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Wednesday 27 July 2016

Web Page  No 2284
29th July 2016
Top Picture: Tiddly Winks
Second Picture: Snakes and Ladders
Third Picture: Ludo
Forth Picture: Dominos

A Wet Sunday Afternoon


 What do you remember about a wet Sunday at home when you were a child ? Nowhere to go, nothing to do, is that right? Then it was time for the parlour games and there were dozens, so let us look at a few.
Firstly one of the oldest must be Tiddly Winks an indoor game played on a flat felt mat with sets of small discs called "winks", a pot, which is the target, and a collection of squidgers, which are also discs. Players use a squidger  to shoot a wink into the wink. The objective of the game was more winks into the pot than your opponents. Tiddlywinks is sometimes considered a simpleminded, frivolous children's game, rather than a strategic, adult game However, the modern competitive adult game of tiddlywinks made a strong comeback at the University of Cambridge in 1955 when it held a series of competitions. The game was invented in 1888.

Snakes and Ladders: This is based on an ancient Indian board game and is regarded today as a worldwide classic. It is played between two or more players on a gameboard having numbered, gridded squares. A number of "ladders" and "snakes" are pictured on the board, each connecting two specific board squares. The object of the game is to navigate one's game piece, according to dice rolls, from the start (bottom square) to the finish (top square), helped or hindered by ladders and snakes respectively. The game is a simple race contest based on sheer luck, and is popular with young children. The historic version had root in morality lessons, where a player's progression up the board represented a life journey complicated by virtues (ladders) and vices (snakes). A commercial modern updated version without the morality lessons was produced by Milton Bradley is named Chutes and Ladders.

Ludo from Latin ludo, "I play" is a board game for two to four players, in which the players race their four tokens from start to finish according to dice rolls. Like other cross and circle games, Ludo is derived from the Indian game pachisi, but simpler. The game and its variants are popular in many countries and under various names. In North America, the game is sold under the brand name Parcheesi and there are other variations of the game which are sold are sold under the brand names Sorry!, Aggravation, and Trouble.
In Germany, this game is called "Mensch ärgere dich nicht" which means "Man, don't get irritated", and has equivalent names in Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Dutch, Polish, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, and Slovene. In Iran, the game is called "منچ" [Mench] which is probably an adaptation of the German name. In Polish it is more commonly referred to as Chińczyk ("The Chine(s)e").
In Estonia, it is called "Reis ümber maailma" (Trip around the world).
In Greece, the game is called "Γκρινιάρης" ("Grumbler") referring to typical player behaviour.
In Malaysia and Singapore, it is called "飞机棋".
In Macedonia, the game is called "Не лути се човеку", meaning "Don't get angry, man".
In Sweden it is known as "Fia", a name derived from the Latin word fiat which means "so be it!" but in Denmark and Norway the game is known as Ludo.
In Vietnam, it is called "Cờ cá ngựa".
In Spain it is called "Parchís" and in Catalonia "Parxís" and is a very popular family board game.

There and you thought is was a simple child’s game!!!!

Chinese Checkers (US and Canadian spelling) or Chinese chequers (UK spelling) is a board game of German origin (named "Sternhalma") which can be played by two, three, four, or six people, playing individually or with partners. The game is a modern and simplified variation of the US game Halma.

The objective is to be first to race one's pieces across the hexagram-shaped board into "home"—the corner of the star opposite one's starting corner—using single-step moves or moves that jump over other pieces. The remaining players continue the game to establish second-, third-, fourth-, fifth-, and last-place finishers. Like other skill-based games, Chinese Checkers involves strategy. The rules are simple, so even young children can play.

Despite its name, the game is not a variation of checkers, nor did it originate in China or any part of Asia. The game was invented in Germany in 1892 under the name "Stern-Halma" as a variation of the older American game Halma. The "Stern" (German for star) refers to the board's star shape (in contrast to the square board used in Halma). The name "Chinese Checkers" originated in the United States as a marketing scheme by Bill and Jack Pressman in 1928. The Pressman Company’s game was originally called "Hop Ching Checkers". Strangely the game was introduced to Chinese-speaking regions mostly by the Japanese.

