HI Robert,
I hope everything is well with you. I continue to enjoy reading your blog postings, Please keep up the good work. I wanted to let you know that we have posted a Wilbur Walton Jr. song from 1973 recorded at Playground, called "Eternity" on our Playground MySpace. Like most WW Jr. songs, it is a work of art. You can get to our myspace at www.myspace.com/playgroundrecordingstudio . We have been rotating songs on our myspace about once every week to week and a half.
In the last rotation we posted an early 70's TV radio AD for a Dothan nightclub called the Flamingo.
image courtesy of BAMA QUEEN http://myspace.com/fiddledeedeeme
image courtesy of BAMA QUEEN http://myspace.com/fiddledeedeeme
It featured Beaverteeth playing a short song especially written for the commercial with Gabby Bruce doing the voice over. We also had Beaverteeth doing "Georgia Pines" posted.
image courtesy of BAMA QUEEN http://myspace.com/fiddledeedeeme
image courtesy of BAMA QUEEN http://myspace.com/fiddledeedeeme
It featured Beaverteeth playing a short song especially written for the commercial with Gabby Bruce doing the voice over. We also had Beaverteeth doing "Georgia Pines" posted.
Every time we rotate, I try to include something that relates to the Dothan Music scene since Dothan played such a integral part of the Playground Sound. Just thought I'd let you know.. Keep up the good work
Lancaster
PRS http://www.playgroundrecordingstudio.com/
Lancaster,
I really enjoyed hearing Wilbur sing ETERNITY!
WILBUR may also be heard singing 24 HOURS OF LONELINESS on the NORTHERN SOUL jukebox below:
http://www.soul4u.net/webspace/
Lancaster,
I really enjoyed hearing Wilbur sing ETERNITY!
WILBUR may also be heard singing 24 HOURS OF LONELINESS on the NORTHERN SOUL jukebox below:
http://www.soul4u.net/webspace/
Click above to hear Wilbur sing "24 Hours of Loneliness"
Over time we've accumulated a lot of Wilbur images so we're gonna use this opportunity to blast 'em out to the public!
WILBUR WALTON JR. on the cover of DOTHAN MAGAZINE http://dothanmagazine.com
image courtesy of Robin Rainer & Dothan Magazine http://dothanmagazine.com
WILBUR as a SNAKE @ BAMA
Fred Guarino's wedding- image courtesy of Jimmy Dean
l. to r. - Bubba Lathem, Jimmy Dean, Fred Guarino, John Rainey Adkins, Wilbur Walton Jr.
DOTHAN MAGAZINE Reception for the DOTHAN MAGAZINE Article About Buddy
l. to r. Jimmy Dean, Buddy Buie, Bill J. Moody, Wilbur Walton Jr.
James Gang Reunion
Wilbur Walton Jr., Buddy Buie, James "Bubba" Lathem, Paul Cochran http://paulcochran.com
Jimmy Dean, Fred Guarino
Pretty sure I got this image from Jim Hodges
image from Jimmy Dean
Pretty sure this came from Jim Hodges or maybe Jeff Lemlich http://limestonerecords.com
THE JAMES GANG:
Jimmy Dean, Fred Guarino, Johnny Mulkey, Bubba Lathem & Wilbur!
image courtesy of Jimmy Dean
WILBUR WALTON JR. & THE JAMES GANG!!!!
Bubba Lathem, Jimmy Dean, Wilbur Walton Jr., Fred Guarino, Johnny Mulkey
image courtesy of Jimmy Dean
Bubba Lathem, Fred Guarino, Jimmy Dean, Wilbur Walton Jr., Johnny Mulkey
image courtesy of Jimmy Dean
Wilbur Faces Temptation!
image courtesy of Jimmy Dean
Jimmy Dean, Greg Haynes, Wilbur Walton Jr.
image courtesy of http://heybabydays.com
Wilbur Walton Jr. & Jimmy Dean with Mr. & Mrs. Percy Sledge
image courtesy of http://heybabydays.com
Jimmy Dean, Robert Register, Wilbur Walton Jr.
image courtesy of http://heybabydays.com
WILBUR ON STAGE AT ATLANTA'S PIG ALLEY
Wilbur Walton Jr. and Jimmy Dean
image courtesy of Robin Rainer & DOTHAN MAGAZINE http://dothanmagazine.com
Bubba Lathem, Jimmy Dean, Wilbur Walton Jr., Fred Guarino, Johnny Mulkey
Japanese cover courtesy of Jim Hodges
Japanese liner notes courtesy of Jim Hodges
Wilbur Walton Jr. & The James Gang performing at Ft. Brandon Armory in Tuscaloosa.
photo courtesy of WTBC http://www.wtbc1230.com/
photo by Michael E. Palmer
photo by Michael E. Palmer
photo by Michael E. Palmer
Our old buddy Michael E.Palmer at the Tuscaloosa News has been doing some good work this week. For the 40th Anniversary of the Tet Offensive, he wrote a superb article about his father's experience & also posted this wonderful video http://www.tuscaloosanews.com/section/tusctube&videoid=1398268101
Jack D. Palmer is seen here in a picture taken in Vietnam in 1968.
