Incarcerated menace Adolf Hitler published a statement admitting that he was born in Austria, not Germany, but arguing that he had lost his Austrian citizenship after volunteering to serve in the German Army during World War I . He claimed that mentally, he'd always been a German.
He nonetheless did not renounce his Austrian citizenship until 1925, and didn't acquire German citizenship until 1932.
Ma Rainey recorded See See Rider, the first known recording of the blues standard which has an unknown origin and date of origin. It's at least a couple of decades older than the recording.
Greece, Turkey, and the United Kingdom signed a peace agreement calling a halt to fighting in Cyprus. The agreement was mediated by Henry Kissinger.
The U.S. House Judiciary Committee adjourned its proceedings for impeachment. It had passed three articles of impeachment.
A proposed fourth, asserting, illegal use of power in the 1970 invasion of Cambodia, was rejected.
An election was held in Rhodesia, which had a population of 300,000 whites and 5,700,000 blacks. Voting was segregated. The result was whites took 76% of the seats.
Lucian Truscott on the Anzio beachhead, wearing cut down U.S. Army cavalry boots (not M1943 boots which they resemble) and an A2 flight jacket, which he routinely wore, with General Sir Harold R. L. G. Alexander, Commander-in-Chief (C-in-C) of the Allied Armies in Italy, who is wearing a British sherling flight jacket and riding boots.
Today in World War II History—February 23, 1944: Maj. Gen. Lucian Truscott assumes command of US VI Corps at Anzio. First US Army blood bank in the Mediterranean Theater opens at Naples medical center.
Cavalryman Lucian Truscott was one of the great ones.
Of interest, Truscott, who had started off his adult life as a school teacher before entering the Army during World War One (he did not see overseas service), was replacing another cavalryman, Gen. Lucas. His entry into teaching was based upon a lie, in that he represented, at age 16, that he was a high school graduate, which he was not. His entry into the Army, which was combined with a petition to become an officer, was based upon a compounded lie that he had attended, but not graduated from, college.
Truscott with British troops, later in Anzio. In this photograph we see the same A2 jacket but he's wearing riding breeches and three strap riding boots.
Truscott was an extremely able commander and the author of the excellent cavalry memoir, Twilight of the Cavalry. He's an example, additionally, on how the era allowed capable individuals to excel without full accreditation, something that does not occur nearly as much now.
The Soviet mass deportation of the Chechens commenced.
Resistance on Parry Island ended, and with it the hard fought Eniwetok campaign. Of the 3,400 Japanese troops committed to the defense of the atoll, 66 survived.
The Battle of Admin Box also ended in an Allied victory.
The late bluesman Johnny Winter was born in Beaumont, Texas. He passed away in 2014 at age 70.
German actor and comedian Robert Stampa (stage name Dorsay) age 39, was executed for "ongoing activity hostile to the Reich and serious undermining of the German defense effort".
Stampa had never been comfortable with the Nazis but had, like many Germans, tried to accommodate himself to them, even joining hte Nazi Party. He was expelled from the party in 1933 for failure to pay dues and didn't rejoin. He started losing film roles in 1939 due to his failure to cooperate with the party. He was drafted in 1943 and was a serviceman on lease at the time of his telling the fatal joke.
He had been overheard joking about the government and had described, in a private letter, the ongoing German war effort as "idiotic", which in fact, it was. More accurately, his letter stated, "When will this idiocy finally end?"
His execution demonstrated that by this point in the war, which had seen the increased repression of the Jews, repression was now turning in on the German people as well. To be executed for a joke was fairly phenomenal.
As part of that idiotic effort, the U-282 was sunk by the Royal Navy in the North Atlantic.
Gotthard Heinrici
The Red Army attacked the German 4th Army between Orsha and Vitebsk, but in doing so encountered forces commanded by Gen. Gotthard Heinrici, a master defensive tactician, and they failed to break through.
Heinrici was the eccentric son of a Lutheran minister. Indeed, a devout Lutheran as well, he was informed during the war that his best interest lay in discontinuing going to services, which he ignored. He refused to join the Nazi Party. His uniform was notably shabby, and he continued to wear a coat that he had acquired during World War One.
His wife was half Jewish.
Not a very personal man, he remains somewhat of a mystery. He ignored scorched early orders, but atrocities were committed, as with almost all Germany command, in his ares of operations. He died in 1971 and was buried with full military honors.
The British 13th Corps captured Cantalupo.
A couple of interesting things from Sarah Sundin:
Today in World War II History—October 29, 1943: Maj. Glenn Miller’s Army Air Force band records “St. Louis Blues March.” US War Production Board somewhat relaxes prohibition on use of aluminum.
