Do You Believe in Magic?

The word “magic,” in its adjectival form—the form used in most popular music—means to make or produce “as if by magic,” that is, to have the conjuring power of a magus, that is, a magician. For instance, you know of Madame Rue, that gypsy with the gold-capped tooth, the one who’s got the pad down on Thirty-Fourth and Vine—she uses magic, and she is a (female) magus. In “Love Potion No. 9,” for instance, the singer tells us, “She [Madame Rue] looked at my palm and she made a magic sign/She said, ‘What you need is Love Potion No. 9’.” Too bad: the singer ended up kissing a cop down on Thirty-Fourth and Vine. Such is the power of magic.

The word magic is derived from the Middle English magik, from Old French magique, from Late Latin magica, from Latin magicē, from Greek magikē, from feminine of magikos, of the Magi, magical, from magos, magician, magus. And magus, of course, is the root of the word “magician.” In popular music, magic is mystery (and fear), magic is enchantment, magic is power, magic is a drug-induced hallucination (and the accompanying trip), magic is the ecstasis of erotic fulfillment. Aleister Crowley referred to the orgasm as “sex magick,” perhaps an intentional conflation of the categories of erotic and spiritual love. Popular musicians frequently confuse the erotic and the spiritual, revealing that as a culture we seek in profane love what we can only get from religious belief. To confirm these various uses, seek out and listen to the following songs:

America, “You Can Do Magic” The Complete Greatest Hits
Badfinger, Magic Christian Music (album, 1970)
The Beatles, “Magical Mystery Tour” Magical Mystery Tour (album, 1967)
The Cars, “Magic” Heartbeat City
Nick Drake, “Magic” Made to Love Magic
The Drifters, “This Magic Moment” All-Time Greatest Hits
Electric Light Orchestra, “Strange Magic” Face the Music
Fleetwood Mac, “Black Magic Woman” English Rose
Heart, “Magic Man” Dreamboat Annie
The Lovin’ Spoonful, “Do You Believe in Magic” Do You Believe in Magic
Ennio Morricone, “Magic and Ecstasy” Exorcist II: The Heretic (soundtrack)
Van Morrison, “Magic Time” Magic Time
Pilot, “Magic” Anthology
The Police, “Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic” Ghost in the Machine
Frank Sinatra, “That Old Black Magic” Come Swing With Me!
Snakefinger, “Magic and Ecstasy” (Morricone cover) Chewing Hides the Sound
Steppenwolf, “Magic Carpet Ride” Steppenwolf the Second
Tyrannosaurus Rex, “By the Light of the Magical Moon” Beard of Stars
The Who, “Magic Bus” Magic Bus

Forrest J. Ackerman, 1916-2008

This morning’s Los Angeles Times bore the news that Forrest J. Ackerman, the writer-editor who influenced a generation of horror movie fans with Famous Monsters of Filmland, who coined the term “sci-fi” (a pejorative term despised by fans of science fiction, incidentally), and who spent much of his life assembling a collection of SF and fantasy memorabilia, died Thursday night at age 92. Somehow I find it remarkable to observe that even if one were never to have read Famous Monsters, even if one were not aware of his name or precisely sure why he was held in such esteem by horror movie fans, Forrest J. Ackerman influenced the way an entire generation—my generation—consumed movies. He did for horror movie actors what fan magazines such as Photoplay, Silver Screen, Motion Picture World and others did for mainstream Hollywood actors: he transformed them into “stars.” Somehow, therefore, it is appropriate that he was born in 1916, the year Motion Picture Classic—not the first but among the first of the Hollywood fan magazines—began publication. It was also the year the United States—or rather “Hollywood”—became one of the top leading motion picture producers in the world, by which time the name “Hollywood” had become a synonym for the American filmmaking industry around the world.

