Newly elected Prime Minister Joe Clark of Canada – Victory, but short-lived.

Click on the link here for Audio Player: [audio http://pastdaily.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/news-for-may-23-1979.mp3]

Surprising news from Ottawa, this May 23rd in 1979. An upset victory  by the Tories over the incumbent Liberals and the defeat of PIerre Elliott Trudeau by a 39 year-old dark horse named Joe Clark. It signified a sudden shift to the right in Canada, defeating a party that had been in power for 16 years and a temporary end to the career of Trudeau.

(Spoiler alert: Clark would only stay in office less than a year before being voted out with the Liberal Party and Trudeau resuming power).

In other news; Two executions scheduled to take place in Florida on this day were not taking place after all.  Eleventh-Hour stays of execution were granted to convicted murderer John Spenkelink and Willie Darden. San Francisco was going through their own set of trials, with riots breaking out the night before over the Manslaughter conviction of Dan White in the murders of Harvey Milk and George Moscone. The Twelve Texas State Senators who temporarily up-and-left, returned to the State Capitol – facing the music.

More violence in the Middle-East with bomb blasts going off in Tel-Aviv. The PLO being the likely suspects.

United Airlines trying to woo back passengers in the midst of its 52 day old Machinists strike.

And a move was under way to draft Ted Kennedy for the 1980 Presidential bid. Kennedy publicly said “no”.

And that’s just some of what went on this 23rd day of May in 1979, as presented by Neil Strawser and the CBS World News Roundup.

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Vanessa Paradis – further evidence it’s okay to be a lot of things to a lot of people.

Click on the link here for Audio Player: [audio http://pastdaily.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/vanessa-paradis-in-session-may-15-2013.mp3]

One of the things I find frustrating about aspects of our culture here in the U.S. is that propensity to pigeon-hole an artist into one category or another. A person who establishes a name for themselves as an actor can’t really make the transition over to being a singer without a lot of difficulties and resistance from the audience. It’s almost as though it were a short circuit in the Acceptance Program if someone dared to become a multi-talent, and did all things they aspired to do well.

Not so in Europe I have found. For example; Vanessa Paradis is someone I’ve known about as an actor, singer, model, writer – and does them all well. She is a multi-talent and has gained the respect of those people in each of her professions to treat her as an equal in all of them. No pigeon-holing, no rolling of eyes. All acceptance.

I wish we could do that here. Maybe some day we will.

Until then – here is a Private Concert (a series done for the Radio France Pop/Rock outlet Le Mouv‘) featuring the multi-talented Vanessa Paradis along with a notable group of musicians sitting in and accompanying her on a luxurious romp through songs from her 6th and latest album Love Songs, all recorded on May 16th.

You may not be all that familiar with her. She has been around for a while and has worked with everyone from Serge Gainsbourg to Lenny Kravitz.

Well . . .now you get a chance to. And yes, it’s the same Vanessa Paradis who is linked to Johnny Depp . . . just so you know.

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Referred to as a “magical sounding” quartet.

Click on the link here for Audio Player: [audio http://pastdaily.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/new-russian-quartet-in-concert-may-6-2013.mp3]

Over to the Moscow Conservatory Auditorium for a concert by The Russian Quartet along with Alexei Volodin in music of Brahms. It was recorded on May 6th by the venerable Radio Orpheus in Moscow.

Since we’re getting ready for the 180th birthday of Johannes Brahms, more groups are devoting their concerts in celebration of, what’s looking like, a year-long celebration (and Wagner turns 200 . . .lots of milestones this year).

The Rusian Quartet have been praised as everything from Magical to the “best Quartet in Russia”, and their reputation is well-deserved.

So for the next hour or so, you get to hear what the noise is all about.

Here’s what’s on the program tonight (via the Radio Orpheus website with English translation):

05/06/2013

“The New Russian Quartet” performs Brahms

May 6 at the Concert Hall of Radio “Orpheus” – the music of Johannes Brahms. Artists: New Russian Quartet and Alexei Volodin (piano). In the program: String Quartets Op. 51 number 1 in C Minor, № 2 in A minor and the Piano Quintet Op.34 in F minor. The concert was held in the Art Festival “Art-November.”

“The New Russian Quartet”

Winners of international competitions

Julia Igonina , first violinist Elena Kharitonov , second violin Michael Rudoy , viola Alex Steblev , cello.

