan Duryea- Best Of The Bad Guys




     Dan Duryea was one of the most memorable character actors in film history, yet today his name is barely known. A cryin’ shame because he played a sniveling, cowardly, yet somehow likable creep better than anyone except  maybe Richard Widmark.  Anyone who has seen his performance as Johnny, Joan Bennett’s pimp in Fritz Lang’s classic Scarlet Street (1945) (clip above) can attest to his skill at portraying sleazebags. Scarlet Street was the second time Lang cast Duryea as Bennett’s pimp, the first being Woman In The Window (1944)(Bennett, one of the first actresses to start her own production company hired Lang to direct her in four film noir’s between 1941-48. The other two were Man Hunt (1941) and Secret Beyond The Door (1948)) Enough parenthesis for you?

To get the boring background stuff out of the way is what second paragraphs are all about, no? Dan Duryea was born in White Plains, N.Y. in 1907, attended Cornell (where he succeeded sex deviant Franchot Tone as the president of the Drama Society). Upon graduation he entered the advertising biz, retiring after a brief heart attack. His acting career got off to an excellent start when he landed the starring role in Dead End on Broadway, followed by another stint on the Great White Way in Little Foxes as the snivelling weakling Leo, a role he reprised in the William Wyler film, his Hollywood debut. For his next two movies he played Gary Cooper’s nemesis, first in Howard Hawks‘ Ball Of Fire (1941) (written by Billy Wilder) where his character bore the brilliant moniker Duke Pastrami, and then landing the role as cynical reporter Hank Hannerman in baseball tearjerker Pride Of The Yankees (1942). He would go on to work steadily until his death in 1968 with 110 screen credits.

     Like Widmark, he was a highly respected professional whose off screen life couldn’t have been more different from his onscreen persona. He was well liked, married to the same woman for 31 years (his son Peter worked as TV actor from 1964-1976), he rarely seen in the gossip columns.
     Most of Duryea’s roles fall in to two categories, either as the heavy/pimp/criminal/con man in film noir’s including Fritz Lang’s Ministry Of Fear (1944), and Woman In The Window (1944) Anthony Mann’s The Great Flamarian (1945) (opposite Eric Von Strohiem!), Main Street After Dark (1945), Lady On A Train(1945), Black Angel (1946), Larceny (1948), Manhandled (1948), Criss Cross (1948), Too Late For Tears (1949), Johnny Stool Pigeon (1949), One Way Street (1950), The Underworld Story (1950) Anthony Mann’s vastly underrated Thunder Bay (1953), World For Ransom (1954) Storm Fear (1955), The Burgler (1957), Slaughter On 10th Avenue (1957) and his last crime picture Walk A Tightrope (1965).
   Dan’s sneering onscreen persona translated equally well to westerns. In Along Came Jones (1945) he was yet again Gary Cooper’s nemesis, he starred in B westerns  Black Bart (1948) (opposite Yvonne DeCarlo) and Al Jennings Of Oklahoma (1951), put in a memorable appearance in Anthony Mann’s amazing Winchester 73 (1953), and puts in excellent performances in Rails Into Laramie, Ride Clear Of Diablo, and Silver Lode (all 1954), Foxfire (1955). He would again get top billing in The Marauders (1955), He Rides Tall (1964), Taggart (1964), and  The Bounty Killer (1965), all worth looking for on the Western channel.
     As his film offers became more low budget (by 1960 he’d been reduced to Platinum High School where he was billed between Mickey Rooney and Conway Twitty) and film noir pretty much died out, Duryea found plenty of work in TV. He was seen on the small screen steadily throughout the fifties and sixties, working right up to his death in ’68.  He portrayed a gunslinger in the very first episode of Rod Serling’s Twilight Zone, was a regular on the prime time soap Peyton Place, as well as appearing in such classic shows as Bonanza, Burke’s Law, Wagon Train, Naked City, Route 66, and Combat. He died of cancer at age  61 and his grave can be found at the amazing Forest Lawn Cemetery.

Alias Vince Taylor

Back cover of his autobiography: Alias Vince Taylor


 Vince, just after his mind was blown….


 In France, The EP was the thing.

Rare Sheet Music.

French bubble gum card, circa 1960



Two icons.