My own close encounter with Forrest J. Ackerman occurred at a convention in 1991. The meeting was brief and unremarkable, and as I recall somewhat awkward. Seeing him standing alone amid a crowd, I introduced myself to him and offered him my hand, saying something banal regarding how it was a pleasure to meet him, finally, and as I did so someone standing behind me caught his eye—author David J. Schow, I believe, someone he already knew and most certainly a person much more famous than I was or ever shall be—a conversation ensued, and I quietly slunk away, realizing at the time that that moment was the first and last time I will have met Forrest J. Ackerman. Some years later my friend David Del Valle drove me past the Ackermansion in the Los Feliz neighborhood of Los Angeles (prior to it being sold); those two moments are my sole connection to Forrest J. Ackerman, except of course for reading Famous Monsters when I was kid at the newsstand at the local drug store. I don't recall every purchasing a copy of Famous Monsters, primarily because I had a cousin who did, so I saved my money for other important items (I was one of those kids who purchased Classics Illustrated and such).

So he is no more. While my connection to him is slight, I nonetheless acknowledge his influence, both on my imagination and in the way I, even now, consume movies. The L. A. Times obituary can be found here.

Odds Are 4 In 100

On two occasions last month I posted blog entries concerning the latest call for proposals for books in Continuum’s 33 & 1/3 series examining classic albums of the rock era. A few weeks ago, the editor of the 33 & 1/3 series, David Barker, posted on his blog a list of the first ten proposals he’d received so far. Since that time, he’s received forty more proposals; I’ve re-posted the complete list below. Mr. Barker insists that those interested in writing a book for the series should not be discouraged if one of the artists on the list below is the subject of the proposal they are currently working on. The first ten artists listed below I posted earlier; proposals received since that earlier post are listed after the lacuna. Last time Continuum announced a call for proposals, 450 proposals were submitted, with about 20 of those being accepted (that is, roughly 4%). Assuming that figure still holds (and I assume it will), then only 2-3 of the proposals listed below have a chance for being accepted for publication. Your odds are hence about 4 in 100 (in other words, don't bet your life on being accepted).

Have I submitted my proposal yet? Not yet, but I’m getting close. And no, the artist whose album I’m writing about is not on the list—not so far. For those interested in submitting a proposal, you have slightly over three weeks left to do so. Redundant artists in the list below include Yo La Tengo and David Bowie (Low is already a title in the series, so these latest proposals are for yet another album(s) by him). I am pleased to see proposals for books on Devo, King Crimson, John Cale, and Van Morrison show up; there are not a whole lot of proposals on girl singers yet, but I'm sure that will change. In any case, I wish us all the best of luck.

The Fall
The Jam
Danzig
Van Halen
The Zombies
Against Me!
Run-D.M.C.
Jefferson Airplane
Mary Margaret O'Hara
Yo La Tengo

Wilco
Melvins
Low
Various Artists
Smashing Pumpkins
Wilco
Herb Alpert
De La Soul
David Thomas and Two Pale Boys
King Crimson
John Cale
Allman Brothers Band
Metallica
Songs Ohia
Iron Maiden
Yes
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
George Harrison
Van Morrison
The Rolling Stones
Devo
Paul Westerberg
The Cars
Incredible String Band
David Bowie
Cat Stevens
New Order
The Electric Prunes
Ol' Dirty Bastard
Beck
Sigur Ros
Red House Painters
Genesis
Big Black
Lou Reed
Yo La Tengo
David Bowie
Britney Spears
The White Stripes
Robert Calvert

Rock Candy

It has been observed many times by many music critics that the most successful popular music always has been sentimental. For an illustration of this insight, one need look no further than the Beatles. As Simon Frith observed (“Towards An Aesthetic of Popular Music”):

Twentieth-century popular music has, on the whole, been a nostalgic form. The Beatles, for example, made nostalgic music from the start, which is why they were so popular. Even on hearing a Beatles song for the first time there was a sense of the memories to come, a feeling that this could not last but that it was surely going to be pleasant to remember. (142)

I thought of Frith’s insight while driving to the store today, when I happened to hear on the radio Edison Lighthouse’s 1970 one-hit wonder, “Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes)” (to hear, go here). Subsequently, I thought of the fundamental opposition between so-called “hard” rock and “soft” rock. The structural oppositions of hard and soft, of course, are designations of an underlying aesthetic distinguishing two distinct kinds of musical taste. While the sexual innuendo inherent in these designations can scarcely be denied, more importantly, each form comprises an aesthetic suggesting certain values. There are those who like their rock hard--that is, loud, and, by implication, their whiskey straight and their meat rare. In contrast, those who like their rock soft prefer the volume low, fish or chicken to beef, beer to bourbon, and are highly likely to be girls, pansies, or pussies (from the perspective of those who like hard rock). Thus their oppositional tastes are structured around the following sets of oppositions, and these structural oppositions determine virtually all discourse on popular music today:

