(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Odds & Ends: News/Humor (with a "Who Lost the Week?" poll) [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2024-06-23 I post a weekly diary of historical notes, arts & science items, foreign news (often receiving little notice in the US) and whimsical pieces from the outside world that I often feature in "Cheers & Jeers". OK, you've been warned - here is this week's tomfoolery material that I posted. CHEERS to Bill and Michael in PWM and ...... well, each of you at Cheers and Jeers. Have a fabulous weekend .... and week ahead. ART NOTES — an exhibition entitled Paula Modersohn-Becker: Ich bin ich/I am me — the first US career retrospective of a German painter known for self-portraits (including the first nude self-portraits known to have been made by a noted woman artist) who died in 1907 aged 31 (due to a postpartum embolism) — will be at the Neue Galerie in NYC to September 9th. Paula Modersohn-Becker (1905) YOUR WEEKEND READ is this essay in Salon by Amanda Marcotte, on how evangelical support for pastors who commit sex crimes is not (in their own eyes) hypocritical. THURSDAY's CHILD was rescued by the Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio fire department ... after being stuck in this tree for three days. Engine #5's personnel to the rescue SPORTING NOTES #1 — this weekend will see the Euro 2024 soccer tournament (for European nations) continue the group stage: Sunday will have Switzerland vs. Germany (3 PM Eastern) — all are on free TV (the Fox broadcast channel, where you’d see the NFL and The Simpsons). FRIDAY's CHILD is named Sylvester the Cat — who has a home but can be seen around the University of East Anglia in Britain (often laying on some of the lecturers' desks while they've given lectures) and a successful social media campaign has raised funds to cover his illnesses (infection in his heart, fluid in his lungs and a lot of fluid retention). Sylvester the Cat SPORTING NOTES #2 — meanwhile, the Copa America soccer tournament (for North and South American nations) is being held in the US — Sunday, the US faces Bolivia (at 6 PM Eastern) and Uruguay faces Panama (at 9 PM) — also on free TV (the Fox broadcast channel). BRAIN TEASER — try this Quiz of the Week's News from the BBC ...… and the usually easier, less UK-centered New York Times quiz. SEPARATED at BIRTH — British actors (both born 1990) — Turner (The Secrets of Dumbledore) and O’Connor (The Crown). x Callum Turner and Josh O’Connor. Separated at birth. 🤔 pic.twitter.com/SooKaN7mY1 — Kirsten Mavric (@kirstenmavric) June 16, 2024 ...... and finally, for a song of the week ...........................… my very first concert was seeing Led Zeppelin at Madison Square Garden on the 19th of September, 1970 (a 2 PM matinée) and that night was the US television premier of Tony Palmer’s concert documentary of the 1968 final show by Cream (my favorite band) so it was an auspicious day in rock-n-roll for myself. This was Zep’s first MSG concert (they played there numerous times that decade before the death of drummer John Bonham) and it was the opening of the US tour to promote Led Zeppelin III. Their music soon took them in a different direction from me (and thus I followed other bands) yet it was a good beginning for me. Last week I noted the acquittal of Jimmy Page and Robert Plant from 2016 on a plagiarism charge over whether the song Stairway to Heaven took its opening guitar melody from a song by the California band Spirit. Fortunately, the jury saw this (as did most observers) as quite a stretch, and justifiably cleared the two men. I suspected, though, that the track record of Led Zeppelin gave rise to that attempt. I’ll list a few, so that you can judge for yourself. The last song at my first concert was Whole Lotta Love (a tour-de-force rendition) and on the original Led Zeppelin II album is credited to the four band members (Page, Plant, Jones & Bonham). Yet the lyrics sounded (however inadvertently) quite similar to the song You Need Love — written by the Chicago blues bassist (and Chess Records A&R manager) Willie Dixon — made famous when recorded by the bluesman McKinley Morganfield (a/k/a/ Muddy Waters). A 1985 lawsuit was settled out of court in Willie Dixon’s favor for an undisclosed sum — reportedly he used the proceeds for a program providing instruments for schools — and “Whole Lotta Love” is now credited to Page, Plant, Jones, Bonham and Dixon. Another song from that Led Zeppelin II album (The Lemon Song) had different music … yet also had derivative lyrics (somewhat less, to my ears) to the song Killing Floor by another Chicago bluesman on Chess Records — Chester Arthur Burnett (a/k/a Howlin’ Wolf). On his behalf, Chess Records sued Led Zeppelin for their tribute to “The Killing Floor.” Howlin’ Wolf received a settlement of $45k in 1972, and Led Zeppelin added his name to the songwriting credits. Finally, a song appearing on Led Zeppelin’s debut album (and played quite well at that first concert I heard) was Dazed and Confused — and this also has a past. A musician who became better known for writing advertising jingles in the 1970’s after his career sputtered is Jake Holmes (whom I profiled five years ago at this link) and is still alive at age eighty-four. From his 1967 debut album, he included a moody tune called Dazed & Confused — which was released as a single, yet did not chart. As you can hear further on, it was a folk song with a descending tone and reflects the desperation of someone in a very unstable relationship. Jake Holmes always performed it, and twenty-five years later a film was made with that very name. Single released in 1967 In August 1967, this sign shows that Jake Holmes was the opening act for two more well-known bands …. and this was the final line-up of the UK blues band The Yardbirds, which had an interstellar guitarist during this final period named … Jimmy Page. Village Theater, NYC: August 25th, 1967 billing According to the Yardbirds drummer Jim McCarty — who today leads a re-formed version of the band — here was his recollection from that night: I remember going to look at Jake Holmes from side stage, you know, as you did — sometimes you watched the support band. I thought it was quite a folky sort of group, and then all of a sudden he went into the “Dazed and Confused” riff. I thought, ‘That’s a very moody riff, sort of thing that would suit us.’ I went down to Greenwich Village the next day and bought his album. And so we had the song, and we did our own version. The Yardbirds would break-up a year later, and never had a studio recording of it (although a 1968 live performance did appear on a bootleg). Jimmy Page took the song — which he re-worked musically (especially the chord riff in-between verses) — with him to his new band, Led Zeppelin. It appeared on their self-titled first album, solely credited to Jimmy Page — though the song is close to the original. Jake Holmes wrote to the band, asking for credit in 1970, yet received no reply and let the matter drop. Forty years later, Jake Holmes filed suit in 2010, and a settlement was reached out-of-court monetarily: today the song is credited to Jimmy Page (inspired by Jake Holmes). Below is Led Zeppelin’s version from their 1968 debut album, then Jake Holmes’. x YouTube Video [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/6/23/2247003/-Odds-Ends-News-Humor-with-a-Who-Lost-the-Week-poll?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=trending&pm_medium=web Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/