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Martha and the Vandellas
take it to the Blind Pig
Baker
Continued from Page 11
Baker's attorney for the case,
Richard Sanders, said he would not
comment without Baker's
permission.
I didn't ask Baker to call Sanders
and give him permission. Besides,
Baker may talk to me for the next
story, and we have to have
something to talk about.
I take that back. As long as
Deane Baker serves on the
University's Board of Regents, he
will always have something to talk
about.
By Nabeel Zuberi
Ever since I left London for
Michigan last September I've wanted
to visit the Motown Museum in
Detroit. A couple of weeks ago I
made the pilgrimage to the little
house on Grand Boulevard where all
those brilliant records were made.
Once inside, I was overcome by
feelings of both melancholy and
wonder.
The studio is in, a state of decay.
A musty odor comes from the
wooden floorboards; the music
stands are on their last legs, the
sheet music they held brown with
age and on the verge of crumbling
into dust. Upstairs, the wall display
is showing signs of wear and tear;
the record sleeves and old photos are
curling at the edges. Yet, despite the
necrose atmosphere, I still felt a
sense of exhiliration that I was
standing in the very place where
Smokey sang of love's sweet sor-
rows, where Marvin hollered the in-
On the one hand, it's sad that the group is performing
largely due to the public's insatiable appetite for
nostalgia, which means we'll probably get at least five
renditions of "Dancing In the Street". On the other
hand, we will be seeing a legend and a fine soul singer.
.I
Hopefully, we'll hear more
than the hits.
ner city blues, and where Martha ex-
uberantly told us to take to the
streets.
When Martha and the Vandellas
step out on to the stage at the Blind
Pig tomorrow night, I fear that I'll
feel the same mixture of sentiments.
On the one hand, it's sad that the
group is performing largely due to
the public's insatiable appetite for
nostalgia, which means we'll proba-
bly get at least five renditions of
"Dancing In the Street". On the
other hand, we will be seeing a leg-
end and a fine soul singer. Hope-
fully, we'll hear more than the hits.
Martha Reeves is joined by origi-
nal Vandellas, Rosalind Ashford and
Annette Sterling. The group were
never Berry Gordy's dreamgirls but
Martha had more soul than Diana
Ross, though not the vocal range of
the divine Tammi Terrell. The group
had their first hit in 1962 with
"Come And Get These Memories",
after which followed a series of clas-
sic cuts, written mainly by Holland,
Dozier and Holland. Between 1963
and 1967 Martha and the Vandellas
released twelve singles, including
America
Continued from Page 16
ble job decrying racism, sexism is
still alive and well:
The song at the pageant's end
hails the newly crowned Miss
America as "our ideal," and per-
haps she is. [Miss America's]
dedication and drive -and her
ability to keep her success in
perspective - are the qualities
that make her truly a winner.
Ok, so I did the italics. But
everything else in this modern font
came from the book. The agenda
Neuharth is so obviously trying to
lay down truly scares me. I don't
want to have fun making $3.35 an
hour; I don't want to eat Domino's
Pizza every night; and I sure as hell
don't want to read his "Don't Worry
Be Happy" newspaper. If you ask
me, Neuharth deserves Hunter
Thompson's famous bull moose
treatment previously reserved for Ed
"Pig" Meese.
-The people are friendly.
-The weather is nice.
The people really are friendly.
The weather usually is nice. And
the fact that the same may be
said for thousands of places
across the USA makes no differ-
ence at all.
They said it, not me.
-Brian Jarvinen
Dean (no e) Baker holding Deane Baker's nameplate at a regent's me
The other Dean (no 'e')
PF I
See Martha, Page 7 Martha Reeves and the Vandellas visit Ann Arbor this weekend
Not an Irish invasion- Plane crash took lives but
I
just good oie music
left a musical
legacy
A House
Call Me Blue
Sire
After the last two eventful years
in music, many of us could quite
reasonably shrink away at the sound
of the words "Irish music." In fact,
we might be slightly horrified by the
concept of an "Irish invasion." But
rest assured, this is no pseudo-
political folk music, nor any de-
mented religious metaphorical verse,
and no mythical tale of right vs.
wrong. So what's keeping you from
checking out A House? Nothing.
Granted, when this disk starts up,
exhilarating guitars and throbbing
bass roaring (hopefully) from the
speakers, a premature comparison to
a certain mega-group might come to
mind, but don't be confused.
This is organized energy,. while
those guys have a tendency to sound
chaotic, like electric carnage. A
House talks about the day-to-day
problems of a society we all live in
and know. The complaints are about
"too many actors" and "too much
elevator music". Those guys rant and
rave about international affairs and
war. Problems too big for any of us
mere mortals to handle. When it's
over, you're left with the feeling of
impending doom. Rebellious
enough, but what a pain in the con-
science!
Listen to A House and you'll
think, "these guys aren't really
blue." That's the beauty of it. This
song tackles the blahs of living in a
mediocre, humdrum, red tape world,
and even though it might be a pain,
in the end you don't mind.
-Forrest Green
By Mark Swartz
The movie La Bamba, for all its
joyous celebration of the rock 'n'
roll dream, sticks in my mind with
the power of one disturbing image.
Seventeen-year-old Ritchie Valens
experiences a recurring nightmare, a
horrifying picture of an airplane ex-
ploding in mid-flight. In that pre-
monition of his tragedy - the plane
crash that took his life as well as
those of Buddy Holly and the Big
Bopper - lies the grim flipside to
the rock 'n' roll dream: the sense-
lessness of dying young.
Today marks 30 years since The
Day the Music Died - a day which
got its ponderous name from a Don
M c L e a n hit from the '70s,
"American Pie." Of course, the mu-
sic didn't die; it lives on in the
jukeboxes and the Walkmans and
even car commercials. But the
musicians did die and this article is
about them.