Rock/Pop:
Hard/Soft
Raw/Cooked
Masculine/Feminine
Guitars/Keyboards (and Strings)
Tough/Effete
Straight/Gay
Authentic/Artificial
Feeling/Intellect
America/Europe

Blue Yodel (#2)

Slightly over a week ago, I posted a blog entry on the yodel, followed by a second entry on the so-called “blue yodel.” At the time I posted the first entry, I fully realized that the issue regarding the relationship between the American cultural origins of the yodel and its subsequent use in popular music demanded more extensive treatment than what I was giving it, although the insights were quite valid, if also quite general. In the second, follow-up post, a short entry containing a link to an article exploring the possible origins of the blue yodel, I mentioned the importance of Jimmie Rodgers, the Singing Brakeman. However, in that second post, I neglected to mention the rather significant figure of Emmett Miller (1900-1962), a former minstrel show performer—a white man who performed in blackface—and recording artist about whose life little is known except what has been excavated by certain dedicated music historians, among them, most especially, Nick Tosches. As Tosches points out in his fascinating and well-researched exploration into the life (or rather, what little is known of his life) and times of Emmett Miller, titled Where Dead Voices Gather (Little, Brown and Co., 2001), Miller’s musical career is, sadly, largely undocumented, primarily because the portable recording equipment that could have captured his act in the late Teens and early Twenties didn’t yet exist (he did make several recordings in the late 1920s, however, backed by the Georgia Crackers). And while there is no hard evidence establishing the influence of Emmett Miller on Jimmie Rodgers, at the very least there is one of convergence, as both were drawing on a tradition of which both appeared to be quite knowledgeable. Tosches observes, “Were it not for the black sources from which Rodgers [and Emmett Miller] drew, there would have been no substance through which to wreak the rare brilliance of his style.” (97)

About the relationship between Miller and Rodgers, Tosches writes:

. . . it is with . . . [Emmett Miller’s] Miami engagement of July 1926, that the phrase “yodeling blues” does indeed appear to be for the first time applied to a style, an inflection, of singing: the style and inflection of singing that Emmett Miller had given voice to since at least the earliest recorded evidence of it, in 1924, and, as fully developed as that earliest evidence is, almost certainly for some years predating that evidence. That style, that inflection—that wild rushing flight of swarming inflections—eludes and defies any other more accurate single word. And yet it cried for a name. For while powers need no names, nothing can be sold without a name.

Thus, sometime between the spring and summer of 1926, either from wile and wit within or bestowed, or raised from the common, spreading descriptive of the fleeting masses of his fleeting fame, Emmett Miller became the Famous Yodeling Blues Singer. (70-71)

As is well known, Rodgers’s first recording session for Victor took place on 4 August 1927, although this session contained nothing close to his famous blue yodeling style. Indeed, his first blue yodel recording, “Blue Yodel No. 1 (T For Texas),” did not take place until 30 November 1927, which, as Tosches points out, was sixteen months after Miller had been labeled “the Famous Yodeling Blues Singer.”

Tosches:

It is irrefutable that, as Jerry Lee Lewis said, again and again, Jimmie Rodgers was, essentially and above all, a stylist. There were, as Jerry Lee saw it, only four stylists that ever mattered a damn: Jimmie Rodgers, Al Jolson, Hank Williams, and himself. Of these four, only Williams was a songwriter of significance; and, even in his case, his biggest success, far from being an original composition, was a version of Emmett Miller’s rendition of “Lovesick Blues.” (97)

About Jimmie Rodgers’s vocal style, Michael Jarrett has written:

Rodgers’s style frequently seems an imitation, a simplification, of Miller’s. Which is not to declare Rodgers a pretender. (Installing Miller as an original is equally problematic, given his now obscure but equally certain “borrowings.” ) It’s to emphasize a key point about the blue yodel: This device, critical to distinguishing white country music from black blues, arrives already vexed. To whom should Bob Wills, Hank Williams, and Merle Haggard pay tribute? (230)

For those interested, footage of Emmett Miller performing in blackface has been posted on youtube.com; footage of Jimmie Rodgers performing “T For Texas” has also been posted on youtube.com as well.

