Song of the Day: Luther Allison, “Luther’s Blues”

Blues singer, guitarist and harmonicist Luther Allison was born on this day in 1939. He spent a few years in the ’70’s and ’80’s living and playing in Paris until Alligator Records President Bruce Iglauer convinced him to retrn to Chicago. The Chicago Sun-Times called him the “Bruce Springsteen of the Blues.” “Luther’s Blues” was the title track from his 1974 album.

Simply 6 Minutes: My Favorites

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I’ve always loved sunflowers. They’re happy and cheerful, just like me. Well, whatever…

Vincent Van Gogh (his name is pronounced similar to “fan cough” in Dutch, by the way) painted them in one of his famous paintings, named (SURPRISE!) “Sunflowers.” He was a rather morose character; probably needed to go sit in a field of sunflowers for about three years.

Mary planted some sunflowers one year, and they grew like crazy. I think one was close to seven feet tall. Then, at the end of the summer, she told me to cut them down. Broke my heart, but they’re just annuals; they wouldn’t come back. I wish I had learned how to get the seeds out of the plant so I could plant more the following year, but this was in the days before the Internet (remember those?) and I didn’t know where to turn. I asked a friend of mine, who worked at a nursery, how to harvest the seeds. He said he didn’t know. Maybe he did and just didn’t feel like explaining it to me. Oh well…

The one little flower facing the camera reminds me of the Far Side cartoon where there are a huge waddle of penguins (that’s one collective noun; others are huddle, colony, and parade) standing around, and one pokes his head out and sings “I gotta be me! I gotta be me!”

Love that man’s voice…

Christine hosts Simply 6 Minutes every week.

Truthful Tuesday: Birth Order

Di is guest-hosting for Melanie while she’s recuperating. Melanie, if you’re reading this, get well soon and we’ll see you when we see you. Di, thanks for standing in and keeping these blog hops alive. Today’s question:

Are you an only child or do you have siblings? Would you prefer to be the opposite to what you are?

I’m the oldest of four boys. Jim, next in the birth order, is 21 months younger; Kip is 11 months younger than Jim; and Pat is almost 202 months younger than Kip. Pat was from Mom’s second marriage: she and Jack (who we called Tex) were married in June 1974, and Pat was born in September 1975.

Mom was the oldest in her family, and there were times I think it was difficult being her oldest, because she was just so good at it. Still, I liked being the oldest: I got my own room and there were other benefits that I can’t think of now.

Mom’s first pregnancy ended with a miscarriage, and I wonder sometimes what it would have been like to have an older sibling, whether that sibling would have been a boy or a girl, what effect if any it would have had on my life. Of course, had that child been born, I probably wouldn’t have been, and the world would have been a darker and drearier place…

Top Ten Tuesday: WLOF (950 AM, Orlando FL), 8/20/71

Currently, WLOF are the call letters of a Catholic broadcaster in Buffalo, New York. 950 AM in Orlando is now WORL, a conservative news-talk station. They’re also an affiliate of the Tampa Bay Rays radio network. WLOF was a Top 40 station from 1949 until the mid-1980’s. It was the second radio station in the Orlando market and the most popular station in the 1960’s and 1970’s. Here’s their survey from August 20, 1971.

  1. The Who, “Won’t Get Fooled Again”
  2. Tom Clay, “What The World Needs Now Is Love/Abraham, Martin, and John”
  3. Tommy James, “Draggin’ The Line”
  4. Delaney & Bonnie & Friends, “Neverending Song Of Love”
  5. Olivia Newton-John, “If Not For You”
  6. The Doors, “Riders On The Storm”
  7. Three Dog Night, “Liar”
  8. Bee Gees, “How Can You Mend A Broken Heart”
  9. Creedence Clearwater Revival, “Sweet Hitchhiker”
  10. James Taylor, “You’ve Got A Friend”

And that’s Top Ten Tuesday for August 16, 2022.