St. Louis Cardinals Quiz (1900-2001): 1) Name the 3 who won
the MVP in the 60s? 2) Name the two rookies of the year in the
1980s? 3) Who has the longest hitting streak at 33? 4) Who is
#2 in home runs to Stan Musial’s 475? 5) Who holds the single
season RBI mark? Answers below.
Jefferson Airplane
Return to a simpler time, that of Haight-Ashbury in San
Francisco, and of Jefferson Airplane. Actually, of course it was
a real screwed up time, as was this band, but they generated
some of the best music of their era.
As rock historian Irwin Stambler has noted, despite the wild
antics of its members, Jefferson Airplane stayed together, more
or less, for quite a spell and they “flew high in many ways,
providing an imaginative, but sometimes nerve-jarring acid-raga-
blues-folk-rock sound that well-represented the range of feelings
about society felt by most of its peer groups.”
Founder Marty Balin was born in Ohio but grew up in California.
By 1963, at the age of 20, he got his first job as a musician, and
then in the summer of ‘65, Balin assembled most of the essential
elements of his new group, Jefferson Airplane, adding Paul
Kantner, Jorma Kaukonen, Jack Casady, Skip Spence and Signe
Tory Anderson, the latter being part of an idea that having a
female would help make the band stand out, women not being a
staple of rock groups at the time.
Rock impresario Bill Graham helped the Airplane get started and
they debuted at the Matrix Club in San Francisco. By 1966 they
were playing a lot of gigs at Fillmore West, with the Grateful
Dead or Paul Butterfield. Drummer Skip Spence left, to be
replaced by Spencer Dryden (Spence formed Moby Grape), and
in the fall of 1966, Signe Anderson departed the band to have a
baby, whereupon she was replaced by Grace Slick. Jefferson
Airplane was now set to rock the world.
Slick was key to the group’s early smash success. Born Grace
Barnett Wing, Grace was one of a kind, that’s for sure. She was
also a solid artist and brought over two tunes from her stint at the
Great Society… “Somebody To Love” and “White Rabbit,” both
of which she co-wrote.
Jefferson Airplane’s first album, titled appropriately enough,
“Jefferson Airplane Takes Off,” met with critical acclaim, if not
commercial success, but it was the second effort, “Surrealistic
Pillow,” containing both “Somebody…” and “White Rabbit,”
which is today considered one of the great rock albums of all
time. Both tunes hit the Top Five on the Billboard chart by the
summer of ’67, with “White Rabbit” being banned by some radio
stations that saw it as a drug anthem. [Oh, the things we were
concerned about in the days before suicidal pilots.] This “bolero-
like” tune was a psychedelic take-off on “Alice in Wonderland.”
Meanwhile, Slick, a former model with a scathing wit, was being
compared to Janis Joplin. She was also the ringleader as the
Airplane did more than its share of damage, ingesting every kind
of chemical and more than a bit of alcohol. During one period in
the late 60s, members Casady, Kantner and Balin were busted in
separate incidents, while the band’s 1969 L.P., “Volunteers,”
included a rather obscene chorus on the track “We Can Be
Together,” for which Oklahoma City police arrested the group.
The Airplane was the first rock ensemble to be featured at the
Monterey Jazz Festival (Sept. ’66) and they were a worldwide
hit. But when I do these pieces, I also love to see some of the
concert lineups they were involved in, wishing that I had been
old enough to witness the shows. For example:
June 24, 1966: Jefferson Airplane performed with the Beach
Boys, Lovin’ Spoonful, Chad & Jeremy, Percy Sledge, the Byrds
and the Sir Douglas Quintet.
Or how about this one? The 1968 Newport Pop Festival, where
they hit the stage with the Byrds, Canned Heat, Grateful Dead,
Sonny & Cher and Steppenwolf.
Two folks not in the rock mainstream also deserve a ton of credit
for exposing the Airplane to the masses, and that was the
Smothers Brothers. Their television comedy hour highlighted
some great rock acts in the 60s and Grace Slick and Co. were on
at least three times. Tommy and Dick had guts, which, if you
recall your Smothers Brothers history, got them in all kinds of
trouble with CBS. [And now to totally digress, if you ever get
into Manhattan and have some time on your hands, go to the
Museum of Television and Broadcasting and view some of the
old Smothers Brothers shows. It’s great stuff.]
