What would Mother’s Day be without some gentle musical satire?
Glad you asked.
Here’s a (mercifully brief) live performance recording of a “non-autobiographical cautionary tale” I wrote* a couple of years ago to mark the occasion (click the title to listen):
A Mother’s Day Song
* with apologies to Lennon/McCartney.
Here’s something for fans of the Modern Folk Quartet (aka The MFQ), and maybe a few Turtles and Monkees historians as well: some sample tracks from The Wilcox Three LP: The Greatest Folks Songs Ever Sung.
What’s the Monkees-Turtles-MFQ-Wilcox Three connection?
None other than Douglas Farthing Hatlelid, better known as Chip Douglas: gifted instrumentalist, singer, writer, arranger, producer…and the third most famous folk musician to ever matriculate at Hawaii’s famed Punahou School.*
Recorded in 1961 on the mainland (at the RCA Victor’s Music Center of the World in Hollywood), Greatest Folks Songs was released on RCA’s budget label as RCA Camden CAL-669. True to its title, it sported ten “experienced” folk tunes, and if not for a couple of exceptions, the album title could have accurately been amended to read The Greatest Folk Songs Ever Sung…by The Weavers.
The trio (which also included Fred Claassen and Steve Tilden), however, does a fine job with each. Especially impressive is the banjo work by Douglas, a skill not often heard, as he played upright bass for the MFQ. And although the song list was primarily Weavers, the feel is early Kingston Trio, more specifically as the latter sounded in their initial effort for Capitol. In other words, not a lot of nuance, but great energy, and Douglas’ musical precociousness in much in evidence throughout.
Just click on the back cover image (that’s Douglas in the middle of the photo) to read the liner notes and the track listings. In case that doesn’t work for you, the LP track listings are as follows:
Side One:
Side Two:
Here are four sample tracks from the LP.
First is the up-tempo Darling Cory (recorded by many individuals and groups since the late 1920s), featuring Douglas on banjo. It’s difficult to make comparisons to any current young musician (few modern youths take up the Vega banjo these days), but keep in mind Douglas was still a teenager when these tracks were recorded.
Next is “Kisses Sweeter Than Wine.” The Weavers charted with it 1951, and Jimmie Rogers’ version was a hit in 1958.
Here’s The Roving Kind, written by cowboy actor and singer Rex Allen (who also provided the original voice of the audioanimatronic host/father in General Electric’s Carousel of Progress at the 1964-65 World’s Fair, Disneyland and Walt Disney World). Guy Mitchell had the early 50s hit with this one.
Finally, the classic Leadbelly tune popularized by the mighty Weavers: Goodnight, Irene.
As many folk fans know, Douglas was seriously considered to replace fellow Hawaiian Dave Guard when he left The Kingston Trio in 1961, a spot that went to John Stewart. The one strike against Douglas was his youth. He was under 21 and couldn’t play club dates.
Following a couple of years and two great albums with The Modern Folk Quartet (their sophomore effort, Changes, is one of the top popular folk LPs of all time in my humble opinion) he played bass with the Turtles (most notably on the hit Happy Together) and produced two albums for The Monkees (Headquarters and Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn and Jones, Ltd.). In the strange coincidence (or small world) department, he also produced the Monkees’ last hit single, John Stewart’s Daydream Believer.
Note: Other members of the early 60s MFQ were Henry Diltz, Cyrus Faryar and Jerry Yester, who each played an integral part (in various ways) in the late 60s folk rock era. Yester’s brother Jim (of the Association) joined with the group for several reunions in the 80s and 90s, making them a quintet (which fortunately didn’t alter the group’s shorthand “MFQ” designation).
For a Wikipedia entry in Douglas, click HERE.
For a brief Wikipedia entry on the MFQ, click HERE.
There are too many sites with good info on the MFQ to list here (and their official site is mostly in Japanese, since the MFQ are still very popular in Japan), so hit those search engines!
* The first two being Kingston Trio co-founders Dave Guard and Bob Shane.
With national politics in the air once again (whether or not you like what’s “blowin’ in the wind” is up to you), it seems more than appropriate to revisit a tiny portion of the 1968 presidential campaign, specifically this musical ditty from Denver, Boise & Johnson, a group which evolved from The Chad Mitchell Trio. This cut (subtitled This Year’s Model) and Take Me To Tomorrow (the flip side of the Reprise 45) are the only known commercial recordings of DB&J. The stereo track below is taken from an early 70s Warner Bros. “Loss-Leader” 2-LP set titled Hard Goods.
(CLICK the arrow to listen)
The CMT had a history of mixing humor and political satire into their tight vocal harmonies (starting with the classic The John Birch Society), and the tradition continued through a series of personnel changes. In 1964, they became The Mitchell Trio (to become more egalitarian), and recorded a couple more LPs under that moniker before namesake Chad Mitchell left for solo pastures. He was replaced by a “jaunty lad” (as he was described in the That’s the Way it’s Gonna Be LP liner notes) named John Denver.
Yes, THAT John Denver.
In 1966, member Joe Frazier (no, not THAT Joe Frazier) moved on as well, and was replaced by David Boise (pronounced “boyz,” not like the city in Idaho). When the final original CMT member — Mike Kobluk — left the following year, he was replaced by Michael Johnson, and the group became DB&J until 1969, when the three went off to solo and sideman careers.
