December 14, 1963: The Death of Dinah Washington

December 14, 1963: Dinah Washington, "The Queen of the Blues," dies at her home in Detroit, of an overdose of prescription drugs, apparently accidental. She was 39.

She was born as Ruth Lee Jones on August 29, 1924 in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and grew up in Chicago. By 1942, she was singing with the great jazz bandleader Fats Waller. After his death in 1943, she joined Lionel Hampton's band, making her first recordings in 1944.

By 1948, she was regularly making Billboard magazine's R&B chart. In 1950, her version of "I Wanna Be Loved" hit Number 22 on its pop chart. In 1951, she became an early "crossover" star, by taking Hank Williams' "Cold, Cold Heart" to Number 3 on the R&B chart.

She had Top 10 hits with versions of "What a Diff'rence a Day Makes" (which, in 1959, won the 1st-ever Grammy Award for Best R&B Performance), "Broken-Hearted Melody," Nat King Cole's "Unforgettable," and duets with Brook Benton: "Baby (You've Got What It Takes)" and "A Rockin' Good Way (To Mess Around and Fall In Love)."

But her personal life was troubled. It's not clear how many times she was married: Sources have suggested between 6 and 9, with no known children. And, like Elvis Presley, prescriptions for pills to handle weight and insomnia contributed to her death. At the time, she was married to Dick "Night Train" Lane of the Detroit Lions, one of the greatest defensive backs of all time.

In 1993, she was elected to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, in its "Early Influence" category.

*

December 14, 1963 was a Saturday. Actress Cynthia Gibb was born. And the Baldwin Hills Dam broke in Los Angeles, killing 5 people. I have a separate entry for that event.

Baseball was out of season. There were no games played in the NFL. In the American Football League, the New York Jets lost to the Buffalo Bills, 19-10. This was the last event ever held at the Polo Grounds. I have a separate entry for that event as well.

Also in the AFL that day, the Kansas City Chiefs beat the Boston Patriots, 35-3 at Kansas City Municipal Stadium. In the National Football League, the Green Bay Packers beat the San Francisco 49ers, 21-17 at Kezar Stadium in San Francisco. The rest of both Leagues played the next day, Sunday.

It was the last weekend of the college football season before the bowl games, and only 2 games were played. The University of Houston beat the University of Louisville, 21-7 at Rice Stadium in Houston, where they were groundsharing with their crosstown rivals, Rice University.

And Number 9 Alabama, coached by Paul "Bear" Bryant and quarterbacked by Joe Namath, beat the University of Miami, 17-12 at the Orange Bowl stadium in Miami. 'Bama and the University of Mississippi, each of whom had faced an integration crisis over the last year and change, did not play each other in the regular season, but 'Bama's losses to Florida and arch-rival Auburn, along with Ole Miss' undefeated season, gave Ole Miss the Southeastern Conference Championship. But since 'Bama hadn't had their shot at Ole Miss, they were pitted against each other in the Sugar Bowl, which traditionally features the SEC Champion, and 'Bama won, 12-7.

There were 4 games played in the NBA that day:

* The New York Knicks lost to the Philadelphia 76ers, 123-119 at the old Madison Square Garden.

* The Cincinnati Royals beat the Boston Celtics, 108-105 at the Boston Garden.

* The St. Louis Hawks beat the Detroit Pistons, 104-92 at the Kiel Auditorium in St. Louis.

* And the Los Angeles Lakers beat the Baltimore Bullets, 113-108 at the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena. Jerry West led all scorers on the day with 38 points.

The NHL's entire "Original Six" was in action that day:

* The New York Rangers lost to the Toronto Maple Leafs, 5-3 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto.

* The Montreal Canadiens beat the Boston Bruins, 3-1 at the Montreal Forum.

* And the Detroit Red Wings beat the Chicago Black Hawks, 5-4 at the Olympia Stadium in Detroit.

And in English soccer, Arsenal, the North London team that I would one day support, traveled to the Birmingham area, and played Wolverhampton Wanderers, a.k.a. Wolves, to a 2-2 draw.