The best rock’n’roll stories are the ones where the performer goes nuts or dies. This way we don’t have to watch their heads get soft in public, or see them make fools of themselves trying to keep up with the times. This is one of those stories where the guy goes crazy. Boy, did he.
Vince Taylor was probably born off kilter, but rock’n’roll and LSD didn’t help matters. Born Brian Maurice Holden in July of 1939 in Isleworth, Middlesex, England, his family moved to New Jersey, USA in 1946 where his father got a job as a coal miner. Coal mines in New Jersey? See? This story is already weird. Fast forward to 1958. Brian had an older sister named Shelia who moved to Hollywood and married Joe Barbera, half of the animation team of Hanna-Barbera who had just hit it big with the Huckleberry Hound cartoon. With such a stroke of luck, young Brian, who fostered fantasies of turning himself into the next Elvis realized that back home in England there wasn’t much competition and with his greasy, good looks stardom would be assured. In one telling of the story he hears a Tommy Steele record and says “If that passes as rock’n’roll I can’t miss”, or something like that. Bankrolled by his sister’s new found wealth, young Brian set his plan in motion.
Renaming himself Vince Taylor (in an homage to one of his heroes– Gene Vincent), Vince, his sister Shelia, and his newly acquired manager Joe Singer headed east, landing in London in the summer of 1958 where he was soon a regular at the 2i’s coffee bar the incubator of British rock’n’roll (ironic for a country with so many pubs and so imbued with booze culture that rock’n’roll would emerge from a coffee bar). Taylor put together the first of what would be dozens of back up bands, this one featuring Tony Sheridan (who gave the Beatles their first recording session) on guitar and future Shadows rhythm section Brian “Licorice” Locking on bass and Brian Bennett on drums. Vince was signed by Parlaphone, and his first single, a rather pedestrian reading of Ray Smith’s “Right Behind You Baby” went nowhere, but his second platter– “Brand New Cadillac” was and is one of the pinnacles of British rock’n’roll. Based on a riff that sounds like a cross between Peter Gunn and “Lucille”, it is easily the best pre-Beatles British rock’n’roll record (beating out the other two contenders Johnny Kidd’s “Shakin’ All Over” and Cliff Richard’s “Move It” on sheer menace). Passing himself off as an authentic American (he being the rarest of all Brits, one with good teeth, could pull it off) gave Taylor great cache in the U.K.. With his brooding good looks and a wild stage show, Taylor was a natural. The fact that he had trouble singing in time and in key was of little consequence when the competition was the likes of Wee Willie Wayne, Tommy Steele, and Johnny Gentle.
Although it would go on to be considered of a classic it didn’t exactly tear up the charts and for his third 45 Taylor was on the tiny Palette label which issued his other great achievement in wax– “Jet Black Machine” a killer uptempo hot rod tune that brings the menacing quality in his sound to the forefront. It was his last great disc, but it too failed to chart, and despite the fact that he was a good live draw, in the U.K. he was already a spent force as a recording act.
Vince Taylor played an extended engagement at the Top Ten Club where he drove audiences to seismic frenzy, toured a bit, hired and fired musicians weekly and despite the hysteria caused by his live show, within a year he was back at the 2i’s where he started, his manager Singer disappeared and Vince was already displaying the erratic behaviour that would eventually destroy his career. He was insanely jealous and if he phoned his girlfriend and she wasn’t home, he’d blow off the show, spending his night searching for her in the pubs and coffee bars of Soho. He fought with his musicians to the point that he would lose one band to Marty Wilde, and their replacement to Duffy Power (there’s a rumor that goes that Larry Parnes who packaged and managed most of the early British rock acts, gave them their stage names according to their performance in his bed– hence Billy Fury, Johnny Gentle, etc.).
It was around this time Taylor adopted what became his signature look, a black leather sweat suit, long leather gloves, and a large chain as an accessory. There’s much debate as to whether he copped his look from Gene Vincent (who’d been outfitted similarly by British producer/promoter Jack Goode for his first U.K. tour), or if Goode and Vincent got the idea from Taylor. It was a look that Elvis would copy to much acclaim on his ’68 Comeback TV special and eventually become part of every rock idiot’s wardrobe. Nobody wore it as well as Vince Taylor, and if “Brand New Cadillac” and “Jet Black Machine” hadn’t ensured his immortality, he would still be remembered as one of rock’n’roll’s most photogenic images. Still, Taylor’s popularity had peaked in England and rock’n’roll was practically out of style in the U.S., lucky for Vince his career was given a reprieve when he took his band to Paris in 1960, appearing at the bottom of a bill that featured Vince Eager, Wee Willie Wayne and Nero & the Gladiators. Taylor in full leathers, chain, black kohl eye make-up and his hair dyed black and sculpted with grease stole the show with his stylized moves and malevolent stage presence, and was immediately signed to the French Barclay label, owned by Paris’ answer to Morris Levy, Eddie Barclay who put him to work recording covers of Eddie Cochran, Little Richard, Elvis and other rock’n’roll classics, issuing a ten inch LP and many EP’s (packaging was very important to the visually oriented French, and the EP picture cover became France’s greatest contribution to rock’n’roll). Barclay issued dozens of Vince Taylor records, many promoted by Scopitones, short films made especially for the video jukebox Scopitone machine that was popular only in France (the U.S. rights to it were owned by George Jessel, the comedian who produced the amazing movie Nightmare Alley with Tyrone Power), the clips seen here were made for the Scopitone machines.
In 1962 he headlined a bizarre show called Twist Appeal– L’Erotisme Au Xxe Siecle (Eroticism In The 20th Century) in which Taylor performed between displays of erotic dancers, sets and costumes by Erte, a famous ballet designer. Vince was packing them in and this was the pinnacle of his career as a French rock’n’roll icon.
Fueled by alcohol and prellies (preludin, the same brand of speed favored by the Beatles in their Star Club days) Taylor became more and more undependable. He blew off a two week booking at Hamburg’s Star Club, and seemed to travel between the U.S., the U.K. and France without rhyme or reason, eventually settling in St. Tropez with model Helene April who supported him financially for a spell.
In April, 1965 he opened for the Rolling Stones at Paris’ Olympia, this time backed by a new band– the Bobby Clarke Noise (whose bass player Stanislas “Stash” Klossowski would strike up a friendship with Keith Richards after the show, they remain best friends to this day). By all accounts Vince was still in fine form as a performer, but not for long. By May it was all over for Vince. On a trip back to the U.K. he attended a party for Bob Dylan and tried LSD for the first time, it was just what he needed to push his already loopy mind over the edge.
Vince scored some more acid and returned to Paris for a gig, he was filthy, unshaven and bug-eyed, clutching a bottle of Mateus wine. He insisted his name was Mateus, he was the new Jesus, son of God, and he appeared onstage that night wrapped in a sheet extolling the audience to follow him as he led a procession out the door of the venue and across the Seine to St Germain Des Pres preaching all the way. From here Taylor joins the likes of Syd Barrett, Skip Spence, and other acclaimed acid burn outs as one of those legends we love to speculate about. According to long suffering drummer Bobbie Woodman, from this point on all Vince did was eat eggs. There were comeback attempts in ’67, ’72, ’74 and ’75, all disastrous. He wrote his autobiography Alias Vince Taylor: Le Survivant (Editions Delville, 1976) but it was never translated into English. A French girl started reading it to me once but we lost touch before she could finish, although I do remember her proclaiming it “merde'”.
At some point (possibly in 1966) David Bowie came in contact with a very distraught Taylor and used his impressions of him as the basis for his Ziggy Stardust character. A sad claim to fame for the guy who cut “Brand New Cadillac”. Joe Strummer whose band the Clash would record a rather mediocre cover of “Brand New Cadillac” in the early 80’s tells a similar story of running into a very paranoid Taylor in a bar, ranting about the Duke of Windsor trying to kill him.
Vince Taylor still took the occasional rent money gig, cutting an awful live LP in ’77 (his second, his first was a fake audience dubbed live disc for Barclay in ’65) and was appearing at Teddy Boy festivals, rock’n’roll revivals and in tiny clubs until the early 80’s. He moved to Switzerland in 1983, married Nathalie Minster and spent six months in the bug house. He died of lung cancer in Switzerland on August 7, 1991. Did I mention he slept with Brigitte Bardot?

It’s Tuesday




Isn’t Tuesday Weld great? From her first flick Rock Rock Rock where she shares screen time with the Johnny Burnette Trio in their only film performance, to the retarded Sex Kittens Go To College where she proves to be much sexier than the va-va voom overstated Mamie Van Doren, to the utterly nutso Pretty Poison (clip seen above), she’s livened up many movies and TV Shows (The Loves of Doby Gillis, 77 Sunset Strip, Naked City, et al). I’m convinced the only reason people bought that Mathew Sweet record Girlfriend was the cover shot (above). She was born Susan Weld in New York City in 1943, and whatever she’s doing today I hope she’s having a great time.
Among her better film appearances are Play It As It Lays (with Anthony Perkins, who also co-stars in Pretty Poison), Thief (with James Caan), Who’ll Stop The Rain, Looking For Mr. Goodbar, and Wild In The Country (with Elvis what’s his face). Her entire filmography can be found here.