Glenn Miller had a big impact on American military music, second only, in fact, to John Philip Sousa.
The St. Louis Blues was penned by legendary bluesman W. C. Handy. It's actually a very sad song, like many blues pieces, but with a very flowing nature which made it suitable for adaptation to other styles. Its lyrics are:
I hate to see that evening sun go down
I hate to see that evening sun go down
Cause my baby, he's gone left this town
Feelin' tomorrow like I feel today
If I'm feelin' tomorrow like I feel today
I'll pack my truck and make my give-a-way
St. Louis woman with her diamond ring
Pulls that man around by her, if it wasn't for her and her
That man I love would have gone nowhere, nowhere
I got the St. Louis blues, blues as I can be
That man's got a heart like a rock cast in the sea
Or else he wouldn't have gone so far from me
I love my baby like a school boy loves his pie
Like a Kentucky colonel loves his mint 'n rye
I love my man till the day I die
The tune was first published in 1914, and then made famous by the Bessie Smith edition released in 1925. Handy was inspired to write the song after meeting a distraught woman on the street in St. Louis, who said to him, regarding her husband's absence; "Ma man's got a heart like a rock cast in de sea" which became a line in the song.
Handy in 1941.
Handy outlived Miller, dying in 1958 at age 84, and was still an active musician during this time frame. He was so influential that he was sometimes called "the father of the blues", although nobody can really properly have that title, the blues having its roots in polyrhythmic African music.
Smith was a musical giant in her day, but was buried in an unmarked grave when she died due to injuries from an automobile accident in 1937. In 1970s ,that was addressed and a new tombstone was erected.
The inner chamber of the Tomb of Tutankhamun was opened by Howard Carter's archeological party.
The Conference of Ambassadors of the Allied Powers, which did not include the US, as the US had gone into international hiding on the basis that ignoring the world makes you safe from it, approved the transfer of Memel to Lithuania. We dealt with this previously and the nature of this oddly disputed small Baltic territory.
Italy ratified the Washington Naval Treaty and the Treaty of Santa Margherita, the latter of which settled a territorial dispute with Yugoslavia,
Most of us know the song, House of the Rising Sun. Probably most people who think of it, when they do, think of the version by Eric Burdon and the Animals.
It's a great song.
Anything ever seem a little off about it, however?
The song is about a house of prostitution, which most people familiar with the song are aware of. As Burdon sings it, the lyrics are:
There is a house in New Orleans
They call the Rising Sun
And it's been the ruin of many a poor boy
And God, I know I'm one
My mother was a tailor
She sewed my new blue jeans
My father was a gamblin' man
Down in New Orleans
Now the only thing a gambler needs
Is a suitcase and a trunk
And the only time he's satisfied
Is when he's all drunk
Oh mother, tell your children
Not to do what I have done
Spend your lives in sin and misery
In the House of the Rising Sun
Well, I got one foot on the platform
The other foot on the train
I'm goin' back to New Orleans
To wear that ball and chain
Well, there is a house in New Orleans
They call the Rising Sun
And it's been the ruin of many a poor boy
And God, I know I'm one
Now, it is a great song. And I like this version of it, which was released in 1964.
The interesting thing, however, is that song from a male point of view, which it is, it's sort of way ahead of its time. Not that it isn't relevant, it's just a point of view that I can't think of any other song from the mid to late 20th Century expressing that view. Basically, the protagonist is confessing that he's a sex addict and addicted to frequenting the prostitutes of The House Of The Rising Sun.
The song wasn't written by Eric Burdon, or any of his band. They were covering a song, which many are unaware of, that had already had a successful recording run when sung by Woodie Guthrie and Hudey Ledbetter (Leadbelly). Indeed, I thought Leadbelly had written the wrong, but I was in error on that.
The Guthrie version, from 1941, has the following lyrics:
There is a house in New Orleans
They call the Rising Sun
And it's been the ruin of many a poor boy
And God I know I'm one
My mother was a tailor
She sewed my new bluejeans
My father was a gamblin' man
Down in New Orleans
Now the only thing a gambler needs
Is a suitcase and trunk
And the only time he's satisfied
Is when he's on a drunk
Oh mother tell your children
Not to do what I have done
Spend your lives in sin and misery
In the House Of The Rising Sun
Well, I got one foot on the platform
The other foot on the train
I'm goin' back to New Orleans
To wear that ball and chain
Well, there is a house in New Orleans
They call the Rising Sun
And it's been the ruin of many a poor boy
And God I know I'm one
Identical. What about Leadbelly? Well, he recorded it twice, first in 1944, which had these lyrics:
There is a house in New Orleans
You call the Rising Sun
It's been the ruin of many a poor soul
And me, oh God, I'm one
If I'd listened to what mama said
I'd be at home today
Being so young and foolish, poor girl
I let a gambler lead me astray
My mother she's a tailor
Sews those new blue jeans
My sweetheart, he's a drunkard, Lord God
He drinks down in New Orleans
He fills his glasses to the brim
Passes them around
The only pleasure that he gets out of life
Is a hoboin' from town to town
The only thing a drunkard needs
Is a suitcase and a trunk
The only time that he's half satisfied
Is when he's on a drunk
Go and tell my baby sister
Never do like I have done
Shun that house down in New Orleans
That they call that Rising Sun.