Of course, history also tells us that Richard M. Nixon won the 1968 election despite the vocal efforts of DB&J. Maybe it was that “Sock it to me?” appearance on Laugh-In…
Other links to DB&J performances:
Click HERE for some Denver, Boise and Johnson performances on YouTube
Click HERE for some wonderfully rare live recordings of DB&J as well as a few early solo sets by John Denver. NOTE: This site (cincinattidancingpigs.com) also has some great photographs, marvelous song-by-song notes of each concert set, and excellent fact-filled personal stories. If you’re a fan of John Denver, the Chad Mitchell Trio (or, for that matter, DB&J), you should check it out.
Recently I’ve had some opportunities to revive a presentation I gave when I was employed full-time (and later, as a consultant) at The Walt Disney Company. Titled “Walt Disney’s Life Lessons,” the seminar focuses on Walt’s personal and business values in the context of several company milestones, from his earliest days in Kansas City through the end of his life.
This entailed digging through my Disney files again, which was a lot of fun. Creating sessions such as “Life Lessons” requires a good working knowledge of the company’s vast history, and to that end I’ve amassed thousands of Disney books, special publications, magazines and internal newsletters as well as reams of press releases, posters and photographs. Oh, and plenty of pinback buttons and lanyards.
Now that I have this blog, I thought it might be fun to periodically post some of the photos, along with some other things. Of course, the blogosphere is filled with Disneyphiles posting marvelous information and cool stuff everyday, and I can’t pretend to rival anything some of them put out. I’ll just feature stuff I’ve picked up preparing for and hosting events, as well as elsewhere in my Disney travels.
Here are some photos related to Disney’s production of Davy Crockett and the pop culture craze which ensued (just click to enlarge them. They’re pretty big). First off, many have seen this photo of Fess Parker as Davy Crockett in black and white…
…but here’s a slightly different pose (chin a bit higher, “Old Betsy” at a different angle) in marvelous color. Yes, that’s Disneyland’s very own Rivers of America in the background, somewhere between Bear/Critter Country (not when this shot was taken, of course) and the “mechanical” Indian Village (only a quick backstage hike through the trees from present day Toontown). This color shot was used for (among other things) the cover of the Three Adventures of Davy Crockett LP released on Disneyland Records (DQ-1315, itself a reissue of ST-1926 with a different cover).
Here’s a few more…
(above) At this live appearance, Fess Parker gets the drop on a whole troop of coonskin clad Crockett fans. Check out the kid in the back row center who is drawing a bead on the photographer. (below) In this staged promotional photo, Walt Disney reviews the Davy Crockett “script” with star Fess Parker and director Norman Foster. Parker looks a little happier — or at least less pensive — holding the gun than the guitar.
Finally, here’s one of my favorite Walt Disney photos (below), taken at “Disney Night at the Hollywood Bowl” on August 1, 1958. Walt dons the famous headgear as he addresses the audience. Check out the smarmy look on the face of the man to his right. I love it!
That’s all for now. But just in case you missed my post (odds are you did) on a WDAC event I did with Fess Parker (who appeared in full color), click HERE.
All images, of course, are copyright The Walt Disney Company, with all rights reserved.
Lately, we’ve been watching episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000 (aka MST3K, formerly on Comedy Central and the Sci-Fi Network) 2-3 nights a week. We’d enjoyed (and occasionally taped) it back in the 90s, but recently broke out the VHS tapes now that the girls are old enough to get the humor. They’ve enjoyed them so much that — after exhausting the taped episodes — we’ve begun to invest in the Rhino boxed sets, and have just placed our first DVD order of “uncollected” episodes with Cheezyflix.com.
I know, we’re obsessive, but I’ve always felt that if something is worth doing, it is worth doing A LOT.
Anyway, last night’s episode was The Starfighters (A early 60s film about USAF pilots flying F-104 jets starring former Congressman Bob Dornan), and I don’t think I’ve seen them laugh that hard in years (and we laugh a lot). It was full of hilarious riffs from Mike and the ‘bots (If you don’t know what I’m writing about, click HERE for an almost complete MST history), and caused me to consider adjusting my personal MST3K Top Ten. Anyway, the whole thing reminded me of a few other non-traditional family traditions we’ve continued this past year, including watching 60s TV series on DVD, building gingerbread houses, photographing rainbows, and celebrating birthdays with mini-donut cakes.
I’ve written a previous post about our watching all 138 episodes (sequentially) of the Get Smart TV series last year, but we’re also working through multiple seasons of That Girl, Wild, Wild West (just picked up season 4), Andy Griffith, and Dick Van Dyke. Sometimes it seems as if the 1960s never ended in our house (which was built in late 1963). Not that Wild, Wild West is high culture or anything (despite Ross Martin’s best efforts), but it’s really too bad that my girls won’t be able to watch current television series with their pre-teens and teens. Besides the current network stuff that is a little too mature, the reality shows will undoubtedly have a much shorter shelf life than the scripted shows I grew up with. But I digress.
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Here’s our most recent rainbow photo (above), shot in December looking across from our front yard. We’ve been shooting (and chasing) rainbows since our honeymoon in 1987.
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Another hallowed tradition is the early birthday morning donut “cake,” complete with candles. We started this one when Emily was really small, maybe three or four. She loves little powdered donuts (which amazingly hasn’t effected her svelte teen figure), so I had the idea to build a tower of them for her. We now do it for all five family birthdays, and it really is fun. It’s much easier to stack a donut cake in the early morning than baking a traditional one, and we now mix in some cinnamon minis with the powdered ones. We still do traditional birthday cakes for the afternoon and evening celebrations (we tend to have multiple parties for each birthday), so we enjoy the best of both worlds.
