January 2020 - Page 5 of 7 - Ramblin' with Roger

Century of Pop Music: 1900-1999

When You Were Sweet Sixteen

When I left my job in June 2019, I packed up some books I owned that I had kept in my office. One was Joel Whitburn Presents A Century of Pop Music. It is a “Year-by-Year Top 40 Rankings of the Songs & Artists that Shaped a Century.”

The book was “compiled from America’s Popular Music Charts, Surveys and Records Listings 1900-1939 and Billboard’s Top Pop Singles Charts, 1940-1999.” For each year except 1900, it lists the forty top-ranked songs. There were only thirty that first year.

Those early rankings were complicated, drawing data from The Talking Machine World periodical, record label publications, and books by David Ewen, Jim Walsh, Roger Kinkle, and Joseph Murrells.

The hits of 1900-1909 included male quartets, parlor ballads, minstrels songs, ragtime, comedy, and brass bands. George M. Cohen and Billy Murray were particularly popular.

The next section lists all of the artists. What I like is that it combines information I had in other books covering shorter time spans. For instance, Frank Sinatra had 17 Top Ten records from 1943’s You’ll Never Know (#2) to Something Stupid, with his daughter Nancy, #1 for four weeks in 1967.

The list of songs includes every version to hit the Top 10. For instance, for Alexander’s Ragtime Band, the version by Arthur Collins and Byron Harlan hit #1 in 1911. Billy Murray’s version’s got to #2 the same year. That sort of thing happened a lot in the first half-century.

The Prince’s Orchestra version went to #3 (1912) and the Victory Military Band to #4 (1912). Bing Crosby and Connie Boswell returned the song to #1 for two weeks (1938).

As far as I can tell, the book is out of print. You can find a used copy on Amazon for as little as $12.74 from a vendor.

The #1 hits of 1900

When You Were Sweet Sixteen – George J. Gaskin. I couldn’t find Gaskin’s version, but here’s a take by Harry Macdonough (1901). Listen to Gaskin singing After the Ball (1893), The Irish tenor was “one of the first vocalists to make a recording with Edison Records.”

Ma Tiger Lily- Arthur Collins. The recordings I found all refer to February 1901. Most of them are indecipherable. This is the best. Not incidentally, the lyrics are quite racist. Collins had 64 top Ten songs by 1918.

A Bird in a Gilded Cage – Steve Porter – here or here.

Mandy Lee – Arthur Collins The recordings I foundhere and here sound far too pristine

When You Were Sweet Sixteen – Jere Mahoney; couldn’t find.
A Bird in a Gilded Cage – Jere Mahoney

Ma Tiger Lily- Len Spencer. The audio I found was particularly awful.
Because – Haydn Quartet, 33 Top Ten hits through 1913, but I couldn’t find this.

When Cloe Sings a Song – George J. Gaskin. This is a much later version, with black patois and a word not acceptable these days.

Raymond Cone: biological grandfather

Agatha (1902-1964) was my paternal grandmother.

Raymond Cone.family tree In checking my Ancestry DNA results, I noticed that there were ten people in the database that could be my first or second cousins. One was a Yates (my mother’s mom’s people), two were Scanks (mom’s dad’s people), and three were Walker (dad’s mom’s people). But who were the other four?

As it turned out they all had two people in common in their family trees. Carl Lorenzo Cone (1915 -1992) and his father Raymond Cornelius Cone (1888-1947). It has long been our family secret that my father was born out of wedlock. The stories were sketchy and apocryphal, though. It involved a minister. There was a scandal.

My friend Melanie found this article in the Binghamton Evening Press dated Saturday, January 8, 1927, page 3. “Negro pastor Exonerated of Girl’s Charges.” This alleged event took place on January 6, 1926 at his home, 147 Susquehanna Street in Binghamton and resulted in the birth of a male baby on September 26, 1926.

The first newspaper story was on Tuesday, September 28, 1926 Press on page 1. “Girl Accuses Negro Pastor. Rev. Cone, Arrested on Statutory Charges, Says He’s A Frameup Victim.” He said “a certain element” at St. Paul’s A.M.E. “was trying to get him out of the church” less than a year after he had arrived. “He denies that he was intimate with the complainant.” Her testimony, as noted in an October 29 article, suggests sexual assault.

