7:52 p.m. July 24---
America's small towns continue to turn to hometown heroes in efforts to cook up tourism. I've seen it with Dean Martin Days in Steubenville, Ohio and the Donna Reed Festival in Denison, Iowa. Now Bowling Green, Ky.. (pop 55,000) is paying tribute to native son Duncan Hines with a festival and a new exhibit at Western Kentucky University's Kentucky Museum.
Duncan was down with this quaint regionalism.
Since transportation and refrigeration systems were erratic in the 1930s and 40s, Hines figured locally grown foods would be the freshest. Hines was the precursor to the Zagat Guide, publishing the handy "Adventures In Good Eating" guide from 1935 until his death in 1959. Duncan got around. Here's his comment on the "Top of the Mark" at the Hotel Mark Hopkins (one of my favorite views in America) from his 1950 edition of "Adventures In Good Eating:"...........
...."Strictly speaking, this is not an eating place but a cocktail lounge. Even if you drink only Coca-Cola, by all means visit it. The view from this lounge on Nob Hill, is beautiful. Open from 10 a.m."
Sounds like Duncan just wanted an excuse to visit.
Duncan was born on March 23 , 1880 in Bowling Green. He adored his hometown so much that he spent his later years north of town in a ranch house without of bedroom. We recently followed the Duncan Hines Trail, accompanied by Cora Jane Spiller, his oldest, closest living relative.
Spiller recalled hitting the road with her husband Robert in the 1950s to rendezvous with Uncle Duncan in New Orleans when he introduced his cake mix to grocers there. "And we would go to Mammoth Cave for Sunday dinner," she said. "Everybody would order something. He would place one order of three or four things on the menu and we would pass them around."
Like a Southern Pat Bruno, Hines took notes abut also relied on his memory. "He had a little note pad," said Spiller, who still lives near Bowling Green. "He wouldn't write in the restaurant, but he would when he got in the car or back to the motel."
Louis Hatchett, author of the biography, "Duncan Hines: The Man Behind the Cake Mix" attended the exhibit opening. He wrote, "He created within the public mind an attitude that restaurant kitchens should be immacutely clean and above suspicion. In time, thanks to him, restaurant patrons came to demand that criteria, no matter where they dined."
The new exhibit at Western Kentucky University includes items like the General Electric "Liberator" automatic electric range (circa 1953-54) with a clock, two timers and salt and pepper shakers. But Duncan didn't cook that much. He was old school in the south, where "liberated" men didn't cook until the barbecue grill was introduced.
"He loved hams," Spiller continued as she stood in front of Duncan's old haunt, which is now a funeral home. "He bought hams in Bowling Green. They shipped a lot of hams out of this house. He had no bedroom. His living room had a bed that came out of the wall."
The Hardy and Sons Funeral Home has been in the same Bowling Green family since 1926. Current funeral director William B. Hardy, Jr. remembered moving into the house in 1960, a year after Hines' death. "The Hines family would whitewash anything that didn't move," Hardy said during a conversation on the patio. "All the trees had whitewash up to three feet. Remember, I'm in the third grade so I think I've been dropped off into the Garden of Eden. We had every type of apple and peach here. It was a neat place to grow up. I didn't know it was a funeral home. I thought I was the only kid in Bowling Green who had a Coke machine in his backyard."
Here is what is so sweet about small town celebrity tourism:
Hardy was eager to point out Hines' original cedar closet in the remodeled funeral home bathroom. So he led Cora Jane, me, my traveling companion Lynn, Marissa Butler and Katie Frassinelli from the Bowling Green Convention & Visitor's Bureau into the bathroom. We stood in the crowded bathroom as if were in a college prank. But we saw the closet where Duncan likely kept his antacid.
The Hines home was on a five acre plot of land. According to the Louis Hatchett biography "The Man Behind The Cake Mix," Duncan wanted a place in the country "where he could sit on the front porch in the evening and chain-smoke cigarettes while watching the cars go by." Hines planted a 20-foot bed of petunias in front of the house and the flower bed remains today.
