I had forgot all about the Buckinghams and the song Mercy Mercy Mercy. Hi, letty and thanks for playing those.
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edgarblythe
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Thu 30 Dec, 2010 02:29 pm
I also don't get no respect. I took my dog in to have her groomed. They told me, "The dog is extra."
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edgarblythe
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Thu 30 Dec, 2010 02:32 pm
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edgarblythe
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Thu 30 Dec, 2010 02:48 pm
BURL IVES
Ives was born in 1909 near Hunt City, an unincorporated town in Jasper County, Illinois, the son of Levi "Frank" Ives (1880–1947) and Cordelia "Dellie" White (1882–1954). He had six siblings: Audry, Artie, Clarence, Argola, Lillburn, and Norma. His father was at first a farmer and then a contractor for the county and others.
Ives had a long-standing relationship with the Boy Scouts of America. He was a Lone Scout before that group merged with the Boy Scouts of America in 1924
From 1927-29, Ives attended Eastern Illinois State Teachers College (now Eastern Illinois University) in Charleston, Illinois, where he played football. During his junior year, he was sitting in English class, listening to a lecture on Beowulf, when he suddenly realized he was wasting his time. As he walked out the door, the professor made a snide remark, and Ives slammed the door behind him. Sixty years later, the school named a building after its most famous dropout. Ives was also involved in Freemasonry from 1927 onward.
On July 23, 1929 in Richmond, Indiana, Ives did a trial recording of "Behind the Clouds" for the Starr Piano Company's Gennett label, but the recording was rejected and destroyed a few weeks later.
1930s – 1940s
Ives traveled about the U.S. as an itinerant singer during the early 1930s, earning his way by doing odd jobs and playing his banjo. He was jailed in Mona, Utah, for vagrancy and for singing “Foggy, Foggy Dew,” which the authorities decided was a bawdy song. Around 1931 he began performing on WBOW radio in Terre Haute, Indiana. He also went back to school, attending classes at Indiana State Teachers College (now Indiana State University).
In 1940 Ives began his own radio show, titled The Wayfaring Stranger after one of his ballads. Over the next decade, he popularized several traditional folk songs, such as “Foggy, Foggy Dew” (an English/Irish folk song), “Blue Tail Fly” (an old Civil War tune), and “Big Rock Candy Mountain” (an old hobo ditty). He was also associated with the 'Almanac Singers' (Almanacs), a folk singing group which at different times included Woody Guthrie, Will Geer and Pete Seeger. The Almanacs were active in the American Peace Mobilization (APC), an anti-war group opposed to American entry into World War Two and Franklin Roosevelt's pro-Allied policies. They recorded such songs as 'Get Out and Stay Out of War' and 'Franklin, Oh Franklin'.
In June 1941, the APC re-organized itself into the pro-war American People's Mobilization. Ives and the Almanacs re-recorded several of their songs to reflect the group's new stance in favor of US entry into the war. Among them were 'Dear Mr. President' and 'Reuben James'(name of a US destroyer sunk by the Germans before US entry into the war).
In early 1942, Ives was drafted into the U.S. Army. He spent time first at Camp Dix, then at Camp Upton, where he joined the cast of Irving Berlin's This Is the Army. He attained the rank of corporal. When the show went to Hollywood, he was transferred to the Army Air Force. He was discharged honorably, apparently for medical reasons, in September 1943. Between September and December 1943, Ives lived in California with actor Harry Morgan (who would later go on to play Officer Bill Gannon in the 1960s version of Jack Webb's TV show Dragnet, and Colonel Sherman T. Potter on M*A*S*H). In December 1943, Ives went to New York City to work for CBS radio for $100 a week.
On December 6, 1945, Ives married 29-year-old script writer Helen Peck Ehrlich. Their son Alexander was born in 1949.
In 1945 Ives was cast as a singing cowboy in the film Smoky (1945).
His version of the 17th century English song "Lavender Blue" became his first hit and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song for its use in the 1949 film, So Dear to My Heart.
1950s: Communist "blacklisting"
Ives was identified in the 1950 pamphlet Red Channels and blacklisted as an entertainer with supposed Communist ties. In 1952 he cooperated with the House Unamerican Activities Committee (HUAC) and agreed to testify. He stated that he was not a member of the Communist Party but that he had attended various union meetings with fellow folk singer Pete Seeger simply to stay in touch with working folk. He stated: "You know who my friends are; you will have to ask them if they are Communists."
Ives's statement to the HUAC ended his blacklisting, allowing him to continue acting in movies. But it also led to a bitter rift between Ives and many folk singers, including Seeger, who accused Ives of betraying them and the cause of cultural and political freedom in order to save his own career. Ives countered by saying he had simply stated what he had always believed. Forty-one years later, Ives reunited with Seeger during a benefit concert in New York City. They sang "Blue Tail Fly" together.
1950s – 1960s
Ives expanded his appearances in films during this decade. His movie credits include East of Eden, "Big Daddy" in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Desire Under the Elms, Wind Across the Everglades, The Big Country, for which he won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor; and Our Man in Havana, based on the Graham Greene novel.