Emily’s most recent donut cake (above) and mine (below). We’re both December birthdays, and, yes, my candle count is highly inaccurate.
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We inherited (OK, stole…) our gingerbread house building tradition from our friend Cinda Webb, who invited us over for a pre-Christmas family house-raising several years ago. Since then, we’ve built a whole neighborhood of them, usually over the Christmas holiday break. This past season, Emily had a couple of friends (Lauren Hoeneke and Jennette McCurdy) over for her own house party.
(left to right, above) Lauren, Emily, Erin and Jennette get started on the roofs.
Work ceases when the decorators (above) become aware of the photographer.
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That’s all the tradition I have time for right now. We’re off to the USC Trojan Huddle (their spring football scrimmage) and Galco’s Soda Pop Shop up in LA (home of hundreds of classic and kooky brands), which just happen to be two more family traditions.
Part 7 of “My Life with Eighth Graders.” To read parts 1-6, Click HERE. To ignore the whole mess, just move along. Nothing more to see here.
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I finally made it to Gettysburg, but it took 74 eighth graders to get me there.
Despite arriving 144 years (and several hundred books) after the fact, the battlefield remained an impressive and fascinating place, worthy of further study. If author George R. Stewart’s premise is correct (and many of his premises were), there is good reason for every American to have a grasp of what happened during those three days in July of 1863. In the introduction to Pickett’s Charge (1959), he writes:
“If we grant — as many would be ready to do — that the Civil War furnishes the great dramatic episode in the history of the United States, and that Gettysburg provides the climax of the war, then the climax of the climax, the central moment in our history, must be Pickett’s charge.”
I’m not worthy of debating the issues surrounding or leading up to Pickett’s charge, or any other battle of the Civil War. I also know opinions remain strong on all sides…I’ve read Tony Horwitz’s engrossing, artful and occasionally hilarious Confederates in the Attic. But whether or not you agree with Stewart’s third point, I believe he is at least directionally correct. To better appreciate American history, we should be familiar with what happened in the open, rolling fields and on the gentle wooded knolls of south central Pennsylvania on July 1-3, 1863.
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We arrived in our two motor coaches, and stopped at the visitors center so our personal tour guides could board. For the only time on the trip, our buses were segregated by gender, and our “boy” band was fortunate to get Ed Guy, a guide with more than twenty years experience. I found out later in the day that he’d moved to the area as a young boy and had grown up in the shadow of the National Park. After introducing himself, he said that our bus and walking tour would be roughly chronological. In other words, we’d start where the battle began.
Our first stop was at a field adjacent to a statue of Gettysburg resident John Burns, who walked out to the battlefield that July day, musket in hand, and offered to join the One Hundred and Fiftieth Pennsylvania Volunteers, though he was more than seventy years old. According to General Doubleday’s report, he fought bravely.
(above) A statue dedicated to citizen soldier John Burns. (below) Tour Guide Ed Guy teaches the boys how the troops marched into battle in formation.
At that first stop, Ed talked about certain events leading up to the battle, and how everything finally came to a head on July 1st. Then he taught the boys how to march in formation, and how they’d adjust the formation to quickly replace fallen comrades while advancing in battle. It was great to watch history came alive as the boys engaged and had fun. After that, it was back on the bus for a quick ride to the Devil’s Den, the location held by Confederate sharpshooters on Day Two of the battle.
Devil’s Den is overlooked by Little Round Top, which came into Union Hands following an historic day two bayonet charge by the 20th Maine, led by Col. Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, a professor at Bowdoin College. The battle made him famous in his day, and again more recently through many popular works on the war (including Michael Shaara’s The Killer Angels, Shelby Foote’s 3-Volume The Civil War, and Ken Burn’s eponymous PBS mini-series, among many others). As enjoyable and informative as those sources were, they paled in comparison to actually being there. I can’t speak for the boys, but looking down across the fields from Little Round Top, or hunkering down in Devil’s Den really brought everything to life for me…the size and scope of the battleground, the contours of the land as it lay this way and that.
(above) Ed and the boys down in Devil’s Den. The boys really were listening to Ed, they just rarely make eye contact when processing historical information.
(above) The boys leaving the Devil’s Den area on the way to Little Round Top
(above) Ed “Guide” up on Little Round Top, with Devil’s Den in the center background, just to the right of the white camper.
We finished our tour at the Gettysburg graveyard (after visiting the Bloody Angle, of course) near where President Lincoln delivered his famous address. For me, everything was over much too soon.
After lunch, we wound our way into Amish farm country, where we enjoyed a fine meal at a family style restaurant, before heading out to our final destination on the trip: Philadelphia.
*Another in a series on Disney events with which I’ve been involved. To read about Fess Parker (Disney’s Davy Crockett), click HERE. For Mary Costa (Disney’s Princess Aurora), click HERE.
Of all the Disney Legends with whom I’ve worked, none needed an event host LESS than legendary composer Richard Sherman. Our appearance at the 2003 Walt Disney Art Classics Convention aboard the Disney Wonder cruise ship reminded me that, in addition to his being one half of a amazingly prolific songwriting team, the Sherman Brothers, Dick is a born raconteur. For those who have become used to seeing him and his brother Bob on the special features sections of the Disney 2-disc DVD sets, this won’t come as a surprise.