His motto was "Have what you want, but want what you have."
In March 2004, Pinnacle Foods Corporation acquired the Duncan Hines brand from Aurora Foods, who had purchased it from Procter & Gamble in 1998. Duncan Hines remains the nations' second largest baking mix companies.
For more information on Duncan Hines, visit www.duncanhinesfestival.com
Another summer, another effort to explain the wonder of Jimmy Buffett to someone.
Its like trying to describe a mojito to an eskimo.
I've been writing about Buffett since 1982 when he opened for Bonnie Raitt at the Poplar Creek Music Theatre outside of Chicago. I have a picture of me and Buffett backstage. We both have big moustaches. It looks like we're preparing to direct an adult movie.
I was immediately drawn to Buffett's unique blend of country, calypso, reggae and folk. I love Merle Haggard and some of Buffett's curled vocal inflection reminds me of the Hag. Merle Haggard meeting Harry Belafonte meeting Steve Goodman.
What's not to like about that?
Call his musical style Gulf & Western or Caribbean Soul, but on Saturday I'll be at Alpine Valley for what appears to be my 36th Buffett concert since 1981. (I've saved most of the ticket stubs). I'd catch him while you can. I spoke to Buffett a couple of months ago before I headed off to the tiny Caribbean island of Anguilla, one of his recent haunts. "I've been fishing around and looking like places like Anguilla where we can play," Buffett said. "Its obvious people like to hear us in a smaller location and take a vacation at the same time......."
".....It started in Hawaii about five years ago when we did a show in a Honolulu park. A lot of people wrapped their vacation around the show and they didn't have to go 30 miles out of town like most of the places we're playing these days. You don't have that drive."
In early June Buffett made his performance debut in Paris, France (not Tennessee) at the 400-seat New Morning Club. He's seriously thinking about a show amongst the tiki gods on Easter Island in the South Pacific.
"I'm trying to cut down to about 20 dates a year," he said. "I'm doing the things I wanted to do the year I turned 60 in terms of lifestyle and music. As I throttle back I'm thinking more about teaching and getting involved with baseball, a fun hobby that might come back on my radar." Buffett has been involved with minor league ball in Key West and Ft. Myers, Fla.
I spend a lot of time listening to Bob Dylan, Curtis Mayfield, James Brown and John Prine. I love the new Garbage compilation. But my friends can't figure out what it is with Buffett. They lose sight of Buffett's musical acumen because of the surreal ritual of his live show: fins hats that block your view, men in coconut bras and grass skirts and heavy drinking.
This is mostly a Midwest deal and I don't care for it either. I've seen Buffett at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Bayview Park in Miami and a Super Bowl XX party when the Bears were in New Orleans. None of that weird stuff went down at those shows.
Earlier this year I was at Amoeba Records in San Francisco when I picked up a Lefty Frizzell CD. The late Frizzell-a major influence on Haggard--recorded Buffett's ballad "Railroad Lady."
"Wow, I don't even know how that song got to him," Buffett said. "I think my publisher at the tiime, Buzz Cason, got it to Lefty. I was such a horrible song plugger. Lefty was the first one to do one of my songs. Then Waylon (Jennings) did 'He Went To Paris' Then Willie did 'Railroad Lady.' [Kenny Chesney is producing the upcoming Willie Nelson album that has a Buffett track on it.] . In all those years they're the only people who covered my songs.
"But I heard the other day that at Jack Johnson's Kokua (Hawaii Foundation) charity festival--which I was hoping to play, but was the same weekend we were working-- he and Eddie Vedder did 'A Pirate Looks at 40."
Buffett maintains one of the best road bands in the business. Louisiana slide guitarist Sonny Landreth is on board, although he will miss the Alpine show because of the Crossroads Blues Festival in Chicago. Bill Payne of Little Feat is a Coral Reefer when he's not involved with other projects, and I will never get enough of Trinidadian master steel drummer Robert Greenidge.