Shotgun marriage?

Raymond Cone and three church members said he was leading Wednesday prayer services at the time the young woman said the pastor had “vowed his affections.” That according to the Tuesday, November 3 newspaper, p.3: “Defense Tries to Prove Alibi for Negro Minister.”

Rev. Cone testified that “he first heard of the charge… when her brother came to his home and threatened him with a gun.” In a Wednesday, Oct 27, 1926, Page 5 story, there’s the curious sentence. “Efforts have been made, it is said, to settle the case by marriage.” “It is said”? In any case, the minister would have none of it.

Also, there were character witnesses. “I do not know anything of Mr. Cone but that he is a Christian minister in the gospel of Christ” That was from Rev. H.H. Cooper, secretary of African Methodist Episcopal Bishop H.H. Heard. “Complaint against Rev. Raymond Cone Dismissed by Judge [Benjamin] Baker. ESTABLISHED ALIBI. Jurist, in decision, Says That Evidence Was Insufficient.”

The ministry

How did this North Carolina-born tenant farmer become a minister? Between 1918 and 1920, or maybe earlier, Raymond Cone attended Kittrell College. It was a two-year historically black college located in Kittrell, NC from about 1886 until 1975. The school was associated with the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Kittrell is about 60 miles northwest of Wilson, NC, where he grew up.

Raymond, widowed in 1918, had been in Norfolk, VA as a photographer in 1920. His four children, Lessie, Mary, Albert and Carl were staying with Raymond’s parents-in-law in 1920 back in Wilson County, NC.

Rev. Cone entered the Philadelphia annual A.M.E. conference in May 1921. He served in churches in Salem and Worcester, MA in the New England conference before coming to Binghamton in the New York conference near the end of 1925.

And who was that “Negro Girl”? It was Agatha Walker, 24 at the time of the trial, and mentioned by name in the latter three newspaper stories. She was the superintendent of the St. Paul’s A.M.E. Sunday school.

Mind blown

Of course, Agatha (1902-1964) was my paternal grandmother, who I remember fondly. The child she bore was my father, Les Green. And the denials of Raymond Cone at the time notwithstanding, it’s clear that something happened between him and Agatha. He was my father’s biological father. Meaning he’s my biological paternal grandfather.

THIS IS HUGE. Ask my wife how many times I said, “Holy crap!” when I read that first story. It has been a mystery for so long that I had all but given up figuring it out.

I’m fascinated by how Agatha managed to stay at the church. While Raymond Cornelius Cone moved on to another city after the May 1927 annual conference, she remained at that church, arranging the flowers for special events, something my father did quite frequently.

Expect that I’ll have more to say on this topic. You can find four articles mentioned at Fulton History.com. Search for Rev. Raymond Cone, because searching for Agatha Walker will provide more hits that are less precise.

Shingles shots synopsis

A nasty disease

I decided that in 2019, I would get my pair of shingles shots. As this 2018 article suggests: Shingles Is Nasty, And The New Vaccine Works Well.”

“Shingrix [an FDA-recommended brand] should be given in two doses between two and six months apart to adults who are at least 50 years old, the [Centers for Disease Control] says.”

I went to my local CVS back in April or May to get my first shot. The pharmacist, though, wouldn’t give me an injection. His supply of Shingrix was low. He was saving it for those who needed a second dose.

Now it’s June, and I’m going to retire at the end of the month. I went to the Rite Aid across the street from my office. After filling out all the insurance paperwork, I get my first shot, which cost me nothing. I’m told I’d get a call in late August when it was time to get a second one. It did not happen.

Post-retirement

I trek down to the Rite Aid in October, which is in the midst of converting to a Walgreen’s. O course, now I have to give them all my new information, my Medicare card and all the supplemental insurance. Alas, the pharmacist wasn’t there.

On my return trip in December, they can’t give me a shot because they don’t take any of my insurance. I suppose I could have insisted on getting it at the retail price, which would have been roughly $140.

Instead, the next day, I went back to the CVS. This time, I was able to get an injection, but it cost me $47 and change. Since I’m never going to get this ever again, I just paid it. It was just two weeks shy of the six month threshold.

