tagged w/ African-American History
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The New York Times...
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Johnny Otis Has Died
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Johnny Otis, ‘Godfather of Rhythm and Blues,’ Dies at 90
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By IHSAN TAYLOR
Published: January 19, 2012
Johnny Otis, the musician, bandleader, songwriter, impresario, disc jockey and talent scout who was often called “the godfather of rhythm and blues,” died on Tuesday at his home in Altadena, Calif. He was 90.
His death was confirmed by his manager, Terry Gould.
Leading a band in the late 1940s that combined the high musical standards of big band jazz with the raw urgency of gospel music and the blues, Mr. Otis played an important role in creating a new sound for a new audience of young urban blacks. Within a few years it would form the foundation of rock ’n’ roll.
With a keen ear for talent, he helped steer a long list of performers to stardom, among them Etta James, Jackie Wilson, Esther Phillips and Big Mama Thornton — whose hit recording of “Hound Dog,” made in 1952, four years before Elvis Presley’s, was produced by Mr. Otis and featured him on drums.
At Mr. Otis’s induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994, Ms. James referred to him as her “guru.” (He received similar honors from the Rhythm & Blues Foundation and the Blues Foundation.)
Mr. Otis was also a political activist, a preacher, an artist, an author and even, late in life, an organic farmer. But it was in music that he left his most lasting mark.
Despite being a mover and shaker in the world of black music, Mr. Otis was not black, which as far as he was concerned was simply an accident of birth. He was immersed in African-American culture from an early age and said he considered himself “black by persuasion.”
“Genetically, I’m pure Greek,” he told The San Jose Mercury News in 1994. “Psychologically, environmentally, culturally, by choice, I’m a member of the black community.”
As a musician (he played piano and vibraphone in addition to drums) Mr. Otis can be heard on Johnny Ace’s “Pledging My Love,” Charles Brown’s “Drifting Blues” and other seminal rhythm and blues records, as well as on jazz recordings by Lester Young and Illinois Jacquet. As a bandleader and occasional vocalist, he had a string of rhythm and blues hits in the early 1950s and a Top 10 pop hit in 1958 with his composition “Willie and the Hand Jive,” later covered by Eric Clapton and others. His many other compositions included “Every Beat of My Heart,” a Top 10 hit for Gladys Knight and the Pips in 1961.
As a disc jockey (he was on the radio for decades starting in the 1950s and had his own Los Angeles television show from 1954 to 1961) he helped bring black vernacular music into the American mainstream.
Johnny Otis was born John Alexander Veliotes (some sources give his first name as Ioannis) on Dec. 28, 1921, in Vallejo, Calif., the son of Greek immigrants who ran a grocery. He grew up in a predominantly black area of Berkeley. Mr. Otis began his career as a drummer in 1939. In 1945 he formed a 16-piece band and recorded his first hit, “Harlem Nocturne.”
As big bands fell out of fashion, Mr. Otis stripped the ensemble down to just a few horns and a rhythm section and stepped to the forefront of the emerging rhythm and blues scene. In 1948 he and a partner opened a nightclub, the Barrelhouse, in the Watts section of Los Angeles.
From 1950 to 1952 Mr. Otis had 15 singles on Billboard’s rhythm and blues Top 40, including “Double Crossing Blues,” which was No. 1 for nine weeks. On the strength of that success he crisscrossed the country with his California Rhythm and Blues Caravan, featuring singers like Ms. Phillips, billed as Little Esther — whom he had discovered at a talent contest at his nightclub — and Hank Ballard, who a decade later would record the original version of “The Twist,” the song that ushered in a national dance craze.
Around this time Mr. Otis became a D.J. on the Los Angeles-area radio station KFOX. He was an immediate success, and soon had his own local television show as well. He had a weekly program on the Pacifica Radio Network in California from the 1970s until 2005.
Hundreds of Mr. Otis’s radio and television shows are archived at Indiana University. In addition, he is the subject of a coming documentary film, “Every Beat of My Heart: The Johnny Otis Story,” directed by Bruce Schmiechen, and a biography, “Midnight at the Barrelhouse,” by George Lipsitz, published by the University of Minnesota Press in 2010.
While he never stopped making music as long as his health allowed, Mr. Otis focused much of his attention in the 1960s on politics and the civil rights movement. He ran unsuccessfully for a seat in the California State Assembly and served on the staff of Mervyn M. Dymally, a Democratic assemblyman who later became a United States representative and California’s first black lieutenant governor.
