The Lyrics of Life come in many forms, many unspoken.
NOTE: An UPDATE on John Lewis Bartee is coming. It focuses on the business of Music, unpaid royalties and lies of men... all which take Joy & Beauty from the ART. One needs the strength of the Poetry of Music to face this ugliness.
Today, November 15th John Lewis Bartee would have been 98 years old... with his death nine years ago he was found and resurrected.
John abt. 1946
California
John abt. 2000 - 2001
Gallup, New Mexico
John Lewis Bartee born in Woodland, Georgia on November 15, 1912, the third child and oldest son of James Maxey Bartee & Nell Vashti Mathews.
John's Mother the musically talented
Nell Vashti (Mathews) Bartee
(click on pictures to enlarge)
above: Nell on left with Guitar, her sister Mary Jane with Guitar on right. Their younger sister Kate 2nd right from Nell. About 1899 near Atlanta, Georgia left: John's older sister Julia (Bartee) Hardy
Bartee Family March 1936 Nell Vashti Bartee's Funeral (Oldest daughter Julia taking picture)John between sisters Mary Kate & Virginia Nell L to R brothers William, James, Robert & father James Maxey
Bartee Home - Interlachen, Florida
The Little Sisters of the Poor buried John Lewis Bartee on a hill overlooking Gallup, New Mexico
John's Grandparents who lived in Woodbury, Georgia. James Allen Bartee & Julia Ann (Thornton) Bartee
Cavatina is a classical guitar piece by Stanley Myers. It is most famous as the theme from the Academy Award winning The Deer Hunter, whose writer/director Michael Cimino was a nearby neighbor the year I lived on the North Fork of the Flathead River near Polebridge, Montana in 1985.
The piece had been recorded by classical guitarist John Williams, long before the film that made it famous. It had originally been written for piano but at Williams' invitation, Myers re-wrote it for guitar and expanded it. After this transformation, it was first used for the film, The Walking Stick (1970). In 1973, Cleo Laine wrote lyrics and recorded the song as "He Was Beautiful" accompanied by John Williams.
My thanks to Brigid for allowing me to share her words. She has a blog, Home on the Range which is filled with good food, humor, and memories of family & friends. The World she paints offers a perspective of a very unique individual whose journeys and experiences will leave you intrigued.
Looking to find any information on Grace Marie Sampson. She was the daughter of Arranger/Composer Edgar Sampson, (b.1907) who worked with many of the great Musicians of the Big Band Era.
Grace was a Music Professor at Southern University in LA in 1955. She may have a mother,sister, or daughter named Anna Sampson.
She also is credited with work on some of the Music Machito performed.
Here is Mambo Inn performed by Grant Green on his album The Latin Bit.
A Century of Progress International Expositionwas the name of a World's Fair held in Chicago, Illinois from 1933 to 1934 to celebrate the city's centennial. The theme of the fair was technological innovation. Its motto was "Science Finds, Industry Applies, Man Conforms" and its architectural symbol was the Sky Ride, a transporter bridge perpendicular to the shore on which one could ride from one side of the fair to another.
77 years have gone by since John walked among the exhibits of the Fair... have we as a World Society built upon what we were given?
One musician who played at the World's Fair in Chicago was Harry Horlick. Harry was the conductor of one of early American radio's most popular salon orchestras, largely due to his regular appearances on the long-running "A & P Gypsies" show from 1924 to 1936. Born in 1896, in Tiflis, Russia, Horlick remained in Russia when his family left for America at the beginning on World War I, and he became a prisoner of war. His family and the American consul helped him get to the United States where he performed in cafés in the early 1920s. Horlick's six-piece ensemble was playing unsponsored on New York's WEAF in the winter of 1923 when they were seen by a Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company executive who was taking a tour of the radio studio. The band -= now holding the name A & P Gypsies, began regular broadcasts, sponsored by A&P, on Monday nights, beginning March 17, 1924, with the opening theme of "Two Guitars. The host and band leader Harry Horlick had learned gypsy folk music while traveling with gypsy bands in Constantinople. The musicians performed while wearing gypsy costumes.
From 1924 into the 1930s they were the most popular instrumental music program on the air. In 1933, A&P took part in the World's Fair in Chicago with a canopied boardwalk where tea dances were held, and free tea and coffee samples were distributed.
Squandered Fortune, a book about Huntington Hartford a troubled man. His share of the "A&P Fortune" was only $400 mil. When he filed for bankruptcy several years ago, he still had 12 million dollars and a trust fund that netted him $500K per year. Throughout his life, he made bad investments. A&P had almost 16K stores in 1930, but that number declined quickly as the corner stores closed and were replaced with larger format supermarkets.
It is ironic that Harry Horlick died, as his grandnephew said, "practically broke". Horlick's ultimate employer, George Huntington Hartford II, was heir to the A&P fortune estimated in 1975 at $2.6 billion -- 16,000 A&P Supermarkets -- then largest retail empire in the world. Hartford died in 2008 at his Bahamas estate at 97, fortune mostly intact. As we enjoy the great musical legacy Horlick left us, let us consider how relatively little he and other great musicians received for their efforts.
Horlick died July, 1970.
Update: A & P the 150 year old grocery store chain filed for bankruptcy reorganization on Sunday, December 12th, 2010.
Harry Horlick's A & P Gypsies ~ Only The Girl Brunswick 1929