My recommendation to my friends who are 50 and over is to get your shingles shots sooner than later. I have a friend in her thirties who’s had the condition thrice, and she was quite miserable.

Get the shots while you still have insurance, before you go on Medicare. There may have been a particular supplemental Medicare coverage that would have eliminated my out-of-pocket expense, but obviously that’s not what I picked.

Impeachment nostalgia: 1868, 1974…

abused the power of the Presidency for personal and political gain

Erie County’s best blogger and writer, Jaquandor, a/k/a Kelly Sedinger, starts off this round of Ask Roger Anything.

We’re entering the second impeachment trial of my life (and there should have been a third, had Nixon not read the writing on the wall). Are you tired of these things?

The nature of the three impeachment procedures I lived through – I just missed Andrew Johnson’s – are so different. In Watergate, as you may remember, the beginning of the scandal was the break-in in June 1972. It was dismissed as a “third-rate burglary” by Nixon’s Press Secretary, Ron Ziegler. Nixon was re-elected so easily that the networks called the election c 7:30 pm before I had even had a chance to vote.

Yet early in 1973, the Senate voted 77-to-0 to approve a “select committee” to investigate Watergate, with Sam Ervin (D-NC) named chairman. The hearings ran from mid-May until early August, and I watched quite a bit of it. It was shown by the three networks in rotation, so as not to tick off the soap opera fans too much.

But it got a whole lot more interesting in mid-July when White House assistant Alexander Butterfield acknowledged there was a taping system in the Oval Office. At some point, I was watching every day when I wasn’t in class. A special prosecutor, Archibald Cox, subpoenaed the tapes, as did the Senate. Nixon got all “executive privilege”.

SNM

Then there was the “Saturday Night Massacre” on October 20, 1973. Attorney General Elliot Richardson and Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus, who recently died, both resigned rather than fire Cox. The Solicitor General, Robert Bork, finally did. The public, who had voted for the man less than a year earlier, were generally displeased.

On March 1, 1974, a grand jury in Washington, D.C., indicted several former aides of Nixon, including H. R. Haldeman, John Ehrlichman, former Attorney General John N. Mitchell, and Charles Colson, for hindering the Watergate investigation. The grand jury secretly named Nixon as an unindicted co-conspirator. John Dean and others had already pleaded guilty.

Nixon lost in the Supreme Court over whether he could hide the tapes. He turned them over in July 1974. About the time the “smoking gun” tapes were released implicating Nixon, the House Judiciary Committee voted to approve three articles of impeachment over four days. As you know, Nixon resigned less than two weeks later at the urging of some Republicans.

As much as I despised Nixon’s policies, I didn’t feel a sense of elation when he announced he was stepping down. It was more, as Gerald Ford put it soon after, “our national nightmare is over.”

Slick Willie

Now Bill Clinton’s impeachment I was aware of, but I certainly didn’t watch any of the Senate trial. Before that, as I mentioned at some point, I was in the same Boston hotel as Bill Clinton in September 1998. I was there to be on JEOPARDY! Clinton was there for a political fundraiser. No, I never saw him.

There were thousands of protesters outside the Omni Parker House (?). About half of them thought Bill was awful. But the other half thought Ken Starr was terrible. This was the early days of the Internet, so such explicit info some considered unsavory, and they blamed Starr.

When it all went down, I felt bad for Hillary and especially Chelsea. But I didn’t watch the proceedings at all. I did follow the news, though. It was right that Bill Clinton apologized to the country. Some of the chief GOP accusers, it later came out, had no right to the moral high ground.

Impeachment #3

That’s what I did with the 2019 story as well. There was so much wall-to-wall coverage that I was feeling no need to watch in real time. I will say I thought, even before the fact, that forcing Robert Mueller to testify was a mistake. He said as much. Mueller had a part in getting several indictments or guilty pleas.

I did see snippets of a lot of compelling testimony from the hearings in the fall. Gordon Sundland, the EU coordinator, political fundraiser, and definitely not of the “deep state”, was oddly entertaining. The others were solid citizens, doing their duty to their country.

