Remembering the legacies of Jerry Stiller and Little Richard
Three hours ago? That would be 5:00 pm Pacific on 5/11/20.
Do you get the problem?
Betty Wright died. Why isn't Betty noted?
Tyler McCarthy (FOX NEWS) reports:
Betty Wright, a Grammy-winning soul singer and songwriter known for influential hits such as "Clean Up Woman" and "Where is the Love," died at age 66 at her home in Miami on Sunday.
Steve Greenberg of S-Curve Records told the New York Times Wright had been diagnosed with cancer in the fall.Wright had her breakthrough with 1971's “Clean Up Woman,” which combined elements of funk, soul and R&B.
Recorded when Wright was just 17, the song would be a top 10 hit on both the Billboard R&B and pop charts, and its familiar grooves would be used and reused in the sampling era of future decades.
Oliver Wang (NPR) notes:
My indirect introduction to Wright's music came in 1990, when L.A.'s Candyman scored a chart-topper with the salacious rap ballad "Knockin' Boots." Though the song's chorus interpolates Rose Royce's 1977 single, "Ooh Boy," the rest of "Knockin' Boots" draws heavily from samples taken from Wright's 1978 live version of "Tonight Is the Night."
Co-written by Wright herself, the studio version of "Tonight Is The Night" appeared on her 1974 album, Danger High Voltage, recorded when she was 20. Finally, it seemed, her actual age and subject matter were now in alignment as the song shares a first-person perspective from a jittery but willing young woman on the cusp of having sex for the first time. As catchy as songs like "Clean Up Woman" were, those could feel like Wright was playing a role others had written for her. By comparison, on "Tonight Is the Night," there's a candor and aching vulnerability that felt more authentically personal. At times, the song could feel uncomfortably relatable, like reading through someone's diary, as when you hear her sing:
Hope you're not impatient after waiting so very long.
A whole year I put you off with my silly hang-ups.
And we're both old enough to know right from wrong.
In fact, on the more popular live recording of the song, released on the 1978 album Betty Wright Live!, Wright tells the audience, "I never intended recording this song. It was a personal poem, that is until the day my producer happened to thumb through the pages of my notebook."
On that live recording, you can hear Wright's maturation as an artist as the now-24 year old tackles her song with a newfound swagger. On the same introductory monologue — one of the greatest of the 1970s — she even jokes about how her mother confronted her over the song: "I like the music, you know baby, the melody? It's really nice, but I know you not gonna sing that song!"
In the 10 years that separated the Betty Wright of "Girls Can't Do What The Guys Do" and the Betty Wright of "Tonight Is the Night (Live)," fans were given a front row seat to her coming of age in real time, growing from a young teen asked to play a grown-up to being an actual grown-up in full command of her artistic persona. Notably, by the time she was 21, she had became a prolific songwriter in her own right, eventually garnering hundreds of credits on her own songs as well as those for others, the most recent coming earlier this year on "Safe In Your Arms," the lead track on R&B artist Judy Cheeks's Love Dancin' LP.
As noted, these three recordings are merely snapshots from the first decade of Wright's expansive career, a span of time many artists would be jealous of by itself. She would go onto have many more acts, including helping both KC and the Sunshine Band and Gwen and George McCrae get their start and directly mentoring a host of younger Miami talents including DJ Khaled and Trick Daddy.
