In 1980 the Blues Brothers released the album, “Made in America.” The 7th track is a cover of the classic Booker T. and the MGs song, “Green Onions,” and Dan Akroyd does a spoken intro at the start of the song. That intro popped into my head yesterday. It seems to be related to all the reading I’ve been doing on neo’s blog about Ukraine, Russia and America’s place in the world. The album was released one month before Ronald Reagan was sworn in for his first term. For those of you unaware of the piece, or who haven’t thought of it for decades, it was surprising to re-read Akroyd’s words*. Dan Akroyd, a Canadian and at his peak of popularity on the left-leaning sketch comedy show, “Saturday Night Live.” Yet, here he is preaching patriotism. And manufacturing. And industry. And gas guzzling. And isolationism.
I’ve written before that a bit into Trump’s first term I started feeling connections to the early ’80s, when Americans were becoming brash and bold again. When the economy started to ramp up. When America was starting to think President Carter’s prognosis of malaise did not have to be our destiny. The past 7 years have been such a roller coaster ride I no longer feel that connection. I’m hopeful we are at the start of another boom, but things have been so chaotic my Magic 8 ball is stuck on, “Reply hazy. Try again.”
“All right people. the rest of the hard working all star blues brothers are gonna be out here in a minute, including my little brother jake. but right now, I’d like to talk a little bit about this tune you’re hearing. this is ofcourse the green onions tune. it was a very big hit in the early sixties in this country. and of course it was composed and recorded in memphis, tennessee, right here in the united states of america. you know, people, I believe that this tune can be equated with the great classical music around the world.
Now you go to germany, you’ve got your bach, your beethoven, your brahms… here in america you’ve got your fred mcdowell, your irving berlin, your glenn miller, and your booker t & the mg’s .Another example of the great contributions in music and culture that this country has made around the world. and as you look around the world today, you see this country spurned. You see backs turned on this country. well people, I’m gonna tell you something, this continent, north america, is the stronghold! this is where we’re gonna make our stand in this decade! yeah, people I’ve got something to say to the state department. I say take that archaic monroe doctrine, and that marshall plan that says we’re supposed to police force the world, and throw ’em out! let’s stay Home for the next ten years people! stay right here in north america and enjoy the music and culture that is ours. yeah, I got one more thing to say.
I’m just talking about the music, people, and what it does to me. and that is, as you look around the world, you go to the soviet union or great britain or france, you name it, any country… everybody is doing flips and twists just to get into a genuine pair of american blue jeans! and to hear this music and we got it all here in america, the land of the chrysler 440 cubic inch engine!”
Note Doug Clifford, John Fogerty, and Stu Cook of Creedence Clearwater digging it offstage (1:50).
Booker T. Jones and Steve Cropper are still with us. Al Jackson Jr. and Donald “Duck” Dunn are gone.
Conan did a fine job, as he always does with these things. Rest of the show was refreshingly light on obnoxious political nonsense. Sadly the show was also light on compelling films.
I looked at photos on Fox. I saw fewer truly ugly and fewer near-naked displays on women on the red carpet, and more attractive gowns, than in recent years. I agree with Nonna on the ones she mentions. Perhaps we may be seeing a small move towards elegance.
As to the films, I don’t know and don’t care.
Agree completely with sharksauce. Conan was/is great. Almost no compelling movies at all. Nearly all accepting awards were predictable at best, vapid at worst.
No comment on the dresses. Am in the darkest woods of fashion awareness.
As for the movies, maybe it’s time for confession. For a decade or so, I’ve held out hope, based on whatever scraps I could find. For example, I haven’t given up on Korea. But Hollywood is done. It’s over, and I’m sad.
As a child, on Saturdays, I sometimes walked three miles to movie theaters downown. I liked the movies in the same way I liked playing basketball and football. It was something I enjoyed without analysis. Now it really is gone, and it’s still hard to believe. It doesn’t seem so many years ago when friends held Oscars parties. They were fun, if not serious, and definitely not ironic. Now movies are little more than dull niche entertainment and fodder for historians of pop culture.
Hubert,
Cropper and Dunn were also in the Blues Brothers, but you probably knew that.
Speaking of movies; the very first movie I ever watched in a movie theater was “The Longest Day.” That was in 1962, it cost me $.35 and I went by myself.
I have no idea why I remember this.
Cornflour,
There were 3 movie houses within a short walk of my house.