Rudy Guiliani, an extra-governmental figure, by his own admission, forced out the Ukrainian ambassador back in April. So the claim that the July phone call with the new Ukrainian president was “perfect” is rather beside the point. It was, as John Bolton said, akin to a drug deal. The man abused the power of the Presidency for personal and political gain. He obstructed Congress illegally, which was settled law when SCOTUS ruled Nixon had to turn over his tapes.

Still, I think the issues taken up here, while legitimate, are too arcane for most people to follow. Christianity Today, of all publications, seems to understand it, though.

Follow the money

Frankly, I wish the House had gone after the emoluments issue. He may have been guilty of that on January 20, 2017, when he failed to put his businesses in a blind trust and maintained controlling interests.

He encouraged foreign entities to stay at his properties with the suggestion that it’d be in their countries’ best interest. The Air Force refueling near his Scottish resort, and staying there longer than necessary. (If the G7 did stay at Mar-a-lago, that would be prima facie proof of corruption.)

Yeah, he should have been impeached. But since the charges won’t stick, I suppose there is some fatigue on my part. A lot of it is towards the 2019 GOP, which is not the 1974 GOP. You can say you don’t believe the charges reach the level of impeachment, as Will Hurd (R-TX) stated. But to say things that happen didn’t happen, even though Guiliani, Mick Mulvaney and the man himself have acknowledged them publicly, that’s exhausting.

One more thing

The suggestion that because he’s “doing a good job”, one shouldn’t impeach a president is weird to me. Let’s say that he did something clearly a high crime or misdemeanor. He shoots someone on Fifth Avenue, for which one of his lawyers claims he couldn’t be prosecuted. Would you not impeach him – it’s always him – because the unemployment rate is 3.5%?

On the other hand, I would oppose impeaching him because of policies I disagree with. And I disagree a lot. Or because he’s a vulgar and boorish liar; those are not reasons to impeach.

Movie review: The Irishman

Jerry Vale

I made a concerted effort to go see The Irishman in a movie theater, naturally the Spectrum 8 in Albany. My experience is that movies are different when seen in a darkened cinema, with an audience.

It’s not necessarily a film I would be naturally drawn to. Films about mobsters are not my thing. I’ve seen The Godfather (1972, in a theater in Syracuse) and that was enough.

My knowledge of the oeuvre of Martin Scorcese is limited. I’ve seen Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore (1974), The Color of Money (1986), Cape Fear (1991), The Age of Innocence (1993), and Hugo (2011) in the theater. Raging Bull (1980) I watched on video. Other films I’ve seen bits and pieces of such as Goodfellas and The Last Waltz.

Still, The Irishman was marked as one of the BEST FILMS OF THE YEAR, and even the decade. The movie starts off interesting enough, though there were enough deaths that they decided to note, on screen, some of the future murders, rather than seeing everyone get whacked.

Then Al Pacino comes on the screen as Jimmy Hoffa, and it was almost like when The Wizard of Oz goes from black and white to color. He may have been a bit over the top, but it was the point in which it really kept my interest.

Political science

Simultaneously, it was when bits of American history was taking place, such as the entire Kennedy administration. The election, the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion in Cuba, the assassination. Later, snippets of Nixon and Watergate. It gave me a contextual understanding of the events.

At some point, we get back to the now old man we see in the beginning, hitman Ed Sheeran (Al Pacino), as he contemplates his choices, which lead to estrangement from one of his daughters Am I supposed to feel sorry for this guy? I read it’s a contemplation of a life possibly badly spent; perhaps.

I enjoyed The Irishman more than I anticipated. Joe Pesci was excellent as quiet boss Russell Bufalino. Other standouts included Ray Romano as lawyer Bill Bufalino and Harvey Keitel as Angelo Bruno. But there were a lot of solid performances. Was that Steven Van Zandt as Jerry Vale? It was.

That trick to make the older actors appear younger wasn’t as distracting as I feared.

Netflix reported that over 25 million people “saw” the Irishman in its first week, though only one in five actually completed it. Most of the people I know who didn’t think it was so hot saw it online. I saw it in the cinema and it’s just different.

Probably TMI: I made it through the three and a half hours without having to leave, unlike four of the other half dozen patrons.