It's one foot on the platform,
One foot on the train.
I'm going back down to New Orleans
To wear my ball and my chain
My life is almost over
My race is almost run
Going back down to New Orleans
To that house of the Rising Sun
Oh, now wait a moment, that's a lot different. In this version, which is earlier, the protagonist, while sung through Leadbelly's male voice, is a girl entrapped in prostitution. Frankly, the song makes a lot more sense all the way around.
Leadbelly's 1947 version of The House of the Rising Sun.
In the second recording, which is the one people normally here, Leadbelly had followed Guthrie's lead, and the protagonist was male.
The first one presents a really grim warning. The girl who is the subject of the song has obviously left the house, and now is returning? Why? Well, contrary to the way prostitution is portrayed in film, her reputation would have been completely ruined and by this point that probably would have been her only option to try to make enough money to stay alive. Not only that, she's noting that she's expecting an early death.
More on that in a moment.
Leadbelly, it should be noted, didn't get around to recording until very near the end of his life. He died in 1949, and was first recorded in 1933. He was born in 1888 and was preforming professionally by 1903. Indeed, at first he preformed in Shreveport audiences in St. Paul's Bottoms, its red-light district, with his career interrupted by stints in jail, which are referenced in some of his most famous songs. He was in fact discovered, and truly was a great musical talent, by Alan Lomax while serving a prison stint.
Leadbelly preformed so early that some have speculated to what degree he was an indeterminable influence on the blues. He definitely was, but he also was unique in that he played a twelve-string guitar, very unusual for bluesmen, and his songs were always in the blues format but in sometimes in a near blues, ten bar, format. Indeed, some of those were converted to eight bar blues formats by later recording artists, probably basically by accident.
Anyhow, Leadbelly's songs often had a really old origin. This seems to be one. And the fact that the first version he recorded was sung from a female point of view is telling. Taht's probably how he learned it.
How early is that version?
Well, the song first makes its appearance by reference in 1905. By that time, it was being sung by miners in Appalachia, which means that one of the references doesn't quite fit unless the song had really travelled in the South. I.e., a song about somebody in New Orleans is out of regional context. The first printed version of the lyrics appear in 1925, with this:
There is a house in New Orleans,
it's called the Rising Sun
It's been the ruin of many poor girl
Great God, and I for one.
Just like Leadbelly had it.
The first recorded version came in 1933, later than I would have supposed, but still pretty early in the recording industry. It was by Applachain artist Clarence "Tom" Ashley and Gwen Foster. Ashley claimed to have learned it from his grandfather, which pushes the song back to the mid 19th Century. Ashley's version has a male protagonist:
There is a house in New Orleans
They call the Rising Sun
Where many poor boys to destruction has gone
And me, oh God, are one.
Note, this one has a blunter warning than any others with a male protagonist. The male vocalist hasn't gone to "ruin", but to "destruction".
Hmmmm. . . . so was it a male or female song?
My guess is that it was originally a female one, but because of its compelling popularity, it's been switched back and forth from its near onset.
So, was there a House of the Rising Sun that induced poor girls into lives, and probably shortened ones, of prostitution?
Nobody really knows for sure, but applying Yeoman's Eighth Law of History, as we should, would suggest it's likely. That law, as you'll recall, stated the following:
While that eight law mostly referred to old myths, it applies to more recent ones as well, as the basic principle is the same. The song clearly came out of Louisiana, and it traveled the South pretty extensively while persistently retaining its references to a House of the Rising Sun. There likely was such a place in Louisiana, or at the chances that there was are pretty good.
Indeed, a whole series of theories hold that it was on Conti Street in the French Quarter or on Ursulines Street or on St. Louis Street. In 2016 however, the New Orleans Times Picayune ran an article about an advertisement they'd found in which a hotelier was advertising the Mechanics Hotel, just outside of town, and with obviously pretty good rooming accommodations, which was noted to have formerly been "the old establishment of the Rising Sun".