Photo Courtesy of Jack Palmer
http://www.tuscaloosanews.com/article/20080202/NEWS/942677892/1007/TL02
MICHAEL E. PALMER'S ALMANAC:
Vietnam's Turning Point Still Remains Vivid After 40 Years
On Jan. 31, 1968, the North Vietnamese launched the Tet Offensive. I don’t know much about the Vietnam War, but my dad does. Jack Palmer was there from September 1967 to July 1968. He was a member of the 557th Military Police Company stationed in Long Binh, 25 miles northeast of Saigon. Long Binh was the United States’ command and control center for the Vietnam theater. Tet was the turning point in the Vietnam War.
I’ve seen the History Channel documentaries on the war. I’ve seen the archival footage and movies depicting the war in Vietnam. I’ve seen the work of the great photographers of that war: Larry Burrows, Eddie Adams and Philip Jones Griffiths.
I’ve heard how television news reporters
conveyed the grim reality of the Vietnam War, a reality far different from the official military line.
I’ve heard how this changed America’s view of the war and brought about its end.
Tet is short for Tet Nguyen Dan, the Vietnamese lunar new year, one of the most important holidays for Vietnamese people. It is celebrated by paying respect to ancestors and the elders. Families come together for food, gift giving and fireworks. It’s a time of celebration and joy, but, in 1968, Tet became synonymous with death, destruction and the waning of war in Southeast Asia.
The armies of North Vietnam timed their offensive to start on the Tet holiday. The offensive was designed to bring the war out of the jungles and into the American-occupied urban centers of South Vietnam. North Vietnam wanted to create a general uprising in the south and end the war in one fell swoop.
During the first phase of the offensive, 80,000 communist troops attacked 100 towns and cities in South Vietnam, including the U.S. embassy in the capital of Saigon. Street battles raged from house to house and building to building. It was the largest campaign by either side during the entire war.
My dad was in Long Binh as part of a military police company protecting the command center and an ammo depot inside the perimeter.
At the time, Long Binh, which included the ammo depot, was the largest military installation in the world. My dad describes it as “nine square miles of ammo; the largest ammo dump in the free world.” Pallets of ammunition were stacked in piles protected by berms 100 yards apart. The distance protected the ammo from a chain reaction in case a mortar round hit one of the pallets. On Jan. 31, 1968, the North Vietnamese attacked Long Binh, including the ammo depot.
During the attack, my dad saw a large orange mushroom cloud rolling silently into the sky. The North Vietnamese had landed a mortar onto one of the pallets. Others around him stood up in awe of the sight. But my dad did something different. He dived behind a wall. He knew a shock wave would soon follow. At that time, mortar rounds began falling around the men and mass confusion ensued.
During the bedlam a lieutenant began asking men if they were married or not. The lieutenant was choosing men to go to the perimeter where the heaviest fighting was taking place. My dad wasn’t married at the time, so he and about 10 other men ran a mile to the perimeter and arrived in time to witness a heavy gun battle. As they flattened themselves on the ground facing the perimeter, the sergeant began launching flares to illuminate the enemy. But the flares, caught in the breeze, returned and exposed the American soldiers.
“We wanted to shoot that lieutenant more than anyone else,” my dad joked.
The gun battle lasted through the night. “We fired enough rounds to kill everybody in North Vietnam,” my dad said.
As the tracers and bullets flew overhead, my dad said he still remembers what his 20 year-old mind was thinking at the time: “This is just like a John Wayne movie, but this is for real, and I’m the star.”
But unlike in a movie, the heavy mortar rounds kept exploding, and my dad lay there all night in the hot, dry dirt, “praying I didn’t get my ass blown off.”