Percussionist Ralph McDonald played with Belafonte for 10 years while also writing the soul classics "Where Is The Love" and "Just The Two of Us" and keyboardist-bandleader Michael Utley is the mind behind the madness. Utley's credenitals include a stint with Memphis legend Jim Dickinson and the Dixie Flyers and he was musical director for the critically acclaimed 'Roy Orbison: Black and White Night."
And don't take a flyer on guitarist Lyman Corbett "Mac" McAnally, whose songwriting roots in Nashville run as deep as his 1970s studio work in Muscle Shoals, Ala..
Buffett, Utley and McAnally still subsribe to the Muscle Shoals style that shaped hits by Aretha Franklin, the Staple Singers, and even Bob Dylan, who recorded 1979's "Slow Train Coming" at Muscle Shoals Sound: always frame the passion of the music around the singer.
See you Saturday.....and phins up!!
5 p.m. July 20---
I remember when the idea of attending a county or state fair was corny. Or corn doggy. Or as square as Dennis Hastert. There were more important things to do like spending an afternoon in the Wrigley Field bleachers or listening to the Allman Brothers on a warm midsummer night.
Over time I've learned how these homegrown affairs can deliver meaningful slices of life. This was the case in 2001 when my brother and I took our 81-year-old parents to see Bob Dylan in 85 degree heat at the Illinois State Fair in Springfield. [My Dad said Bob was good, but he was no Debbie Reynolds.] and it happened again last night when I attended the Kane County Fair & Festival in suburban St. Charles.
The Neville Brothers were our main draw on a crisp evening, and while I have seen them about two dozen times I have never seen the first family of New Orleans play before approximately 250 people at a county fair....
....Aaron Neville's honeysoaked voice led the band through a golden field of soulful standards that included Sam Cooke's "A Change Is Gonna Come," Van Morrison's "Crazy Love" and Bill Withers' "Use Me." The band played to the backdrop of a neon Ferris wheel, spinning around like your first kaleidoscope. That ride always goes in circles, yet it always takes you back.
After the band concluded with Bob Marley's "One Love" and snippets of Curtis Mayfield's "People Get Ready," brothers Aaron and Cyril Neville took time to greet fans along the fencing in the dimly lit east side of the stage. They could have been grumpy about the sparse turnout, but their impromptu meet and greet was straight from the heart.
They're from New Orleans.
The chill in the carnival air was brought on by a fierce storm that rolled through the Chicago area on the previous evening. I figured this might have been why attendance was so light. After the concert, we rode the Ferris wheel and wound up being the only people on the trip. The fairgrounds were so quiet the carnival workers weren't even blaring Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Green River" at our ride.
St. Charles (and for that matter the Du Page County Fair in Wheaton) are now far more suburban enclaves than anythng to do with country life when these county fairs started. More kids probably think 4-H is a rapper instead of a group of young agrarians. A Meier super super store is across the street from the fairgrounds and we saw more young people at a free rock concert in a downtown St. Charles park than we did for the Nevilles.
This is why the fair's simple charms seemed bigger.
While visiting the cows we learned how one baby cow was born during the previous night's storm. Her mother was scared and suddenly gave birth to "Stormy." The mother cow intensly watched over her sleeping "Stormy" as fairgoing children willingly shared the story with anyone who walked by.
I learned about 4-H clubs in Brooklyn, N.Y. and the free spirit of such a delightfully incongrous pursuit made me know I was in the right place. We saw swine sleeping snort to snort and someone made a race car out of a cucumber in the "Vegetable Art" section of the fairgrounds.
I'm now making an RV out of a watermelon.
I rediscovered Randy Ream's bratwurst from Ream's Elburn Market (www.elburnmarket.com). Only 55 miles outside of Chicago, Ream is one of the best sausage makers in America. His secret bratwurst recipe includes dashes of onion and lemon, bitter mace, nutmeg and ground caraway. He is a member of the Cured Meat Hall of Fame and also played jazz saxophone behind Bob Hope in Hilton Head, S.C.