J. P. Richardson worked as a disc
jockey at KTRM in Texas under the
name the Big Bopper. His career was
interrupted by a two-year hitch in the
army as a radio communications in-
structor. Upon returning home, the
Bopper became restless. Not content
to just remain in the booth playing
other people's hit singles, he caught
the ever-contagious rock 'n' roll bug
and began moonlighting as a pop
star. He recorded a novelty tune
called "The Purple People Eater
Meets the Witch Doctor," the B-side
of an original, "Chantilly Lace." A
Hill Street Forum/Great Writers Series
Julius Lester
My Journey To
Tuesday, February 7, 8:00 pm,
Irwin Green Auditorium Hillel
Julius Lester is currently a Professor of Judaic Studies and formerly a
Professor of Afro-American Studies at the University of Massachusettes. A
civil rights activist and media personality during the '60s, he has authored
15 books, including Lovesong: Becoming a Jew. Lester is the recipient of
numerous awards.
Hillel does not necessarily endorse the Dail's opinion or agree withits editorial polcies,
February 3rd marks the
30th anniversary of the
deaths of Buddy Holly,
Richie Valens, and the Big
Bopper.
rollicking rockabilly tune, "Lace"
kicked off the summer of 1958 with
the spider-meets-the-fly announce-
ment of "Hel-1-1-o-o-o ba-a-by!" The
song closed with the memorable as-
surance "Oh baby that's what I like!"
The Big Bopper's entire legacy rests
on the two minutes of sound in be-
tween those jewels.
Thanks to a movie that turned a
life into a Cinderella myth, and a hit
record that turned a traditional Mexi-
can folk tune into rock 'n' roll,
Richard Valenzuela left a much more
substantial legacy. Ritchie Valens,
the son of migrant farm workers.
Ritchie Valens, the Chuck Berry
devotee who carried his guitar with
him everywhere. Ritchie Valens,
who went to the top of the charts
with a two-sided single "Donna" and
"La Bamba." Success came fast and
furious to Ritchie Valens, who had
to miss several days of high school,
to appear on television.
The songs of Buddy Holly are a
cornerstone of popular music. His
tunes snapped with the excitement of
early rock 'n' roll. "That'll Be The
Day," "Not Fade Away," and "Peggy
Sue," among others, have found
their way into the nation's collective
consciousness. As a record maker, he
pioneered the use of double-tracking
and other recording techniques, and
standardized the two guitars-bass-
drum lineup that has yet to fade
away from the music scene. But it
was his uneven, hiccuping singing
that has stood as Holly's greatest
contribution. Charles Hardin Holley
of Lubbock, Texas proved that it
don't have to be pretty to be pure, a
lesson which liberated rock singers
from that time forward. If he hadn't
died at 21, there's no telling where
his talent and singular dedication
might have led him.
February 3, 1959. Holly, Valens,
and the Big Bopper were flying be-
tween concert stops in Iowa and
North Dakota, when the small craft
flew into a snowstorm. There were
no survivors - unless you count
the fantastic musical output that has
survived three decades.
Share the
news,
Books
Continued from Page 13
highly structured and staunchly
symmetrical design, all in the
kroovy name of humanitarianism. In
a nutshell, Alex starts as a thug and
abuses people, gets reformed and has
the very same people he abused
abuse him, and ends with Alex back
to his thuggish self again.
This makes for a beautiful circle,
brothers, story-wise. And your nog
tells you the story logically ends at
20; but Burgess has this nog that
tells him, "There must be sunshine!"
Damn the kroovy bastard. He ruins
kroovy everything with 21. O my
brothers, sad as it seems (although
there's no special reason to go
boohoohoo), we become so pro-
grammed and so ingrained into the
violent world Burgess creates in the
first 20 chapters that any retreat
thereof is malenky. Redemption of
any kind is impossible impossible.
New York knew this and so did
Kubrick. Bog bless them.
Burgess ends his argument for
this last chapter by writing,"Eat
this sweetish segment or spit it out.
You are free." He argues that we are
free beings and can choose our own
morality, to change moral make-up.
Ha ha ha, ho ho ho. Like hell. This
whole free choice thing is as beauti-
ful as a little ptitsa skipping to
church on Sunday but, oh, my
brothers, the sad truth is, we can
only make the minorest of adjust-
ments in ourselves - the kind of
chipperpaste we shove in our
mouths in the mornin', the number
of fibs we mouth off to our mums at
night. People change only in fairy
tales.
So listen to Your Humble Narra-
tor. Don't accept this pissy poor re-
vision/sunshine up your skirt. Shun
it. You are free, remember? Reach
into the farthest, darkest depths of
your Public Biblio and blow the
dusty off a vintage American copy
(You are free). Or rent Kubrick's deal
at your local sinny store (You are
free). Go ahead. Stick your wet
tongue out at Religion and Govern-
ment, and so cal (Cure yourself ).
o
1
When two people with the same
name work and live in the same
community, there are bound to be
mixups. One person gets the other's
mail, phone calls, and messages.
This particular case is a little
more interesting than usual because
Regent Deane Baker and University
economics lecturer Dean Baker hold
political views that are "completely
opposite," Dean Baker said.
This Dean Baker has been active
'400
in the Rackham Student Government
and Latin American Solidarity
Committee. He challenged U.S.
Rep. Carl Pursell, a Republican, for
Michigan's Second Congressional
District seat in 1986, and challenged
State Sen. Lana Pollack in the 1988
Democratic primary to go after Pur-
sell again. He also was a local co-
ordinator of Rev. Jesse Jackson's
1988 presidential campaign in
Michigan.
oor
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PAGE 4
WEEKEND/FEBRUARY 3,1989
WEEKEND/FEBRUARY 3,1989