Then if all else failed it was out with the Dominos!  You could always tumble them!

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Peter


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On this day 29th July 1960-1965

On 29/07/1960 the number one single was Good Timin' - Jimmy Jones and the number one album was South Pacific Soundtrack. The top rated TV show was Rawhide (ITV) and the box office smash was Psycho. A pound of today's money was worth £13.68 and Burnley were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 29/07/1961 the number one single was Temptation - Everly Brothers and the number one album was South Pacific Soundtrack. The top rated TV show was No Hiding Place (AR) and the box office smash was One Hundred and One Dalmations. A pound of today's money was worth £13.25 and Tottenham Hotspur were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 29/07/1962 the number one single was I Can't Stop Loving You - Ray Charles and the number one album was West Side Story Soundtrack. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was Lawrence of Arabia. A pound of today's money was worth £12.89 and Ipswich Town were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 29/07/1963 the number one single was Confessin' - Frank Ifield and the number one album was Please Please Me - The Beatles. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was The Great Escape. A pound of today's money was worth £12.64 and Everton were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 29/07/1965 the number one single was Mr Tambourine Man - Byrds and the number one album was The Sound of Music Soundtrack. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was The Sound of Music. A pound of today's money was worth £11.69 and Manchester United were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.




Thursday 21 July 2016

Web Page  No 2282
22nd July 2016
Top Picture: Chris Barber




Second Picture: Chris Barber Band
Third Picture: Nat Gonella
Fourth Picture: Acker Bilk
Trad Jazz

Last week I looked at the American Folk Influence, this week it is Trad Jazz and the leading light in that field was Chris Barber. Donald Christopher 'Chris' Barber  was born 17th  April 1930 a British jazz musician, best known as a bandleader and trombonist. As well as scoring a UK top twenty trad jazz hit, he helped the careers of many musicians, notably the blues singer Ottilie Patterson, who was at one time his wife and vocalist/banjoist Lonnie Donegan, whose appearances with him triggered the skiffle craze of the mid-1950s and who had his first transatlantic hit, "Rock Island Line", while with Chris Barber's band. Whilst the Barber band will always be remembered for its version of ‘Petit Fleur’.

In Britain in the early 1960s traditional jazz – or "trad"– was the pop music of the time. Trad bands proliferated, as did recordings, radio programmes, and television appearances. Almost inevitably, the bubble burst after a few short years, but while it lasted, the "trad boom" engendered enormous amounts of publicity, including this article from a teenagers’ magazine, so much so here is a rundown, based on a teen magazine of 1960, of the Barber band at the time. 


GRAHAM BURBIDGE (drums): Born in 1933 in Stepney. Played drums in the RAF, and was in cloth export trade till he got offer from Sandy Brown in 1955. Played with modernists before Sandy and Chris.

IAN WHEELER (clarinet). Born in 1931 in Greenwich, he spent most of early life in hospitals. Went into Merchant Navy. Trained as draughtsman but joined the Ken Colyer  band in 1954. His hobby was model aircraft. He died in 2011

EDDIE SMITH (Banjo): Born in St. Bartholomew's Hospital in 1926  . Trained as printer. Bought first banjo in 1953 and played with Mike Daniels before joining Chris. Was a  professional racing motor-cyclist. He died in 1992.


DICK SMITH (bass): Born in 1932 in Paddington. Trained in RAF to be wireless mechanic. Bought bass in 1952 and gothis  first job two weeks later. Joined Ken Colyer in 1954. His hobby was cycle-racing, but now he's married and prefers home, food and wine. He died 2014.

PAT HALCOX (trumpet): Born in Chelsea 1930. Trained to be chemist, he joined Chris in 1954. First played piano and led own band when 20. Served in the RAF. Says his marriage is "a full-time hobby". He died in 2013.

OTTILIE PATTERSON (vocalist): Born in Comber, N. Ireland in1932. Trained as art teacher, she joined Chris in January, 1955. Hobbies included woodcarving, painting and writing. She died in 2011.

So it can be seen that from the original band there is only Chris and Graham still alive.