November 21, 1941: America's Longest-Running Daily Radio Broadcast

Sonny Boy Williamson II

November 21, 1941: The first broadcast of King Biscuit Time airs on KFFA in Helena, Arkansas, sponsored by King Biscuit Flour, and features the African-American blues artists Sonny Boy Williamson and Robert Lockwood, Jr. They play live in the studio. and are the key musicians in the original studio band, the King Biscuit Entertainers.

The original Sonny Boy Williamson was John Lee Curtis Williamson, born in 1914 in rural Tennessee. He is often regarded as the pioneer of the harmonica, or "blues harp," as a solo instrument. He played on hundreds of recordings by many pre–World War II blues artists. Under his own name, he was one of the most recorded blues musicians of the 1930s and 1940s. Unfortunately, he was an innocent bystander in a shootout in the aftermath of a robbery in Chicago in 1948. He was 34 years old.

For some musical personalities, death turned out to be "a great career move." Not for him: Even while he was still alive, another harmonica player came along, calling himself many things. By 1941, he was using the name "Rice Miller." But KFFA decided to capitalize on the established bluesman's name -- in other words, to commit fraud -- and billed Miller as "Sonny Boy Williamson," even though Sonny Boy was very much still alive and active.

It didn't help that this new "Sonny Boy" had clouded origins: He previously used several names, most often Aleck Miller, and also Aleck Ford, which may or may not have been his birth name; his place of birth is usually cited as in Mississippi, although no one is sure of where in the State; and his date of birth has been cited as anywhere from 1897 to 1912, any of which would make him older. 

It was a while before people realized this new "Sonny Boy" wasn't the same guy. And he ended up being more famous, just as pool player Rudolf Wanderone became more famous using the name "Minnesota Fats," taken from the Jackie Gleason character in the film The Hustler, than the film itself became. He died in 1965.

To differentiate them, they are usually assigned Roman numerals: The first one is sometimes listed as "Sonny Boy Williamson I," and the second one as "Sonny Boy Williamson II." Beyond any question, the 2nd one was the one who performed on the early King Biscuit Time.

King Biscuit Time is still broadcast on KFFA every weekday. It is the longest-running daily radio broadcast in American history.

*

November 21, 1941 was a Friday. Actress Juliet Mills was born. So was Dave Porter, who, with Sam Moore, formed the soul-singing duo Sam & Dave.

Baseball was out of season. The NBA hadn't been founded yet. And no games were scheduled in the NHL. There were 2 college football games played. The University of Miami beat South Carolina, 7-6 at Burdine Stadium in Miami, the stadium that would one day be renamed the Orange Bowl. And Texas Tech beat Hardin-Simmons, 7-0 at Tech Field (now Jones AT&T Stadium) in Lubbock, Texas.

August 19, 1940: Alan Lomax's "Back Where I Came From" Premieres

August 19, 1940: Back Where I Came From premieres on CBS radio, hosted by Alan Lomax. Despite its success and high visibility, it never picked up a commercial sponsor. The show ran for only 21 weeks before it was suddenly canceled in February 1941.

On hearing the news, folksinger Woody Guthrie wrote Lomax from California, "Too honest again, I suppose? Maybe not purty enough. O well, this country's a getting to where it can't hear its own voice. Someday the deal will change."

Lomax himself wrote that in all his work he had tried to capture "the seemingly incoherent diversity of American folk song as an expression of its democratic, inter-racial, international character, as a function of its inchoate and turbulent many-sided development."

Lomax was born on January 31, 1915 in Austin, Texas. He went around America in the 1930s, and collected hundreds of folk songs, including white people's country music and black people's blues music, recording them for posterity, and perhaps saving them from being lost. He broadcast many of those recordings on his show, and donated them to the Library of Congress, where they have been protected.

This matches a point recently made by Cracked.com, only the humor website was being dead serious about it: 99 percent of all the musical pieces ever written have been lost.

We don't know what cavemen sang when they invented song. We don't know what music the psalms of King David were set to. We don't know what songs were sung by the laborers of ancient Egypt or the philosophers of Greece and Rome. We don't know the marching songs of the soldiers of King Arthur or Charlemagne or Genghis Khan. We know much of the poetry of Shakespeare's time (including his own), but we don't know the equivalent of the "hit parade" or the "Top 40" of Elizabethan England or the Russia of Peter the Great and Catherine the Great, of Revolutionary America or Napoleonic France.