This is from WIKIPEDIA:
In 2001, the compilation album The Very Best of Betty Wright was released, along with Fit for a King, her first studio album for several years. In 2008, Wright was featured on a Lil Wayne track titled "Playing with Fire". However, due to a lawsuit, the song was removed from the album online.[4]
In 2006, Wright appeared on the TV show Making the Band, appointed by Sean Combs as a vocal coach for new female group Danity Kane. She mentored several young singers and did vocal production for such artists as Gloria Estefan, Jennifer Lopez and Joss Stone. Along with co-producers Steve Greenberg and Michael Mangini, Wright was nominated for a 2005 Grammy Award in the Best Pop Album category for producing Joss Stone's album Mind Body & Soul.[26]
Wright, Greenberg and Mangini also produced two tracks on Tom Jones's 2008 album 24 Hours: a cover of Bruce Springsteen's "The Hitter" and "More Than Memories", written by Stax legend Carla Thomas. The trio also produced the debut album by Diane Birch in 2009. In December 2010, Wright was given another Grammy Award nomination for the song "Go" on the Best Traditional R&B Vocal Performance. The album Betty Wright: The Movie, credited to Betty Wright and the Roots, produced by Wright and Ahmir Questlove Thompson was released November 15, 2011 on Ms. B Records/S-Curve Records.[27] Betty Wright: The Movie also included collaborations with Joss Stone, Snoop Dogg, Lil Wayne and Lenny Williams.[28] "Surrender", a track from the album, was nominated for a 2011 Grammy in the Best Traditional R&B Performance category.[29]
On New Year's Eve 2011, she appeared on the UK's BBC Two television channel, on the Jools's Annual Hootenanny show, backed by the Jools Holland Rhythm & Blue Orchestra. She performed her singles "Clean Up Woman" and "Shoorah! Shoorah!" alongside "In the Middle of the Game (Don't Change the Play)" from Betty Wright: The Movie.[26][30]
One of her last charting singles was "Baby" which she did with Angie Stone.
Closing with C.I.'s ''Iraq snapshot:"
Monday, May 11, 2020. The attacks on Tara Reade continue.
Friday evening, Megyn Kelly posted her interview with Tara Reade on her YOUTUBE channel.
Elise Swain (THE INTERCEPT) notes:
Biden’s accuser, Tara Reade, was one of eight women who registered complaints of inappropriate touching in April of last year — before Biden ever jumped into the presidential race. As Biden appeared likely to be the Democratic nominee, Reade came forward in late March and told her story about her former boss. In an interview with podcast host Katie Halper, Reade said Biden penetrated her vagina with his fingers. She alleges the incident occurred in 1993, while she was an aide in his Senate office. What Reade describes is rape, according to the Department of Justice’s own definition. In an interview with Megyn Kelly, Reade has called on Biden to end his presidential bid and “step forward and be held accountable.”
[. . .
The name Lucy Flores may be all but forgotten in an exhausting year of political reporting. Flores was the first to come forward and register publicly that an encounter with Biden made her deeply uncomfortable. In a viral essay, Flores described how, in 2015, then-Vice President Biden made her feel “uneasy, gross, and confused” as she campaigned for lieutenant governor in Nevada.
“I feel him come up close behind me, and that’s when he leans in and he lingers around my head,” Flores recounted on Intercepted. “I hear him kind of inhale. And then he proceeds to plant this low kiss on the top of my head.” (Biden denied that he had acted inappropriately toward Flores.)
Seven more women came forward with similar stories of Biden’s manner of unwanted, inappropriate touching. Descriptions told of how his hands intimately lingered on everything from the women’s necks, shoulders, backs, or thighs. Some say his forehead pressed against theirs. Noses so close that they rubbed together. Breathing in the smell of hair. Kissing the back of the head.
At THE GUARDIAN, Daniel Strauss points out:
A small group of insurgent Democratic congressional candidates have begun to raise concerns that Reade’s allegations are not being taken seriously enough. Rebecca Parson, a liberal Democrat challenging the Washington state congressman Derek Kilmer, said in an interview on Friday that Biden should step down over Reade’s allegations. Parson said she believes Reade and thinks the charges create too much of a vulnerability for Biden in the 2020 presidential election.
“I want to defeat Donald Trump in November and yes, I’m a progressive and I’m in the left-wing of the party, but something that really unites the people in the centrist wing and the progressive wing is we all want to defeat Trump,” Parson said. “I don’t think we do that with somebody who has all these allegations against him, especially because Donald Trump has assault allegations against him and unfortunately with Donald Trump, Trump doesn’t care about being a hypocrite.”
Parson added: “I think that Biden should withdraw and any one or more of the candidates who aren’t running should restart their campaign because the Democratic primary isn’t over yet.”
[. . .]
But Parson is not alone in arguing that at this point Biden should drop out of the race. A Politico/Morning Consult poll found that over a third of Democratic voters surveyed say the party should switch out Biden as their presumptive nominee because of the allegations.