A few months before the convention, I’d met with Dick, Imagineer Bruce Gordon and my friend (and fellow event host) Tim O’ Day for lunch at Disneyland. Over sandwiches and soup at Carnation Main Street, Tim and I talked through the convention show elements with Dick. Then we walked over to the Walt Disney Story theater to take a few promotional photos of Dick at the piano in Walt’s recreated “formal” office.
Dick Sherman and me at the piano in Walt’s “formal” office at Disneyland.
After the photo session, Bruce took the three of us for a special walk-though of the yet to open Winnie the Pooh attraction in the former home of Bear Country Jamboree. It was a real treat to experience it scene by scene with Disney veterans Bruce, Dick and Tim. At the end of the day, Dick presented me with an inscribed copy of his book, Walt’s Time, co-written his brother Bob, and edited by Bruce, Jeff Kurtti, and David Mumford. I asked Bruce to sign it too, and I’m glad I did, especially in light of his recent untimely passing.
By the time May rolled around, everything was ready for the convention. The 500 spots for the cruise had sold out in a couple of days. My family accompanied me to Orlando, as they had for each of the previous conventions, but wouldn’t be joining me on the ship, since my wife was “too” pregnant for sailing. So Diane, Emily and Erin had to tough out eight nights at the Grand Floridian. Eric didn’t care either…he was comfortably in utero.
The “over sea” portion of the convention was to last only three days, just enough time for us to hit Nassau (on Friday) and Castaway Cay (Disney’s private island) before heading back to Orlando. There were also “on land” events scheduled at both ends of our sailing, making the total event a five day experience. Because our convention guests were just a portion of the group on board (we had a full seating), all of the usual stage shows went on as scheduled, meaning our special presentations were held early in the morning or late in the evening. But you tend to lose track of time out at sea, and no one seemed to mind. After all, in the middle of the ocean, where else was anyone going to go?
Saturday was already a full day before the lights dimmed in the Disney Wonder’s Walt Disney Theater. I had conducted a hilarious interview and career retrospective with Imagineer Alice Davis in the morning (I’ll have to post about that sometime!), and spent most of the afternoon on the private beaches of Castaway Cay.
Still, nobody was too tired for our final convention offering: a 10 pm show titled, “By Request on ‘The Beautiful Briny Sea.’” After an inspiring series of film clips featuring Sherman Brothers tunes, the crowd cheered Dick as he and the piano rose through the stage on a hydraulic lift. Due to a miscommunication, Dick had only packed a dark suit for the trip, while I had been fitted for a tuxedo at Walt Disney World. We decided that I should “dress down,” which created another problem. Because I had the tux, and my two other presentations were in “island casual” garb, I hadn’t brought a suit. In the end, I borrowed a shirt and tie from WDAC GM Michael Young for the show. And check out my deck shoes. Fortunately, no one was paying much attention to me.
The show set up was simple: I’d take questions and requests from the audience, and Dick would tell stories about how different songs were written, then perform a few verses of them.
Here’s one audio clip from that evening: Dick telling of how he and Bob first came to work with Walt (click on the arrow):
We started off talking about the Enchanted Tiki Room, and weaved our way from The Jungle Book to Mary Poppins (including “The Eyes of Love,” which didn’t make the film’s final cut), “One Little Spark” from the Imagination Pavillion, Annette Funicello’s “The Monkey’s Uncle,” and “About Time” from The One and Only, Genuine, Original Family Band. We even spent some time talking about several attendee’s favorite non-Disney “Disney” movie, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, which — at the time — had just opened as a musical (with six additional Sherman Brothers songs) on the London stage.
The songs were fun to hear, but the stories behind each were fascinating. This was before many of the Disney DVD collectors sets were available on the market, and few people had heard Dick’s song creation tales. For example, he shared the little-known story of the most addicting song he and his brother wrote, “It’s a Small World.” The brothers had first attempted to write a rondolet for the ride, which didn’t work out due to the overlapping scenes. And when they finally settled on the tune we know today, they conceived it as a much slower piece. It’s interesting how things evolve.
We eventually covered a few of my personal Sherman Brothers favorites, such as “The Ugly Bug Ball” from Summer Magic and the classic “It’s a Great, Big, Beautiful Tomorrow” from the General Electric Carousel of Progress (originally at the 1964-65 New York World’s Fair, then Disneyland, and finally, the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World). And from the “Tiki Room” on through to “It’s a Small World,” our finale, Richard Sherman gave the capacity audience just about everything they wanted.
And through it all, I had the best seat in the house.
Here’s the WDAC Team (I’m second from the right) on Castaway Cay, Disney’s private Caribbean island. That’s the Disney Wonder in the background, but you probably knew that. Good times.
On this day in 1903, Frank Edgington Fenton was born in Liverpool, England, so today would have been his 105th birthday. Despite the absence of an honored guest (who passed away in 1971), the party is already underway here at “Get it. Got it. Good,” with streamers, bunting, and staged readings of his novels and short stories. To top off the evening, a double bill of “Escape From Fort Bravo” and “River of No Return” will screen in the little theater at 7 pm.
My friend Jan (of the ever-compelling “The View From Her” blog) tagged me last week, and I am just now getting around to responding.
On the surface, the task is simple. Here are the rules:
• Pick up the nearest book (of at least 123 pages).
• Open the book to page 123.
• Find the fifth sentence.
• Post the next three sentences.