Hmmm. . . .
The owners of the Mechanics Hotel wanted his potential guests to note that the hotel had a variety of rooms and offered a variety of services and accommodations, none of which included prostitution. The prior role of the Rising Sun wasn't mentioned, just that the Mechanics Hotel was where it formerly was, or rather that it was being rebranded. Perhaps it was also being repurposed. If so, that advertisement would have served two purposes, one being "don't stay away if you would have avoided the old Rising Sun", and the second being "don't come around if you are expecting the old services of the Rising Sun".
That advertisement, by the way, ran in 1828, which would mean that the song would have to have dated back to at least that approximate time.
So, what's the moral of the song? It clearly has one.
The basic warning is against living a life of depravity, that's clear enough. More than that, it was a direct warning about living a life of sexual depravity. Further, it warns the audience that the vocalist can't get out of it, now that the protagonist is in it, even though it would see, that the protagonist has tried. In the male variant sung by Guthrie, and in the female variant sung by Leadbelly, the protagonist informs the audience that the subject is at a railroad station with one foot on the platform, and one on the train, and is going back to New Orleans "to wear that ball and train". That tells us that the male protagonist is going back to New Orleans where he intends, seemingly against his will, to resume visiting the House of the Rising Sun. In the female protagonist version, she's going back to be a prostitute.
The female version is even grimmer. In that version, not only does the lyrics indicate that the subject is a slave to the situation, she's a different sort. Her slavery, in essence, is implied to be economic. Her reputation is ruined and she can't do anything else at this point. Moreover, she knows that she's going to die young, either at the hands of one of her clients, or more likely through disease.
Which takes us to this. That in fact was then and is now the thing that kills prostitutes early. It's odd how in Western movies like Lonesome Dove or Open Range this is ignored. Prostitutes were nearly guaranteed to get a venereal disease at the time, and it was probably going to kill them. Regular clients were likely to get a "social disease" as well, and the number of men who came down with one even where they were not regular customers, but who had made a visit a few, or perhaps even one, times were likely to as well.
Indeed, it wasn't really until after World War Two that it was the case that VD could really be effectively treated. . Nearly all of the treatments before then were ineffective to varying degrees. But that's not the last of it. Girls who fell into prostitution didn't simply think it an economic option, but were often victims of what was termed "white slavery". Kidnapped and drugged, or kept against their will in some fashion, sometimes by force, sometimes by addition. This is also still the case.
It's worth noting, in addition, that modern pornography has its origin in prostitution and indeed the word stems from it. "Graphy" indicates depiction, and pornea is Greek for of or pertaining to prostitutes. Very early pornography, going back to the first really easy to use cameras, came from photographing prostitutes to expand on their marketability. I.e., the working girls were basically captives of their procurer, and those people expanded their profits, not the girls profits, by photographing and selling their images, which had the added impact of being a species of advertising. This aspect of pornography was very heavy in the industry up until the mid 20th Century, when some of the subjects limited themselves to selling their own images in some fashion, but it's apparently returned in spades since the Internet, with many, apparently, of the images around now being once again of young girls trapped most likely by drug addiction.
The whole thing is pretty bad, suffice it to say.
Okay, we went down sort of a rabbit hole here, and for an odd reason. The trip to House of the Rising Sun started off as it refers to the mother of the subject sewing his blue jeans. We'll explain that in the other thread, but we would note that the song has one final aspect. It's a warning about the decay of a family.
The Vichy French scuttled their own ships in harbor in Toulon to keep them out of German hands. It was a brave act by Vichy, perhaps the most admirable thing it did during the war. Operation Lila, the German offensive operation to seize the French Navy, had in fact commenced on November 19.
Three battleships, seven cruisers, fifteen destroyers, twelve submarines and thirteen torpedo boats of the French Navy went down at French hands.
Admirable though it was, it was not as admirable as what the Italian Navy would do the next year, which was to bolt to the sea so that it could join the Allies. Indeed, in retrospect, or even at the time, the decision not to break out can be questioned, but Vichy was still making pretenses to being the de jure French government at the time, even though it was rapidly losing that status, and in fact already had.
Venezuela broke off relations with Vichy.
James ("Jimi) Marshal Hendrix, the greatest guitar player who ever lived, was born in Seattle, Washington.
Self-taught, and unable to read music, Hendrix came out of a blues saturated background and crossed over into Rock & Roll during its greatest era. Nobody played the guitar like he did before him, and nobody has surpassed his abilities since. Amazingly, Hendrix did not take up the guitar until he was 15.