The county fairs are a fine warm-up for the state fairs.
This year's Illinois State Fair runs from Aug. 10-19 on the state fairgrounds along old Route 66 in Springfield. The state fair is 155 years old and there are more than 150 buildings of displays and exhibits including the 400-pound butter cow. Grandstand highlights look to be Gretchen Wilson (Aug. 10), Martina McBride (Aug. 17) and Joe Walsh (Aug. 18). An insider's secret is "The Twilight Parade" that kicks off at 6 p.m. Aug. 9 in downtown Springfield. Admisson to the Aug. 9 "preview" portion of the state fair is free and carnival rides are discounted. Visit the fair's website at www.illinoisstatefair.info.
The Wisconsin State Fair has always been a little more hip than the Illnois Stae Fair. The Cheeseheads get down for the 156th consectutive year between Aug. 2-12 in West Allis, Wis., west of Milwaukee. The Cousins Subs Ampitheater is the largest free grounds during the fair. Enterainment highlights include Colin Hay of Men at Work (Aug. 2)., Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels (Aug. 6) and Shooter Jennings (Aug. 10). These two crack me up in an 'Only Wisconsin' type of way: Craig Chaguico--"formerly of Jefferson Starship" (Aug. 9), and Mr. and Mrs. State Fair Physique Competition Finals at 6 p.m. Aug. 12 in the ampitheater. Yikes! Visit wistatefair.com for more information.
Originally published in Chicago Sun-Times March 5, 2005,
Updated July 20, 2007 for 30th Anniversary Elvis Week
MEMPHIS, Tenn. -- The smallest details can shape the biggest dreams. In 1949, Vernon Presley moved his wife and teenage son Elvis into Apartment 328 at Lauderdale Courts, 185 Winchester, in downtown Memphis. The modestly appointed two-bedroom unit consisted of a living room, bathroom and walk-in kitchen. A public housing development built in 1938 under President Franklin Roosevelt's WPA, Lauderdale Courts was one of the first U.S. public housing projects.
The projects were slated to be razed in the mid-1990s, but Presley fans, along with the City of Memphis and private developers, saved the courts. The 66 red brick buildings of the 22-acre site are on the National Register of Historic Places. And now you can sleep in Elvis' teenage bedroom.......
....Elvis lived here between 1949 and 1953, when he was attending Humes High School -- key years in his cultural development. He could walk to Beale Street to absorb black rhythm and blues. He attended gospel concerts two blocks away at the since-razed Ellis Auditorium. He saw possibilities.
But this is no Heartbreak Hotel.
The beautiful 689-square foot apartment was recently opened for public tours and reservations are being accepted for dates beyond April. This is the only place on earth where you can live where Presley lived. Last month I became one of the first to stay in Apartment 328, and the sensory overload surpassed the night I slept between Duane and Gregg Allman's former bedrooms in the Allman Brothers' "Big House" in Macon, Ga. I could only imagine the dreams that Presley must have had in this bedroom.
The courts are part of the Uptown Square development that is bringing life back into downtown Memphis. Uptown Square is a division of the $150 million Uptown Memphis Movement, which includes the building of more than 1,000 new homes and apartments along with new streetscapes. Uptown Square restored the Presley apartment with depth, dignity and lots of period detail.
The real kicks come in Elvis' bedroom. A replica 1953 Herald high school yearbook (the King majored in shop and history) rests on the dresser, alongside a jar of Royal Crown Hair Dressing, popular with blacks on Beale Street. (The research team knew Royal Crown was the real deal because Vernon saved all his receipts.) The Elvis bedroom also is adorned with photos of Rudolph Valentino and Tony Curtis. When Presley was 15, he was an usher at Loew's State Theater on South Main Street in downtown Memphis.
In his critically acclaimed biography Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley, Peter Guralnick writes that the Lauderdale era played a key role in shaping Presley's style. "The whole feel of Lauderdale Courts was upward mobility," Guralnick said from Nashville, where he is teaching creative writing at Vanderbilt University. "It was expressed in their motto "From slums to public housing to private ownership". People think of Elvis as a deprived child on welfare, but this really is not the picture. He was surrounded by people on the way up. The courts helped mold his democratic ideals."