• Tag five people.
I’m certain Jan tagged me with a smile on her face, knowing that choosing the “right” book would be a challenge. I take up to ten minutes at the market when faced with the “paper or plastic” dilemma.
Because I spent an inordinate amount of my time the past couple of weeks drafting a Wikipedia entry for screenwriter and novelist Frank Fenton, the books currently at my elbow reflect that. In addition to Fenton’s two novels, they include Southern California Country by Carey McWilliams, and two fine biographies: American Prophet by Peter Richardson (on McWilliams) and Full of Life by Stephen Cooper (on Fenton’s infrequent collaborator, the novelist and screenwriter, John Fante).
I’ll apply the page 123 scenario to Cooper’s book, since the selection ties a thread through all of the above:
“One of the first things Carey made happen for John was a meeting on the Culver City lot of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios with the head of the story department, Ross Wills. Wills had helped his friend Carey help other friends before, notably the literary critic Wilson Follett, who thorough Will’s good offices had gotten into MGM’s Reading Department and then risen rapidly to writig scenes for Greta Garbo. Now Wills was taking John’s breath away with talk of the princely sums commanded by adequate scenarios and the suggestion that John might have the inside track on a sophisticated drama Wills had in mind for Joan Crawford, or, failing that, a rather more trifling comedy drama.”
In the paragraph immediately preceding this selection, Cooper had described the first lunch meeting between McWilliams and Fante in 1932. Fante’s first screen credit came in collaboration with Fenton, and McWilliams was a supporter of Fenton’s work, quoting his first novel extensively in Southern California Country.
To complete my responsibilities in this affair, I tag Lisa (quite the literary type), Matt (a reflective friend who I know for a fact has recently read a book) and Adam (who reads, but is almost certainly working on his new screenplay).
- craig hodgkins
Note to Jan: Frank Fenton and your personal fave Ray Bradbury are anthologized together in New Stories of Time and Space (1951). Bradbury’s entry was “Here There Be Tygers,” and it was the first time this piece of fiction had been published. It has since appeared in other books and publications.
I’m sure the world will rest easy now, knowing that I’ve finally written and posted a brand new Wikipedia page/biographical essay for screenwriter and novelist Frank Fenton (For the uninitiated with nothing but time on their hands, click HERE and HERE for my previous posts on Mr. Fenton).
To do it correctly, I also had to research and write a new page for Frank Fenton Moran, the actor with whom the writer has been confused with for the past 35 years or more. Now if I can only figure out how to fix that entry on the Internet Movie Database…
Last November, I wrote about my search for a copy of Frank Fenton’s elusive 1942 novel “A Place in the Sun.” (Click HERE to read it). As it turns out, accurate information on Fenton the man is nearly as elusive as his first novel.
But what’s happened in the past two months has given me a window into the wonders of the shared intelligence (and limitations) of the Internet and — more specifically — the blogosphere. For along the road to learn more about Fenton, I’ve met and corresponded with intelligent and helpful people, unspooled microfilm in a university library for the first time in 20 years, and embarked upon a (hopefully limited) career as a literary detective.
First off, some confirmed findings.
As I suspected — and despite what was stated on Wikipedia (Note: I’ve since written a whole NEW page for the writer and changed the actor’s bio there), the Internet Movie Database and the hundred of sites which “borrow” information from them — there were actually two Frank Fentons actively working in Hollywood from the 1930s through the 1950s.
One was an actor — born in Hartford, Connecticut in 1906 — who graduated from Georgetown University, starred on Broadway (alongside Katherine Hepburn) in “The Philadelphia Story,” and who came west to appear in more than eighty large and small screen productions before dying on July 24, 1957.
The other was a writer — born in Liverpool, England in 1903 — who emigrated to the United States in 1906, graduated from Ohio State University, and worked his way out to California in the early thirties. He sold his first movie scenario in 1932, and proceeded to write one Broadway play, two novels, nearly twenty magazine articles and more than fifty screenplays and teleplays before dying on August 23, 1971.
The confusion goes back several years. In a brief May 6, 1957 Los Angeles Times article about a divorce filing, Fenton’s age is accurately given as 54. But in his own obituary, published fourteen years later (August 25, 1971) in the same paper, it is given as 65, the age he would have been if he was born in 1906.
Oops.
It seems that all of this identity confusion may be traced back to some shoddy fact-checking more than three decades ago at the Times obit desk.
(Above) The actor Frank Fenton as George Kittredge (with Katherine Hepburn as Tracy Samantha Lord) in “The Philadelphia Story,” which ran at the Schubert Theatre on Broadway for 417 performances (March 1939 to March 1940). Note the tuxedo.
(Below) The writer Frank Fenton in a late 1930s RKO Radio Pictures photo from the dust jacket of “A Place in the Sun.” Note the typewriter. I rest my case.
Frank Edgington Fenton — the writer — married twice (in 1941 to actress June Martel and in 1945 to actress Mary Jane Hodge) and was the father of two children (a son, Mark, and a daughter, Joyce, both with Hodge). He was also a fine amateur golfer who often placed high in the standings of studio tournaments and who participated in at least one Southern California Amateur Championship (1943).
In addition to friendships with writers John Fante and Carey McWilliams, he enjoyed a long-term partnership with Lynn Root, with whom Fenton wrote 21 produced film stories and screenplays. They also partnered on the Broadway play, “Stork Mad,” which opened at the Ambassador Theater in New York on September 30, 1936 and ran for a scant five performances.