Wild Jimmy Spruill



      The day I was born (May 23, 1959) the #1 record was Wilbert Harrison’s “Kansas City“. A re-make of a tune originated by Little Willie Littlefield and written by Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoller (itself based on an old tune by Jim Jackson), it featured an ultra-twangy guitar solo by Wild Jimmy Spruill. For this and other reasons I’ve always felt some sort of cosmic bond with Jimmy, who was in my opinion one of the greatest guitar wranglers in the history of rock’n’roll. You won’t find his name in the Rock’n’Roll Hall Of Fame (unlike such great talents as Art Garfunkel, Steven Stills and Bono and I don’t mean Sonny), but if you have any taste in music at all you’ve heard his playing.  As a session musician he played on hits like Bobby Lewis’ “Tossin & Turnin'”, King Curtis’ “Soul Twist”,  Dave “Baby” Cortez’ “The Happy Organ”, the Charts “Deserie” and tons of others.  Today however we shall be discussing his best records, including those issued under his own name.  First let’s get the background part out of the way.

James Spruill was born in shack in the country outside of Fayetteville, North Carolina on June 9, 1934.  His family was so poor Jimmy remembered them using newspapers and paste to seal the cracks in the wall of their house to keep the wind out.
His parents tried sharecropping but couldn’t make a living and eventually moved north first to Norfolk, Virginia, then Washington, D.C.  Jimmy started playing guitar as a tyke, building his first guitar out of a cigar box (he would build guitars his whole life, when I met him he was working on a custom job for John Hammond Jr.). As soon as he could raise a hard on he hopped  a bus to New York City where an older brother was already settled and got a job as the super of a Harlem tenement.  While practicing his guitar on the stoop he was spotted by record producer Danny Robinson (brother of Bobby Robinson, another local record mini-mogul who would figure large in Jimmy’s career).  Robinson got Jimmy his first record date, playing with the Charlie Walker  on “Driving Home pts. 1 & 2” , and another date days late with the Charlie Lucas Combo where he cut a tune called “Walkin‘” which featured his already fully formed “scratchy” guitar style. The year was 1957  and for the next eight years Spruill was the regular session guitarist on dozens of discs the Robinson brothers produced for their many labels— Fire, Fury, Enjoy, VIM, Holiday, Everlast, etc. 
 One of the most musically fruitful associations was with Allen Bunn aka Tarheel Slim, another North Carolina transplant who played guitar, and together with Spruill they cut one of the greatest rock’n’roll records to ever come out of Harlem– “Number 9 Train” b/w “Wildcat Tamer” (Fury).  He would go on to play on nearly all of Tarheel Slim’s Fury recrordings including his sole hit (with Little Ann) “It’s Too Late“.
     Perhaps the greatest pairing however was with the aforementioned Wilbert Harrison. Harrison (also from North Carolina, he sang in a Geechie accent that betrayed his Georgia Sea Island roots) had been kicking around for years, cutting sides for Savoy, but he really hit pay dirt both musically and commercially when Bobby Robinson put him together with Spruill for a series of discs that are among the greatest rock’n’roll records ever made:  “Goodbye Kansas City“, “Don’t Wreck My Life“, “Let’s Stick Together” (which Wilbert would re-record one man band style as “Let’s Work Together”, it was copied note for note by Canned Heat who had a hit with it, Bryan Ferry would take his version of it to the top of the U.K. charts in the early 70’s), “The Horse“, Willie Mabon’s “Poison Ivy” (which has one of the best lyrics ever– “Each day when I shave/in my house coat/two men have to hold me/or I’ll cut my throat….I’m like Poison Ivy/I’ll break out all over you”),  and “1960” among them.
Robinson also brought Elmore James to New York City for his last sessions in ’63, recording him with a band fronted by Jimmy Spruill, here on “Bobby’s Rock” you can hear them trading licks.
      Another great pairing was sax honker Noble “Thin Man” Watts’ who utilized Spruill on his best records such as “Hard Times (The Slop)” (Baton), “Jookin‘” (Enjoy) and “Blast Off” (Baton), they would strike up a life long friendship. The best of Noble Watts Baton sides can be found here. And before it’s slips my mind here’s a great one, Bobby Long’s “Jersey City” on the obscure Fountainhead  label that features one of Spruill’s finest solos.

     In 1957 Bobby Robisnon began issuing Wild Jimmy Spruill’s solo 45’s, the first “Jumpin’ In” on Everlast wasn’t very good but after that he cut a string of hard stinging classics where his guitar twangs, scratches and practically bounces off the speaker cones.  Issued on labels like Fire, Enjoy, Vest, and VIM were monsters like “Hard Grind“, “Scratchin‘”, “Slow Draggin‘”, “Scratch ‘n Twist“, “Cut and Dried“, and even a vocal (something Jimmy wasn’t so good at) “Country Boy“.  If you’re the CD buying sort all of the above solo discs are available on the new Night Train CD Wild Jimmy Spruill-  Scratch & Twist (Released and  Unreleased Recordings 1956-1962).  I recommend it highly, I bought one myself. Here’s one of the un-issued tracks– “Raisin’ Hell“.
     From 1957 into the early 1990’s Jimmy led a band– Wild Jimmy Spruill & the Hell Raisers who in addition to backing up acts from Chuck Berry to James Brown played all over the New York City area from long gone joints like the Rockin’ Palace on 156th St and 8th Ave to the Central Ballroom, Small’s Paradise, the Baby Grand (all still there) and had a long residency at the Sportsman’s Lounge on 8th Ave that lasted into the 90’s. When not working clubs they played weddings, parties, private clubs, and bar mitzvah. As great as his records are, you really had to see Jimmy to believe it. He played guitar with his feet, elbows, teeth, butt, over his head, between his legs, behind his back, throwing the thing around the stage and never missing a note.  Hence the Wildman moniker. In the early nineties he began appearing downtown, mostly at a club called Tramps with a version of the Hellraisers augmented by guitarist Larry Dale of “Let The Door Bell Ring” (Glover) and “Drinkin’ Wine” (Atlantic) infamy and pianist Bob Gaddy  who cut the great “C’mon Little Children” for Old Town.  They were one of the greatest bands I ever saw in my life.  
     At that time (around ’93-4) I was occasionally contributing short pieces to the New York Times‘ Style Of The Times section.  I suggested to my editor an article on these guys (“…these were the guys that invented rock’n’roll boss…”).  In the process of interviewing Jimmy for the piece (which never ran, it wasn’t exactly a “style” piece, what was I thinking?) we became friends, as a fellow Gemini we got on great.  Truth be it, I loved the guy.  He was brilliant, funny and crazy in the best way. One time
I took the train way up to the Bronx, where Jimmy lived with his wife and one of his adult twin daughters in a self decorated apartment across from the playground the locals call “the coops”.  Jimmy, who bragged at having over fifty jobs (Geminis get bored easily), and was then working as a decorator. His apartment had self installed stucco walls and a giant built in fish tank.  Very cool.  He never made much money in music but he was a happy man, he liked to go to Atlantic City and gamble a bit, he built guitars for friends and still played when ever some one called with a gig. In his own mind he was a success because he did whatever he wanted and money be damned, he refused to be a slave to it.
 In February of 1996 he headed to Florida by bus to visit old pal Noble Watts who was recording a new record for Rounder in his home studio.  Jimmy stopped in North Carolina to visit friends en route and lost his wallet.  On the return trip he had a heart attack on the bus and passed away.  Since his body carried no ID he was interned in a morgue in the North Carolina town where he’d been discovered dead.  In the meantime, back in the Bronx his wife and daughters were frantic.  It wasn’t like Jimmy to not call and after he’d been missing for weeks the local TV news ran stories about the missing blues man, until finally his corpse was located and identified.  Had he lived no doubt he’d have been rediscovered by fans and collectors who were just becoming hip to his old records (the Krazy Kat label in the UK issued a quasi-bootleg in the late 80’s of his best solo records, they didn’t even have a photo of him for the cover, using an awful drawing instead). He would have toured Europe (a place he was anxious to see), played festivals, maybe even made a few bucks.  But it was not to be. I think about him all the time.  Wild Jimmy Spruill, there’s one I really miss.