On Friday, Tara Reade was attacked by sexist pig Bill Maher whose own issues with woman go way beyond the trash he tried with Rose McGowan.
Why did Tara Reade wait so long to come forward!!!!!!
Golly, gee, what woman wouldn't want to be attacked and smeared by one attack dog after another? Right? A woman who has been assaulted has to survive the original assault and then the second assault which takes place when she comes forward.
Ryan Grim takes on one of the lies being told about Tara here. Michael Tracey's one of the pigs that's repeated the lie. ("Media: Pig Boys continue their war on women" is Ava and my latest taking on pig boys Michael, Bob Somerby and Bill Maher.) Your whole life is gone through by the media when you come forward so why come forward?
The reality is that Joe has a long history of lying. Joe Biden. It's what derailed his first presidential run. And he's continued to lie over and over. But instead of acknowledging that, people want to smear Tara.
Joe's the one lying in New Hampshire that he graduated top of his law school class when he was 76th out of 85. In our piece, Ava and I include this:
In August of 2008, Alexander Cockburn (COUNTERPUNCH) wrote:
Biden is a notorious flapjaw. His vanity deludes him into believing that every word that drops from his mouth is minted in the golden currency of Pericles. Vanity is the most conspicuous characteristic of US Senators en bloc , nourished by deferential acolytes and often expressed in loutish sexual advances to staffers, interns and the like. On more than one occasion CounterPunch’s editors have listened to vivid accounts by the recipient of just such advances, this staffer of another senator being accosted by Biden in the well of the senate in the weeks immediately following his first wife’s fatal car accident.
I guess before he died in 2012, Alex was plotting with Tara Reade and, according to Bill Maher, Putin about how to take down Joe Biden in 2020. Alex obviously seized on the idea of traveling back in time to 2008 to write the above, right?
Joe Biden's history is ugly and messy. It's one lie after another. Does the fact that he's a politician excuse that long pattern of lying?
Nothing excuses his lying.
But it's not even acknowledged.
RISING is set to address the topic of Bill Maher and other things later this morning.
Hopefully it won't be like NBC's MEET THE PRESS which 'ran out' of time for the topic of Tara Reade on Sunday.
May 7th, Iraq got their latest prime minister. ALJAZEERA reports:
THE NATIONAL adds:
The new premier also reinstated and promoted General Abdulwahab Al Saadi, a popular military figure whose abrupt dismissal by previous premier Adel Abdul Mahdi in September had been a main catalyst of the first protests.
[. . .]
Protesters turned out overnight in the city of Kut, setting fire to the
headquarters of the Iran-backed Badr Organisation and to the home of an MP affiliated with another Tehran-aligned faction, according to AFP.
Hundreds more hit the streets on Sunday morning.
And Mr Al Kadhimi called on parliament to adopt the new electoral law needed for early polls as demanded by the protesters.
Still, demonstrators remained sceptical.
"We will give him 10 days to prove himself, and if our demands aren't met, then we will escalate," said Mohammad, a student protester returning to Tahrir on Sunday.
"Today is a message."
In related news, Mina Aldroubi (THE NATIONAL) reports:
Police in Basra raided the headquarters of an Iran-backed militia accused of shooting at protesters in the Iraqi city.
In a police statement, cited by the state-run National Iraqi News Agency, said that party members were arrested, weapons and ammunition confiscated and an investigation into the shootings launched.
The militia group, named Thar Allah or God’s Revolution, was establish in 1995 and has been described as a “threat to Iraq’s stability.”
Crowds in the city rallied on Sunday night, days after the formation of a new government last week. People demonstrated outside the militia’s office.
Last night, I noted "The protesters are watching to see signs of change. Declaring Ali Allawi (Ahmed Chalabi's nephew) to be Minister of Oil probably doesn't signal any real change." An e-mail notes that Allawi is the Finance Minister. Yes, he is that. That's not all he is. From S&P GLOBAL this morning:
Iraq's new prime minister has appointed finance minister Ali Allawi as acting oil minister after parliament last week postponed a vote on the oil ministry post in OPEC's second largest producer, an oil ministry spokesperson told S&P Global Platts on Monday.
Allawi, who had served in previous governments following the US invasion in 2003, was appointed finance minister last week as parliament granted its vote of confidence to Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi, most members of his cabinet and his government program.