It seems you’re right about the era of “Hollywood” being over, but movies, as a medium, seem well tuned to human nature. Our ancestors sat in circles around fires as elders shared stories, danced, sang.. 90 – 180 minute audio/visual spectacles sharing deeper messages and allegory are likely here to stay.
RTF: I probably did–a friend showed “Blues Brothers” a couple of years ago–but I must have blocked it out. Not a fan.
“BB” makes me think of Martin Mull’s “Blind Lemon Pledge” routine from 1973:
“I felt so low down deep inside (lawd mommy)/I thew my drink across the lawn”
Now that’s funny.
RTF,
On your feeling that we are entering a new early 80s era. I had that also right after the election and through December up until the inauguration. At that point I saw all my normal democrat friends turn into raving maniacs filled with hate. As Neo points out, they are probably in the 30% minority…..maybe they are. But, that’s still a lot of people able, with the encouragement of the Democratic party itself and all the loony left, to cause a lot of trouble. I assume we’ll have to see where we are at in a year.
I also assume the Ds are going to be raving children at Trump’s speech today.
Hubert,
I also had that Martin Mull ukulele blues song on album. I think I bought it about 2 years before the Blues Brothers 1st album was released.
Mull wrote some good music. There is a great, underrated trumpet solo on his song, “Eggs.” His songs “Santafly” and “The Blacks are Giving Me the Blues” are long gone from radio airplay. “Jesus is Easy,” “Normal,” “Miami…” Talented guy.
Well its a great film ive seen it a number of times, many of these films were unrelatable lets skip emilia perez that was a stunt anora about sex workers well the brutalist that had the skin of a good idea, but the innards less so. A decent biopic like complete unknown should have done better
I liked The Blues Brothers; it’s a good musical for people who don’t like musicals, somewhat silly but there’s some good comedy, sometimes a little subtle (like how Twiggy was waiting all that time for Elwood to meet her at the gas station).
RTF & Hubert, thanks for the Booker T. & MGs reference and video. Good to know there are fellow aficianados on this blog!
In a book about Elvis, I think by someone who knew him, the author wrote that (MGs drummer) Al Jackson, Jr. was in a recording session with Elvis in Memphis. The author wrote that Jackson had a rolling bar with him, to serve himself drinks. Elvis objected to his drinking during the session, and Jackson said “That’s what I do,” and left the session.
Great a drummer as he was, last time I listened to one of their Greatest Hits CDs, I thought that his characteristic tom-tom fills sounded dated. 🙁
————————————————————————–
I too am disappointed by the lack of new theater movies that I would consider watching. Someone on another forum said Paddington in Peru is a good family movie, providing actual laughs. The ticket girl at the theater said people like it, and it’s been around a few weeks now.
Something new I’ve noticed is people bringing blankets to the theater; in fact the theater is selling them now!
—————————————————————————-
It seems we are in a time combining elements of Reagan’s 80s and Nixon’s 60’s. Remember the bumper stickers reading “America, Love It or Leave It”? I pray for our country, and President Trump and his team, every day.
Now comparing the longest day which was the last treatment of the subject really until private ryan the former is more a character study where the action is really in the third act one of those big ensemble films of the era like a bridge too far which was the last of its type by the same author cornelius ryan the latter throws you into the maelstrom and you sort yourself out but they have different views of heroism
It seems that, as expected, Mike Johnson is going to weasel out of budget cuts and DOGE and pass yet another continuing resolution. I hope Trump gives it to him with both barrels.
Re: Booker T. & the M.G.s
Count me in!
It’s not well-known but BTMGs loved the Beatles and did a strangely beautiful album of instrumental covers of “Abbey Road” titled “Mclemore Ave.”
From what I’ve read the Beatles loved them back. There is a lot of R&B and soul in the Beatles but they assimilated those influences so well that it can be easy to miss.
Speaking of movies.
I really wish we had more historically accurate movies.
I would like to see a realistic one about Jefferson’s war with the Barbary Pirates.
There is a lot of background facts that could be incorporated into such a movie, including the pirates raids on European towns carrying people off into slavery. The Ottoman Empire angle to all of that. The mail story could cover the American Navy POWs in that war that were used as slaves in North Africa.
