Elvis Presley King of Rock and Roll

Elvis, as the world knows was born in Tupelo Mississippi, in 1935.  His was a poor family and he was the only surviving child, as his twin brother Jesse Garon, had been stillborn.

Elvis was a shy gentle boy, who had a sweet singing voice but he didn’t have confidence to sing in public, in his younger days

He was devoted to his Mother, Gladys who equally adored him, because he was her only child. He was laughed at when in school because of his fondness for “hillbilly” music... But he loved country music. After leaving school he got a job as a truck driver.  By then the family were living in Memphis Tennessee, where Sam Phillips had his Sun Records studio.

Elvis made a demo record, at Sun, just to see what he sounded like as a singer…and to give a present to his Mother.   

So he attracted the attention of Sam Phillips who was trying to fuse “hillbilly” or country music, with Rhythm and blues - which was called at the time “race music”.  It was more “up-tempo” and “rocky” than country and was called Rockabilly…

When Elvis began to work for him, Sam believed that he had found exactly what he was looking for, a white boy who had the sort of voice and sound that would appeal to the white and African American markets. One of his first recordings was “That’s Alright Mama” by Arthur Crudup, which was perceived by country DJ’s as “black”, and some of them wouldn’t play it, and as “white and country” by R&B DJ’s. 

Phillips also signed Johnny Cash with his band, the Tennessee Two….who also played the rockabilly sound.   Elvis was nicknamed the “Hillbilly Cat” and sang country and rockabilly, often on the same bill as Johnny….The two young men were friends..  close in age and both from rural and impoverished backgrounds....  Johnny used to do a jokey Elvis impression, in his concerts, combing his hair, affecting a sneer and sometimes breaking a guitar......

Frank Sinatra Part II

Frank, who had not been accepted for military service because of a cracked eardrum, (classed as 4F)… was beginning to find his career going downhill in the early post War years…

His massive popularity had begun to fade and his fans were getting older.  His movie career had been very successful but he was usually cast  awkwardly as a “shy afraid of girls” kind of young man” and now he was getting rather too old for this.  He wanted to do something more substantial than light musicals. 

He also was involved in an affair with Ava Gardner which impinged on his popularity.  He had been married for a long time to Nancy Barbato, his childhood sweetheart, and was devoted to their children, but he was always a womaniser.   He was idolised by young girls, during the early years of his singing career and he took full advantage of the opportunities....

However, he fell deeply in love with Ava, and she with him, though she was a very independent woman, who took lovers, to please herself…

Frank adored her and was willing to leave his wife and children for her.  His marital difficulties caused many of his fans to turn against him, because he was seen as deserting a devoted wife, and his kids - for a home wrecker...

He hoped to revive his movie career by getting a serious acting part, and he focused on the upcoming adaptation of “From Here to Eternity” by James Jones.  He believed that he could play the character Maggio, a young screwed up man from the wrong side of the tracks.  He fought hard to get the part and it is rumoured that he only got  a try out for it, because of Ava Gardner's influence in the movie business.  However, when he got the role, he showed that he really could act.. and won an Academy Award.  He began to get more solid acting roles... 

Frank Sinatra Part I early days

 My favourite musical types are country and “musicals music”… and I’ve loved both since I was a kid.  I have blogged about favourite country singers, who sometimes slip into the rockabilly or the Southern Rock Genre.  But I haven’t written about my favourite popular singers, as yet.  And the best of them all, in my opinion, is Francis Albert Sinatra.. the Chairman of the Board....

Frank wasn’t just a great singer; he was a fine actor, a shrewd businessman... and a philanthropist.  He was a family man who liked to womanize, and drink….He was involved with politics much of his life, but was stigmatized as being overly close with the Mafia.

He was born in a poor neighborhood in Hoboken New Jersey in 1915... His mother, a midwife, was the dominant figure in his early life….She worked hard to earn a living, and his father was a boxer….

Frank loved music, especially jazz and as a boy, he loved to sing and play though he never learned to read music. 

He didn’t do that well at school, because he was focused on singing.   In 1938 and 39, he began to get jobs in the music business, as a singing waiter, and on a radio show.  In 1940, he got a contract as lead singer with the Tommy Dorsey band. His voice was sweet and beautiful, and he improved his range by taking singing lessons. 