Ironically, Root — who died in 1997 — really WAS an actor/writer. After appearing in five different Broadway shows, he wrote the stage comedy “The Milky Way,” which was also filmed twice, in 1936 with Harold Lloyd and ten years later with Danny Kaye (Kaye’s version was retitled The Kid From Brooklyn) in the lead role. He also wrote the book for the Broadway musical “Cabin in the Sky” (1940-41), which reached the screen in 1943. Root and his wife Helen served as Best Man and Matron of Honor (and the sole guests!) at Fenton’s wedding to Martel, which took place at the Robertson Community Church in Hollywood on February 27, 1941.
Speaking of guests, through that first Fenton post I’ve been in contact with several people who have encouraged and helped point me toward all that I’ve learned so far. These include Peter Richardson, who has written a wonderful biography of Carey McWilliams (”American Prophet”), Dr. Stephen Cooper, author and editor of several John Fante books, including a biography (”Full of Life”), and publisher (and renaissance man) Dean Mullaney, who discovered a couple of Fenton photos in the Ohio State archives while researching his beautiful six-volume hardcover collection of the first adventure comic strip ever, “Terry and the Pirates” (created, written and drawn by OSU alum Milton Caniff).
And the Fenton-fest continues. Just last week, book dealer Howard Prouty wrote to tell me that he’d just finished reading his own copy of Fenton’s “A Place in the Sun,” something I haven’t heard often during the past couple of years.
Of course, there’s always room for more information, so if you know something about Frank Fenton (the writer, natch), please drop me a note.
Next month? I hope — at the very least — to edit the Wikipedia entry on Frank Edgington Fenton (1903-1971). I’m sure both Fentons would appreciate having the record set straight.
Part 6 of “My Life with Eighth Graders.” To read parts 1-5, Click HERE.
One of my 2008 new year’s resolutions is to finish this series of posts about the trip (with my daughter Emily’s eighth grade class) I took in October of 2007. I’d had the opportunity to accompany the class on several excursions over the past few years, but we saved the best for last: an eight day trip to Jamestown, Williamsburg, Washington D.C., Mount Vernon, Gettysburg and Philadelphia.
A favorite aspect of the trip was our proximity to many of the settings used in the filming of one of Emily’s (and our family’s) favorite films: National Treasure (and others which would play a key role in the sequel, National Treasure: Book of Secrets). We even watched the original on one of our longer bus rides. But on to Part 6…
This was such a full day, I’ll keep the text to a minimum and let the photographs tell the story.
After our visit to Arlington (see Part 5), we headed for the White House. The tour was lots of fun, but we couldn’t bring our cameras in, so we had to settle for a photo opportunity outside the fence.
Emily and me following the tour
Next, we headed over to something which wasn’t there the last time I visited our nation’s capitol: The World War II Memorial. Located on the opposite end of the reflecting pool from the Lincoln Memorial, it is a beautiful combination of stone and water, with recognition given to each state of the union and both theaters of war.
The Main Fountains of the WWII Memorial (below), looking toward the individual towers for the Atlantic states
Looking across the WWII Memorial pool toward the Washington Monument (above). The section of the memorial dedicated to servicemen and women from my home state of California (below)
Space won’t allow me to go on and on about everything that we saw and visited in one day, but the short list includes the Library of Congress and the Supreme Court. Students also had a mid-day choice of one among these three: the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, The National Gallery of Art and the Museum of Natural History.
Our tour of the Capitol building was a real treat. Before we began, we were met outside by the State Representative Dana Rohrabacher, who works for the district in which many of the kids live (below).
The amazing mural painting inside the Capitol rotunda (below)
Following the tour, United States Senate Chaplain Barry Clayton Black addressed (educated, charmed and entertained is more like it) the students for nearly a half hour on the Capitol steps. At the conclusion of his presentation, the students posed for the obligatory group photo with the seat of our national government in the background.
Chaplain Black addresses the students and chaperones (above). The students pose in front of the Capitol (below)
As the sun set, we were off for another “new addition” to the monuments of Washington D.C., the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial, which is set up more like a discovery walking experience than a traditional monument. Bronze statues of FDR, Eleanor and Fala (the family dog) are joined by figures representing the social issues during his record-length administration.
These figures are arranged thematically, and the entire memorial is accented by many different water elements and rough-cut stone walls with famous quotes carved into them.
The entrance to the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial (above)
The solitary figure of FDR looks out across a segment of his memorial (above). I took a moment to help a victim of the Great Depression tune his radio to one of FDR’s fireside chats (below)
Ford’s Theater was closed for refurbishment (fortunately, the only time we struck out on the entire trip), but we were able to check out the Peterson House across the street, where President Lincoln was taken after being shot by John Wilkes Booth.
We got some bad news outside of Ford’s Theater, but nowhere near as bad as President Lincoln received inside in April of 1865
For Part 7, click HERE.
You may have heard the adage, “Bad news comes in threes,” and it was never more true for me than yesterday, January 19th, when the entertainment world lost Suzanne Pleshette (70), Allen Melvin (84) and singer/songwriter John Stewart (68), each a unique talent and a personal favorite. In an industry where instant stardom often leads to equally quick disappearances, these performers were in it for the long haul, each working at their chosen craft for decades.