Thanks, Huxley. I remember seeing “McLemore Avenue” in the record section of the campus bookstore as a kid, but I didn’t get it. IIRC, it was about $3.00. Probably cost me a lot more than that for a clean copy today. Fortunately, I have more pocket money than I did when I was 11.
My brother and I listened to AM radio through the 1960s and into the early 1970s. Booker T. & the MGs were a favorite.
Movies: I’ve been told “Conclave” is good. Also “A Complete Unknown”, the Bob Dylan biopic that came up here recently.
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What are “oscars”?
In 1980 the Blues Brothers released the album, “Made in America.” The 7th track is a cover of the classic Booker T. and the MGs song, “Green Onions,” and Dan Akroyd does a spoken intro at the start of the song. That intro popped into my head yesterday. It seems to be related to all the reading I’ve been doing on neo’s blog about Ukraine, Russia and America’s place in the world. The album was released one month before Ronald Reagan was sworn in for his first term. For those of you unaware of the piece, or who haven’t thought of it for decades, it was surprising to re-read Akroyd’s words*. Dan Akroyd, a Canadian and at his peak of popularity on the left-leaning sketch comedy show, “Saturday Night Live.” Yet, here he is preaching patriotism. And manufacturing. And industry. And gas guzzling. And isolationism.
I’ve written before that a bit into Trump’s first term I started feeling connections to the early ’80s, when Americans were becoming brash and bold again. When the economy started to ramp up. When America was starting to think President Carter’s prognosis of malaise did not have to be our destiny. The past 7 years have been such a roller coaster ride I no longer feel that connection. I’m hopeful we are at the start of another boom, but things have been so chaotic my Magic 8 ball is stuck on, “Reply hazy. Try again.”
lyrics from (https://www.lyrics.com/lyric/3206789/Booker+T%2C+The+MGs/Green+Onions)
*Although I can probably recite them from memory, I played that album so many times.
RTF: thanks for the Booker T. & the MGs ref. Here they are doing “Time Is Tight” live at the Oakland Coliseum in 1970:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbBcXvKvB08
Note Doug Clifford, John Fogerty, and Stu Cook of Creedence Clearwater digging it offstage (1:50).
Booker T. Jones and Steve Cropper are still with us. Al Jackson Jr. and Donald “Duck” Dunn are gone.
Conan did a fine job, as he always does with these things. Rest of the show was refreshingly light on obnoxious political nonsense. Sadly the show was also light on compelling films.
I looked at photos on Fox. I saw fewer truly ugly and fewer near-naked displays on women on the red carpet, and more attractive gowns, than in recent years. I agree with Nonna on the ones she mentions. Perhaps we may be seeing a small move towards elegance.
As to the films, I don’t know and don’t care.
Agree completely with sharksauce. Conan was/is great. Almost no compelling movies at all. Nearly all accepting awards were predictable at best, vapid at worst.
No comment on the dresses. Am in the darkest woods of fashion awareness.
As for the movies, maybe it’s time for confession. For a decade or so, I’ve held out hope, based on whatever scraps I could find. For example, I haven’t given up on Korea. But Hollywood is done. It’s over, and I’m sad.
As a child, on Saturdays, I sometimes walked three miles to movie theaters downown. I liked the movies in the same way I liked playing basketball and football. It was something I enjoyed without analysis. Now it really is gone, and it’s still hard to believe. It doesn’t seem so many years ago when friends held Oscars parties. They were fun, if not serious, and definitely not ironic. Now movies are little more than dull niche entertainment and fodder for historians of pop culture.
Hubert,
Cropper and Dunn were also in the Blues Brothers, but you probably knew that.
Speaking of movies; the very first movie I ever watched in a movie theater was “The Longest Day.” That was in 1962, it cost me $.35 and I went by myself.
I have no idea why I remember this.
Cornflour,
There were 3 movie houses within a short walk of my house.
It seems you’re right about the era of “Hollywood” being over, but movies, as a medium, seem well tuned to human nature. Our ancestors sat in circles around fires as elders shared stories, danced, sang.. 90 – 180 minute audio/visual spectacles sharing deeper messages and allegory are likely here to stay.
RTF: I probably did–a friend showed “Blues Brothers” a couple of years ago–but I must have blocked it out. Not a fan.
“BB” makes me think of Martin Mull’s “Blind Lemon Pledge” routine from 1973:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqWnJ5gsyjs&t=598s
“I felt so low down deep inside (lawd mommy)/I thew my drink across the lawn”
Now that’s funny.