Readings:
Nick Tosches, Where Dead Voices Gather. Little, Brown and Co., 2001.
Charles Wolfe, Liner notes to Emmett Miller: The Minstrel Man From Georgia. Columbia/Legacy, 1996. Reissued 2001.

The Family Moth Head Confesses

Previously, in my entries of May 16, May 31, July 1, July 22, August 18, September 8, and October 8, I have discussed at length my experiment of trying to listen to all the rock and R&B albums released in the calendar year 1968 in the order in which they were released. Please refer to these earlier blog entries for the explanation for such an unusual project (and all many pitfalls). Listed below is the December 1968 listening schedule, for anyone wishing to duplicate my experiment. I’ve reiterated many times that I cannot claim my list is infallible, but I continue to work to improve it. If you look back over the previous postings, you'll notice that I have continued to add to, and revise, them once I've received new or updated information. Here's the list I have assembled for December 1968, as well as a list of albums I refer to as "the remainder," those albums for which I could not determine a month of release. Hopefully that list will be diminished as I continue to work on this project.

13th Floor Elevators, Bull of the Woods
The Animals, Love Is
Blood, Sweat & Tears, Blood, Sweat & Tears
Al Kooper and Mike Bloomfield, [The Lost Concert Tapes] 12/13/68 [2003]
The Monkees, Head
The Neon Philharmonic, The Moth Confesses
Harry Nilsson, Skidoo
The Pretty Things, S. F. Sorrow
The Rolling Stones, [Rock and Roll Circus] 12/11/68 [VHS 1996; DVD 2004]
The Rolling Stones, Beggars Banquet
Tom Rush, The Circle Game
Santana, [Live at the Fillmore] 12/19-22 [1997]
The Soft Machine, The Soft Machine
Spirit, The Family That Plays Together
James Taylor, James Taylor
Stevie Wonder, For Once in My Life
Neil Young, Neil Young

The Remainder:
American Blues, American Blues Is Here
Aphrodite’s Child, Aphrodite’s Child
Aphrodite’s Child, Rain & Tears
Asylum Choir, Look Inside
Arthur Brown, The Crazy World of Arthur Brown
Can, [Delay 1968]
The Fraternity of Man, The Fraternity of Man
The Great Society, Conspicuous Only in its Absence
Richard Harris, A Tramp Shining
The Idle Race, The Birthday Party
Albert King, Live Wire/Blues Power
Melanie, Born to Be
The Millennium, Begin
The Moving Sidewalks, Flash
The Pacific Gas & Electric Blues Band, Get It On
Pearls Before Swine, Balaklava
Shocking Blue, Beat With Us
Silver Apples, Silver Apples
Steppenwolf, Steppenwolf The Second
The Sundowners, Captain Nemo
The Troggs, Mixed Bag

X The Unknown

X is typically used as the variable (the unknown quantity) in algebraic equations. According to this post by Dr. Ali Khounsary of the Argonne National Laboratory in Argonne, Illinois, one possible reason why the letter X is used to denote the unknown factor in algebraic equations dates back to the origins of algebra itself in Arabic civilization. Dr. Khounsary writes:

Algebra has its roots in the Middle East where sciences including mathematics and astronomy flourished in the Islamic world in the 700-1450 period. Muhammad al-Khwarizmi (780­-850) was one of the major mathematicians of his time and the author of a number of influential books. One of his major books is on arithmetic and another on algebra. In fact, it is his transmuted name ‘algorithm’ which we now use to refer to the step-by-step procedures for solving a problem. His algebra book is titled Kitab al-jabr wal-muqabala which translates to “the book of calculation by completion and reduction.” The Arabic word “al-jabr” is the origin of the word “algebra” which describes the process of moving terms from one side of an algebraic equation to the other to find the value of an unknown. . . .

In algebraic equations, one solves equations to obtain the value(s) of one or more unknown(s). The word for “thing” or “object” (presumably unknown thing or object) in Arabic—which was the principal language of sciences during the Islamic civilization—is “shei” which was translated into Green as xei, and shortened to x, and is considered by some to be the reason for using x. It is also noteworthy that “xenos” is the Greek word for unknown, stranger, guest, or foreigner, and that might explain the reasons Europeans used the letter x to denote the “unknown” in algebraic equations.