Allawi, a former professor at Oxford University, was appointed by the Interim Iraq Governing Council in 2003 as both minister of trade and minister of defense and remained in his post until 2004. He later served as minister of finance in the Iraqi transitional government from 2005 to 2006.
New content at THIRD:
The following sites updated:
Friday evening, Megyn Kelly posted her interview with Tara Reade on her YOUTUBE channel.
Elise Swain (THE INTERCEPT) notes:
Biden’s accuser, Tara Reade, was one of eight women who registered complaints of inappropriate touching in April of last year — before Biden ever jumped into the presidential race. As Biden appeared likely to be the Democratic nominee, Reade came forward in late March and told her story about her former boss. In an interview with podcast host Katie Halper, Reade said Biden penetrated her vagina with his fingers. She alleges the incident occurred in 1993, while she was an aide in his Senate office. What Reade describes is rape, according to the Department of Justice’s own definition. In an interview with Megyn Kelly, Reade has called on Biden to end his presidential bid and “step forward and be held accountable.”
[. . .
The name Lucy Flores may be all but forgotten in an exhausting year of political reporting. Flores was the first to come forward and register publicly that an encounter with Biden made her deeply uncomfortable. In a viral essay, Flores described how, in 2015, then-Vice President Biden made her feel “uneasy, gross, and confused” as she campaigned for lieutenant governor in Nevada.
“I feel him come up close behind me, and that’s when he leans in and he lingers around my head,” Flores recounted on Intercepted. “I hear him kind of inhale. And then he proceeds to plant this low kiss on the top of my head.” (Biden denied that he had acted inappropriately toward Flores.)
Seven more women came forward with similar stories of Biden’s manner of unwanted, inappropriate touching. Descriptions told of how his hands intimately lingered on everything from the women’s necks, shoulders, backs, or thighs. Some say his forehead pressed against theirs. Noses so close that they rubbed together. Breathing in the smell of hair. Kissing the back of the head.
At THE GUARDIAN, Daniel Strauss points out:
A small group of insurgent Democratic congressional candidates have begun to raise concerns that Reade’s allegations are not being taken seriously enough. Rebecca Parson, a liberal Democrat challenging the Washington state congressman Derek Kilmer, said in an interview on Friday that Biden should step down over Reade’s allegations. Parson said she believes Reade and thinks the charges create too much of a vulnerability for Biden in the 2020 presidential election.
“I want to defeat Donald Trump in November and yes, I’m a progressive and I’m in the left-wing of the party, but something that really unites the people in the centrist wing and the progressive wing is we all want to defeat Trump,” Parson said. “I don’t think we do that with somebody who has all these allegations against him, especially because Donald Trump has assault allegations against him and unfortunately with Donald Trump, Trump doesn’t care about being a hypocrite.”
Parson added: “I think that Biden should withdraw and any one or more of the candidates who aren’t running should restart their campaign because the Democratic primary isn’t over yet.”
[. . .]
But Parson is not alone in arguing that at this point Biden should drop out of the race. A Politico/Morning Consult poll found that over a third of Democratic voters surveyed say the party should switch out Biden as their presumptive nominee because of the allegations.
On Friday, Tara Reade was attacked by sexist pig Bill Maher whose own issues with woman go way beyond the trash he tried with Rose McGowan.
Why did Tara Reade wait so long to come forward!!!!!!
Golly, gee, what woman wouldn't want to be attacked and smeared by one attack dog after another? Right? A woman who has been assaulted has to survive the original assault and then the second assault which takes place when she comes forward.
Ryan Grim takes on one of the lies being told about Tara here. Michael Tracey's one of the pigs that's repeated the lie. ("Media: Pig Boys continue their war on women" is Ava and my latest taking on pig boys Michael, Bob Somerby and Bill Maher.) Your whole life is gone through by the media when you come forward so why come forward?
The reality is that Joe has a long history of lying. Joe Biden. It's what derailed his first presidential run. And he's continued to lie over and over. But instead of acknowledging that, people want to smear Tara.