According to the Italian press, their playing is “magical”. I would go along with that.

And for a mid-week Anti-Road Rage Wednesday, that seems a pretty apt assessment.

BTW: Announcements are in Russian and there was a lengthy interview with first Violinist Julia Igonina which I removed for time considerations.

The Budget under scrutiny – even in 1939.

Click on the link here for Audio Player: [audio http://pastdaily.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/fdr-fiscal-policy-address-may-22-1939.mp3]

As a reminder of the ongoing and seemingly endless battle over the Budget, here is an address given by President Roosevelt to the American Retailers Federation in Washington D.C. on May 22, 1939. It appears the issues were the same then as they are now.

Pres. Roosevelt: “I wonder if you have any conception of the number of businessmen and bankers and economists whom I talk with briefly or at length in any given month of the year. I wonder if you have any conception of the variety of suggestions and panaceas that they offer me. I wonder if you know the very large percentage of them who honestly, and in good faith, and very naturally, think of national problems solely in terms of their own business. I wonder if you will be surprised if I tell you that most of them leave my office saying to me—”Why, Mr. President, I did not know about that. You have given me a new perspective. You have told me new things that are happening, new causes, new effects. I never thought of the problem in that way before.”

I sit in my office with a businessman who thinks the surest way to produce customers is to balance the Federal budget at once. I say to him, “How?”

Sometimes he says, “How should I know? That is your job.” Sometimes he says, “Cut the budget, cut it straight through 10 per cent or, 20 per cent.”

Then I take from my desk drawer a fat book and it is apparent at once from his expression that he has never seen or read the budget of the Government of the United States.

He tries to change the subject but I hold him to it. I say, “This budget is not all of one piece; it is an aggregate of thousands of items. I will, therefore, have to cut every item the 10 per cent or 20 per cent you ask or, if I do not do that I will have to cut Some items very much more than 10 per cent or 20 per cent.”

I point out the one and a half billion dollars for the Army and Navy. He pounds the desk and says in patriotic fervor, “Don’t cut that item—not in these days.”

I show him the item of a billion dollars for interest on the public debt. He owns some Government bonds, and he rejects any cut in his interest.

I show him the billion dollar item for war and civil service pensions. He says, “No, we couldn’t get enough popular support to cut this.”

I mention the billion dollars for running the permanent functions of the regular Government departments, and I tell him that. they cost less today than under my predecessor. He readily agrees that the postmen and the G-men and the Forest Service and the customs people cannot be curtailed. The only people he would sever from the payrolls are the tax collectors. (Laughter)

That gets us down to a few other big items— totaling over four billion dollars to take care of four major things—payments ;for the benefit of agriculture, Federal public works (including P.W.A., reclamation and flood control), work relief for the unemployed (including C.C.C.), and assistance for our old people.

My visitor agrees with me that we are going through a transitional period seeking the best way to maintain decent prices for the farm population of America, trying to make them better customers of businessmen, and that even if we have not yet found the permanent solution we have got away permanently from 5 cent cotton and 10-cent corn and 30-cent wheat.

I come to the public works item. He suggests that that can be cut 50 per cent. I happen to know that his community is working tooth and nail to get a grant for a much needed new high school, and that his county suffered severe property losses from recent floods. I suggest that we start public works economy right there and not give the grants and that we defer building the schoolhouses or the levee or the flood control dam for twenty or thirty years.

In every case I find what I suspected. His local Chamber of Commerce, his local newspapers are “yelling their heads off” to have those projects built with Federal assistance. And I say to him: “Consistency, thy name is geography. You believe with the United States Chamber of Commerce that Federal spending on public works should cease- except in your own home town.” (Laughter).

Some things will just never change.

Here is that complete address, from May 22, 1939.

Pretend it was given a week ago.

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Rod Stewart with Faces – All good, clean fun . . .really.

Click On the link here for Audio Player: [audio http://pastdaily.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/faces-live-at-the-paris-theater-1971.mp3]

Familiar territory tonight. The inimitable Rod Stewart and Faces, recorded in concert for the BBC at The Paris Theater in London in 1971.

I don’t think a whole lot needs to be said about this band that hasn’t already been said several thousand times over. They epitomized the hedonistic 70s in a way that was appealing, and they achieved Superstar status in a relatively short period of time. The Faces had already established themselves years earlier as The Small Faces and, among a string of hits, their Summer-of-Love anthem Itchykoo Park has achieved a certain immortality, for better or worse. But with personnel changes and a huge change in direction, and with the addition of Rod Stewart, who had already made a name for himself with the likes of Jeff Beck, The Faces were primed and poised to become sensations.