When they wanted to make the film It's Trad, Dad, and when the BBC wanted to launch its Saturday night radio series, Trad Tavern, they just had to send for Chris Barber. For Chris, at the tender age of 32, was really the Daddy of the Trad boom.

During the 1950s and well into the 1960s The "Three B's" Chris Barber, Acker Bilk, and Kenny Ball were particularly successful, all making hit records. Other successful bands including Terry Lightfoot, George Chisholm, Monty Sunshine, Mick Mulligan, with George Melly, and Mike Cotton, the Clyde Valley Stompers, Gerry Browns Jazzmen and Alex Welsh  More light-hearted versions were offered by The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, The Temperance Seven and The New Vaudeville Band. 

With the advent of the Beatles and the Mersey Sound the ‘trad’ era died although it did still continue in odd clubs around the country. In Portsmouth at various times in the 1960s jazz could still found in ‘The Railway Hotel’ Walmer Road, The Talbot Inn, The Old House at Home, The Rendezvous Club and the Concorde Club but that involved at trip to Southampton.

In my youth I frequented all of these clubs and stood around for hours with either a pint of Black Velvet or Drum Mild.

Little did I know then when I was crammed into the ‘Railway Hotel’ watching Jo Collinson and the Bourbon Street Six or the Back ‘o Town Syncopators that fifty years later I would be lucky enough to play with and sing with two of the British legends.

When the bandleader Nat Gonella (Louis Armstrong would never tour in this country unless he has his ‘little English trumpeter’ (Nat with him) retired to Gosport he moved into a flat only about 300 yards from my front door and we became good friends. I often went to his flat and listened to him talk of the past and his career, you never knew who would visit, Humphrey Littleton, Beryl Bryden and others were regular visitors.

On the occasion of Nat’s 88th birthday a big party was held for him in the Thorngate Hall and all his friends and the members of the local jazz club were invited. Naturally there was a band playing, the Solent All Stars’, Nat could no longer find the wind to play the trumpet but he always sang. That evening is marked heavily in my diary because as I walked past the top table Nat called out ‘Pete come and meet Acker’ so I went across was introduced to Acker Bilk and started talking to them both. All a sudden there was a shout from the floor ‘Nat give us another song (he had already sung Georgia twice)’ and Nat obliged but in doing so said come on you two you can join in, you must know St James Infirmary Blues’. Which is how, much to my amazement I came to stand on stage in front of the ‘All Southampton Stars’ with Nat on my right and Acker next to him and sung my heart out. A wonderful moment I shall never forget! But no one took a photograph, let alone a recording!!!!!

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Peter


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On this day 22nd July 1960-1965
On 22/07/1960 the number one single was Good Timin' - Jimmy Jones and the number one album was South Pacific Soundtrack. The top rated TV show was Rawhide (ITV) and the box office smash was Psycho. A pound of today's money was worth £13.68 and Burnley were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 22/07/1961 the number one single was Temptation - Everly Brothers and the number one album was South Pacific Soundtrack. The top rated TV show was No Hiding Place (AR) and the box office smash was One Hundred and One Dalmations. A pound of today's money was worth £13.25 and Tottenham Hotspur were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 22/07/1962 the number one single was I Can't Stop Loving You - Ray Charles and the number one album was West Side Story Soundtrack. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was Lawrence of Arabia. A pound of today's money was worth £12.89 and Ipswich Town were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 22/07/1963 the number one single was Confessin' - Frank Ifield and the number one album was Please Please Me - The Beatles. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was The Great Escape. A pound of today's money was worth £12.64 and Everton were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 22/07/1965 the number one single was Mr Tambourine Man - Byrds and the number one album was The Sound of Music Soundtrack. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was The Sound of Music. A pound of today's money was worth £11.69 and Manchester United were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.





Thursday 14 July 2016

Web Page  No 2280
15th July 2016
Top Picture: Woodie Gutherie





Second Picture: Pete Seeger


Third Picture: Joan Baez and Bob Dylan

Forth Picture: Judy Collins

The Folk Revolution

After the USA had sent us Rock and Roll and Crooners, we here in England responded with the American invasion of the Liverpool and Manchester pop groups, but behind all this, in the background were two other music genres, folk music and traditional Jazz.