Xenos, of course, is the root of the word xenophobia: the fear of foreigners or strangers. Interestingly, as it happened, the call letters of all Mexican radio stations—also referred to as “border radio”—begin with an X. The first Mexican radio station, located in Reynosa, started broadcasting in 1930, with the call letters XED, possibly a pun on “crossed [Xed] out,” a reference to the marginalized and dispossessed. Only one major company uses X in its name—Xerox—and very few bands have used X in the group’s proper name—X-ray Spex (a play on "X-ray Specs," ads for which used to appear in comic books, pictured), the L. A. punk band X, and XTC come to mind—and very few albums and songs have used X in the title. One should perhaps remember that X is also an abbreviation for Christ, as in “Xmas,” and that once John Lennon named an album Shaved Fish, perhaps a play on ICTHUS, the Greek word for “fish”—ICTHUS being an acrostic referring to Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

Some Albums:
Electric Light Orchestra, Xanadu
David Lindley, El Rayo-X
Iron Maiden, The X Factor
Olivia Newton-John, Xanadu
Def Leppard, X
Mushroomhead, XX
Toto, XX (1977-97)
ZZ Top, XXX

Some Songs:
Blondie, “X Offender”
Coldplay, “X & Y”
John Lennon, “Happy Xmas (War Is Over)”
Mushroomhead, “Xeroxed”
Olivia Newton-John, “Xanadu”
Rush, “Xanadu”
System Of A Down, “X”
U2, “Xanax and Wine”
Frank Zappa, “Project X”
ZZ Top, “Heard It On The X”

Fiber Y

According to an article that can be found in the Time magazine on-line archives, the synthetic fabric Qiana (“kee-ah-nah”)—the name the result of a computer generating random combinations of letters—was introduced by Du Pont Laboratories in June 1968. Apparently the fabric took twenty years to develop. Thus research on the fabric that was eventually named Qiana—a light-weight, nylon-like fabric intended to be a simulacrum of silk—dates back to the years that comprised the collapse of Swing music in post-World War II America (in 1948, Du Pont's nylon was then a decade old). The Time magazine article, dated 5 July 1968, also contains the following information:

Boasting qualities that are superior to the most luxurious silk fabrics, Qiana gives all the appearance of silk. . . . It took 20 years and $75 million to develop (compared with $27 million for nylon). Thus it was no wonder that the security at Du Pont’s Chattanooga, Tenn., pilot plant took on Pentagon proportions. To the trade, it was known simply as “Fiber Y.” Even at the press preview, Du Pont took no chances of leaking the process before it hits the market at year’s end. Six models wearing Qiana garments were escorted by armed guards to prevent any overanxious competitor from the common practice of snipping a sample swatch. The versatile new fabric, which sells for about $5 to $8 per pound (versus $9.30 for silk), will be found initially only in women’s fine apparel, but eventually will be used in all types of clothing. For Du Pont . . . costly Qiana is not expected to mean an overnight boom.

Indeed, clothing made of Qiana was not “an overnight boom,” just as the Time article predicted—it took a few years. But . . . when Qiana caught on, a few years later, it had become the disco fabric of choice. Qiana is to 1970s disco music what flannel is to grunge, what the tie-died cotton shirt is to Sixties psychedelic rock. In Saturday Night Fever (1977)—the film that is to the disco era what Woodstock is to the 1960s—whenever Tony Manero (John Travolta), a member of the vast working class of America used to the sweat that comes from hard labor, took to the discotheque dance floor, he wore a cool, light-weight, faux-silk Qiana shirt.

Eventually, though, this synthetic fabric became an emblem of the tawdry artifice that many saw in disco music (a form of urban pop). Subsequently, as disco music fell from favor, so too did Qiana. Clothing made of Qiana, inexpensive but trendy, became the style of clothing that for many represented the plasticity (artifice) of disco music. Conversely, by the late 1980s—by which time Qiana shirts numbering in the scores could be found in Goodwill stores throughout the United States—flannel came to represent the putative working-class “authenticity” of grunge. Thus it happened that Du Pont’s Qiana gave way to L. L. Bean.