A Stranger In My Own Hometown

New York City, 2008, welcome to the Paramus Mall. Since the Republican takeover of NYC with Adolph Guiliani in the 90’s we’ve seen more and more chain/big box type stores and less and less of the weird little mom and pop shops. Endless branch banks, fast food joints (the NY Times put the number of Dunkin’ Donuts opened in Manhattan in the last five years at over 500), cell phone stores, Duane Reade drug stores (that sell aisle after aisle of psuedo-ephedrine products), and if you live in Park Slope lots of designer baby clothes. There’s only two decent book stores left in Manhattan (St. Marks Books and the Strand), there’s not a good record store in the borough. Even the movie theaters are starting to suck.  I used to go the the movies every day, now I doubt if I go twice a year. Film Forum plays the same stuff over and over, year after year (latest schedule, Les Blank retrospective, Godard’s Made In The USA, Preston Sturges retrospective, Fellini’s Amacord, not exactly breaking ground here are we)? There are multi-plexes in every neighborhood.
     Of the “art houses”, or what’s left of them only the Anthology Film Archives shows any imagination and that place is the coldest, dirtiest most rat ridden theater since the Deuce was cleaned up. At least they showed the Monks documentary. There’s three movies showing in Europe right now that are probably the only three current films I want to see, there’s The Baader-Meihof Complex, a film about the IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands called Hunger and Gomorrah which is supposed to show at the IMF theater in the Village in January. A clip from the Monks film and the trailers for The Baader-Meinhof Complex and Hunger are above. Getting back to the point, what gives? Is there no market in New York City for adventurous film programming? A cool records store?  Or anything that you can’t find in any mall out there in that wasteland we used to call our country? I guess not. It seems the suburbanites who moved here in the 90’s to be closer to their now non-existent Wall Street jobs, the proximity to 5,000 Starbucks, and idiot celebrity watching, rather than absorb the culture that this city once had to offer, prefer to bring their suburban life with them, and they’ve killed our town. There’s not much of the New York City I loved left.  When I moved here in the late 70’s we (rejects from society) had the town to ourselves, no law and order (I ran an illegal after hours club for a year before the cops showed up in 83-84, now even a legal bar is subject to endless police harassment). I never saw a kid get carded at CBGB. If this city is to have any sort of cultural life we need an atmosphere for
creativity to grow in. Not a police state.  Whether it was abstract expressionism or punk rock, virtually every interesting thing that happened in NYC in the 20th century was incubated in bars and clubs.  Maybe this economic meltdown will help by driving commercial real estate down but it’s unlikely since most landlords would rather let a space sit empty for years than rent at a reasonable price.  And if they let it sit the city gives them a tax break!  
If you don’t like the noise, go back to New Jersey. And when you come visit don’t set your car alarm when you park here.
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On a different subject has anyone noticed on the latest CD release of the Rolling Stones More Hot Rocks (Big Hits & Fazed Cookies) has an alternate take of “Let It Bleed” ? I only noticed by accident. BTW one of the best Stones live/rehearsal tapes to ever surface, a mix of a show in Dallas, ’72 and the afternoon rehearsal can be found here. Amazing sound quality (stereo!), and probably the best they ever sounded without Brian.  In the UK, a few years back the the Elvis Blues CD  had this unheard take of Stranger In My Own Hometown, one of my all time favorite Elvis tunes. Neither of these alternates are mentioned on the packaging so I assume they were released by mistake. BTW, if you never heard Percy Mayfield’s original version of “Stranger In My Own Hometown”, from Ray Charles’ Tangerine label, here it is.
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Here, from an old Hound show aircheck is my musical re-creation of a Thanksgiving dinner:
Lionel Hampton- Turky Hop, Nat Kendricks & the Swans- Mashed Potatoes, Robert Williams & the Groovers- Cranberry Blues, Andre Williams- Please Pass The Biscuits, Nite Caps- Wine Wine Wine, Marvin & Johnny- Cherry Pie and of course Alfred E. Newman- It’s A Gas. Happy Holiday.

Guitar evanglists, singing preachers and the like….

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwvZyoLnKSs&hl=en&fs=1%5D





I’ve been collecting gospel records since 1977. It started at a bargain bin in a Woolworth in Ft. Lauderdale’s only black neighborhood where I spotted a peculiar looking LP in the 39 cent bin.
The cover photo showed a heavy set, middle age black woman wearing a turban and a huge feathered boa playing an arch top electric guitar. It was Sister Rosetta Tharpe (bottom clip) and I’d never heard of her but for 39 cents it was worth it just for the photo. When I brought the record home and played it imagine my surprise when the sound of Sam Price’s boogie piano backed by a slapping string bass and drums came rolling out of my speakers. This was followed by a guitar solo that could have come off of an obscure Sun rockabilly 45, then a woman’s voice began belting out “Strange Things Happening Everyday“. A call and response rocker that except for the religious bent of the lyrics could have easily fit in with the rockabilly and R&B 45’s I was just then discovering. Record collecting of course is part archeology, and I’d struck a new layer in the excavation of rock’n’roll’s past. I’ve been mining that vein ever since, especially since the rise in prices, record conventions and Ebay have taken most of the fun out of record collecting. Gospel discs though are still relatively cheap, and you can still find ’em if you know where to look.