But thanks to Alan Lomax and his sometimes partner, John Henry Faulk, we know some of the oldest songs sung in America, by white people and black people alike. The recordings they made, long in the custody of the Library of Congress, are priceless.

*

August 19, 1940 was a Monday. Singers Johnny Nash and Roger Cook, and actress Jill St. John, were born.

These 3 baseball games were played:

* The New York Giants beat the Cincinnati Reds, 9-2 at Crosley Field in Cincinnati. Mel Ott hit a home run, and Carl Hubbell outpitched Paul Derringer. The Reds went on to win the World Series, anyway.

* The Boston Red Sox beat the Cleveland Indians, 16-7 at Fenway Park in Boston. Jimmie Foxx, Ted Williams and Jim Tabor hit home runs.

* And the Boston Bees beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 3-0 at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. Dick Errickson allowed 9 hits, but kept the shutout. This was the last of 5 seasons under the Bees name for the Boston franchise of the National League. The next year, they went back to being called the Boston Braves.

August 16, 1938: The Death of Robert Johnson

August 16, 1938: Robert Johnson dies. As with everything that happened in his life, his death comes under mysterious circumstances.

Robert Leroy Johnson was born on May 8, 1911 in Hazlehurst, Mississippi. At least, that's what his mother said, having lived long enough to be interviewed by music historians. He was not listed among her children in the 1910 Census, which supports her version of events. But in the 1920 Census, he is listed as 7 years old, suggesting a birthdate in late 1912 or early 1913.

His mother moved him around various places in the Mississippi Delta, including Memphis, Tennessee, where the Delta is often said to begin. (Traditionally, it's the part of northwestern Mississippi between the Mississippi and Yazoo Rivers.) He married a 16-year-old girl when he was 18, but she died in childbirth, as did the baby. A 2nd marriage also ended when his wife died quickly. (Foul play has never been suggested in either case.) After this, he figured there was no reason to live out his life as a poor sharecropper, and committed himself to music.

He was described as pleasant and outgoing in public, but reserved in private; descriptions like "well mannered" and "soft spoken" were used. Blues guitarist Son House later told an interviewer that, when he met Johnson, he was a competent harmonica player, but an embarrassingly bad guitarist. He recalled that Johnson left town, came back a few weeks later, and was playing guitar better than anyone had ever seen.

In a 1966 interview with Down Beat, a jazz magazine, House provided an explanation, and it has become the story that everybody thinks they know about Robert Johnson: He made a deal with the Devil. He met the Devil at a rural crossroads, offering his soul in exchange for becoming the world's greatest guitar player.

Several towns have claimed to be the site of the crossroads in question. The one most often accepted is in Clarksdale, Mississippi, at the intersection of U.S. Routes 49 and 61. This may have been a rural area at the time, but it's pretty well developed now, to the point where Route 49 has been diverted around the town, and there is a memorial at the site, now labeled North State Street and DeSoto Avenue. The Delta Blues Museum is a mile to the north.

Route 61, a.k.a. the Blues Highway, runs from Wyoming, Minnesota south to New Orleans. Its run through his hometown of Hibbing, Minnesota, and its connection with Johnson, may be why Bob Dylan wrote a song titled "Highway 61 Revisited," and he even used that as the title for its album. But instead of suggesting a meeting with the Devil, Dylan cites a meeting with God in his song.

It's been suggested that the real reason that Johnson got good at guitar is, as it usually is in cases like these, not a deal with the Devil, but an old trinity: "Practice, practice, practice." Another legend suggests that he practiced in graveyards, so he wouldn't disturb anyone, or be disturbed.

He had 2 recording sessions, both in Texas: In San Antonio in 1936, and in Dallas in 1937, leaving 29 songs. Most were not released during his lifetime.

In 1938, Columbia Records producer John Hammond wanted to bring Johnson to New York, for his "From Spirituals to Swing" concert at Carnegie Hall. In 1941, Alan Lomax, who recorded many singers he'd heard about in the South, white and black alike, including Huddie Ledbetter, a.k.a. Lead Belly, went to Mississippi to record Johnson. Neither knew until it was too late that Johnson had died.

