DIG THIS WITH BILL MESNIK AND RICH BUCKLAND- THE SPLENDID BOHEMIANS
My Fellow Americans, Life is actually just a microscopic, deluded moment in time, so let's cut to the freakin' chase. One look at our impending election debacle can solidify my case. It has been my contention since birth, that the answer to every difficulty we encounter on this sacred yet demented Stone, can be revealed with ultimate clarity through the ultra neurotic engagements of Music, Art, Literature, Film, Poetry and a good Pastrami sandwich. Why would any sane human spend so must time on a film set (Do you know how long you gotta wait until your 8 second deliverance of an edited beyond repair line gets a chance to become a professional embarrassment etched in time forever? ) or expend so much energy in a recording studio, piecing together another ode to a man or woman who could not care less how much love existed within your digestive tract? It's all about hymns and prayers and a quest for mercy and forgiveness and silence and faith. We were blessed with Charles Bukowski, Gene Chandler, Lenny Bruce, Mitch Ryder and a legion of creative explorers whose influences provided the air we breathe. So Let's Dance! This site shall explore the reaper, find a way to disarm the stench of injustice, discover some true loves and talk it all over before it's all over. So what's the worst that our desires could produce? Failure? So sue me. I'm going to require your assistance in making as much trouble for the grown-ups as possible. Let the record show that my childish heart yearns to disrupt the madness. Join me Ladies and Germs!
With Gratitude For Gena Rowlands, Nancy Sinatra, Jerry Quarry, Leo Gorcey, Arthur Alexander and Joey Heatherton, Your Splendid Bohemian, Rich Buckland.
DIG THIS WITH BILL MESNIK AND RICH BUCKLAND- THE SPLENDID BOHEMIANS
The Splendid Bohemians Present An R&B Special - "The White Knight Meets Mr. Brown- The Blue Rocks Of Ages With Horns"- Part One- Wayne Cochran and James Brown Are Explored Along With The Horn Stylings Which Inspired Their Rocks of Ages To Glow and Grow
- Nov. 27, 2017
Wayne Cochran, who wrote a classic love-and-loss pop song while still in his early 20s, then morphed into an energetic rhythm-and-blues singer with a devoted following and an outrageous pompadour before finding a new purpose in a Christian ministry near Miami, died on Nov. 21 in Miramar, Fla. He was 78.
His son, Christopher Cochran, said the cause was cancer.
Mr. Cochran was a relative unknown trying to make it as a singer in Georgia in 1961 when he wrote and recorded “Last Kiss,” a heart-wrencher about a fatal car wreck.
“Well, where, oh where can my baby be?” it starts. “The Lord took her away from me.”
Mr. Cochran’s initial recording did not make much of an impact, but a 1964 cover by J. Frank Wilson and the Cavaliers became a national hit. The song — which Christopher Cochran said was inspired by a real traffic fatality, though not one that his father was involved in — has proved durable. A Canadian group named Wednesday had a modest hit with it in the 1970s, and Pearl Jam did even better with a version recorded in 1998.
Mr. Cochran, though, veered away from teenage pop and into soul and R&B, developing a high-energy stage act with a band he called the C. C. Riders (the initials stood for Cochran Circuit). With his hair in a pompadour of epic dimensions, he put on a propulsive show that earned him the nickname the White Knight of Soul. He drew comparisons to James Brown.
James Brown: Godfather of Soul
James Brown set the standard for dynamic live performance in American music. Inspired by preachers in the Black church, Brown started out singing in gospel quartets. As the "Godfather of Soul," he transmuted gospel into secular music centered in the emotional conduit of the soul singer. As "the hardest working man in show business," Brown turned ballads into virtuosic theatrical turns—falling hard on his knees, busting into splits and half spins, popping the mike to the floor and back, each move ratcheting up the song’s emotional intensity. As "Soul Brother No. 1," Brown acted as a cultural leader, writing hit songs calling for Black pride. As a progenitor of funk music, Brown with his band created a stripped-down, rhythmically driven aesthetic that has influenced world music from reggae to Afrobeat. Much of popular music since the 1960s comes through James Brown’s moves and grooves. Hip-hop is unimaginable without him.