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Born January 31, 1937, Pleshette lost her long bout with lung cancer on Saturday evening. Perhaps best known as Emily Hartley on television’s long-running The Bob Newhart Show (1972-77), she also had memorable turns in Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds (1963) and The Miracle Worker on Broadway. Her television career spanned nearly fifty years, from her 1957 appearance on Harbourmaster to her final appearance as Lois Whitley on Will & Grace in 2004.
Suzanne Pleshette
Pleshette’s sultry beauty and inimitable voice graced several of my personal favorites, including Walt Disney Productions’ The Ugly Dachshund (1966), The Adventures of Bullwhip Griffin (1967), Blackbeard’s Ghost (196 
and The Shaggy D.A. (1976), three of the four beside co-star Dean Jones. She also appeared opposite Tony Curtis in a Disney-related picture (one of the only films featuring extensive interior shots from inside Disneyland), the fun and under-rated 40 Pounds of Trouble (1963), which was also filmed up at the casinos of Stateline at Lake Tahoe’s southern shore. Amidst her large volume of work on the small screen, Pleshette starred in the pilot of The Wild, Wild West and in two early episodes of Route 66, both currently available on DVD sets.
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Veteran actor Allan Melvin, who died of cancer Saturday in Los Angeles at 84, made his television debut co-starring beside Phil Silvers on You’ll Never Get Rich (aka Sergeant Bilko and The Phil Silvers Show). Melvin may not be as well-known as Pleshette, but he became a familiar supporting face on two other long-running shows as well: The Brady Bunch (as Alice’s boyfriend Sam, the Butcher) and All in the Family (as Archie’s pal Barney Hefner, a role he continued on the spin-off series, Archie Bunker’s Place). He gravitated to voice acting early, beginning with the role of Sgt. Snorkle on the animated Beetle Bailey in 1963. This led to perhaps his best-known voice role, that of Magilla Gorilla on the eponymous Hanna-Barbera series.
Allan Melvin (right), with Phil Silvers and Harvey Lembeck in The Phil Silvers Show
But it was as Bilko’s reluctant flunky Corporal Henshaw (alongside the late, great Harvey Lembeck as Corporal Rocco Barbella) that I remember Melvin best. Growing up in Northern California, far from mythical Fort Baxter, Kansas (and the New York City television studios where the shows had been shot before I was born), I became hooked on all things Bilko when independent Channel 2 out of Oakland programmed them weeknights at 11:30 pm. When the station considered replacing the show a couple of years later, the late San Francisco Mayor George Moscone himself petitioned to keep it on the air. A 50th Anniversary DVD set came out a year ago, and I was able to relive it all over again, complete with episode intros from Melvin.
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John Stewart, who replaced Kingston Trio co-founder Dave Guard in 1961 and went on to a four decade solo career as a singer and songwriter, died early Saturday in San Diego after suffering a massive stroke or brain aneurysm with wife Buffy Ford, his children and many longtime friends at his side. He was 68.
John Stewart
For a man who had played his music for audiences all over the world, it is ironic that his life ended right where it began. Stewart was born in San Diego on September 5, 1939, but his father’s career as a horse trainer took the family to Pasadena when Stewart was young. He began his musical career as a rock-n-roller, cutting a demo single with his high school band (The Furies) in the mid-fifties, but began to write folk songs after hearing the Kingston Trio when they appeared in Los Angeles. He promptly formed The Cumberland Three, who recorded three LPs for Roulette Records. The Kingston Trio had already recorded two of his compositions before he was asked to replace Guard, who had chosen to leave the Trio when it was still the #1 group in America.
Nick Reynolds, John Stewart and Bob Shane of the “Stewart lineup” Kingston Trio (1961-67). Reynolds was reportedly at Stewart’s bedside when he passed away.
Despite the pressure, Stewart (who was called upon to replace Guard’s vocals and banjo work as well as his primary on-stage spokesman cum comedian role) was up to the task, and the Trio released thirteen more original LPs (For Capitol, Decca and Tetragrammton) before the chilly winds of change blew popular music — and Stewart’s career with it — back to rock. When the Trio disbanded for a time in 1967, Stewart began a musical journey which produced scores of songs and albums for several labels, including Capitol, Warner, RCA, RSO, and others (including a few of his own).
He hit it big twice during his post-trio days, twelve years apart. The first was as a songwriter when he penned “Daydream Believer,” a huge hit for the Monkees in 1967 (and one which eventually appeared on his first Warner LP, The Lonesome Picker Rides Again) and the second was as a solo artist when his song “Gold” hit the Top Five in 1979 (it remains his biggest solo hit). The prolific Stewart continued writing, recording and touring through the early 2000’s, and his annual Kingston Trio fantasy camps (he and former bandmate Reynolds created and co-hosted them) provided hundreds of long-time fans a chance to play and harmonize alongside their guitar-slinging heroes.
I saw Stewart live many times during his later solo era, and — whether alone or with a small combo — his sets were always marked by a large number of audience requests and his trademark good humor. His prolific pen and deftness with both a lyrical hook and a live audience will not be forgotten by anyone who experienced them live or on LP.
I’d like to thank everyone who has clicked, Googled, Yahoo’ed, Bloglined, searched, linked or otherwise stumbled here since the “Get it Got it Good” blog launched six months ago. I received my 10,000th visit a few days ago because of you. It’s been a real learning experience for me, both about blogging in general (there are some amazing blogs out there!) and in a few of my specific areas of interest (such as Book Collecting, American History, Folk Music, Screenwriting, Disney, Classic Films, etc.). Most importantly, I’ve met many new friends. Thanks for your comments and emails.
