Tuesday, December 31, 2013

People Who Changed My Life - 2013

It's good to be back after a couple of weeks of partying celebrating the Christmas season with kids and grandkids.  I'm definitely getting too old for this.  It now takes days to recover but it sure was fun.

Anyhow, it's time again to reflect on the people who passed away in 2013 whose lives and talents made a difference in my life.  There were several notable deaths in 2013, chief among them Nelson Mandela, but those people had no direct impact on me.  The people below did.



Marian McPartland.  I didn't realize how much of an impact she had on me until her death.  It seems that I've been listening to her great public radio program, Piano Jazz, forever and indeed, it was pretty close to forever... over three decades.  I only heard her perform live once, but I grew to know and love her on that radio every week.



Jim Hall.  One of the premier jazz guitarists of all time.  His music is timeless.  I can pull one of his old LPs out of the bookcase and still enjoy it as much as I did fifty years ago.  There aren't many musicians I can say that about.






Peter O'Toole.  Lawrence of Arabia is still my favorite movie of all time.  I can hardly tire of it and still stop and watch at least some of it every time I come across it.  O'Toole was brilliant.  Not to say that his other films weren't, there's just something special about Lawrence.  (T.E. Lawrence's book, Seven Pillars of Wisdom, is a must read for anyone who loves high adventure and really wants to know the truth behind the Middle East)  I really love pretty much everything O'Toole did and he's one of the few actors who will attract me to a film just because he's in it.


J.J. Cale.  I don't even know where to start.  An artist who pretty much flew under the radar for most people but who influenced everyone from Eric Clapton to Mark Knopfler.  Of course, Clapton made After Midnight and Cocaine huge hits and Cale used to say that if it wasn't for Eric he would probably be selling shoes.  It didn't hurt that Lynyrd Skynyrd made They Call Me The Breeze a hit as well as Dire Straits including Southbound on their first album.  It was my great pleasure to have twice seen him live and up close in a small club.


George Jones.  I never cared much for George as a kid, but as I grew older, he grew on me.  Definitive drinking man's country blues.  Like Hank before him, he lived the part and you can tell it in his music.  Whenever I play and sing a country tune you can hear a little of George's influence there.  So, in some small way, he will always be with me.


Richie Havens.  I had to think a little about this one.  For the past ten years or so a friend of mine, Walter Parks, played guitar and toured with Richie so I couldn't shake the feeling that I was including him in this list because of Walter's connection.  Then, I remembered how much hope and love Richie gave us all in the 60s and realized that he affected me more than I really knew.


Alvin Lee.  I couldn't get enough of Ten Years After, a kick-ass rock band with Alvin burning up the guitar.  "I tell the truth, I ain't no star, I only shout and leave the rest to my guitar!"  I prayed that the Stones would pick him to replace Brian Jones when he died but alas, twas not to be.  I can only imagine how good the Stones would have been with a real lead guitarist.


Tony Sheridan.  Another one of those under the radar things for most Americans but someone who was at the top of the British pop charts in the early to mid-60s when I was stationed in Germany and eating up the rise of the British revolution.  I was at the famous Star Club in Hamburg when Tony Sheridan and the Beat Brothers played there.  If you haven't figured it out, the Beat Brothers became the Beatles.  What a blast.  Of course, the Beat Brothers didn't mean much to me then, that was before they were the Beatles.  I went to see Tony.  He was on the jukebox.


Jonathan Winters.  If I was to condense all of the laughs this guy has given me over the years into one long laugh I would surely die from lack of breath long before I was half way through.  It's A Mad, Mad, Mad World is still one of my all-time favorites and Jonathan Winters stole the show.


May the new year bring peace and love to all.

15 comments:

  1. i hope you find peace and love in the new year...
    a few of these i did not realize had passed on this year...
    so many could be added to the list too...
    tom clancy, elmore leonard, nelson mandela,
    and the list goes on...

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    1. Yes, it's always hard to figure out who not to include. That's why I narrow it down to who actually influenced me. While Clancy and Leonard and Mandela were squarely on my radar, they didn't directly impact me in a lasting way.

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  2. Small world...one of my co-workers at the army base in Grafenwöhr (another German married to an American) told me that she used to hang out at the Star Club when she lived in Hamburg. She always thought it was so exciting to have witnessed the Beatles getting their start there.

    Happy New Year to you and your loved ones!

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    1. Another great place for the musical upstarts was a place called the Big Apple in Munich. Saw the Stones and the Animals there in their very early days. It was a great time to be in Europe.

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  3. Of all on your list i would have to say Richie Havens ranks with me. Madiba would have made my list, I had a friend, a catholic priest who purposely went to SA to speak out and preach against Apartheid. They picked him up so often and tortured him enough to nearly kill him and kicked him out of the country, but he kept going back. We were sitting around drinking scotch one night (God, i never met a priest who did not like scotch) but he schooled me in racism by law and told me to stay put in Detroit. They finally wore him down and he died the year mandela was released, he never got to see it or what hs work helped bring about. And i never left Detroit.

    Be Well Carleton. My widely experienced friend.

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    1. It always seems to be the way that those who lead the fight don't get to see it finished. It's too late for you to leave Detroit. You are Detroit. The place would completely collapse without you. Let's pray that this even numbered year will be harmonious.

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  4. you picked some of my favorites too..Peter O'Toole...sigh*..and the one that the world will miss ? Nelson Mandela

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    1. I nearly put Tom Clancy and Elmore Leonard on the list but decided that although I enjoy their books a lot they didn't really change or influence me, just entertained me.

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  5. Very nice tribute to the people we lost in 2013.

    As much as I loved Ten Years After, I don't know if Alvin Lee's lightning guitar runs would have fit in with the Stones' ensemble sound. The late Roy Buchanan was asked by the Stones to join the band; he turned it down. That was my first thought at the time -- that his 200-miles-an-hour country-blues licks would eclipse the rest of the group.

    Happy New Year!

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    1. Somehow I can't see Roy Buchanan with the Stones, or any other band for that matter. I always felt that Lee's style would have fit with them but of course there's always that premadonna don't want to be upstaged thing from Mick and Keith.

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  6. Funny how I don't think about them much, but when they are gone and I remember all that they did I really start to miss them. Who will remember us when we're gone?

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  7. Here's to a new year with more memories, fewer losses, Mr. C. My most influential loss this year was my grandmother in Norway, 95 years young.

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  8. I've been very lucky with no personal losses in a few years but I suppose the main reason why is because now that all of my grandparents and parents and aunts and uncles are gone... I'm next in line. Between now and then I've got to figure out how to achieve my 15 minutes of fame!

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