Mr. Otis’s first book, “Listen to the Lambs” (1968), was largely a reflection on the political and social significance of the 1965 Watts riots.
In the mid-1970s Mr. Otis branched out further when he was ordained as a minister and opened the nondenominational Landmark Community Church in Los Angeles. While he acknowledged that some people attended just “to see what Reverend Hand Jive was talking about,” he took his position seriously and in his decade as pastor was involved in charitable work including feeding the homeless.
In the early 1990s he moved to Sebastopol, an agricultural town in northern California, and became an organic farmer, a career detour that he said was motivated by his concern for the environment. For several years he made and sold his own brand of apple juice in a store he opened to sell the produce he grew with his son Nick. The store doubled as a nightclub where Mr. Otis and his band performed.
Later that decade he published three more books: “Upside Your Head!: Rhythm and Blues on Central Avenue” (1993), a memoir of his musical life; “Colors and Chords” (1995), a collection of his paintings, sculptures, wood carvings and cartoons (his interest in art had begun when he started sketching cartoons on his tour bus in the 1950s to amuse his band); and “Red Beans & Rice and Other Rock ’n’ Roll Recipes” (1997), a cookbook.
Mr. Otis continued to record and perform into the 21st century. His bands often included family members: his son John Jr., known as Shuggie, is a celebrated guitarist who played with him for many years, and Nick was his longtime drummer. Two grandsons, Lucky and Eric Otis, also played guitar with him.
In addition to his sons, he is survived by his wife of 70 years, the former Phyllis Walker; two daughters, Janice Johnson and Laura Johnson; nine grandchildren; eight great-grandchildren; and a great-great-grandchild.
Long after he was a force on the rhythm and blues charts, Mr. Otis was a familiar presence at blues and even jazz festivals. What people wanted to call his music, he said, was of no concern to him.
“Society wants to categorize everything, but to me it’s all African-American music,” he told The San Francisco Chronicle in 1993. “The music isn’t just the notes, it’s the culture — the way Grandma cooked, the way Grandpa told stories, the way the kids walked and talked.”
.The New York Times...
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Johnny Otis Has Died
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Johnny Otis,... more
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Elmer 'Geronimo' Pratt, a former Black Panther leader, dies in Tanzania
June 2, 2011 | 7:36 pm
Elmer G. "Geronimo" Pratt, a former Los Angeles Black Panther Party leader who spent 27 years in prison for a murder he says he did not commit and whose case became a symbol of racial injustice during the turbulent 1960s, has died. He was 63.
Pratt died at his home in a small village in Tanzania, where he had been living with his wife and child, according to Stuart Hanlon, a San Francisco attorney who helped overturn Pratt's murder conviction. Hanlon said he was informed of the death by Pratt's sister.
Pratt's case became a cause celebre for elected officials, Amnesty International, clergy and celebrities who believed he was framed by the government because he was African American and a member of the Black Panthers.
"Geronimo was a powerful leader," Hanlon told The Times. "For that reason he was targeted."
Pratt was convicted in 1972 and sentenced to life in prison for the 1968 fatal shooting of Caroline Olsen and the serious wounding of her husband, Kenneth, in a robbery that netted $18. The case was overturned in 1997 by an Orange County Superior Court judge who ruled that prosecutors at Pratt's murder trial had concealed evidence that could have led to his acquittal.
Pratt maintained that the FBI knew he was innocent because the agency had him under surveillance in Oakland when the murder was committed in Santa Monica.
Photo: Elmer G. Pratt (left)
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Elmer 'Geronimo' Pratt, a former Black Panther leader, dies in Tanzania... more
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Oldest African-American dies at 113
By Phil Gast, CNN
January 15, 2011 7:42 p.m. EST
Mississippi Winn, who died Friday in Shreveport, Louisiana, never married and lived independently until 103.
(CNN) -- Mississippi Winn didn't get caught up in the amazing statistics that accompanied someone her age.
Only 1 in 5 million people in the industrialized world live to be 110. About 60 people that age live in the United States, with another 300 or so scattered around the globe. Nine of 10 are women.
Winn was believed to be the oldest living African-American when she died Friday afternoon in Shreveport, Louisiana, at 113.
Investigator Milton Carroll of the Caddo Parish Coroner's Office said he was not permitted to disclose a cause of death, but a relative said Winn -- who was nicknamed "Sweetie" -- had been in declining health since last autumn.
Robert Young, a senior claims researcher with the Gerontology Research Group and a senior consultant for Guinness World Records, visited Winn at Magnolia Manor Nursing Home in July 2010.