And how did that happen? Again, the stories conflict. In 1966, music historian Gayle Dean Wardlow found his death certificate, which gave the date as August 16, 1938, No one seems to dispute that date. If the May 8, 1911 birthdate is correct, then Johnson was 27 years old -- making him, perhaps, the earliest known member of what became known as rock and roll's "27 Club." (There had been earlier creative artists to die at that age, most notably poet Rupert Brooke.)

But the cause of death, who caused it (if it was anything other than natural causes), and where it happened are in dispute. It seems to have been in, or at least near, Greenwood, Mississippi. The death certificate does not list a cause.

The most common story, although the specifics differ, is that he was murdered by the husband of a woman he was flirting with. Aleck Miller, the 2nd and better-known blues singer to use the name Sonny Boy Williamson, said that the husband gave Johnson a bottle of whiskey he'd poisoned, and that it took Johnson 3 terribly painful days to die.

Music historian Robert "Mack" McCormick claimed that he'd determined the identity of the killer, tracked him down, and interviewed him, getting a confession, on the condition that he not reveal the man's name. He never did. He may have been making it up.

Non-murder suggestions have included syphilis, certainly possible given Johnson's womanizing; and Marfan syndrome, which would explain Johnson's long, thin appearance, including long, thin fingers, which would have aided him in playing guitar, but would also have damaged his heart. To me, this sounds like the most logical explanation for his skill (besides a lot of practice), and for his death.

Presuming the death certificate is correct about the date of death, then Robert Johnson, "the King of the Delta Blues," died on an August 16 -- as would, 10 years later, Babe Ruth, "the Sultan of Swat"; and, 29 years after that, Elvis Presley, "the King of Rock and Roll." But no one has ever suggested that the Babe or Elvis made a deal with the Devil for their great talents.

At its 1st induction ceremony, in 1986, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame made Johnson one of its charter inductees in the "Early Influence" category, calling him "the first ever rock star."

It is not clear if Johnson had any children. In 1998, the Mississippi Supreme Court ruled that Claud Johnson, a retired truck driver who claimed to be the result of a 1931 relationship between Robert Johnson and Vergie Mae Smith, was his son, and thus his legal heir. But Robert's half-sister, Carrie Harris Thompson, and her children disputed this. Claud Johnson died in 2015, leaving his shares of his apparent father's royalties to his 6 children.

*

August 16, 1938 was a Tuesday. These baseball games were played that day:

* The New York Yankees swept a doubleheader from the Washington Senators at Griffith Stadium in Washington, 16-1 and 6-2. Lefty Gomez went the distance in the opener, and Red Ruffing did so in the nightcap. In the 1st game, Lou Gehrig went 4-for-4 with a home run and 5 RBIs, and Joe DiMaggio went 0-for-4, although he drew 2 walks. In the 2nd game, it was the other way around: The Iron Horse went 0-for-5, but the Yankee Clipper went 3-for-5 with a home run and 3 RBIs.

* The Brooklyn Dodgers beat their arch-rivals, the New York Giants, 7-3 at the Polo Grounds. Ernie Koy hit a home run for the Dodgers. Mel Ott went 0-for-2 with 2 walks for the Giants.

* The Philadelphia Athletics beat the Boston Red Sox, 14-11 at Fenway Park in Boston. Yes, that's baseball, not football. For the A's, Clarence "Ace" Parker, a decent baseball player but a Hall of Fame quarterback in the NFL, went 3-for-5 with 4 RBIs; while Wally Moses and Frankie Hayes also had 3 hits, 1 of Hayes' being a home run. For the Red Sox, former A's slugger Jimmie Foxx hit 2 home runs, and Roger "Doc" Cramer went 2-for-6 with 4 RBIs.

* The Philadelphia Phillies beat the Boston Bees (a name the Braves used from 1936 to 1940), 7-6 in 11 innings at Shibe Park in Philadelphia. (It was renamed Connie Mack Stadium in 1953.) Baseball-Reference.com does not have a play-by-play for this game, so I can't tell you how the winning run was scored.

* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Cincinnati Reds, 10-0 at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. Cy Blanton allowed 8 hits, but pitched a shutout.