In his groundbreaking book The Gospel Sound (Good News and Bad Times, revised and updated Limelight Editions, 1985, still the only decent book on the subject) author Anthony Heilbut divides the Gospel sound into to three major groups, the solo singers, usually female best exemplified by the big voiced contraltos like Mahalia Jackson and Marion Williams, choirs such as New York’s famed Abyssinian Baptist Choir, the Edwin Hawkins Singers (who scored maybe the only real gospel pop hit with “Oh Happy Day), etc. and the quartets (which usually have five members but all gospel singing groups are called quartets) like the Golden Gate Quartet, Dixie Hummingbirds (middle clip), 5 Blind Boys Of Alabama (top clip), Pilgrim Travlers, the Soul Stirrers (where Sam Cooke first came to national attention, heard here in a church rattling live rendition of “Nearer To Thee” from the Shrine Auditorium Concert in ’53), the Swan Silvertones, et. al.
There are performers who don’t fit into the above categories like the Staple Singers, female groups like the Ward Singers, and my favorite, the guitar Evangelists.
One thing they all have in common is they developed in the Holiness In God Church Of Christ also known as the Sanctified Church where music is extremely important and folks “fall out” (lose control of their brains) and often speak in tongues. The white branch of the HIGCOC are often called Holy Rollers for this reason. Elvis is just one white rocker with such a background.
Hardcore gospel fans usually prefer the big voiced female singers whose art is
comparable to opera singing in the level of physical difficulty although unlike oper, gospel singing usually involves a great degree of improvisation. Anyone who has heard Clara Ward sing “When I Get Over” understands that Aretha Franklin (just voted by the ever irrelevant Rolling Stone magazine the all time greatest pop singer) has not an original cell in her large body. Every nuance, every vocal trick and aside that makes Aretha a star was copped from Clara Ward (who also influenced Little Richard in a very different way, check out the Ward Singers’ “Packin’ Up” to hear where Richard’s “wooo” came from).
Record companies started recording gospel music almost as soon as they started recording and singing preachers and guitar Evangelists as well as jubilee style groups were among the first “race” records issued.
Columbia had a winner on their hands with Blind Willie Johnson, whom they recorded from 1927-30, a street singer and great slide guitar player who would come to the attention of white folks when Sam Charters devoted a chapter to him in his groundbreaking 1959 book The Country Blues (revised edition De Capo, 1975).
I first heard him on the Folkways compilation LP that was issued as a companion to the book. It was said a cop arrested him for trying to incite a riot by singing “If I Had My Way, I’d Tear This Building Down” on a Dallas street. Ry Cooder practically made a career out of rehashing Johnson’s ethereal “Dark Was The Night, Cold Was The Ground“, one of the true masterpieces of slide guitar playing. Johnson’s music is easy to find, Sony has a two cd set of his complete works and Yazoo has a nice collection which last time I looked could be found here. Johnson’s collection of voices, from a the gruff, throat full of broken glass heard on “If I Had…” to a fluttering falsetto, show an instrument every bit as sensitive as his heralded guitarmanship.
Another favorite from the scratchy old 78 collection is under the nome du disc Black Billy Sunday (real name: Dr. J. Gordon McPherson) whose 1931 session for Paramount produced this masterpiece–“This Ole World’s In A Hellava Fix“. It’s the kind of record that is always timely.
It was said that this was Hank Williams’ favorite, the Guitar Evangelist (aka Rev. Edward W. Clayborn) 1927 Vocallion recording of “Death Is A Dream“. Good enough for Hank, good enough for the Hound.
I have no idea who the 2 Gospel Keys were but they made two of the greatest records I’ve ever heard. “I Don’t Feel At Home In This World Anymore” and “You Got To Move” (which the Stones’ covered using Mississippi Fred McDowell’s version as their template) capture the sound of the Holiness church in all it’s earthly glory. It’s enough to get you saved, or at least shaved. They recorded for New York’s Apollo label in 1948, then went back to church and never recorded again.
Rev. Anderson Johnson was from Miami, Florida and issued his own discs on his Glory label. He was a rockin’ electric guitarist and had a declaiming style of singing
that added a touch of humor to his rockin’ electric sermons. My favorite is this one,
“God Don’t Like It”(especially the apology at the end) and also his version of “Let That Liar Pass On By” which bears no small resemblance to Ray Charles’ hit “Leave My Woman Alone“.
Rev. Utah Smith was from New Orleans where he ran the Two Wings Temple branch of the Holiness Church. He recorded these two songs twice each, and each version was issued on two different labels. Maybe he was also into numerology?
It matters not, but “Two Wings” and ” Take A Trip (Gospel Ship)” are two of the greatest post-war guitar Evangelist recordings, both recorded in ’53 these versions were on the Kay-Ron label.
One of the most prized 78’s I own is this one on the Chart label out of Miami, Elder Beck’s utterly crazed “Rock’n’Roll Sermon“. Whilst in the process of warning of the sins of rock’n’roll, Rev. Beck just can’t help hisself and the whole thing mutates into a version of “Rock Around The Clock” that would make Bill Haley’s spit curl stand up straight. It’s rare as hell but can be found on the great R&B compilation Blowin’ Through Yokahama (Atomic Passion), one of my all time favorite LP’s (Norton Records has it in their mail order catalogue).
Although they didn’t record for the “race” market, Rev. Louis Overstreet, his guitar, his four sons, and the Congregation of St. Luke’s Powerhouse Church Of God In Christ (pictured above, his sons bearing no small resemblance to Alvin & the Chipmunks, and where’s that Stratocaster today?) were captured by Arhoolie’s Chris Strachwitz in 1962 at their Phoenix, Arizona church, and as heard here on “Yeah Lord”
rafter shakin’ was their business.
Rev. Charlie Jackson, from New Orleans was influenced by the aforementioned Rev. Utah Smith and recorded a whole bunch of 45’s for the Booker label in the 1970’s, the best of which are “Morning Train” (here’s the Sensational Nightingales original for comparison’s sake) and “Wrapped Up and Tangled Up“. All his sides were re-issued on LP on Crypt and CD on Casequarter, the LP sounding much better to my ears.
The only white singer who can compare to any of the folks I’ve been talking about here is Brother Claude Ely who recorded for King in the 50’s. His rendition of “Ain’t No Grave Gonna Hold My Body Down“, “You Gotta Move” (said to be the inspiration for Elvis’ version) and “Holy Holy Holy” make him a credit to his race.
Another disc I should mention, issued on Savoy’s Gospel imprint in ’58 is the Selah Singers’ “The Wicked Race” which gets snaps for mentioning Sputnik. A bit scratchy but it’s never been re-issued.
I end today’s blogism (blogatin’? blogation? blogeration?) with two version of one of my favorite tunes, it’s called “This Is A Mean World”, again, some lyrics never go out of style, the first is done quartet style by the Trumpeteers on King and the second singing preacher fashion by Rev. C. L. Johnson for Savoy. And then I’m off into the sunset with one last tune from the Swan Silvertones on Specialty– I’m A Rollin‘. Get right with God, motherfuckers.