Blue Yodel

An update on my post from yesterday titled “Yodel”: Bent Sørensen (find the link to his blog on the right) kindly shared the URL for a short blog entry he wrote a few weeks back on his Tumblr, Ordinary Finds, about Jimmie Rodgers, which in turn contains a link to an article titled “America’s Blue Yodel” on the possible black origins of Jimmie Rodgers’ “blue yodel.” The serendipity of our both posting on Jimmie Rodgers within a short period of time suggests another remarkable way in which our interests overlap; as usual I thank Bent very much for sharing this fascinating piece of information.

Strictly Commercial?

Earlier this month I posted a blog entry on Continuum’s 33 & 1/3 series of books examining classic albums of the rock era. A couple of weeks ago, the editor of the 33 & 1/3 series, David Barker, posted a list of the first ten proposals he’s received so far for new books in the series, none of which—so he avers—he’s yet read. While it is a little too early yet to get any real sense of the range of groups and albums that will be submitted, my own view, for what it’s worth, is that it is a little too early yet in the series’ publishing history to give up on albums of the classic rock era. As Mr. Barker has made clear, Continuum is looking to sell books, and I have no problem with this policy as long as it doesn’t prevent albums that have proved their durability through time from being neglected for the sake of potential book sales. Case in point: Nirvana’s Nevermind (1991) sold six million copies in its first six months, but sold fewer than two million in the next twelve years. The question is whether the commercial success of an album (at least in its first year) qualifies it for consideration as a "classic" album. I suppose he would say that he might be convinced if the proposal were good enough. At any rate, the proposals he’s received so far are for books on albums by:

The Fall
The Jam
Danzig
Van Halen
The Zombies
Against Me!
Run-D.M.C.
Jefferson Airplane
Mary Margaret O’Hara
Yo La Tengo

In my earlier entry I stated that an album ripe for discussion would be The Zombies’ Odessey & Oracle, and while I have no idea if the book proposal is for this album specifically, I strongly suspect it is. I would welcome a book on that album, and depending upon the particular album, the books on The Jam, Van Halen, and Jefferson Airplane interest me, while the other groups on the list only marginally so.

On a different note, Mr. Barker posted a fascinating excerpt from the forthcoming 33 & 1/3 book by Bruce Eaton on Big Star’s Radio City, another installment in the 33 & 1/3 series that I look forward to reading (click on the above link to Mr. Barker's blog to read the excerpt). I have not yet submitted my book proposal to Mr. Barker, but I hope to do so by December 1, well before the deadline of December 31st. The last time such a call for proposals was posted, I think the proposals numbered around 400, with about 20 of those being accepted for publication. As I mentioned earlier, my proposal on Wall of Voodoo’s Call of the West was rejected, but I intend to submit another proposal this time as well.

Yodel

According to the OED, the English word “yodel” is derived from the German jodeln, meaning, “to sing or warble with interchange of the ordinary and falsetto voice, in the manner of Swiss and Tyrolese mountaineers.” But while strongly associated with these mountaineers, the yodel is a form of singing known throughout the world. According to Bart Plantenga, author of Yodel-Ay-Ee-Oooo: The Secret History of Yodeling Around the World, “the law of yodeling” is written in the epiglottis, an elastic band of cartilage located at the root of the tongue that folds over the glottis (trachea) in order to prevent food and liquid from entering the trachea during the act of swallowing (13). Initially a form of singing confined to the mountains of Kentucky—that is, a feature of “hillbilly” music—eventually the yodel helped to define “western,” as in “country western,” music. According to Michael Jarrett, it was Jimmie Rodgers’ “Yodeling Cowboy,” recorded on 22 October 1929, that designated the “shift in the connotations that would eventually redefine country music as mythically “western,” not “hillbilly” (182). And while you practice your yodel, you might want to wear a Nudie suit while listening, first, to Jimmie Rodgers’ “Blue Yodel” series of recordings. A-DEE-oh-lay-EE-tee.