And they did – for half of the 1970s.

Play loud.

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Ratcheting up the shooting war.

Click on the link here for Audio Player: [audio http://pastdaily.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/news-for-may-21-1982.mp3]

The ongoing crisis over The Falkland Islands ratcheted up a few more notches, this May 21st in 1982. With British Special Forces landing, and more expected before nightfall, Argentina admitted troops had landed and that Argentine forces were fighting back. Aside from acknowledgements of fighting taking place, not much in the way of details was being given.

In other news – word from the Labor Department was upbeat, with reports that there was a “marked improvement” over the country’s inflation problem, citing a report that consumer prices rose slowly in April at an annual rate of 3%, with higher prices for food and  housing accounting for much of that increase which offset lower gasoline prices.

Both the House and Senate were in the midst of debating 1983 Budget plans with the House optimistic a proposal would arrive shortly. The Senate was a different story.

And that’s much of what went on this particular May 21st in 1982 via CBS Radio News with Richard C. Hottelet.

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Ray Manzarek (1939-2013) Co-founder and guiding Light.

Click on the link here for Audio Player: [audio http://pastdaily.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/the-doors-on-critique-1969.mp3]

Yet another sad passing to report. News today of the passing of Doors co-founder and author Ray Manzarek at 74 from a long bout with Cancer in Germany took a lot of people by surprise, me included. Despite reports coming in confirming his death, there were also reports coming in that Manzarek’s death was a hoax. And I would have been happy to know if it was – there would be no need to post this tribute tonight.

But with more confirmations than denials, the hoaxes turned out to be hoaxes and the sad fact remains the same; Ray Manzarek is no longer with us, at least in the physical.

So as way of tribute, not only to the memory of that remarkably gifted musician and personable human being we had with us for that, in retrospect, short period of time, here is a live session along with an interview both with Manzarek and Jim Morrison for the NET program Critique with Richard Goldstein. It was broadcast on April 29, 1969 over WNET in New York.

We still have the music. We will always have the music.

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JFK – not only was Medicare an idea whose time had come, it was an idea whose passage was imperative.

Click on the link here for Audio Player: [audio http://pastdaily.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/jfk-medicare-rally-madison-square-garden-may-20-1962.mp3]

For everyone who thinks the current situation over Medicare is something new, you’re wrong. The issue of Medicare has been raging since the days of the FDR administration. The arguments for it are the same – the arguments against it are the same.

On May 20, 1962, President Kennedy addressed a rally at Madison Square Garden in New York in support of his Medicare legislation:

President Kennedy: “This bill serves the public interest. It involves the Government because it involves the public welfare. The Constitution of the United States did not make the President or the Congress powerless. It gave them definite responsibilities to advance the general welfare–and that is what we’re attempting to do.

And then I read that this bill will sap the individual self-reliance of Americans. I can’t imagine anything worse, or anything better, to sap someone’s self-reliance, than to be sick, alone, broke–or to have saved for a lifetime and put it out in a week, two weeks, a month, two months.

I visited twice, yesterday and today, in the hospital, where doctors labor for a long time, to visit my father. It isn’t easy–it isn’t easy. He can pay his bills, but otherwise I would be. And I am not as well off as he is. But what happens to him and to others when they put their life savings in, in a short time? So I must say that I believe we stand about where–in good company today, in halls such as this, where your predecessors-where Dave Dubinsky himself actually stood, where another former President stood, and fought this issue out of Social Security against the same charges.

This argument that the Government should stay out, that it saps our pioneer stock–I used to hear that argument when we were talking about raising the minimum wage to a dollar and a quarter. I remember one day being asked to step out into the hall, and up the corridor came four distinguished-looking men, with straw hats on and canes. They told me that they had just flown in from a State in their private plane, and they wanted me to know that if we passed a bill providing for time and a half for service station attendants, who were then working about 55 to 60 hours of straight time, it would sap their self-reliance.

The fact of the matter is what saps anyone’s self-reliance is working 60 hours at straight time, or working at 85 or 95 at a dollar an hour. Or depending upon filling out a pauper’s oath and then going and getting it free.

