John Gilbert’s recipe for Clam Chowder (1927)

Taking a break from work, I was catching up on a silent film discussion list where someone posted John Gilbert’s recipe for clam chowder from the 1927 PHOTOPLAY COOK BOOK, which featured recipes of the stars (there is also a 1929 volume, which I’ve seen). I did a little online sleuthing and found a scan of the entire book from a Canadian library.

John Gilbert is my favorite silent-film leading man, and he went on to do fine work in the early sound era too, up through his final film, the bizarre but totally entertaining 1934 ensemble cast feature THE CAPTAIN HATES THE SEA.

I love clam chowder and can attest that this is a good solid recipe. You could always add a small amount of something of your own, but Gilbert has got the basic recipe down with the small touches like bacon and pepper and parsley and real butter. You can easily buy canned chopped clams (instead of the two dozen clams he mentions), which would make the job a lot easier and would not really hurt the end result any….and the clam juice (or liquor, as Gilbert calls it) in the can is perfect for chowder. You could also pick up a bottle of clam juice at most supermarkets, to make your recipe even richer and more flavorful, as it is available for mixed drinks. I will often use a bottle when I’m making rice to make a kind of clam rice. Anyway, here is Gilbert’s recipe, copied and pasted from the book….

Clam Chowder 


JOHN GILBERT 


2 doz. clams 
1 cup water 
3 large potatoes 
2 slices bacon 
1 onion 
1 quart milk 
2 tablespoons butter 
2 tablespoons flour 
1 teaspoon parsley 
1 teaspoon salt 
Crackers 
Pepper 


Fry diced bacon and chopped onion together. Add clam liquor, 
water and diced potatoes. Cook until tender. Add clams and milk. 
Thicken with butter and flour creamed together. Pour chowder over 
crackers and sprinkle with chopped parsley. 


Sponsored by Mr, Gilbert, clam chowder is due for a big revival 
in popularity. And it's good, too. 

You would certainly want whole milk for this, not 2% or skim, and if you don’t have to worry about calories or cholesterol, you could use half and half instead! Talk about rich!

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Greta Garbo and John Gilbert

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trailer for Gilbert’s 1933 feature FAST WORKERS, with Robert Armstrong (same year as RA starred in King Kong!)

 

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Many of John Gilbert’s best-known films from the 1920’s, including the ones where he is paired with his friend and companion Greta Garbo, were made for MGM and are not available for free online….however, they ARE available on DVD-R from the Warner Archive. However, here is one in its entirety, Erich Von Stroheim’s THE MERRY WIDOW from 1925, starring Mae Murray and Gilbert, the film Von Stroheim made after GREED. It’s 137 minutes long, so make a cup of coffee and settle back in a comfortable chair….

 

…

Kino (before they were merged into Kino-Lorber) did a wonderful release of two Gilbert classics on DVD many years ago, BARDLEYS THE MAGNIFICENT (1926, directed by King Vidor) and MONTE CRISTO (1922), and the set also includes a documentary on Gilbert, featuring a number of comments from his daughter, Leatrice Gilbert Fountain. It’s highly recommended!

note: when I was a child, my mother used to make something not unlike Margaret Livingston’s SALMON LOAF, which is on the page after Gilbert’s chowder in the Photoplay cookbook.

SEBERG (2020), starring Kristen Stewart

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Jean Seberg in the film that made her a star, Otto Preminger’s SAINT JOAN (1957)

 

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Scenes from LILITH (1964, directed by Robert Rossen), considered by many to be Seberg’s finest English-language performance

 

 

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Iowa-born Jean Seberg (1938-1979) had a film career of less than 20 years and passed away at the age of 40. She did not appear in a film during the final three years of her life. However, much of her early work….from SAINT JOAN (1957) through BREATHLESS (1960) through LILLITH (1964)….is sublime. She deserves to be better known today, and there is something to savor in every one of her performances, right up through her final film, an Ibsen adaptation from 1976 with Bruno Ganz. Looking at her filmography, I can say that I’ve seen about 70% of her 35-film body of work. Had she lived, she might have continued to alternate European art films and/or literate dramas with genre films. Maybe she would have returned to the US and taken a role in one of the “nighttime soaps” like KNOTS LANDING or FALCON CREST, which loved to give a platform to the glamourous stars of the past. Maybe she would have gone into charitable or political work, devoting her time to the UN or some other international agency. Who knows….

