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Favorite Adult Swim (Cartoon Network) animation plus this week’s birthdays.
InuYasha
It’s not much for character development and it repeats itself, but this Japanese adventure serial looks great, has some fun J-pop theme music, and taps into some profound quest tropes.
Venture Brothers
The most brilliant of the Adult Swim cartoon parodies. I wanna be Brock Samson when I grow up!
Frisky Dingo
One of the newest AS offerings (looks like the same team that gave us Sealab 2021 produces this) and a most amusing mutant/superhero parody.
12/24
Jabbo Smith – 1908
One of the greatest trumpeters in jazz history, overshadowed in his prime only by Louis Armstrong, as shown on Smith’s superlative 1929 recordings with his Rhythm Aces.
Lee Dorsey – 1924 (some sources say 1926)
The singer of such New Orleans classics as “Working in a Coalmine,” “Get Out of My Life Woman,” “Ride Your Pony,” “Ya Ya,” and more.
Lemmy – 1945
No sleep ‘til birthday cake.
12/25
Orlando Gibbons – 1583 (baptized)
One of the greatest English composers, equally remembered for sacred choral music, madrigals, and instrumental music (especially keyboard music), which is unusual for the period. His madrigal “The Silver Swan,” among the most beautiful songs in the English language, is enough by itself to ensure his musical immortality.
Alton Delmore – 1908
The main writer and (usually) lead singer of the Delmore Brothers, one of the great country duos – a huge influence on the artists who created rockabilly and rock ‘n’ roll. Merle Travis cited Alton as an influence, which is really saying something.
Chris Kenner – 1929
Another New Orleans icon, writer of “Land of 1000 Dances,” “I Like It Like That,” “Sick and Tired,” and “Something You Got.”
O’Kelly Isley – 1937
The oldest of the Isley Brothers, and co-author of “Shout,” “It’s Your Thing,” and other soul standards. His passing at just 48 years of age in 1985 was a great loss.
Don Pullen – 1941
One of my favorite jazz pianists, a player of great power whose trademark was a liberal scattering of glissandi. Although he was a dedicated avant-gardist, his strong grounding in the blues accessibly leavened his often-dissonant style. Many jazz fans know him from his two years in Charles Mingus’s band, but Pullen had already long established his personal style by then. All of his albums for Black Saint are both good (often excellent, especially Healing Force, Milano Strut, The Sixth Sense, and Evidence of Things Unseen) and in print (as imports); his Blue Note albums are more tuneful but less consistent from one to the other. Fortunately the four best – Breakthrough, New Beginnings, Song Everlasting, and Random Thoughts – are kept available in a Mosaic box set.
Shane McGowan – 1957
How f*cked up do you have to be to get kicked out of the Pogues? Well, I saw the documentary, and he always sounded like he was passed out even when he was talking. But Rum Sodomy and the Lash and If I Should Fall from Grace with God are pure genius, and his solo debut, 1995’s The Snake, is pretty amazing too.
12/26
Lars Ulrich – 1963
As the drummer of Metallica, Ulrich powered the rise of thrash metal.
12/27
Scotty Moore – 1931
The guitarist on Elvis Presley’s Sun Records sides, and thus one of the main architects of rock guitar as we know it.
Karla Bonoff – 1952
My soft (pun intended) spot for ‘70s singer-songwriters – I grew up on it, okay? I can’t help myself – is exposed once again. “Goodbye Old Friend” (about her dog going missing) makes me cry every time.
12/28
Earl “Fatha” Hines – 1905
One of the seven greatest pianists in jazz history. (James P. Johnson, Art Tatum, Thelonious Monk, Bud Powell, McCoy Tyner, and Cecil Taylor, since you’re wondering.) He was so innovative that it took most of jazz two decades to catch up. In his sixties he played with Richard Davis and Elvin Jones and they were the ones who had to keep up.
Roebuck “Pops” Staples – 1915
The man grew up listening to Charley Patton – in person. Little wonder that when it came to soul, he and his offspring had it in abundance, as anyone who’s ever heard the Staples Singers’ “Heavy Makes You Happy (Sha-Na-Boom Boom)” and “I’ll Take You There,” or his first two solo albums (from 1992 and ‘94), can attest. He was one fine guitarist, whether playing gospel or soul or blues.