A master of distortion at a time in which using it had not yet been figured out, Hendrix became a full time musician following his discharge from the Army in 1962. Entering the music scene in the turmoil of the 1960s, Hendrix was unfortunately drawn to the drug culture of the era, which ended up taking his life in 1970 at age 27. In his short musical career he established a body of music which stands out to this day.
Hendrix was just learning how to read music at the time of his death, and interestingly enough, was learning how to play wind instruments in addition to the guitar and bass that he already knew how to play. Given that 80 years of age isn't an uncommon one, had drugs not taken his life, he could still be living today, and the music scene would have undoubtedly developed much differently than it did since 1970.
Congress overwhelmingly overrode Richard Nixon's veto to pass the Clean Water Act. The Senate voted 52–12 for an override, and the House 247–23.
It was clearly a different era. It's almost impossible to imagine the GOP supporting the act today, and the television "news" would be full of vindictive comments.
The public had been mobilized by Rachel Carson's 1962 book Silent Spring, back in the day when it still could sit and read a book, and the 70s saw a host of environmental legislation pass. As the ABA has noted:
The 1970s was a seminal decade for environmental protection. Its first year saw three major accomplishments: the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the Clean Air Act, and the creation of the EPA. NEPA alone was groundbreaking
All of which is an understatement. And that text omitted the Endangered Species Act.
The counter reaction set in soon, and already by the mid 1970s there were those who urged the repeal of nearly everything that had been passed, although it never occurred. What has occurred, however, is that an increasingly polarized public, fed slop by such things as "news" outlets that cater only to a person's preformed views, and loud voices on Twitter and Facebook, have made listening to unpleasant scientific news a political act that can be disregarded if it conflicts with a person's preformed views. This reflects a wider crisis in the culture on political issues, that are similarly fed, which is rapidly making the United States nearly ungovernable
On the same day, the USSR agreed to pay the United States $722,000,000 over 30 years for repayment for Lend Lease. The Soviets reneged the following year, but started again, with a reduced amount, under Gorbachev. They paid until 2006, with payments of the renewed obligation having been scheduled to run through 2030. In 06, however, the Russians paid in full and retired the debt. About that same time, the United Kingdom did as well.
ZZ Top preformed at Brannen's Tobacco Warehouse in Bowling Green, Kentucky.
This scene, we should note, is based on the classic dance scene from the 1964 French film Band a Part, which itself is an example of The Madison Dance,
Which, those attune to the blues, will recognize from the famous Elmore James song The Madison Blues.
I started my review here on this documentary a long time ago and failed to finish it for some reason.
Anyhow, this will be a surprising entry here, probably, but this "rockumentary" is on Netflix right now and it's worth watching.
I suppose I should qualify that by saying it's worth watching if you like ZZ Top. But maybe it's worth watching even if you don't. Indeed, I sort of like the Clash, but there's a rockumentary out there on them that's really good, even if I can't recall its name.
Anyhow, this look at ZZ Top, filmed before the recent death of one of its members is a nice, and fannish, look at the band, it's origins and where it was just prior to the noted death. It touches on their rise as a Southern Rock/Blues band into a rock band, including a period of time in which they sat out for a while and why they did so.
It's a nice look at the band, and better, frankly, than some documentaries of this type. Worth watching.
The great bluesman, Henry St. Claire Fredericks Jr., better known by his stage name Taj Mahal, was born on this day in 1942.
Fredericks studied to be a farmer, and seriously considered taking up that vocation, before his innate musical talent and love of the blues determined his course in life. Playing in multiple blues styles, his music is actually a bit difficult to define, stretching from electric delta old-fashioned primitive blues.
She also reports that on this day in 1942 the Germans stopped a Soviet advance on Kharkiv.
There are a number of things that are interesting and significant about these series of events (none of which have to do with the Ukrainian Army just pushing the Russian Army out of the same city over the past few days).
This represented the first effort of the Red Army to really mount a major offensive against the Germans, and whether intentional or not, they slightly got the jump on the Germans timing wise. It would be to no avail, however.
The Germans would nearly simultaneously launch their own offensive, which had the practical impact of being a counteroffensive in this area. The German efforts would be successful. At the same time, the Germans had managed to take all of Crimea save for a single port city.
That the Germans, in the spring of 1942, were still capable of launching offensive operations in the East is, frankly, amazing. Their failure to take all of their objectives in the USSR in the spring and summer of 1941, and their being pushed back in the north during the winter, should have resulted in such a massive depletion of their resources that 1942 should have spelled their end. Instead, they were launching new spring offensives.
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