Nobody in this hall is asking for it for nothing. They are willing to contribute during their working years. That is the important principle which has been lost sight of.”

And the fears generated by Big Pharma, the AMA and the Insurance companies managed to kill the bill in 1962. It wasn’t until 1964, as a tribute to the legacy of JFK, that Lyndon Johnson re-introduced the bill and Medicare passed for the history books.

But, almost fifty years on, the campaign on the parts of Big Pharma and the Insurance lobby to kill Medicare continue. The fears and the propaganda of Socialize Medicine continue. The panic and alarm that there will be no money for Medicare continue.

Meanwhile, lives get saved, and even the ones yelling loudest for the doom of Medicare are the ones benefitting from it.

So strange, this world we live in.

Here is that Medicare Rally and JFK’s address from May 20, 1962.

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Marshal Timoshenko – Man of the Hour in Russia.

Click on the link here for Audio Player: [audio http://pastdaily.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/news-for-may-20-1942.mp3]

May 20, 1942; potentially a pivotal day in the history of World War 2. The Russian Army, led by Marshal Semen Timoshenko scored a decisive victory in the battle of Kharkov, which could prove to be a tipping point of the war on the Eastern Front.

Speculation that this would be the first of several major victories for the Russians and the result being a defeat for the Germans prompted many to consider it possible, and perhaps the War would be over soon. Perhaps.

Meanwhile, hundreds of British Bombers attacked several German industrial cities, as well as several airfields in France and Holland, causing extensive damage with 12 Bombers and 2 Fighter planes reported missing.

From the Pacific front things were relatively quiet – a waiting game was going on. Save for air activity, not much was taking place in the area of troop movements or naval engagements and speculation was rife as to where the next shoe was going to drop. In Washington, Medal of Honor ceremonies were getting ready for General Jimmy Doolittle and the 79 crew members who took part in the now-famous Raid Over Tokyo. It was, for all intents and purposes, the morale boost America needed.

War Production was dramatically increasing, with a reported 120 ships being built in 130 days, with 30 ships being launched on the 22nd of May alone.  Even with the morale boost came word of impending gas and tire rationing. And since no more tires were being manufactured for civilian use until after the War, precautions were being stressed to make the most out of what you had, including a proposal to impose speed limits as a way of preserving tire wear. Not popular ideas or recommendations, to be sure.

All that, and a lot more going on this day in 1942, via News Of The World from the NBC Blue Network.

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Natalia Lafourcade – Pop with a splash of Indie from Mexico.

Click on the link here for Audio Player: [audio http://pastdaily.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/natalia-lafourcade-los-conciertos-de-radio-3-may-17-2013.mp3]

Slight change of pace tonight. Pop with Indie leanings from Mexico City by way of Madrid in the form of Natalia Lafourcade. Recorded in session for the Conciertos de Radio 3 program on RNE Radio 3 in Madid, May 17, 2013.

I haven’t been focusing much on the musical happenings South of the Border of late. Lots going on in South America with a vigorous Indie/Experimental scene in Chile and Argentina. But Mexico is still uncharted territory for new bands. Not that there isn’t a lot going on; a few years ago, when MySpace was decent, there were a flood of bands springing up all over Tijuana and Jalisco, but I don’t know where they’ve gone or if a lot of them have broken up. Stay tuned – I’ll keep digging.

But for tonight it’s Natalia Lafourcade, who has been performing since she was very young. Now she’s hitting 29, she has a pretty extensive career under her belt  in the world of Mexican Pop Music as well as being a successful song writer.  She is huge in her native Mexico.

This set doesn’t show off her pop side, and for that reason it’s quite interesting and a lot of fun to listen to. She has a strikingly haunting voice and a very good band behind her. This might signal a change in direction for her. But not being all that familiar with her work, I don’t know for certain – I have nothing to compare it to.

The material on this set has a very folk/indie feel to it. And, as is often the case with these live sessions, much of the production that sometimes masks an artists flaws is gone and, stripped away from that safety net, Natalia Lafourcade has an amazing voice.

Whether we hear from her on this side of the border, aside from a very sizable audience in the Latino community, depends on how far you want to go to listen to good music – whether you understand the lyrics or not is kind of a moot point for me. There’s beauty in the notes and they have no language; just the language of the heart.

But if you’ve hung around this site for very long, you already know that.

. . .and Monday starts another week. More adventures to come.

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