1960s – 1990s
In the 1960s Ives began singing country music with greater frequency. In 1962 he released three songs that were popular with both country music and popular music fans: "A Little Bitty Tear", "Call Me Mister In-Between", and "Funny Way of Laughing".
Ives had several film and television roles during the 1960s and 1970s. In 1962 he starred with Rock Hudson in The Spiral Road, which was based on a novel of the same name by Jan de Hartog. In 1964, he played the genie in the movie The Brass Bottle with Tony Randall and Barbara Eden. Also in 1964, Ives played the narrator, Sam the Snowman, in the Rankin-Bass stop-motion animated television special, Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer. The yearly rebroadcast of the popular seasonal television special has forever linked Ives to the Christmas season.
Ives performed in other television productions, including Pinocchio and Roots.
Ives and Helen Peck Ehrlich were divorced in February 1971. Ives then married Dorothy Koster Paul in London two months later. In their later years, Ives and Dorothy lived in a waterfront home in Anacortes, in the Puget Sound area. In the 1960s, he also had another home just south of Hope Town on Elbow Cay, a barrier island of the Abacos in the Bahamas.
Ives lent his name and image to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management's "This Land Is Your Land — Keep It Clean" campaign in the 1970s. He was portrayed with the program's fictional spokesman, Johnny Horizon.
Death
Ives died of complications of mouth cancer on April 14, 1995 and is interred in Mound Cemetery in Hunt City Township, Jasper County, Illinois.
Morning Ms Letty,Ed and all WA2K peeps.From one of the most popular musicals ever,here's Sir John Mills playing AsparaGUS the cat.... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHDffGb8ZTE&feature=related
Gus the theatre cat - Cats The Musical.
Not a dry eye in the house...sniff.
Gus is the Cat at the Theatre Door
His name as I ought to have told you before
Is really Asparagus, but that's such a fuss
To pronounce that we usually call him
Just Gus
His coat's very shabby
He's thin as a rake
And he suffers from palsy that makes his paw shake
Yet he was in his youth quite the smartest of cats
But no longer a terror to mice or to rats
For he isn't the cat that he was in his prime
Though his name was quite famous, he says, in his time
And whenever he joins his friends at their club
(Which takes place at the back of the neighbouring pub)
He loves to regale them if someone else pays
With anecdotes drawn from his palmiest days
For he once was a star of the highest degree
He has acted with Irving, he's acted with Tree
And he likes to relate his success on the halls
Where the gallery once gave him seven catcalls
But his grandest creation as he loves to tell
Was Firefrorefiddle, the Fiend of the Fell
"I have played, in my time, every possible part
And I used to know seventy speeches by heart
I'd extemporize backchat
I knew how to gag
And I knew how to let the cat out of the bag
I knew how to act with my back and my tail
With an hour of rehearsal
I never could fail
I'd a voice that would soften the hardest of hearts
Whether I took the lead or in character parts
I have sat by the bedside of poor little Nell
When the curfew was rung then I swung on the bell
In the pantomime season I never fell flat
And I once understudied Dick Whittington's cat
But my grandest creation
As history will tell
Was Firefrorefiddle, the Fiend of the Fell"
Then if someone will give him a toothful of gin
He will tell how he once played a part in East Lynne
At a Shakespeare performance he once walked on pat
When some actor suggested the need for a cat
"And I say now these kittens
They do not get trained
As we did in the days when Victoria reigned
They never get drilled in a regular troupe
And they think they are smart
Just to jump through a hoop"
And he says as he scratches himself with his claws
"Well, the theatre is certainly not what it was
These modern productions are all very well
But there's nothing to equal from what I hear tell
That moment of mystery when I made history
As Firefrorefiddle, the Fiend of the Fell"
"These modern productions are all very well
But there's nothing to equal from what I hear tell
That moment of mystery when I made history......."
They say the skies of Lebanon are burning,
Those mighty Cedars bleeding in the heat,
They're showing pictures on the Television,
Women and children dying in the street,
And we're still at it in our own place,
Still trying to reach the future through the past,
Still trying to carve tomorrow from a tombstone...
But hey ! Don't listen to me !
This wasn't meant to be no sad song,
We've heard too much of that before,
Right now I only want to be here with you,
Till the morning dew comes falling,
I want to take you to the Island,
And trace your footprints in the sand,
And in the evening when the sun goes down,
We'll make love to the sound of the ocean.
They're raising banners over by the markets,
Whitewashing slogans on the shipyard walls,
Witchdoctors praying for a mighty showdown,
No way our holy flag is gonna fall,
'Cos up here we sacrifice our children,
To feed the worn out dreams of yesterday,
And teach them dying will lead us into glory...
But hey ! Don't listen to me !
This wasn't meant to be no sad song,
I've sung too much of that before,
Right now I only want to be here with you,
Till the morning dew comes falling,
I want to take you to the Island,
And trace your footprints in the sand,
And in the evening when there's no one around,
We'll make love to the sound of the ocean.
Now I know guess us plain folks don't see all the story,
And I suppose this peace and love's just copping out,
And I know these young boys dying in the ditches,
Is just what being free is all about,
And how this twisted wreckage down on main street,
Will bring us all together in the end,
And we go marching down the road to freedom ... freedom ...