Back to the Airplane, the group appeared on the cover of Life
magazine in 1968, quite an accomplishment, and that same year
they bought a house on Fulton Street in San Francisco, which
became their official headquarters. I only mention this latter bit
because it’s an example of their real estate acumen. Purchased
for $65,000, the group sold it for $650,000 in 1985.
In 1969, the band was a leading participant at Woodstock and,
unfortunately, also at the Rolling Stones’ ill-fated Altamont
Speedway concert, where the British rockers employed some of
San Francisco’s Hell’s Angels to act as security. During the
event, an 18-year-old spectator pulled out a gun near the stage
and the Angels stabbed him to death. Earlier, Marty Balin had
been attacked on stage by one of the “guards.” A good time was
had by all… NOT!
By 1971, the band was beginning to go its separate ways, if for
only a brief spell. Slick was shacking up with Kantner, a union
which produced Slick’s daughter, God. Yes, Grace initially
named her that, then changed it to China…who you may know as
a MTV VJ, and sometime actress. That same year, Slick
survived a crash of her Mercedes into a wall at the Golden Gate
Bridge. For their part, Casady and Kaukonen were forming Hot
Tuna, while Slick and Kantner started up Jefferson Starship. In
1975, Starship produced the monster #1 album, “Red Octopus,”
which featured the #3 single “Miracles,” as well as tunes like
“Play On Love” and “Fast Buck Freddie.” [Fiddle player Papa
John Creach, who had joined Airplane in 1970, was featured
heavily on this L.P.]
[And to interject a personal experience, in the summer of ’76, I
attended Starship’s free concert in Central Park, something I
wouldn’t have mentioned had I not read a funny account in
Richard Neer’s “FM: The Rise and Fall of Rock Radio.” I recall
the crowd being huge and unruly, with my friends and I nowhere
near the stage. But what I didn’t know was that the police
threatened to shut it down because the “inebriated” concertgoers
“wouldn’t stop climbing the surrounding trees.” Legendary DJ
Scott Muni was sent onstage between songs to implore, “Please
stop climbing the trees or we’ll have to stop the music.” When
no one heeded his call, promoter Bill Graham grabbed the
microphone. “Get your f—— asses out of the trees, you bunch
of s—h—-.” As Neer relates, “Within seconds, the woods were
cleared and the show continued.” Of course none of this would
have occurred during the time of Giuliani, I might add.]
Anyway, by June 1978, Slick’s drinking was becoming a real
problem. In Hamburg, she was too wasted to take the stage, so
fans rioted, destroying or stealing the band’s equipment. The
next day, however, a still inebriated Slick showed up to sing and
insult the crowd, which wasn’t too smart an idea. Soon, she was
in rehab, not returning to the group until 1981.
In 1979, Mickey Thomas took up some of Slick’s slack at vocals.
Now this is significant to your editor because Thomas sang lead
on Elvin Bishop’s “Fooled Around And Fell In Love,” my
favorite tune of all time (normally alternating with Todd
Rundgren’s “Hello It’s Me”).
Then in 1985, after a legal battle with Slick, Paul Kantner
departed the band with $220,000 and the provision that
“Jefferson” be dropped from the group’s name. So, ‘Starship’
became the new moniker and, out of nowhere, with a rejuvenated
Slick and Mickey Thomas, they produced the L.P. “Knee Deep
in the Hoopla,” which contained not one, but two, #1 singles…
“We Built This City” and “Sara.” Critics didn’t like these tunes,
but do you think Starship cared? Ka-ching ka-ching. And hell,
20 years after the group’s genesis, they are topping the charts, an
awesome achievement.
Well, that’s about it. In 1989 the original members of Jefferson
Airplane all reunited for a spell, with Slick famously saying,
“We’re your parents’ worst nightmare because now we ARE
your parents.” [Meanwhile, back at Starship, Thomas required
reconstructive facial surgery after a bar brawl.]
In 1994, Slick pointed a loaded gun at a police officer who had
been called to her home, so she was sentenced to 200 hours
community service…the judge obviously liked “White Rabbit,”
and then in 1996, Jefferson Airplane was inducted into the Rock
and Roll Hall of Fame, sans Slick, who was reportedly home
with a foot ailment. A likely story.
[Additional sources: “VH-1 Rock Stars Encyclopedia” and Irwin
Stambler’s “The Encyclopedia of Pop, Rock and Soul.”]