Jody Reynolds 1932-2008

          Jody Reynolds died Nov. 7 of liver cancer, I didn’t know him, but I’ve always loved his records on the Demon label. “Endless Sleep” was a huge hit, it’s the all time greatest teen snuff ballad (it can be heard above along with somebody’s homemade video tribute). Jody Reynolds was born in Denver, Colorado and raised outside of Pheonix , Arizona where “Endless Sleep” was cut. After “Endless Sleep” got to #6 on the Billboard chart in ’58  he relocated to California where he cut a handful of great sides for the Demon label (cool looking label too), here’s my favorite:Fire Of Love. You punk rockers might remember the cover versions by the Gun Club and Panther Burns, neither version can touch the original. Here’s the flipside– “Daisy Mae” His back up band the Storms with the great Al Casey on guitar and/or six string bass are featured on this instrumental– “Thunder” b/w “Tarantula” which came out on the Indigo label. Al Casey   All seven Demon 45’s are Reynolds originals and all of them are good. I’d like to add some of his other tunes like “Tight Capris” (which was on the first tape Quine ever made for me, see Oct. Quine posting), “Beaulah Lee”, “Whipping Post” and “The Storm” but as I’ve mentioned before I don’t have a turntable with USB plugs at the moment and I only have his records on 45’s not CD. Bear Family did a complete Jody Reynolds CD a few years back and it’s well worth buying. Here’s R&B singer Jimmy Witherspoon’s cover of “Endless Sleep“. A rare example of the reverse of the trend at the time of white singers covering black originals. This time it’s the white original that is superior but Witherspoon’s version is still pretty cool. Reynolds last record was a duet wit Bobbie “Ode To Billy Joe” Gentry called “Stranger In The Mirror”. Dying is usually a good career move but in Reynolds case I doubt it’ll do him much good.  

Tielman Brothers…now that’s entertainment!

I love these clips, the group is called the Tielman Brothers and they were from, Surabeya, Indonesia. Can you imagine what their rehearsals where like? They were evidently big in the Netherlands and Germany and made tons of records. I don’t know of any of their records that were issued in the U.S. (although there’s a Tietman Brothers’ record on Sceptor, I don’t think it’s the same group). They have a huge discography of surf instrumentals (they evolved from a straight ahead rock’n’roll/rockabilly sound into a stellar surf instrumental combo by the early sixties) issued on Dutch Imperial. I’m sure their discs are good but let’s face it, this was a very visual act.
Later they added a va-va-voom girl singer. This clip is from 1960 but they recorded up to 1981. Check Youtube to see what they looked like in ’81 with their DA’s morphed into greasy mullets, they look just like the sleazy dope dealers you find at the bottom end of Amsterdam’s Seldick. More info than you need on them can be found here. Their mixture of showmanship, musicianship and acrobatics are perfect. It makes the crap that passes for rock’n’roll, or even entertainment nowadays even more unforgivable.

I mean what the hell is going on? I can’t stand all these lame ass singer songwriters who stand there looking at their toes like they can’t figure out how they got there? (fill in the name of your least favorite). Not to mention the combination of drone and whine sound that was pioneered by groups like U2 and REM who seem to have influenced the under thirty crowd to emote their precious feelings in public in a way that’s downright undignified. It’s hard to say what makes a great rock’n’roll record, but I do know it doesn’t take a genius to make one. I mean total lames like Paul Simon, Dr. Hook’s Ray Sawyer, Bread’s David Gates, R. Dean Taylor (“Indiana Wants Me”) and even Wayne Newton managed to make great rock’n’roll records. Yes that last one was Wayne Newton. It’s called “Comin’ On Too Strong” and is one of the all time greatest Beach Boys rip-offs. Better than anything on the last three Brian Wilson LP’s or anything the Beach Boys themselves cut since 20/20. I believe Gary Usher, Roger Christian and Terry Melcher were all involved in the production of “Comin’ On Too Strong”, the idea being to make a killer backing track and then bring in the worst person they could find to cut the lead vocal. Sort of part joke, part challange. It takes might take a genius to make a dozen great rock’n’roll records, but anybody could get do it once or twice. So why aren’t there any great records anymore?
Sure there’s one or two a year, usually put out by some tiny label (last year I liked the Mary Weiss disc, two years ago it was the Dirtbombs, this year I like the Lost Crusaders, but it’s a rare year I find more than one). Let’s face it, people have changed. They have (or make that we have) finally bred a generation too dumb for rock’n’roll! The mind reels. Kids who grew up under Bush/Cheney and fed on reality TV seem to have both their shame and cool chromosones missing. Darwinian? Maybe the coming depression will humble the mall brats and bring forth some sort of positive creativity but if you ask me the under 30’s haven’t come up with one good musician, writer, film maker, artist ….they’ve got nothing. Makes me glad I’m old. In fact I wish I was older, I wish I saw Howlin’ Wolf and Jimmy Reed in their prime. I wish the Tielman Brothers were playing down the block….

Robert Nighthawk & Link Wray- Two Guys I Never Met….