Calling this new film ‘SEBERG’ suggests that it might be a biopic, but it really isn’t. It covers only about 4 years in her life, and it both leaves out fairly significant items (the affair with Clint Eastwood—-oh, he’s still alive, isn’t he….although he did discuss the affair in a German interview you can find online) and fictionalizes a good bit of what’s left. The character of Hakim Jamal, the Black political and cultural activist she befriends and gets involved with, is presented as the voice of reason, the person with his feet on the ground. Perhaps he was at the time of his relationship with Seberg, but a little research on him shows that in the period after that (and he died before Seberg!), he was supposedly quite the megalomaniac with a messianic complex (and let’s not forget his involvement with the infamous Michael X). Perhaps he straightened himself out when he returned to his wife and to Boston to run the Malcolm X Foundation—-I certainly hope so. Jamal was murdered in 1973.  I thought his name rang a bell and eventually remembered that I’d read his book FROM THE DEAD LEVEL as a teenager.

The other main character in the film is an FBI agent (a fictionalized character, though Seberg was heavily monitored and messed with by the FBI) who is assigned to follow and wiretap/record/film her and ordered to create disinformation about her. He gradually becomes disillusioned with this and eventually wants to get out because of his conscience, as he can see the harm he is doing to this woman. OK, that makes sense. What does not make sense is the outrageous climactic scene near the film’s finale where the agent meets Seberg in a bar in Paris, after she’s returned to Europe. I won’t provide a spoiler and tell you what unfolds, but it is ridiculous and would never happen in real life….and it seems forced and ridiculous even in movie life. Were I not the only person in the theater watching SEBERG, I’d tell you how the other members of the audience reacted. Myself, I hooted at the screen.

Still, despite what I’ve written above, I consider this film very much a success and highly recommend it. Kristen Stewart (I’d only seen her once before, in Woody Allen’s CAFE SOCIETY, where she was very convincing) lights up the screen and makes us feel for her character, with a lot of subtlety and a lot of close-ups, the most demanding kind of film acting. Anthony Mackie is also fantastic as Hakim Jamal, a well-meaning but flawed individual. Mackie has been superb in everything I’ve seen him in, and he’s played a wide variety of roles. And Vince Vaughn is quite entertaining as an over-the-top and mean-spirited FBI agent who plays “bad cop” to the “good cop” whose story provides the backbone of the film. The late 60’s L.A. created by the film’s production design is sparkling and gaudy, with a sour and astringent kind of beauty, and is best appreciated on a big screen (I’m glad I caught this at the theater).

If you are not expecting great insight into the real Jean Seberg’s entire life and career, only a brief period in the late 60’s, and you just take this as the story of a character named Jean Seberg and a chaacter named Hakim Jamal, and you forget you saw the cringe-worthy scene near the end in the Paris bar, the film is riveting, or at least I found it to be so. If it generates interest in Jean Seberg’s career and it also creates interest in learning more about today’s intelligence-monitoring abuses, then it’s a worthwhile project.

When I admire some public figure, I usually hope that a film IS NOT made about them. More often than not, it misses the mark, and sometimes the films are so putrid, I feel sorry for the real-life person being depicted (thankfully, the film with Will Smith as Billy Strayhorn was never made!). However, in a film such as SEBERG or THE BUDDY HOLLY STORY, the end result might not be accurate biography, but captures a greater truth, which makes me forgive the inaccuracies. The most important thing missing in the film is what made Seberg tick as an actress, how did she approach her craft. However, that’s not what this film is about, and also, in the period depicted in the film, she is trying to re-establish herself in Hollywood and appearing in films she is not at all proud of or interested in. Great acting is not what PAINT YOUR WAGON or MACHO CALLAHAN were about. Prior to this period, yes. After this period, yes to a large extent….in fact, I’d LOVE to see her 70’s period dealt with, as she works in the European cinema in more mature roles and in genre films.

Check out SEBERG, despite the mediocre reviews (although Rex Reed liked it, thankfully–he’s always his own man). And after that, find a copy of SAINT JOAN and LILLITH—-I presume anyone reading this has seen Godard’s BREATHLESS.