Ernie Pyle
Pyle was the legendary war correspondent who wrote of the
horrors of World War II. He became a larger-than-life figure to
many Americans, but it was on April 18, 1945, that he met his
end covering the battle of Okinawa in the Pacific.
A week before, Ernie Pyle had told a fellow reporter that he was
going home in a month. The 44-year-old related, “I’m getting
too old to stay in combat with these kids.” But having covered
the campaigns in Sicily, Italy, and France, at the last minute he
felt compelled to make one last landing, as he went ashore at Ie
Shima, a small island some 4 miles off Okinawa’s Motubu
Peninsula.
Pyle was riding in a jeep when he was hit by machine-gun fire.
He fell into a roadside ditch, uninjured, but then there was
another burst and a bullet pierced his helmet. Said one soldier on
the scene, “When his body was recovered, his hands still
clutched the battered knit cap he carried at all times.”
News of Pyle’s death was instantaneous. An AP bulletin was
filed that day. “Ernie Pyle, war correspondent beloved by his co-
workers, G.I.’s and generals alike, was killed by a Japanese
machine-gun bullet through his left temple this morning.”
In Germany, General Omar Bradley was speechless when he
received the word. In Italy, General Mark Clark said, “He
helped our soldiers to victory.”
People across America called newspaper offices for days, just
to be sure he was really dead. Pyle was the man who made the war
come alive, and he gave those back home a true understanding of
what heroes their fathers and sons were. Following are two
examples of his writing.
Description of a night attack on London during the Battle of
Britain:
“They came just after dark, and somehow you could sense from
the quick, bitter firing of guns that there was to be no monkey
business this night.
“Shortly after the sirens wailed you could hear the Germans
grinding overhead. In my room, with its black curtains drawn
across the windows, you could feel the shake from the guns.
You could hear the boom, crump, crump, crump, of heavy bombs
at their work of tearing buildings apart. They were not too far
away.
“Half an hour after the firing started I gathered a couple of
friends and went to a high, darkened balcony that gave us a view
of a third of the entire circle of London. As we stepped out onto
the balcony a vast inner excitement came over all of us – an
excitement that had neither fear nor horror in it, because it was
too full of awe.
“You have all seen big fires, but I doubt if you have ever seen the
whole horizon of a city lined with great fires – scores of them,
perhaps hundreds.
“There was something inspiring just in the awful savagery of
it…”
[Source: “The Story of World War II,” Donald L. Miller / Henry
Steele Commager.]
And this, from his epilogue to “Brave Men,” a collection of
columns from his experiences in Sicily, Italy and France…
August 1944, with the end of the war in Europe seemingly at
hand…before December’s Battle of the Bulge:
“This final chapter is being written in the latter part of August,
1944; it is being written under an apple tree in a lovely green
orchard in the interior of France. It could well be that the
European war will be over and done with by the time you read
this book. Or it might not. But the end is inevitable, and it
cannot be put off for long. The German is beaten and he knows
it.
“It will seem odd when, at some given hour, the shooting stops
and everything suddenly changes again. It will be odd to drive
down an unknown road without that little knot of fear in your
stomach; odd not to listen with animal-like alertness for the
meaning of every distant sound; odd to have your spirit released
from the perpetual weight that is compounded of fear and death
and dirt and noise and anguish.
“…For some of us the war has already gone on too long. Our
feelings have been wrung and drained; they cringe from the
effort of coming alive again. Even the approach of the end
seems to have brought little inner elation. It has brought only a
tired sense of relief.
“I do not pretend that my own feelings is the spirit of our armies.
If it were, we probably would not have had the power to win.
Most men are stronger. Our soldiers still can hate, or glorify, or
be glad, with true emotion. For them death has a pang, and
victory a sweet scent. But for me war has become a flat, black
depression without highlights, a revulsion of the mind and an
exhaustion of the spirit.
“…We have won because we have had magnificent top
leadership, at home and in our Allies and with ourselves
overseas. Surely America made its two perfect choices in
General Eisenhower and General Bradley. They are great men –
to me doubly great because they are direct and kind.
“We won because we were audacious. One could not help but be
moved by the colossus of our invasion (D-Day). It was a bold
and mighty thing, one of the epics of all history. In the
emergency of war our nation’s powers are unbelievable. The
strength we have spread around the world is appalling even to
those who make up the individual cells of that strength. I am
sure that in the past two years I have heard soldiers say a
thousand times, ‘If only we could have created all this energy for
something good.’ But we rise above our normal powers only in
times of destruction.