Reading:
Bart Plantenga, Yodel-Ay-Ee-Oooo: The Secret History of Yodeling Around the World (Routledge, 2003)

A Good Yodeler Is Hard To Find, But Here Are Some Essential Recordings:
Eddy Arnold, “Cattle Call” The Essential Eddy Arnold (RCA)
Focus, “Hocus Pocus” Moving Waves (Capitol)
Merle Haggard, “Blue Yodel No. 4 (California Blues)” Same Train, A Different Time: Merle Haggard Sings the Great Songs of Jimme Rodgers (Koch)
Dr. Hook & the Medicine Show, “The Yodel Song” Alive in America (Renaissance)
Emmett Miller, “Lovesick Blues” The Minstrel Man From Georgia (Columbia/Legacy)
Jimmie Rodgers, The Essential Jimmie Rodgers (RCA)
Roy Rogers, “The Devil’s Great Grandson” The King of the Cowboys (Living Era)
Sly and the Family Stone, “Spaced Cowboy” There’s a Riot Going On (Epic)
Don Walser, Rolling Stone From Texas (Watermelon)
Slim Whitman, Greatest Hits (Curb)
Hank Williams, 40 Greatest Hits (Polydor)
Various Artists, American Yodeling, 1911—1946 (Living Era)
Various Artists, Cattle Call, Early Cowboy Music and Its Roots (Rounder)
Various Artists, The Ultimate Yodelling Collection (Castle/Pulse)

The Watusi

The name of the early Sixties popular dance called the “watusi” is obviously African (for instructions on how to dance it, go here), and while there was a film released in 1959 titled Watusi (a remake of King Solomon’s Mines [1950]), the name was widely popularized in America in 1962. In June 1962, a United Nations General Assembly resolution terminated the Belgian trusteeship of Rwanda (then spelled Ruanda), and granted full independence both to Rwanda and Burundi effective 1 July, 1962, to be governed by Tutsi (Batutsi) leadership. Hearing the name in early 1962 and liking the sound of it, Kal Mann, a songwriter at Cameo-Parkway Records, subsequently wrote “The Wah-Watusi,” eventually recorded by The Orlons, a vocal quartet from Philadelphia. “The Wah-Watusi” debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart on 9 June 1962 and remained on the Hot 100 chart for over three months. That same year, Chris Kenner recorded perhaps his most famous hit, “Land of 1000 Dances,” containing the lyric, “Do the watusi like my little Lucy.” “Land of 1000 Dances” was later covered by Cannibal & the Headhunters (1965), Wilson Pickett (1966), and Patti Smith (1975). Wilson Pickett’s version is perhaps the most well-known of the many versions of the song recorded over the years.

And while the dance known as the watusi sustained its popularity at least through 1962, the next year Puerto Rico jazz musician Ray Barretto’s recording titled “El Watusi” debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart on 27 April 1963 (in other words, about a year after “The Wah-Watusi”) and remained on the Hot 100 chart for over two months. Apparently filmmaker Martin Scorsese was a fan of “El Watusi,” as he included it on the soundtrack to his film Who’s That Knocking at My Door (1967). Later, Brian De Palma used Barretto’s “El Watusi” in Carlito’s Way (1993). Meanwhile, the watusi—although by then the dance craze had long faded away—appears in the Sidney Poitier-starring film The Slender Thread (released December 1965), and two years later, having transformed into a signifier no longer referring simply to a form of benign dance, but to the possibility of miscengenation, the watusi is invoked in another Sidney Poitier-starring film, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner? (1967), in which Poitier tells Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn, “You folks dance the watusi; we are the watusi.”

Suggested Reading:
Garza, Oscar. 2005. “Land of a Thousand Dances: An R&B Fable.” Popular Music 24.3: 429-437.

Recordings:
Chris Kenner, “Land of 1000 Dances” Land of 1000 Dances (Collector’s Choice)
Cannibal & the Headhunters, “Land of 1000 Dances” Land of 1000 Dances: The Complete Rampart Recordings (Varese Fontana)
Wilson Pickett, “Land of 1000 Dances” Wilson Pickett’s Greatest Hits (Atlantic/WEA)
Patti Smith, “Land” Horses (Arista)
Mud Boy & the Neutrons, “Land of 1000 Shotguns (Part 2)” They Walk Among Us (Koch)
The Orlons, “The Wah-Watusi” The Best of the Orlons Cameo Parkway 1961-1966 (Abkco)
The Ventures, “The Wah-Watusi” Mashed Potatoes and Gravy/Going to the Ventures Dance Party (One Way)