This week I look at American Folk, I will deal with Traditional Jazz later.

Now who were the eleven leading exponents of American Folk who became popular her in the UK. I would suggest the following:-
Woody Guthrie  was an American singer-songwriter and folk musician, whose musical legacy includes hundreds of political, traditional and children's songs and ballads. He frequently performed with the slogan This Machine Kills Fascists displayed on his guitar. His best-known song is "This Land Is Your Land". Many of his recorded songs are now archived in the Library of Congress. In the 1930s he travelled with migrant workers from Oklahoma to California while learning, rewriting, and performing traditional folk and blues songs along the way. Many the songs he composed were about his experiences in the Dust Bowl era during the Great Depression, earning him the nickname the "Dust Bowl Balladeer". Throughout his life he was associated with US communist groups, though he never formally joined the Party. During his later years he served as a figurehead in the folk movement, providing inspiration to a generation of new folk musicians, including Bob Dylan. Such songwriters as Bob DylanBruce SpringsteenPete Seeger  and Tom Paxton have acknowledged their debt to him as their influence.

The Almanac Singers included Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie and began playing together informally in 1940. They invented a driving, energetic style, based on what they felt was the best of American country string band music, black and white. Later on Pete Seeger and Lee Hays, became founding members of The Weavers(I still have one of their 78s, nothing to play it on though)

Burl Ives – as a youth, hedropped out of college to travel as an itinerant singer during the early 1930s, earning his way by doing odd jobs and playing his banjo. In 1930 he had a brief, local radio career in Indiana and in the 1940s he had his own radio show, titled The Wayfaring Stranger, titled after one of his ballads. The show was very popular, and in 1946 he was cast as a singing cowboy in the film Smoky. He went on to play in other popular films and first book, The Wayfaring Stranger, was published in 1948.

Pete Seeger had met, and been influenced, by many important folk musicians such as Woody Guthrie and Lead Belly. Pete Seeger had labour movement involvements, and he met Woody Gutherie at a "Grapes of Wrath" migrant workers’ concert in March 1940 and the two began a musical collaboration. In 1948 he wrote the first version of his now-classic How to Play the Five-String Banjo, an instructional book that many banjo players credit with starting them off.

The Weavers were formed in 1947 by Seeger, Ronnie GilbertLee Hays, and Fred Hellerman. After they debuted at the Village Vanguard in New York in 1948, they were then discovered by arranger Gordon Jenkins and signed with Decca Records, releasing a series of successful but heavily orchestrated single songs. The group's political associations in the era of the Red Scare forced them to break up in 1952; they re-formed in 1955 with a series of successful concerts and album recordings on Vanguard Records. A fifth member, Erik Darling, sometimes sat in with the group when Seeger was unavailable and ultimately replaced Seeger in The Weavers when the latter resigned from the quartet in a dispute about its commercialism in general and its specific agreement to record a cigarette commercial.

Josh White was an authentic singer of rural blues and folk music, a man who had been born into abject conditions in South Carolina during the Jim Crow years. As a young black singer, he was initially dubbed “the Singing Christian” and was the son of a preacher, but also recorded blues songs under the name Pinewood Tom. Later discovered his repertoire expanded to include urban blues, jazz, and the folk repertoire, in addition to rural blues and gospel. Josh White gained a very wide following in the 1940s and had a huge influence on later blues artists and groups, as well as the general folk-music scene. His pro-justice and civil-rights stance provoked harsh treatment seriously harming his performing career in the ‘50s, and keeping him off TV until 1963. In folk-music circles, however, he retained respect and was admired both as a musical hero and a link with the Southern rural-blues and gospel traditions.

The Kingston Trio was formed in 1957 in California by Bob ShaneNick Reynolds, and Dave Guard, who were just out of college. They were influenced by the Weavers, the calypso sounds of Harry Belafonte, and other semi-pop folk artists. The unexpected and surprising influence of their hit record "Tom Dooley" (which sold almost four million and is often credited with initiating the pop music aspect of the folk revival) and the unprecedented popularity and album sales of this group from 1957 to 1963 (including fourteen top ten and five number one LPs) were significant factors in creating a commercial and mainstream audience for folk-styled music where little had existed prior to their emergence. The Kingston Trio's success was followed by other highly successful 60s pop-folk acts, such as The Limeliters and The Highwaymen.