I look forward to the next six months!
Part 3 of “Bud Dashiell’s Solo LPs.” For Part 1, click HERE.
The landscape of popular music changed dramatically during the final two years that Bud & Travis were back together. Even the year they chose to reunite was pivotal. In 1963, folk music went prime time with the launch of ABC-TV’s Hootenanny! show, but it was also the year that the mighty Weavers — one of the most influential of all folk groups — finally called it quits.
Of course, Bud & Travis had never referred to themselves solely as “folk singers.” Travis had even gently protested that classification at their heralded 1960 live concert in Santa Monica:
“One of the things that is frequently said of Bud and myself is that we’re folksingers…I guess if we sing, and we’re folk…it fits. But we like to do anything that we like. We don’t like to…just stay on one kind of material, but anything that pleases us.”
But no matter what they performed from their vast and varied repertoire, they did it acoustically, which became somewhat of a hindrance on the pop scene after The Beatles crossed the pond in 1964 with their Rickenbackers and Hofners, and “plugged-in” was suddenly “in.” So when B&T disbanded for good in 1965 — the year Dylan went electric — the two returned to solo club dates, where an artist with an acoustic guitar and a song could still find an appreciative audience. Edmonson headed back to the Southwest, and Dashiell remained on in Los Angeles.
Bud Dashiell’s I Think It’s Gonna Rain Today (W/WS-1731)
The times really had changed by 1968, when Dashiell released his final solo album, I Think It’s Gonna Rain Today (W/WS-1731). Instead of the record shipping out alongside LPs by The Kingston Trio (who disbanded in 1967) and The Chad Mitchell Trio (drawing a last breath as Denver, Boise & Johnson), it was marketed alongside Dashiell’s new Warner label mates The Beau Brummels, Harpers Bizarre, The Tokens and — in perhaps the most obvious evidence of a new musical day — The Grateful Dead.
Warner’s top folk franchise Peter, Paul & Mary were still touring, but even they had gone partly electric on 1967’s Album 1700 (on the satirical “I Dig Rock ‘n Roll Music” among others), and were in the final months of their own Act I.
But Dashiell knew his mind, what he enjoyed and what he wanted to do musically. He’d retained his artistic integrity, and — like Edmonson — was an intelligent man with a good sense of humor and strong opinions. Following popular tastes of the day had never been a big factor for either man, and Dashiell’s liner notes reflected those qualities:
“Who is speaking for the people who don’t get glassy-eyed and snap their fingers and say ‘yeeaahhh, baby’ when one of the paisley crowd drops some obscure verbal hallucination? So many noisemakers have been telling the American people to ‘listen’ that the American people really have started to listen. There are a lot of noncompartmentalized people who like to listen, and I like to talk to them.”
Singers speak through the language of song, and this LP offered up ten tracks for listeners to chew on. The variety is good, with one number from his B&T days, a couple blues chestnuts, three foreign language tunes (two in French from the late, great Gilbert Bécaud) and three songs from younger composers (Randy Newman, Jesse Colin Young and Gordon Lightfoot). Dashiell’s version of “Seasons in the Sun” (with a very tasty guitar intro reminiscent of B&T’s “Raspberries, Strawberries”) predated the schmaltzy Terry Jacks version by six years, but both of them learned it — as Bob Shane used to say in concert — off an old Kingston Trio album (1963’s A Time to Think).
Here’s the songlist as it appeared on the LP:
Side One:
Side Two:
As with parts 1 & 2 of this essay, I’d like to offer audio of a few tracks since they are currently unavailable anywhere. Just click on the arrow/triangle in each individual “player” to hear the full-length tune. You won’t even have to leave the page.
First up is the title track, Randy Newman’s “I Think It’s Gonna Rain Today.”
Next is a song that Bud first sang with Travis on ...In Person, a live LP recorded in 1964 at the Cellar Door in Washington D.C. The co-author of the song was with them on stage that night, since David “Buck” Wheat, late of the Kingston Trio and Whiskeyhill Singers, had recently joined the duo as bassist and Arranger Extraordinaire. The song? “Better than Anything.” So here is Bud’s solo version, sans Buck and Travis:
Third, a nylon string tour-de-force by Dashiell on Gordon Lightfoot’s “Early Morning Rain.”
The lovely “Lullaby” is a Jesse Colin Young tune, but Bud makes it own with a gently spoken intro to his own daughters.
Following the release of I Think It’s Gonna Rain Today, Dashiell continued to perform and teach guitar in Westwood through the early 1980s, when he suffered a seizure which severly affected the right side of his body. Less than a month later, Edmonson had a similar stroke, which incapacitated his left side.
Oliver Hassard Dashiell — who was born on September 28, 1929 (amazingly on the very same day as Edmonson) — died on June 2, 1989. Because of his distinguished service as a Battery Commander in the Korean War, he was buried in the Los Angeles National Military Cemetery, which borders the 405 freeway just north of Wilshire Boulevard. He was survived by his wife Mary and his two daughters.
Here’s Bud with a last word, once again from the …Gonna Rain liner notes:
“Right now, I’m an itinerant, a journeyman, a communicator, who wants to do things not because they are in vogue (I’ve been there) but because I am ready to talk of what I think, where I’m at, and how I feel a closeness to ideas like love, children, and my life.”
And with that, I say “Au Revoir” to Bud Dashiell.
Craig Hodgkins
