Title: The Gold Rush
Year: 1925
Director: Charles Chaplin
Writer: Charles Chaplin
Starring: Charles Chaplin, Mack Swain, Tom Murray, Henry Bergman, Malcolm Waite, Georgia Hale
Music: Charles Chaplin (possibly?)
Distinctions: currently #158 on IMDb’s Top 250
Length: c. 82 minutes
Synopsis: The Tramp goes prospecting in Alaska
How I saw it: the original silent version, on video (rented from Netflix), February 2009
Subjective Rating: 7/10
Objective Rating: 7/10 (points off for story, pacing and cinematography)

It’s not really much of a movie, but it’s great as a collection of footage of gags and impressive mime acts.

Released in: 1954
Collected and arranged by: Tom Murray, with the help of Louise Bennett
Sleeve notes: Hugh Paget
Album cover art: Olga Lehmann

Argo issue numbers: RG 33

Re-released: in 2008 through Amazon’s CreateSpace as CD and mp3 downloads

Musicians
Edric Connor – vocals
The Caribbeans (Vernon Nesbeth, Frank Mannah, Allan and Harry Wilmot) – vocals
Earl Inkman – piano

Tracks

Side One
Band 1:Day Dah Light/Ada/Las Kean Fine/Hill an’ Gully
Band 2: Call Dinah/Wata Come a Me Y’eye/Ribber Ben Come Dung/Ball Gwan Roun’
Band 3: Mada Cantinny/Linstead Market/Sammy Dead Oh/Chi-Chi Bud Oh
Band 4: Cudelia Brown/Hol’ Yuh Han’/Ratta Madan-Law

Side Two
Band 1: Rookoombine/Nobody’s Business/House an’ Lan’/Monkey Draw Bow
Band 2: Missa Ramgoat/Judy Drownded/Teacher Lick de Gal/Docta Bud/De Ribber Ben Come Dung (Mica version)
Band 3: Matty Walla-Lef’/Fan Me Solja Man/Dallas Gawn
Band 4: Hosanna/Fyah Bun/One Solja Man

Notes
I read somewhere that this album, recorded in just one day, planted the first seed of the subsequent boom in Jamaican music in Great Britain. Impossible to establish, but if there was an earlier LP of Jamaican folk music released in the UK, I’d like to hear about it.

Better known for his acting career (Moby Dick, Fire Down Below, West of Zanzibar, Danger Man, Destiny Rides Again, King of Kings), Connor fought hard to promote African Caribbean arts in the UK and did music too.

A regular contributor to BBC radio and television programmes from the year he arrived from Trinidad (1944), Connor was starring in the London musical Calypso when the Windrush arrived in 1948 (with Lord Kitchener and Lord Beginner aboard), he performed with a steel band at the 1951 Festival of Britain, was the first black actor cast at the Shakespeare Memorial theatre in Stratford (1958) and was programme director for the first ever Notting Hill Carnival event in January 1959.

Daaaaay-O!
This album has been described as a virtual road-map for Harry Belafonte’s massively succesful LPs “Calypso ” and “Songs of the Caribbean”. Not just because the track Day Dah Light reappeared as The Banana Boat Song in 1957 and was a hit for Belafonte, Shirley Bassey and The Tarriers.

If the album was a road map for Belafonte, then that may be down to the directions given by Louise Bennett (Miss Lou), who helped Connor with this LP (and Belafonte with his) as a sort of folk-lore consultant. She brought out her own album of Jamaican Folk Songs on Folkways in 1954 (including five of the same songs) and much later was a source of inspiration for the ‘Jamaican dialect verse’ of Linton Kwesi Johnson.

Lost in time and space
“Edric was looked upon as a father figure in Britain’s black community,” his wife Pearl Connor-Mogotsi recalled. “He moved into this country and took every opportunity he had to make a lasting mark so that those who came after him would know that it was possible…In Britain there is no record of the contribution we have made. Edric did good work, but it is lost in time and space…”

The Caribbeans
“I was a student of Edric Connor when he asked me to form a vocal backing quartet for an album he was scheduled to record,” recalls Vernon Nesbeth of the Caribbeans.

“I got the fellows, did the recording backing Edric successfully, and we called ourselves The Caribbeans. The success of that album inspired a second album, Songs from Trinidad, by which time we had changed our name to The Southlanders. The two albums were recorded in a day each.

“We were informed that the Queen, our Queen Elizabeth, has copies of both albums in her collection, which made us very pleased.”