     I know I just posted this clip (see the Ike Turner posting) but it’s so great and it fits today’s subject Robert Nighthawk so here it is again, from the film …and this is Free a documentary about Maxwell Street in Chicago’s Jewtown section which used to be a flea market and gathering place for street musicians every Sunday. The city tore down all of Maxwell St. and moved it across the road into a mall several years back so scenes like these are long gone as is Mr. Nighthawk (born Robert Lee McCollum in Helena, Arkansas, Nov. 30 1909, next year is his centennial. He died on Nov. 5, of ’67 just before the blues revival that might have put a few bucks in his pockets arrived).
     Nightawk had a long recording career in years, short in output. He recorded under the name of Robert Lee McCoy for BlueBird in ’37-38, and again billed as “Peetie’s Boy” (to cash in on the popularity of William Bunch aka Peetie Wheatstraw “The Devil’s Son In Law”) in 1940. After World War II he changed his name to Robert Nighthawk (supposedly on the run from the law, but who knows…).  His post war sides are great, some of them are almost rockabilly (, best are the ones recorded for the United and States labels which are incdredibly rare although they’ve been re-issued on the Pearl label which is owned by Delmark (which is owned by the guy who runs the Jazz Record Mart, one of the last great record stores in the U.S.). A 78 of “Maggie Cambell” just sold on Ebay for over $500 (the financial meltdown doesn’t seem to have effected the price of rare records yet, at least not the ones I want). He recorded for Aristocrat (which became Chess) in ’48 and ’49, I have a Japanese LP of all those recordings which are also scattered about on various compilations. Here’s one of  rockers, his version of  “Kansas City Blues.  Oddly enough Ernest Tubb would cover this one and his version (here) is as bluesy as Nighthawks’ is country. Don’t you love the way Tubb says “chump”? “Nighthawk cut a last session for the Testament label in ’66 with his guitar teacher Houston Stackhouse. Here’s a five song tribute with some interview stuff spliced in, taken from an old aircheck. The tunes are “Prowlin’ Nighthawk” from Blue Bird, 1937, “Maggie Cambell” issued on States in ’52, “”Goin’ Down To Eli’s” and “Anna Lee Blues” were recorded live on Maxwell Street in ’63 (and are from the film) and the final tune, a version of Tommy Johnson’s “Big Road Blues” is from the Testament LP

When talking about slide players, the old timers always put Robert Nighthawk at the top of the list, he was one blues man who really could play. He was so good he was hired to be the entertainment at Muddy Waters’ wedding party.

The Link Wray clip is from the Jack Spector TV show which showed locally in Providence, RI, an after school Bandstand type show. Not Link’s best tune but dig that Danelectro Longhorn! It’s the only early TV footage of Link I’ve ever stumbled across. He’ll be gone three years now this month, he died on Nov. 5, 2003. Here’s an aircheck set of five Link instrumentals to remember him by. The tunes are “Fat Back”, “Slinky”, “Vendetta”, “The Swag” and “The Earth Is Crying”. The good folks at Norton records have an incredible amount of Link Wray stuff in their catalogue including four volumes of rarities (Missing Links Vol.1-4), a double CD of the complete Swan Recordings, and best of all the Norton Jukebox 45 series which has a dozen killer 45’s which is still the best way to hear rock’n’roll.

Link lived in New York City for many years and played at Max’s many times and except to get a record signed I never really talked to him. The only impression I got of him was that he was rather nice and very taciturn. He did lend Quine his Ampeg amp which Quine used on much of Richard Hell & the Voidoids’ Blank Generation album.   Even when Link descended into bar band heavy metal in the later years, he shows always started off great, nobody could smoke a cigarette, play an E chord and walk backwards quite like Link could.
If you’re keeping up with the financial bail out plan you need to look at this.
I still think my plan was better (see “The Hound Saves Capitalism”). If Obama is serious about change something has to be done about the way business is done these days, as in, fuck the workers, fuck the stockholders, let’s downsize and/or out source to save money and redirect our savings to executive pay/bonus/benefit packages.
That bail out money that was supposed to jump start the banks is not being lent out, it’s being used to leverage buyouts and of course huge executive paychecks. Now that we have a guy headed to the White House that’s got our hopes up that he’s serious about doing the right thing I gotta wonder, is it even possible? Bush’s speech at the UN last week, where he blamed the financial meltdown on “too much regulation” needed a laugh track. The subtext however was painfully obvious– “we tried to give the poor blacks and Latinos home ownership, they just don’t deserve it”!    My prediction, to
paraphrase Hallie Sallasse is “War! War in the east, war in the west, war everywhere”.
Look at history and then look at the world. Pick your spot and watch it explode.

Non avete letto qui



I love books. Nearly every room in my house seems to have grown its own library. Even the kitchen. Novels, photography books, cookbooks, hundreds of books on music, film, history, reference books. An earthquake would bury us under the damn things. There’s an entire sub-industry of the publishing biz that seems to feed off the publics insatiable appetite for mafia books. Since the mafia no longer controls city politics, unions or even gambling, they’ve come to the point where their main function in our society is cultural, that is they exist mostly to entertain us. HBO has reaped nearly a billion dollars off of the Sopranos concession alone! Any prosecutor looking to make a name for himself need only find an Italian who may have committed a crime and a journalist to write about it and he’s or she’s assured of higher political office. Or as I once heard one old guinea say to another–“FBI, For Botherin’ Italians”!