Ken Black, 71, brother of the late Bill Black, Presley's bass player, reminisced about when his widowed mother Ruby and his eight siblings lived at Lauderdale Courts. (Bill Black was grown and did not live at the courts, but would come to visit.) Ken Black is a member of a group of former Lauderdale Courts residents called "Poor Boys Done Good," who meet every Thursday for coffee at a Perkins Restaurant in east Memphis. They agree their time at Lauderdale provided for some of the best memories of their life.
"I met Elvis in 1949 at Humes High," Black said while sitting in the Presley living room. "He was in the ninth grade, I was in the 10th. I lived at the other end of the complex. When Elvis moved out, he went to Alabama Street about a half-mile from Lauderdale. I lived across the street and got to know him real well." The "Poor Boys Done Good" provided rich background for the restoration. "They all had their own stories about, 'You should use this wax or that wax, or this wood was better,'" recalled Alex Mobley, asset manager of the Uptown Memphis Movement.
Communal life in the courts included monthly inspections by the Memphis Housing Authority staff. "Elvis got written up for leaving a cereal bowl on the table," Mobley said. "He was late for school. There was a report like, 'Needs help in cleaning up.' Then they would come back and give you a cleaning lesson." Presley used to listen to records at the Popular Tunes record store which still stands within walking distance of Apartment 328.
Black walked through the apartment with a reflective eye. He saw the trunk at the foot of Elvis' bed, smiled and said, "My mother had a trunk just like that at the foot of her bed." A retired sign painter, Black pointed out that even the 16-inch deep windowsills were the same as when he lived in the courts. At night, Presley would sit his bedroom windowsill and play guitar. He also practiced in the basement laundry room.
Throughout nine months of research, what was Mobley's biggest Elvis surprise? "It was seeing photos of him when he was here," she said. "He already had the greased hair, color and black satin pants -- with his friends standing next to him in jeans and a shirt. He already looked different than every other boy. Everyone in the courts knew who he was."
Lauderdale Courts bottomed out in the mid-1990s when only 75 of 499 apartments were occupied. The revitalized Uptown Square neighborhood still stands at a crossroads of fortune, with the complex bordered on the north by St. Jude Research Hospital and operations like Angel Bail Bond on the south. The courts have been transformed into 347 new apartments, currently 85 percent leased.
No one famous has yet to stay in Apartment 328, although a few weeks ago, Bob Dylan dropped into Sun Studios. Dylan told the studio help he just wanted to "Kiss the X" and bent down and smooched the X on the floor where so many of his musical heroes stood years ago. Dylan will have to add Apartment 328 to his list. Like any visitor to the old courts, he will love it tender.
Up to four guests can stay in Apartment 328 for a two-night minimum or six-night maximum at $250 per night. Reservations are not being accepted during Elvis Week (Aug. 11-17), when the apartment will be open for public tours. For reservations and information, contact Lauderdale Courts at Uptown Square, (901) 523-8662, or visit www.lauderdalecourts.com.
There are several timeless rock n ' roll questions:
Who put the bomp in the bomp-a-bomp-a-bomp?
Where is my mind? (Vanilla Fudge)
And who or what is "The Pompatus of Love"?
Rocker Steve Miller coined the weird phrase on his 1973 hit "The Joker." He sings, "Some people call me the space cowboy/Yeah, some call me the gangster of love/Some people call me Maurice (screeching)/Cause I speak of the Pompatus of Love.......
"The Pompatus of Love" has since assumed folkloric proportions, including a 1996 film called "The Pompatus of Love." Miller doesn't do a lot of interviews and in the past has declined to talk about the impetus for his Pompatus.
But things went so well last week in a 45-minute conversation with Miller, at the end of the interview I decided to pop the Pompatus question.