A fuller version of the story behind the Caribbeans/Southlanders vocal harmony group in a later post, but, as a footnote here, one of them, Harry Wilmot, later had a son called Gary…

Many thanks to Vernon Nesbeth for his memories and the photo of the Caribbeans/Southlanders above – their first promo pic.

“The great talents in the lower strata”
Before he left Trinidad for the UK (some say he was encouraged to leave), Connor was a folk song collector and public speaker on West Indian folk music, who was determined to show high society “the great talents to be found in the lower strata of the island.” A volume of songs he collected in Trinidad was published by the Oxford University Press.

Image courtesy of the Metro.

Strewth, not another film festival!! Well this time its the turn of the Aussies, as tomorrow sees the opening of the London Australian Film Festival at the Barbican in London.

You will be pleased to hear that the festival will be offering not one, not two, but a crowd-pleasing three documentaries: Salute, (2008) Lionel (2008) and In My Father’s Country (2008).

Salute, directed by Matt Norman has already won two awards. In an image that reverberated around the world, three men stand on the winner’s podium at the 1968 Olympics, two raise their black gloved hands in a power salute, the third, Australian silver medallist Peter Norman wears a badge supporting the Olympic Project For Human Rights. Interspersed with archive footage and interviews, this award-winning documentary explores the phenomenal impact of that one act on Norman’s life, from his expulsion from Australian sport to his enduring friendship with the men who call him ‘Brother’. 

Courtesy of Time Out Sydney

Lionel, directed by Eddie Martin, will be introduced by Richard Brennan on March 16th. On February 26th, 1968, a 19 year old Aboriginal boxer named Lionel Rose defeated Fighting Harada in Japan after an impressive fifteen rounds to become World Bantamweight Champion and an instant national hero. Through the use of abundant pristine archive material and interviews with Lionel and those close to him, Eddie Martin’s dazzling doc chronicles the unprecedented impact of Rose’s victory, on a successful and respected Aborigine, on interracial relationships and on the socio-political situation of Australia at the time. 

Courtesy of the Melbourne Film Festival

And finally, Tom Murray’s In My Father’s Country completes the trio: The focal point of this stunning documentary is the initiation ceremony of a young boy of the Dhuruputjpi community in Northern Australia. In preparation for this rite of passage the elders try to instil the wisdom of their ancestors into the next generation; a generation that has to deal with a world that is changing and at odds with their own way of life. Tom Murray’s unique film allows you to witness and experience an exotic, almost forgotten world; one whose existence grows every day more precarious. 

Courtesy of the Melbourne Film Festival

Click here to find out more about the 15th London Australian Film Festival.

Tom Murray, fotógrafo que clicou a úlltima sessão de fotos de divulgação dos Beatles, juntou os negativos com os do colega Michael Ward e inaugurou a exposição “Two days in the life: The Beatles”, em cartaz em Londres desde quinta-feira.

Para ver mais fotos da exposição, clique aqui.

Para outros posts sobre os Beatles, clique aqui.

I came across this article from the Alpena News and it reminded me of that scene in the motion picture ‘Hooisers’ starring Gene Hackman.

It was standing room only Monday night at the Rogers City Area Schools’ high school library.

There were nearly 60 citizens of all ages at the district’s board of education meeting, most interested in Karl Grambau and his position as the varsity boys basketball coach.

“There needs to be an immediate change in the Rogers City boys basketball program,” said Val Vogelheim.

In all, nine people spoke during the meeting and two citizens submitted letters to be read regarding Grambau, who was not at the meeting.

Vogelheim, among other things, said Grambau was often late to practices, leaving the players unsupervised in the gym. He said it was not personal, but Grambau had lost his passion for the game.

He said he presented the board with petitions, seven or eight pages of them, in support of having Grambau removed as coach.

Steve Schmidt at Mott C.C. located in Flint, Michigan is a very good coach – here is an article from the Lansing State Journal on his accomplishments and aspirations.

“Not many people give junior college coaches a chance, but I hope people will give this one a chance,” said Schmidt, 46, a 1980 Waverly High grad who has coached Mott for the past 17 years. “It would help other coaches at this level. People have no idea how good the coaches and the players are at this level. I hope to show them.”

Tom Murray, a class act who has coached Cardinal Hayes High School the past 40 years is stepping down. NY Daily News chimes in.

THOSE WHO CAN’T COMPETE, COMPLAIN!