He was there until daylight broke, and a group of soldiers with their dogs moved up. The dogs were pointers to indicate if an enemy sat beyond the perimeter. In the early morning silence my dad said he heard a voice far off in the distance. It was the voice of an American soldier. The words broke the tense silence. “Gravy train!” someone yelled, repeating the famous refrain from a television dog food commercial. Laughter rippled up and down the line of soldiers. The enemy had vanished and “we were like rats crawling out of the dirt.”
My dad stood up and discovered he was covered with mud. The mud was from the dry dirt mixing with his sweat and tears.
The next day, Feb. 1, 1968, my dad turned 21.
Michael Palmer is a staff photographer. He can be reached at 205-722-0232 or michael.palmer@tuscaloosanews.com.
image courtesy http://www.myspace.com/rockmadeinmexico
Go to the site above and hear The Amazing Javier Batiz - GODFATHER OF TIJUANA ROCK & ROLL sing OH, CHARLENA!
ZERO, NORTHWEST FLORIDA ex-pat Lance Miccio's got a Hollywood premiere coming up on the fifteenth of this month!
Ken Babbs http://skypilotclub.com & LANCE MICCIO
Film Premiere Of Rock N Roll Made In Mexico: from Evolution to Revolution
Happy Trailers HD LLC and Heat Drum Productions are pleased to announce that their new epic Mexican rock documentary will be screening at the FINE ART THEATRE on Wilshire in Beverly Hills, CA on February 15, 2008 at 7:30 PM.
Rock N Roll Made in Mexico, from Evolution to Revolution is directed by intrepid filmmaker Lance Miccio and produced by Rock Icon Fito de la Parra (Los Sparks ,Los Hooligans, Los Sinners, Javier Batiz Band, Canned Heat).
The film tells the untold story of Rock and Roll in Mexico through those who lived it, including Mexican rock icons and legends that include Javier Batiz (who influenced Carlos Santana's unique style), Alex Lora and Lalo Toral from El Tri, Jonny Ortega of Los Hooligans and many others. The story covers the early innocent days of Cafés and yard parties, through the severe oppression that plagued the Mexican Rockers and the country, eventually resulting in illegalization of Rock and Roll after the notorious Avandaro Concert (known as the Mexican Woodstock). It wasn't until 1985 when Rock was made legal once again.
The amazing untold story of Mexican Rock and Roll will no longer remain so. Miccio brings this epic struggle of art against authority full circle from the beginning to today, where contemporary Mexican Rockers now thrive on the world stage.
The film will be followed by an onstage music jam.
© Happy Trailers HD LLC 2008 - www.happytrailershd.comA message from IGOR:
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/01/nasa-says-hello-universe-meet-the-beatles/?hp
If you’re out there in deep space, you’ll want to be tuning in at 7 p.m. Eastern time on Monday, Feb. 4 (plus however long it takes electromagnetic radiation to reach you from Earth doing the 186,000-miles-a-second speed limit).
That’s when NASA will be celebrating the 50th anniversary of its first space mission the launch of the Explorer 1 satellite by using the system of huge antennas that usually listen for inbound signals from space to send one outbound instead: the Beatles’ song “Across the Universe,” which as it happens was mostly recorded exactly 40 years earlier, on Feb. 4, 1968.
William Alford
Robert,
Great idea! I enjoyed reading Scotty Kirkland's research on Dothan
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3880/is_200707/ai_n19434244
and was pleased as punch that you found info that took me that far back to where I am from. Good job!
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3880/is_200707/ai_n19434244
and was pleased as punch that you found info that took me that far back to where I am from. Good job!
You will make an incredible writer on Devil Make a Third part 2....get started!
Kathy
Yo, Robert:
DJ Underwood and I were wondering if you've heard any
word about this milestone year. 1968-2008!
Feelin' old yet?
Can you find out if a reunion is being organized? Thanks.
Like your blog.
cheers---
Frank(ie) Stephenson
btw: Jerry Keel, of our class, has just moved to Tuscaloosa from
Demopolis. Don't know if you remember him or not. He was a great
pal o' mine for many of those years---still is.
--
Frank Stephenson
Director, Research Communications
Editor, Research in Review Magazine
Florida State University
Yo, Robert:
DJ Underwood and I were wondering if you've heard any
word about this milestone year. 1968-2008!
Feelin' old yet?
Can you find out if a reunion is being organized? Thanks.
Like your blog.
cheers---
Frank(ie) Stephenson
btw: Jerry Keel, of our class, has just moved to Tuscaloosa from
Demopolis. Don't know if you remember him or not. He was a great
pal o' mine for many of those years---still is.
--
Frank Stephenson
Director, Research Communications
Editor, Research in Review Magazine
Florida State University