“We have won this war because our men are brave, and because
of many other things – because of Russia, and England, and the
passage of time, and the gift of nature’s materials. We did not
win it because destiny created us better than all other peoples. I
hope that in victory we are more grateful than we are proud. I
hope we can rejoice in victory – but humbly. The dead men
would not want us to gloat.
“The end of one war is a great fetter broken from around our
lives. But there is still another to be broken. The Pacific war
may yet be long and bloody. Nobody can foresee, but it would
be disastrous to approach it with easy hopes. Our next few
months at home will be torn between the new spiritual freedom
of half peace and the old grinding blur of half war. It will be a
confusing period for us.”
[Source: “Ernie Pyle’s War,” James Tobin]
RIP
–Former Supreme Court Justice Byron “Whizzer” White died at
age 84. White served on the High Court for 31 years and,
interestingly, there are now no living ex- justices. Of course our
own Johnny Mac covered White’s sterling sports career, so you
can check out the archives (Bar Chat 12/3/01).
White was known for his gruff, impatient style on the bench, and
he refused to participate in the tradition of reading his opinions
out loud, announcing only the result. When asked why he didn’t
go along with the age-old practice, he replied that it was a “waste
of time.”
White was appointed by personal friend President John F.
Kennedy, so it was surprising when he proved in many matters to
be a staunch conservative. For example, he dissented in the
famous Miranda case, which mandates that a suspect must be
read his rights, arguing that it would make it too difficult for the
police to extract confessions. Byron, my man! [Sorry.]
–Robert Urich passed away after a long bout with cancer. He
was just 55. While I can’t say that I watched “Vega$” or
“Spenser: For Hire” too often, we nonetheless had a soft spot for
him around here because he was Slovak, matching the heritage of
some of us in the home office of StocksandNews, and by all
accounts a real good, down to earth guy. [He was also a
legitimate athlete, having attended Florida State on a football
scholarship. Fellow alum, and jock, Burt Reynolds helped Urich
early on in his acting career.]
–Elmer Angsman died at age 76. A halfback, Angsman played 7
years for the Chicago Cardinals of the NFL (1946-52), piling up
2,908 yards for a 4.3 average, along with 27 touchdowns. But
his real claim to fame was his rushing for 159 yards on just 10
carries in the 1947 NFL title game, won by Chicago over the
Eagles, 28-21. Elmer had two 70-yard TD dashes that afternoon.
I’d also be remiss if I didn’t mention that Angsman was a Notre
Dame grad, ND alum being a most vociferous lot.
Top 3 songs for the week of 4/17/65: #1 “I’m Telling You Now”
(Freddie and the Dreamers) #2 “Stop! In The Name Of Love”
(The Supremes) #3 “Game Of Love” (Wayne Fontana & The
Mindbenders…your editor once performed this tune quite
admirably at a street fair in Dallas…something to do with Lone
Star long necks).
St. Louis Cardinals Quiz Answers: 1) MVPs / 60s: Ken Boyer,
’64 (24 HR 119 RBI, .295 BA…Cards beat Yanks in the Series);
Orlando Cepeda, ’67 (25-111, .325…Cards beat Red Sox in
Series); Bob Gibson, ’68 (22-9, 1.12 ERA, 13 shutouts, 268 Ks
…Cards lose to Tigers in Series). 2) Rookies of the Year / 80s:
Vince Coleman, ’85 (.267 BA, 110 SBs); Todd Worrell, ’86
(9-10, 36 saves). 3) Hitting Streak, 33: Rogers Hornsby, 1922…
his first of two Triple Crown seasons…250 H, 46 2B, 14 3B, 42
HR 152 RBI, .401 BA…even 17 steals…the Boston Braves had
32 homers as a team that year). 4) #2 in HR: Ken Boyer, 255.
[A great third baseman, Boyer finished his career with 282 HR
1,141 RBI and a .287 BA. A real class act who died too early at
age 51.] 5) RBI, season: Joe Medwick, 154, 1937…this was
Medwick’s triple crown season, as well…237 H 56 2B 31 HR
(tied with Mel Ott) 154 RBI, .374 BA.
[Bob Gibson holds all the pitching records, so it was futile to try
and stump you.]
Next Bar Chat, Tuesday.