But he began to feel that he wanted to go solo and he had to get out of the Dorsey contract, which gave Tommy a hefty amount of his earnings...43%.  Eventually, he managed to get out of the contract, though at the price of a bitter row with his mentor.  There were rumours that his Mafia connexions had used threats, to help get him out....(The incident has of course been mentioned in Mario Puzo's Godfather -where the Godfather threatens the man to whom Johnny Fontane is contracted, with a gun.. to frighten  him into letting Fontane out of the contract...Famously, he "told him that either his brains or his signature " would be on the release document).

Over those years, as  Frank's career took off, he had built up a following among young girls, who adored his voice and were attracted by him, in spite of his skinny frame…  His crooning style, the love songs he sang, all added to his insane popularity, and he was rivaling the famous Bing Crosby…

Mario Puzo

Mario Puzo was born in “Hell’s Kitchen”, a very poor district of New York in 1920.  His family were poor Italian immigrants.  There were several children and his father abandoned the family when he was 12.   The person, who worked to bring him up and keep the family together in very hard times, was his Italian mother.   Some of her qualities, he gives to the Don Vito Corleone, in “The Godfather”.  In the book he is somewhat dismissive of women’s abilities.

 Don Vito’s wife, Mama Corleone, is shown as shrewd but uneducated, and a good mother.  We never even learn her name. It is her husband who manages the family and who used his strength and native wit to raise them from poverty.   And he too thinks that women will be “saints in heaven” but are not very competent in this world’s affairs.

Mario went to college and served in World War II, but he was not able for combat duty because of poor eyesight.  Instead he worked as a public relations officer for the army and was in Germany in the post war years.  He married a German lady, Erika. 

After his army service he worked in a Government office, and had a family to provide for.  He began to write for magazines, writing action adventure stories.  He wanted to write but he also wanted to make money.  He had 5 children to support.  So he hoped that when he wrote novels they would be best sellers.  However it was not until his novel “The Godfather” came out in 1969 that he achieved runaway success.

He didn’t know much about the MAFIA. In his boyhood, he had only encountered very low level “organised crime” but in his days in pulp journalism he heard stories about those higher up in the organisations.   He researched and used his knowledge of Italy and the Italian experience of America, and his memories of his mother struggling to keep her family together.  He understood the idea that there was no point in relying on the state or other people, that it was up to families to look after and protect each other –. 

The Don loses his father as a boy, just as Puzo did, and he had to go to America and become a man.  Over time, he built up his empire, based on protection rackets, crime, running gambling and later provision of liquor.  

Puzo’s book became a best seller, perhaps because it referred to old fashioned values, even though the family which professed them was a crime family. America was traumatised by the social changes and revolutions of the 1960s and the Vietnam War.  The Corleones are very much a family, at times quarrelsome and at odds with each other, faulty and confused, but still a loving family….

The book has been accused of glamourizing and excusing crime and criminals, which is a fair point.  The Don is seen as a clever man, and a “moral “one who does not like prostitution, and who won’t get involved with selling drugs.

Puzo was not a great writer - but he was a storyteller… He had the quality which often carries a not very good novel forward…he satisfied the desire to “know what happens next…”

 However, when Coppolla turned it into a film, he simplified it and cut out side stories such as the story of Johnny Fontane... a big time singer and actor in Hollywood.(probably based on Frank Sinatra)…or the rather long drawn out story of Sonny’s mistress Lucy.  This improved the story, concentrating on the Corleone family and the rise of Michael as Don… and cutting out the bits that distracted one’s attention.  Together with beautiful photography, a good script, and excellent actors, the changes made for the Godfather film to be one of the greatest in American film history.

Puzo’s novel made him a fortune and he also wrote other “Mafia” novels afterwards….  He died in 1999…..

Catherine of Braganza and Charles

Charles had several illegitimate children, and was fertile but Catherine seemed to be unable to produce an heir.  She had at least 3 miscarriages and it became clear that she was not going to provide a son for the King.  Her religion also made her rather unpopular with the public.  

She gradually came to accept her husband’s infidelities with something like composure, and joined in some of the milder diversions of the court.  She is said to have popularised drinking of tea…

She was very devout, which pleased Charles, as he was sympathetic to the Catholic faith. He knew that many of his courtiers were wishing for him to divorce Catherine and find a wife who could give him a Protestant heir.   He refused, saying that his wife had done nothing wrong and he would not abandon her.