* The Cleveland Indians beat the St. Louis Browns, 9-6 at League Park in Cleveland.

* A doubleheader between arch-rivals was split at Wrigley Field in Chicago. The Chicago Cubs won the 1st game, 5-4. Frank Demaree tripled home the winning run in the bottom of the 11th. The St. Louis Cardinals won the 2nd game, 5-2.

* And the Chicago White Sox and the Detroit Tigers were rained out at Briggs Stadium in Detroit. (It was renamed Tiger Stadium in 1961.) The game was made up the next day, as part of a doubleheader. The Tigers swept, 4-3 and 3-2. Hank Greenberg would hit 58 home runs that season, but didn't even get a hit that day, going 0-for-8 in the twinbill.

July 15, 1914: W.C. Handy Records "The Saint Louis Blues"

July 15, 1914: W.C. Handy Records "The Saint Louis Blues," a landmark in recording the blues, a uniquely American art form.

William Christopher Handy was born on November 16, 1873 in Florence, Alabama, in a log cabin built by his grandfather. His father and said grandfather were both ministers in the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME). His father believed musical instruments were the tools of the Devil, but William learned to play the guitar and the cornet. 

In his autobiography, titled after a nickname he did not give himself, Father of the Blues, he cited as inspiration the "whippoorwills, bats and hoot owls and their outlandish noises," Cypress Creek washing on the fringes of the woodland, and "the music of every songbird and all the symphonies of their unpremeditated art." But he also cited his own people: "Southern Negroes sang about everything... They accompany themselves on anything from which they can extract a musical sound or rhythmical effect."

In 1893, a quartet he formed performed at the World's Columbia Exhibition, a World's Fair in Chicago. He eventually toured in Cuba, Mexico and Canada. In 1896, he married Elizabeth Price, and they had 6 children.

He is best known for 2 songs with "blues" and a city's name in the title. In 1909, he wrote "The Memphis Blues," which became the campaign song for the election of Mayor of Edward Crump, despite Crump being a white segregationist, and on his way to running the Democratic Party of Tennessee into corruption.

Sheet music for "The Memphis Blues" was published in 1912, and was said to be the inspiration for the invention of the Foxtrot by the married dancers Vernon and Irene Castle. Along with the Castles, Handy had become a national star.

In 1914, he wrote "The Saint Louis Blues" -- with "Saint" spelled out on the sheet music, not abbreviated as "St." He wrote:

The one-step and other dances had been done to the tempo of "Memphis Blues."... When "St Louis Blues" was written the tango was in vogue. I tricked the dancers by arranging a tango introduction, breaking abruptly into a low-down blues. My eyes swept the floor anxiously, then suddenly I saw lightning strike. The dancers seemed electrified. Something within them came suddenly to life. An instinct that wanted so much to live, to fling its arms to spread joy, took them by the heels.

He also wrote and recorded "Atlanta Blues," but it was not as big of a hit as his Memphis and St. Louis songs. In 1916, he had another Memphis-themed song, "Beale Street Blues," which was a hit. "Yellow Dog Blues," from 1912, was a big hit, and was even mentioned in Bobby Darin's 1958 hit song "Queen of the Hop."

He moved to New York, and was able to live off his music royalties, so that live performing was a pleasure, not a need. In 1929, an early sound film was titled St. Louis Blues. Handy produced it, but did not appear in it. Bessie Smith did, as "The Saint Louis Blues" was the song that introduced "The Empress of the Blues" to the world. It is believed to be her only film appearance.

In 1943, Handy fell off a Subway platform, and, although he was not hit by a train, he went blind as a result of the fall. His family moved him to nearby Yonkers, New York. In spite of his impairment, in 1949, he played "The Saint Louis Blues" on Toast of the Town, the show that became The Ed Sullivan Show.

He died on March 28, 1958, of bronchial pneumonia, at the age of 84, and was buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in New York, where Vernon Castle, Bert Williams and Florence Mills had been buried. They would eventually be joined by Irene Castle, Fritz Kreisler, Duke Ellington, Milt Jackson, Irving Berlin, Miles Davis, Lionel Hampton, Max Roach, Scott La Rock, Celia Cruz, Ornette Coleman, Coleman Hawkins and Diahann Carroll -- and that's just from the world of music.