"She looked to be in very good shape," he said Saturday. "It was a surprise she went downhill so fast."
Young believes Winn's parents were born into slavery. Her father was born in 1844 and her mother in 1860.
But Winn "never discussed it," said her great-niece Mary C. Hollins of Shreveport. "She would say, 'I don't know about that.'"
Winn, who did not marry and lived independently until 103, appears to have lived a life that made her especially well-qualified for the elite club of supercentenarians -- those who live to be 110 or older.
"She had always been kind to others," Hollins said on Saturday. "She was always respectful."
Shreveport Mayor Cedric Glover said the city has honored several centenarians.
"We have declared March 31 as Ms. Mississippi Winn Day since her 110th birthday," he wrote in an e-mail.
"Our thoughts and prayers are with Miss Winn's family, relatives, her beloved Pastor Clarence Hicks and her church family and friends who all loved and cherished her," he said.
The secret to living to and past 110, besides not having an unhealthy weight, said Young, is a positive attitude and emotional and physical stability. Most supercentenarians take little medication during their lives, he said.
"They do things in moderation," he said. "They don't get upset."
Most were still walking at age 105, he added.
Born in Bossier Parish, Louisiana, on March 31, 1897, Winn moved with her family to Shreveport after her father died in 1908.
One of 15 children, eight of whom lived to adulthood, Winn had a sister who lived to be 100 and a brother who lived to 95.
She worked as a domestic, cooking and helping families raise children.
She worked in Kansas City for a time and lived in Seattle, Washington, from 1957 to 1975, helping to raise three boys, before returning to Louisiana. Winn had a child who died at age 2, Hollins said.
Before she moved to the nursing home, Winn lived on her own, doing her own laundry and walking around a track for exercise. She never learned to drive. Instead, she got rides or took a bus to the grocery store.
She liked bingo and sewing and loved to cook vegetables and stewed chicken. Said Hollins: "She didn't make much over modern things."
Winn was clear about what she liked.
"She was a disciplinarian," said Hollins. Right or wrong, it was her way."
A member of Avenue Baptist Church, Winn received visits from church members and was able to attend a service on August 29. The chuch will hold her funeral next Saturday.
She outlived many of her church friends.
"When each one passed I could see part of her leaving with them," said Hollins, whose grandmother was Winn's sister.
In time, Winn came to enjoy the attention paid to her age.
But she remained even-keeled, said Hollins, recalling what her great-aunt would say.
"I'm just going to stay here until he's ready for me."
The oldest known African-American is now Mamie Rearden of Edgefield, South Carolina, who is 112.
The world's oldest known living person is Eunice Sanborn, 114, of Jacksonville, Texas, according to Young.Oldest African-American dies at 113
By Phil Gast, CNN
January 15, 2011 7:42 p.m.... more
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Crazy Dee and Nina Turner take the viewing audience on a African History, African-American History-- An American History ride! Crazy Dee knew to interview Nina Turner would be an honor, and to be able to discuss American History with her would be even great honor as well as very interesting. Crazy Dee opens with a question about "the talented tenth", and the interview opens up into a discussion on history from 1865 to present day! Nina Turner also speaks on what her role is as the Senator of the 25th District. This is a must watch interview, and a exchange of ideas at its highest.Crazy Dee and Nina Turner take the viewing audience on a African History,... more
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Is Glenn Beck really a racist or is the truth just too much to handle
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Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated on April 4, 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee. His life work had an immense impact on the furthering of civil rights in the United States. Even forty years after his untimely death, Dr. King's legacy places him amongst some of the greatest leaders in American history.Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated on April 4, 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee. His... more
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What it's all about: "Atlanta radio host Warren Ballentine, the Rev. Al Sharpton and other civil rights leaders have called for a national boycott on spending Friday, Nov. 2."
This boycott is in protest of the recent events that have happend, Jena 6, Genarlow Wilson, nooses on professors doors and other race related injustices that have happend.
"According to some financial experts the so-called economic "blackout" won't necessarily crash the stock market and will have minimal economic impact.Others say different."
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"a most see animated short"- web review
"simply beautiful" - web surfer
"brilliant story telling" - independent
"We highly recommend...!"
Past, Present and Future merge like an episode of 'Lost' meets 'The Matrix' (sort of psychologically). Three people from different times and places connect through the journey of a "ghost". Why?
The Middle Passage meets Black Tuesday 1929 meets 911 meets Katrina all connected with resolve."a most see animated short"- web review
"simply beautiful" - web... more
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