Unfortunately the since the rise of John Gotti, whose personal vanity and publicity crazed ego may have been the worst thing that every happened to the American mob, these goombahs have gotten progressively less interesting. Good thing for us readers the Sicilian branch of La Cosa Nostra and their Neapolitan cousins the Camorra are so crazy or we’d have nothing to left read on the subject.
The Sicillian mob, or La Cosa Nostra, who were greatly empowered by the CIA in the period immediately following WWII to fight unions and communism, witnessed one of the bloodiest corporate take overs in history with the rise in the 1970’s of the Corleonese. Corleone, if you somehow missed the Godfather movies is a village about forty minutes by car from Palermo, and its sons are known as the most savage in LCN history. Led first by bloodthirsty boss Luciano Leggio who was succeeded by the even more brutal Toto’ Riina and then Bernardo “the Tractor” Provenzano (who was arrested suspiciously enough the day after Silvio Berlusconi lost the election in 2006 to Romano Prodi, he was arrested less than a mile from his home, the police had been looking, albeit not very hard, for him since he was tried and found guilty of murder in absentia in 1963). Great reading, these guys were nuts. In one chilling acount after another they left a trail of blood and guts from one end of Italy to the other. They murdered, in addition to at least three judges (prefects in translated legal lingo) in charge of prosecuting them, the president of the Sicilian region, the head of the Communist party,, the General prefect of Palermo, the deputy chief of police, and dozens of other assorted politicians, policemen, judges, prosecutors, bystanders, etc.
They made the their American cousins look like the Bowery Boys and I try and read everything published in English on the subject. Here’s are my findings:
Alexander Stille’s Excellent Cadavers: The Rise And Death Of The First Italian Republic (Vintage Books, 1995) is probably the best written and researched source in English (maybe in any language) on the rise of the Corleonesi. Centering on the 1992 assassinations of Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, the magistrates who were in charge of the famed “maxi-trial” (where 366 suspected mafia thugs were kept in a cage during the trial), the story follows the rise of Leggio, Riina, Michel Greco, and their ties to politicians at the very top of the Italian pasta chain, including then prime minister Giulio Andreotti (who would go on to be tried for ordering the murder of a journalist, and you think American politics is dirty?). The “Excellent Cadavers” of the title are the high profile victims of the Corleonesi, and their take over of the billion dollar heroin business from the traditional Palermo family bosses is jaw dropping reading. This book also inspired an excellent documentary and a terrible feature movie. Definitely the place to start.
Despite the rather bland title John Dickie’s Cosa Nostra: A History Of The Sicilian Mafia (Palgrave/MacMillan, 2005) is an excellent all around history of the Sicilian mob starting off in 1860 it documents the rise of it’s first real boss Antonino Giammona (who I’m pretty certain was either my great-grandfather’s father or uncle), its entry into political system, its importation into the U.S. then follows the story through the mob’s persecution under Mussolini and his “Iron Prefect” Cesare Mori, and it’s rehabilitation under the auspicious of the CIA. The story then documents the mob’s rebirth, and such golden memories as “the Sack Of Palermo” (the tearing down of beautiful historic buildings so the Mob could get the construction contracts to build the “mafia slums” that scar the landscape today), the take over of the international heroin trade, two bloody Mafia wars (’62-’69 and again with the Corleonesi takeover from 1970-82), the Michele Sindona affair in which the mafia laundered money through the Vatican bank (covered best in Nick Tosches’ classic Power On Earth, Arhbor House, 1986), the era of terror covered in more detail in Excellent Cadavers and the era of “Bombs and Submersion” that followed Toto Riina’s imprisonment and Provenzano’s more low keyed management style bring book up to date circa 2003 when it was published.
Octopus: The Long Reach Of The International Sicilian Mafia (W.W. Norton, 1990) by Claire Sterling was written before the pile of “excellent cadavers” grew into a small mountain, and before the Falcone and Borsellino murders but covers much ground not found in the above books. This one centers on the Corleonesi take over of the heroin trade, the cross fertilization with the American Bonnano family, the American 1985 “Pizza Connection” trials, the testimony of Palermo boss Tommaso Buscetta, the highest ranking Zip (as they’re known over here, because they talk so fast) to ever turn rat. Well researched, this is a fascinating look into the day to day mechanics of the heroin business on four continents.
Men Of Dishonor: Inside The Sicilian Mafia by Pino Arlacchi (William Morro, 1992) is translated from the Italian version by Marc Romano and follows the thirty year career of a mid-level mafiosi, one Don Antonino Calderone. This is a priceless look at the customs, mores, and day to day life of what turns out to be a rather shitty job. Being a Sicilian gangster just isn’t as much fun as it looks on TV. This volume is valuable as a documentary look at life inside a mob clan and quite a good read to boot.
The latest entry into the field Roberto Saviano’s Gomorrah (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007, translated from Italian) is probably the only book in English the covers La Cosa Nostra’s cousins to the north in Naples, the Camorra. Conventional wisdom tells us that La Cosa Nostra are Italy’s most powerful organized crime group and that their Mezzigiorno bretheran like Naples’ Camorra and Calabria’s ‘Ndrangheta are small time in comparison. Saviano’s book however turns conventional wisdom on its ear as he presents evidence that the Camorra are in reality today’s big time players. They are historically the older organization and are an international outfit with global reach that will make you shutter. Since Camorra history and lore is all new to me I can’t vouch for it factually but it’s a hell of a story, one of the best crime books I’ve ever read. It also inspired a fictional movie Gomorrah that was the hit of the recent New York Film Festival (although it doesn’t seem to have a U.S. distributor yet). The Camorra has been making some fun headlines in the European news of late with the women of the various families opening up on each other wild west style in public (it seems most of their men are doing time). I can’t recommend this one highly enough. I’ve added the trailer for the movie above.
Leonardo Sciascia’s The Moro Affair (New York Review Books Classics, 1978, reprinted 2004) covers one of Italy’s most intriguing cases. The 1978 kidnapping and murder of former Prime Minister Aldo Moro by the Brigate Rosse (Red Brigade), a left wing political action group. How does this case tie in with the Sicilian La Cosa Nostra? As Sciascia explains it they (the mafiosi) immediately made contact with Red Brigade members in prison and arranged for Moro’s release. However, as it turns out, the politicos, led by Christian Democrat Andreotti didn’t want Moro back, he knew too much and when the Brigate Rosse conveniently kidnapped him it presented to them the opportunity to silence a potentially dangerous voice. Sciacia does the detective work, and using the letters Moro sent to newspapers from his Red Brigade prison cell tells a chilling story of how Italian politics and the mob worked together to cover their bloody tracks, and how they forced the hand of the Brigate Rosse into a murder they really didn’t want or need to commit. Sciascia has also written many excellent novels concerning Sicilian crime , now translated into English courtesy of the New York Review of Books Classics series I’d say The Day Of The Owl, The Wine Dark Sea and Equal Danger are mandatory reading for fans of genre fiction. Or just plain old great books.
Although it covers much more than just organized crime, Tobia Jones’ The Dark Heart Of Italy (North Point, 2004) has excellent chapters on the Corlenesi rise, and other Italian crime stories (like Berlusconi’s inexplicable ability to avoid prison and get himself re-elected again and again). It’s extremely well written and a good all around look at modern Italian culture. His chapter on Lampadusa’s masterpiece The Leopard is the best anaylsis I’ve ever read on the subject.
The above photos were taken by Palermo born photo journalist Letizia Battaglia and are from her book Passion Justice Freedom: Photographs Of Sicily (Aperture, 1999). Battaglia uses her camera to document not just the mob murders but the entire spectrum of influence that La Cosa Nostra has on day to day life in Sicily, and her riveting images of the other victims, such as the women and children left behind, living in slums, mourning over the bodies of the fallen, sharing a meal with rats, are among the most compelling you will ever see. The photo of the mother of a missing mafia punk, holding a photo of her missing, beloved son (middle) is one of the most haunting things I’ve ever seen. Battaglia raises photo journalism to high art. Unfortunately, after many years of documenting La Cosa Nostra crimes and a brief stab at Palermo city politics she’s been forced to flea Sicily and currently works in Paris. The photos here (pardon my crappy scanner) are reproduced strictly for review purposes and give just a hint at her great talent. Buy the book and you’ll see what I mean.