His Reign was not that successful.  There were several disasters such as the Wars with the Dutch, the Great Fire of London and the Plague.  But Charles managed Parliament much better than his father had done, though he was also naturally autocratic and a believer that Kings had the right to rule…

but he was much shrewder than his father and brother and was able to deal with Parliament,  rather than ending up at odds with it.  However his big problem as King was the hostility towards Catholicism which was seen as foreign and tyrannical… and the fact that his wife was unable to give him an heir which meant that James, his brother and a much more devout Catholic, was now his heir. 

more to follow....

Catherine of Braganza Part I

Catherine of Braganza is something of a forgotten queen... Because her husband Charles II was much preoccupied with his mistresses and also because she had no children.

She was born in 1638 to John Duke of Braganza who became King of Portugal... during her childhood.  Her mother, Queen Luisa was the power behind the throne and she reared her daughter strictly, keeping her for much of the time in a convent.  She had a happy and secure childhood but her conventual upbringing meant she was rather too sheltered.  In 1661, after Charles II had been restored to the British throne, the marriage was agreed… and England was to secure Tangier… In return the British were to provide military support for Portugal and it was agreed that Catherine who was a devout Catholic would have liberty to worship as she chose.

However her Catholicism was to be a factor in making her not very popular in England. At the time, Catholics were feared and hated and a Catholic queen was not likely to be accepted easily.   Catherine was 23, at the time of the marriage, in 1662, and there were 2 ceremonies, a Catholic service in secret, and an Anglican one. 

She was a quiet shy young woman who came to a licentious and pleasure loving court.  At the time, Charles’s chief mistress was the selfish and arrogant Barbara Palmer.  Although Charles insisted that his wife was to be treated with respect, Barbara was too thoughtless to do this consistently. Catherine tried to refuse to accept his mistress  as one of her ladies in waiting but Charles firmly, even harshly insisted on her having Barbara at court.. He dismissed her Portuguese attendants who were prudish and old fashioned and who attracted derision at court.

Charles has a reputation of being a “merry Monarch” but he had a darker side and was capable of being harsh at times. 

Catherine coming from a quiet and religious home was not prepared for the English court and its wild ways.  She fell in love with Charles and found it hard to share him with mistresses but he was determined not to let his wife rule him nor to give up his pleasures.

However he was loyal to his wife, and as time passed, he continued to show her tolerant affection, and respect, even though she failed to produce children - which was the main aim of a royal marriage.

More to follow......

Garth Brooks

Garth Brooks was born in 1962, in Tulsa, to Colleen Carroll, a country singer, and Troyal Brooks, who worked for an oil company. As a boy he sang with the family but was more interested in athletics.  He went to Oklahoma State University and graduated with a degree in advertising in 1984.

After college, he began to play music seriously. He loved both country and rock, and was influenced by George Strait, so he decided to concentrate on country. In 1987, he moved to Nashville with his wife and produced his first album in 1989.
He toured as an opening act for Kenny Rogers and recorded one of his most famous and well-loved songs, the Dance, which he says is his favourite.   (Another popular song of his is "Friends in Low Places".

His albums did well in the 1990s; He went from success to success.

He always loved rock and incorporated elements of rock into his performances.  One of his favourite artists is James Taylor, after whom he named his daughter. The band Kiss was also one of his early musical influences.

In 1993, he did a world tour, which involved several sell out concerts in England.

 Although his career was flourishing, Brooks was bothered by the conflict of wanting to be with his family and the needs of his work.  Touring  especially for a country artist, was demanding and over the 1990s he considered retiring, to spend time with his children.

In 2000, he committed to giving up performing and recording until his children had finished high school. He did perform occasionally over the years, at charity benefits and occasionally at gigs….

In 2009- he began to sing at weekends in Las Vegas, while still being able to be with his family in Oklahoma during the week. His first marriage to a songwriter Sandy Mahl had ended in divorce and in 2005, he had married country singer Trisha Yearwood…

He is a supporter of gay rights and had worked hard for charity also, being involved in the charity Habitat for Humanity, which builds affordable houses for people in need.  He also performed in 2010, for the victims of the Nashville floods.

He’s not only talented but a warm hearted man who hasn’t let his success spoil him…

Story on Amazon

Beds and Blue Jeans - realistic romance about a young man and woman who find they have to get to  know each other, after they have got together.  They drift into living together and having a baby, but aren’t very happy at first.  They find that love is about learning to compromise, working out the best way to do things and growing to love each other.

http://www.amazon.com/Beds-Blue-Jeans-everyday-mayhem-ebook/dp/B01370SMFO/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1443265304&sr=8-2&keywords=nadine+sutton