Johnny Otis (John Veliotes) – 1921
Nowadays he’s thought of as Shuggie Otis’s father, but as one of the great R&B bandleaders/entrepreneurs, he was much more than that. First he was a respected and much-used drummer; then, a bandleader who backed many of the greats and soon was launching others to greatness, including Esther Phillips, Big Mama Thornton, Etta James, Jackie Wilson, Hank Ballard, and Little Willie John. Though he had so many talented singers in his band (more like a revue) that he hardly ever was in the spotlight himself, he had a huge hit singing “Willie and the Hand Jive.” He also started a label, hosted a variety show, and produced the records that shot Shuggie to fame. He’s even had a health food chain in California. What will he do next?
Dorsey Burnette – 1932
Burnette was one of the best rockabilly artists ever yet somehow never achieved the success his talents merited. With Johnny Burnette & the Rock ‘n’ Roll Trio (Johnny being his younger brother), he recorded the great “Train Kept A-Rollin’” but (hard to believe) didn’t get a hit out of one of the hottest slabs of rock ever recorded. Dorsey took his songwriting talents to Ricky Nelson, and then others, but though he wrote hits, he never had any himself. Nowadays he’s remembered for “Train Kept A-Rollin’” and for being the original rock ‘n’ roll badass.
Alex Chilton – 1950
From the Boxtops to Big Star to his solo work, he always has shown a talent for paradoxically melding the complex and the simple in a whole greater than the sum of its parts.
12/29
Marianne Faithfull – 1946
I probably shouldn’t be admitting this, but Faithfull is the only artist I’ve tried to get an interview with specifically to try to have sex with her. (I didn’t get the interview and thus didn’t get the chance to embarrass myself.) Even in her fifties I found her devastatingly alluring – if anything, sexier than thirty years before when she was sleeping with Mick Jagger, because in the interim she’d added vastly to her artistic accomplishments. Broken English (1979) started an astonishing run of artistic triumphs that took full advantage of how drastically her voice had weathered (weathered? The forecast must’ve been for drugs, cigarettes, and general debauchery) since her early days as a high-voiced starlet. When she added Kurt Weill’s works to her repertoire, I was further smitten. On a more serious note, she has recently battled breast cancer, with success; I wish her all the luck in the world because, selfishly, I want to hear more music from her.
12/30
Bo Diddley – 1938
How much more immortal can you get than to have a beat named after you?
John Hartford – 1937
A country and bluegrass master, he also wrote “Gentle on My Mind,” which became a hit for Glen Campbell.
Del Shannon (Charles Weedon Westover) – 1939
The #1 hit “Runaway” will forever be a classic; Shannon also claimed a bit of trivia fame when he covered “From Me to You,” making him the first American artist to record a Beatles song.
Robert Quine – 1942
When I had the good fortune to interview Quine in the early ‘90s for Creem, he rhapsodized over Pete Cosey’s playing with Miles Davis. Years earlier, Lester Bangs wrote of Quine similarly proselytizing for Otis Rush’s Cobra recordings. It’s influences like those that made him so unique. His angular playing with Richard Hell & the Voidoids on Blank Generation and the underrated Destiny Street offered a late-’70s alternative to the usual punk guitar styles, and his tenure with Lou Reed helped make The Blue Mask, Legendary Hearts, and Live in Italy highlights of his hero’s career (Quine was a Velvet Underground fanatic whose live tapings of the band were eventually issued as a three-CD set). Quine’s 1984 outing as a leader, Basic, and his duo album with Jody Harris, Escape, deserve reissue.
Michael Nesmith – 1942 and Davey Jones – 1945
Yup, half the Monkees had the same birthday.
Jeff Lynne – 1947
Leading Electric Light Orchestra, he wrote, arranged, sang, and produced some of my favorite songs of the 1970s, my favorite being “Sweet Is the Night,” which I’ve always thought of as something Springsteen could’ve written if he’d grown up English and loving classical music.