"It was like Space Cowboy, Dave," Miller said in fatherly tones. "It was something that got tossed off without any thought or any reason. I get about six letters a year from lawyers going, 'Steve: what does the Pompatus of Love mean?' I refuse to tell anyone anything. What is it? It sounds like pompadour. Its got something to do with hair and French kissing?"
I was introduced to Steve Miller through 1970's "Number 5" album, which I still have on vinyl somewhere in my condo-mess. The album is musically deeper than most of Miller's smash hits. There's lilting acoustic workouts on "Going to the Country" and "I Love You" as well as the hard driving "Going to Mexico." Miller also sings "Tokin's," which may offer another clue to "Pompatus of Love."
Only one year removed from Bob Dylan's watershed "Nashville Skyline" sessions, Nashville cats Charlie McCoy (harmonica) and fiddle player Buddy Spicher guest on "Number 5". Beatle brother Nicky Hopkins is on piano and Miller's Madison Wis. running partner Ben Sidran plays keyboards. "Number 5" was recorded in Nashville.
But Miller's breakthrough record was "Fly Like An Eagle," which was released 31 years ago. Miller heard the potential in FM radio and took the money and ran. "FM radio was growing quickly," Miller said. "We'd go to Chicago and play a concert then go to whatever the local FM station was and play Lord Buckley records until four in the morning. You could do anything you wanted to.
"I was trying to make a record that could be played on FM stereo. Its hard to believe, but mono was fine back then. We did stereo and even a quad mix on 'Fly Like an Eagle,' which I think was the last one Capitol (Records) put out. When I was making the record, I was trying to make it where they would have to play the whole side." Side one of the record began with the loopy "Space Intro," which led into "Fly Like An Eagle," "Wild Mountain Honey," "Serenade," the country-influenced "Dance, Dance, Dance" and a cover of "Mercury Blues," which Miller learned from an Alan Lomax anthology.
The song "Fly Like An Eagle" re-emerged in 2005 when Miller and his band collaborated with guitar legend Les Paul on the tribute CD "Les Paul & Friends (American Made, World Played)." Miller's father Dr. George "Sonny" Miller was a pathologist and self-taught recording engineer who became best friends with Paul. The elder Miller liked fiddling around with his Magnacorder, the first professional tape recorder made in the United States. Miller figured his father was the only guy in Milwaukee to own a Magnacorder. Prior to World War II tape recorders had been German made and Americans were relegated to cumbersome wire recorders with spools.
George Miller was best man at Les Paul's wedding to Mary Ford and Steve Miller is Paul's godson. Miller said, "When Les and Mary came to Milwaukee they played at Jimmy Fazio's Supper Club. My Dad tape recorded the shows on his Magnacorder. About 30 years later I go to see Les at Fat Tuesday's in New York and (producer) Tom Dowd is sitting in the corner with a recorder. It was the same damn scene!"
" I was probably four years old when I met Les. (Jazz guitarist and sign painter) Tal Farlow came to the house, so did Charlie Mingus. When I was a kid I remember being in a club that was jam packed watching Les Paul tear it up. Tal Farlow walked in. Everybody goes, 'Ooh, Tal Farlow is here.' It was going to be a cutting session. In the middle of his solo, without missing a beat Les pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and put it over his left hand on his guitar so you couldn't see how he was playing his licks. Les was a shredder beyond anything, but he was incredibly musical.
"Les showed me my first chords. He's been my inspiration my entire life. Every time I go to New York I go to the Irdium (where Paul holds court on Monday nights) and do both shows with him. You look in his audience and there's always the 10 best guitar players within a 300 mile radius of that room if they're not working. In fact, he has a stooge guitar on stage. You never go to jam with Les Paul and not bring your own instrument. There's this beautiful gold and white Les Paul with three gold pick ups on it. Its on a stand in a corner and they usually put a spotlight on it. The tuning peg and the g-string just goes around and around and the volume doesn't do anything. Its like, 'Next time bring your own guitar, hot shot.' There's nobody around like him. There never has been."