RTF,
On your feeling that we are entering a new early 80s era. I had that also right after the election and through December up until the inauguration. At that point I saw all my normal democrat friends turn into raving maniacs filled with hate. As Neo points out, they are probably in the 30% minority…..maybe they are. But, that’s still a lot of people able, with the encouragement of the Democratic party itself and all the loony left, to cause a lot of trouble. I assume we’ll have to see where we are at in a year.
I also assume the Ds are going to be raving children at Trump’s speech today.
Hubert,
I also had that Martin Mull ukulele blues song on album. I think I bought it about 2 years before the Blues Brothers 1st album was released.
Mull wrote some good music. There is a great, underrated trumpet solo on his song, “Eggs.” His songs “Santafly” and “The Blacks are Giving Me the Blues” are long gone from radio airplay. “Jesus is Easy,” “Normal,” “Miami…” Talented guy.
Well its a great film ive seen it a number of times, many of these films were unrelatable lets skip emilia perez that was a stunt anora about sex workers well the brutalist that had the skin of a good idea, but the innards less so. A decent biopic like complete unknown should have done better
I liked The Blues Brothers; it’s a good musical for people who don’t like musicals, somewhat silly but there’s some good comedy, sometimes a little subtle (like how Twiggy was waiting all that time for Elwood to meet her at the gas station).
RTF & Hubert, thanks for the Booker T. & MGs reference and video. Good to know there are fellow aficianados on this blog!
In a book about Elvis, I think by someone who knew him, the author wrote that (MGs drummer) Al Jackson, Jr. was in a recording session with Elvis in Memphis. The author wrote that Jackson had a rolling bar with him, to serve himself drinks. Elvis objected to his drinking during the session, and Jackson said “That’s what I do,” and left the session.
Great a drummer as he was, last time I listened to one of their Greatest Hits CDs, I thought that his characteristic tom-tom fills sounded dated. 🙁
————————————————————————–
I too am disappointed by the lack of new theater movies that I would consider watching. Someone on another forum said Paddington in Peru is a good family movie, providing actual laughs. The ticket girl at the theater said people like it, and it’s been around a few weeks now.
Something new I’ve noticed is people bringing blankets to the theater; in fact the theater is selling them now!
—————————————————————————-
It seems we are in a time combining elements of Reagan’s 80s and Nixon’s 60’s. Remember the bumper stickers reading “America, Love It or Leave It”? I pray for our country, and President Trump and his team, every day.
Now comparing the longest day which was the last treatment of the subject really until private ryan the former is more a character study where the action is really in the third act one of those big ensemble films of the era like a bridge too far which was the last of its type by the same author cornelius ryan the latter throws you into the maelstrom and you sort yourself out but they have different views of heroism
It seems that, as expected, Mike Johnson is going to weasel out of budget cuts and DOGE and pass yet another continuing resolution. I hope Trump gives it to him with both barrels.
Re: Booker T. & the M.G.s
Count me in!
It’s not well-known but BTMGs loved the Beatles and did a strangely beautiful album of instrumental covers of “Abbey Road” titled “Mclemore Ave.”
–Booker T. & the M.G.s, “Medley: Golden Slumbers / Carry That Weight / The End / Here Comes The Sun / Come Together”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffv4suQ3eHQ
Think about that for the moment.
From what I’ve read the Beatles loved them back. There is a lot of R&B and soul in the Beatles but they assimilated those influences so well that it can be easy to miss.
Speaking of movies.
I really wish we had more historically accurate movies.
I would like to see a realistic one about Jefferson’s war with the Barbary Pirates.
There is a lot of background facts that could be incorporated into such a movie, including the pirates raids on European towns carrying people off into slavery. The Ottoman Empire angle to all of that. The mail story could cover the American Navy POWs in that war that were used as slaves in North Africa.
Thanks, Huxley. I remember seeing “McLemore Avenue” in the record section of the campus bookstore as a kid, but I didn’t get it. IIRC, it was about $3.00. Probably cost me a lot more than that for a clean copy today. Fortunately, I have more pocket money than I did when I was 11.
My brother and I listened to AM radio through the 1960s and into the early 1970s. Booker T. & the MGs were a favorite.
Movies: I’ve been told “Conclave” is good. Also “A Complete Unknown”, the Bob Dylan biopic that came up here recently.