Joan Baez’s career got started in 1958 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where at 17 she gave her first concert. She was invited to perform at the 1959 Newport Folk Festival after which she was sometimes called “the barefoot Madonna", gaining renown for her clear voice and three-octave range. She recorded her first album for an established label the following year – a collection of laments and traditional folk ballads from the British Isles, accompanying the songs with guitar. Her second LP release went gold, as did her next (live) albums. One record featured her rendition of a song by the then-unknown Bob Dylan. In the early 1960s, she moved into the forefront of the American folk-music revival. Increasingly, her personal convictions – peace, social justice, anti-poverty – were reflected in the topical songs that made up a growing portion of her repertoire, to the point that she became a symbol for these particular concerns.

Bob Dylan often performed, and sometimes toured, with Joan Baez,. As she adopted some of Dylan's songs into her repertoire and even introduced Dylan to her audiences, a large following on the folk circuit, it helped the him to gain initial recognition. By the time Dylan recorded his first LP (1962) he had developed a style reminiscent of Woody Guthrie. He began to write songs that captured the "progressive" mood, though by 1964 there were many new guitar-playing singer/songwriters, it is arguable that Dylan eventually became the most popular of these younger folk-music-revival performers.

Peter, Paul and Mary debuted in the early 1960s and were an American trio who ultimately became one of the biggest musical acts of the 1960s. The trio was composed of Peter YarrowPaul Stookey and Mary Travers. They were one of the main folk music torchbearers of social commentary music in the 1960s. As the decade passed, their music incorporated more elements of pop and rock.

Judy Collins, affectionately known as ""Judy Blue Eyes"" debuted in the early 1960s. At first she sang traditional folk songs or songs written by others — in particular Tom Paxton and Bob Dylan. She also recorded her own versions of important songs from the period, such as Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man" and Pete Seeger's "Turn, Turn, Turn" before composing her own hit song "Someday Soon".

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Peter


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Phil writes:

Re the swimming pool at Southsea my brother tells me that it was situated to the west of Southsea Castle.  It was built in 1928 but was demolished in 1980 when the Sea Life Centre complex was built. This new Centre contained a large indoor pool.  I was involved in designing and supervising the building of the ticket office / railway station at the western end of the pool.





News and Views:

On this day 15th July 1960-1965

On 15/07/1960 the number one single was Good Timin' - Jimmy Jones and the number one album was South Pacific Soundtrack. The top rated TV show was Rawhide (ITV) and the box office smash was Psycho. A pound of today's money was worth £13.68 and Burnley were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 15/07/1961 the number one single was Runaway - Del Shannon and the number one album was South Pacific Soundtrack. The top rated TV show was Harpers West One (ATV) and the box office smash was One Hundred and One Dalmations. A pound of today's money was worth £13.25 and Tottenham Hotspur were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 15/07/1962 the number one single was I Can't Stop Loving You - Ray Charles and the number one album was West Side Story Soundtrack. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was Lawrence of Arabia.

On 15/07/1963 the number one single was I Like It - Gerry & the Pacemakers and the number one album was Please Please Me - The Beatles. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was The Great Escape. A pound of today's money was worth £12.64 and Everton were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.The big news story of the day was UK Ministry of Defence proposed.

On 15/07/1964 the number one single was It's All Over Now - Rolling Stones and the number one album was Rolling Stones - The Rolling Stones. The top rated TV show was Labour Party Political Broadcast (all channels) and the box office smash was Dr Strangelove. A pound of today's money was worth £12.24 and Liverpool were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 15/07/1965 the number one single was Crying in the Chapel - Elvis Presley and the number one album was The Sound of Music Soundtrack. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was The Sound of Music. A pound of today's money was worth £11.69 and Manchester United were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions. The big news story of the day was Mont Blanc Tunnel officially opened.