Handy did not quite live to see the premiere of a film based on his life, St. Louis Blues, which came on April 10, 1958. He was played by Nat King Cole. Ella Fitzgerald played herself. The film also starred Eartha Kitt, Cab Calloway, Mahalia Jackson, Ruby Dee, Pearl Bailey, and, as Handy as a boy, future rock and roll star Billy Preston.

New York City renamed West 52nd Street between 6th and 7th Avenues "W.C. Handy Place." West 52nd had previously been nicknamed "Swing Street" for all the music clubs along it. Billy Joel titled a 1978 album 52nd Street in tribute.

In 1967, 2 major league sports teams were established, taking their names from African-American music: The St. Louis Blues of the National Hockey League, and the New Orleans Saints, from "When the Saints Go Marching In," of the National Football League.

*

July 15, 1914 was a Wednesday. There were 3 major leagues in baseball that year. In the American League:

* The New York Yankees split a doubleheader with the Chicago White Sox at the Polo Grounds. The ChiSox won the opener, 3-2. The Yankees were leading the nightcap, 2-1 after 8 innings, when the umpires called the game due to darkness.

* The Boston Red Sox beat the Cleveland Naps, 4-0 at Fenway Park in Boston. Hubert "Dutch" Leonard pitched a 7-hit shutout. In their last year with Napoleon "Nap" Lajoie as their 2nd baseman, best hitter, manager and namesake, the team that became the Indians the next season couldn't score, even with Lajoie himself singling as a pinch-hitter. Babe Ruth, who had made his major league debut with the Red Sox 4 days earlier, did not appear in this game. Nor did "Shoeless" Joe Jackson, then with Cleveland.

* The Washington Senators and the Detroit Tigers were tied, 3-3 at American League Park (later Griffith Stadium) in Washington, when the game was called due to darkness. Neither team's signature player, Walter Johnson of the Senators or Ty Cobb of the Tigers, appeared in this game.

* And the Philadelphia Athletics and the St. Louis Browns were rained out at Shibe Park in Philadelphia. The game was made up as part of a doubleheader on August 25. The A's swept, 9-0 and 1-0. Rube Bressler pitched a 3-hit shutout in the 1st game, and Herb Pennock pitched a 6-hit shutout in the 2nd game.

In the National League: 

* The New York Giants lost to the Chicago Cubs, 5-4 at the West Side Grounds in Chicago. The Cubs scored 3 runs in the bottom of the 9th to win it.

* The Cincinnati Reds beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 6-4 at Redland Field (later renamed Crosley Field) in Cincinnati.

* The Brooklyn Robins lost to the Pittsburgh Pirates, 4-3 at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. This was the once-and-future Dodgers' 1st year with Wilbert Robinson as their manager, and they were named the Robins for him as long as he was with them, through the 1931 season, after which they became the Dodgers again. Zack Wheat went 0-for-3 for them. Honus Wagner went 0-for-4 for the Pirates.

* And the St. Louis Cardinals beat the Boston Braves, 5-3 at Robison Field in St. Louis.

And 1914 was the 1st of 2 seasons for the Federal League:

* The only team the FL had in New York City, the Brooklyn Tip-Tops, beat the Pittsburgh Rebels, 4-2 at Exposition Park, former home of the Pirates, which stood roughly where PNC Park does now. 

* The Indianapolis Hoosiers beat the Kansas City Packers, 5-3 at Gordon & Koppel Field in Kansas City. The Hoosiers went on to win the Pennant.

* The Buffalo Blues swept a doubleheader from the Baltimore Terrapins, 7-0 and 4-0 at at the International Fair Association Grounds in Buffalo. Earl Moore pitched a 4-hit shutout in the 1st game, and Fred Anderson pitched a 3-hit shutout in the 2nd game.

* The St. Louis Terriers beat the Chicago Whales, 2-0 at Weeghman Park in Chicago, the ballpark that would be adopted by the Cubs and eventually renamed Wrigley Field. Mordecai "Three-Finger" Brown, the former Cubs ace, returned to the city of his greatest deeds, and pitched a 4-hit shutout for the Terriers.