Joe's the one lying in New Hampshire that he graduated top of his law school class when he was 76th out of 85. In our piece, Ava and I include this:
In August of 2008, Alexander Cockburn (COUNTERPUNCH) wrote:
Biden is a notorious flapjaw. His vanity deludes him into believing that every word that drops from his mouth is minted in the golden currency of Pericles. Vanity is the most conspicuous characteristic of US Senators en bloc , nourished by deferential acolytes and often expressed in loutish sexual advances to staffers, interns and the like. On more than one occasion CounterPunch’s editors have listened to vivid accounts by the recipient of just such advances, this staffer of another senator being accosted by Biden in the well of the senate in the weeks immediately following his first wife’s fatal car accident.
I guess before he died in 2012, Alex was plotting with Tara Reade and, according to Bill Maher, Putin about how to take down Joe Biden in 2020. Alex obviously seized on the idea of traveling back in time to 2008 to write the above, right?
Joe Biden's history is ugly and messy. It's one lie after another. Does the fact that he's a politician excuse that long pattern of lying?
Nothing excuses his lying.
But it's not even acknowledged.
RISING is set to address the topic of Bill Maher and other things later this morning.
Hopefully it won't be like NBC's MEET THE PRESS which 'ran out' of time for the topic of Tara Reade on Sunday.
May 7th, Iraq got their latest prime minister. ALJAZEERA reports:
Iraq's judiciary ordered courts on Sunday to
release anti-government protesters, carrying out one of the first
decisions of the recently inaugurated prime minister, as dozens of
demonstrators burned tyres in renewed protests against the new
leadership.
Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi also promoted a
well-respected Iraqi general, who played a key role in the military
campaign against the armed group ISIL (ISIS) to lead counter-terrorism
operations.
THE NATIONAL adds:
The new premier also reinstated and promoted General Abdulwahab Al Saadi, a popular military figure whose abrupt dismissal by previous premier Adel Abdul Mahdi in September had been a main catalyst of the first protests.
[. . .]
Protesters turned out overnight in the city of Kut, setting fire to the
headquarters of the Iran-backed Badr Organisation and to the home of an MP affiliated with another Tehran-aligned faction, according to AFP.
Hundreds more hit the streets on Sunday morning.
And Mr Al Kadhimi called on parliament to adopt the new electoral law needed for early polls as demanded by the protesters.
Still, demonstrators remained sceptical.
"We will give him 10 days to prove himself, and if our demands aren't met, then we will escalate," said Mohammad, a student protester returning to Tahrir on Sunday.
"Today is a message."
In related news, Mina Aldroubi (THE NATIONAL) reports:
Police in Basra raided the headquarters of an Iran-backed militia accused of shooting at protesters in the Iraqi city.
In a police statement, cited by the state-run National Iraqi News Agency, said that party members were arrested, weapons and ammunition confiscated and an investigation into the shootings launched.
The militia group, named Thar Allah or God’s Revolution, was establish in 1995 and has been described as a “threat to Iraq’s stability.”
Crowds in the city rallied on Sunday night, days after the formation of a new government last week. People demonstrated outside the militia’s office.
Last night, I noted "The protesters are watching to see signs of change. Declaring Ali Allawi (Ahmed Chalabi's nephew) to be Minister of Oil probably doesn't signal any real change." An e-mail notes that Allawi is the Finance Minister. Yes, he is that. That's not all he is. From S&P GLOBAL this morning:
Iraq's new prime minister has appointed finance minister Ali Allawi as acting oil minister after parliament last week postponed a vote on the oil ministry post in OPEC's second largest producer, an oil ministry spokesperson told S&P Global Platts on Monday.
Allawi, who had served in previous governments following the US invasion in 2003, was appointed finance minister last week as parliament granted its vote of confidence to Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi, most members of his cabinet and his government program.
Allawi, a former professor at Oxford University, was appointed by the Interim Iraq Governing Council in 2003 as both minister of trade and minister of defense and remained in his post until 2004. He later served as minister of finance in the Iraqi transitional government from 2005 to 2006.
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- Truest statement of the week
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- Media: Pig Boys continue their war on women
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- Dear THIRD ESTATE SUNDAY REVIEW
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The following sites updated:
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Augustin Hadelich: Tiny Desk Concert3 hours ago
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The reaction18 hours ago