Until then, check out the trailers below, to get a taste of some of the European genre films she was making after the period depicted in SEBERG. Everyone needs to see the trailer KILL! KILL! KILL! KILL!, written and directed by her husband Romain Gary (also a major character in the SEBERG film), at least once….then pick your jaw up off the floor!

p.s., It’s also interesting that the production company that holds the copyright on SEBERG is called RADICAL CHIC, LLC (yes, I stayed until the copyright statement at the end). The film certainly captures that phenomenon well, and one of the most hard-hitting and honest moments in the film is when Jamal’s wife Dorothy calls Seberg a “tourist.” There are actually a number of moments in the film that ring true to real life, undoubtedly a big reason I feel so favorably toward SEBERG the film.

Kristen Stewart as Jean Seberg

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the real JEAN SEBERG, Italy, late 1960’s

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The incredibly over-the-top trailer for the incredibly over-the-top film KILL! KILL! KILL! KILL! (1971), written and directed by Seberg’s husband Romain Gary, starring Seberg, Stephen Boyd, and James Mason….I saw this a few years ago on a DVD-R made by a friend and I still haven’t recovered. I did not know this got a US release, but here is the proof….a trailer from Cinerama Releasing!

 

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Trailer for the Italian political crime film GANG WAR IN NAPLES (1972), starring Raymond Pellegrin, Fabio Testi, and Jean Seberg….

 

“Blues For Brian Epstein,” a poem by Michael Layne Heath

I was in elementary school when Brian Epstein died in 1967, only 32 years old. Epstein had first seen The Beatles perform in November 1961 and passed away in September 1967, so his managerial career (not counting his work at his family’s NEMS store in Liverpool) last justed under six years.

As I got older and read more about Epstein’s life and career, heard the stories of those who knew him, and compared him with his contemporaries, it became VERY clear to me what a unique and special person he was. He was a bit out of his element when he initially approached The Beatles, but they felt that his class difference, along with his enthusiasm, could work to their advantage, and it did. Their previous manager/booking agent/whatever Allan Williams certainly would not have gotten them out of the club scene and had no vision for the future the way Epstein did. Williams could never have even dreamed of coasting on the sea of entitled charm and network of connections that Epstein brought to the table on behalf of the Fab Four. Brian Epstein carved his own path through the forest, and did it in a way different from any of the earlier UK or even US showbiz managers, with a combination of naivete and drive that made it possible. As a child, I’d seen clips of Epstein on TV while he was still alive, so I had a mental picture of him. The more I learned about him, the more the picture became clear that the man was always a gentleman, both in his manner and in his business dealings. He radiated that certain something that Americans admire so about Brits—-an American and a “posh” Englishman can say the same words, but somehow they sound classier and more profound coming out of the mouth of a Brian Epstein, who radiated elegance while seeming “real” and not putting on an act.

As I learned more about Brian Epstein over the years, it was also clear that he was always, on any number of levels, a bit of a fish out of water—-he must have initially appeared naive and foolish to British entertainment promoters such as Don Arden. He also probably feared rejection and always ‘wondered’ about his acceptance, being both Jewish and gay. This was a complex, admirable, and fascinating man, and it is sad to see how his fears and his self-perception as an outsider led to his decline and his early death.

Poet Michael Layne Heath has been a music writer for over 40 years (he recently compiled the amazing book ‘My Week Beats Your Year: Encounters with Lou Reed’, published by Hat & Beard Press, which I gave a rave review to in a recent issue of UGLY THINGS magazine), and he too “gets” what was special and magical about this man, a powerful force but also a bird with a broken wing. One of the walking wounded, perhaps, but also a strong individual who had learned to grow a thick skin, trying not to show the hurt, trying to insulate himself from that hurt.

KSE published a number of chapbooks of Heath’s poetry, and he was also featured, along with LUIS CUAUHTEMOC BERRIOZABAL, JIM D. DEUCHARS, A.J. KAUFMANN, and MATT KREFTING in our March 2014 collection of newly written poems in honor of Reed, POLYMORPHOUS URBAN: POEMS FOR LOU REED.

One of the poems Michael submitted for his second KSE chapbook, GREY RAGE (DYED), published in March 2009, was a beautiful meditation on Brian Epstein, the man, called “Blues For Brian Epstein.” It brought me to tears when I first read it. Alas, the chapbook containing it has been out of print for many years and there is no “Selected Poems” collection of Heath’s work presently available (let’s hope THAT changes soon!). Last week, as I was cleaning out an area in my home where I used to keep my old computer and do a lot of the KSE work (formatting poetry chapbooks, etc.), I found my original typed copy of Michael’s Epstein poem, re-read it for the first time in maybe five years, and I was once again moved. Fortunately, the poet has granted me permission to reprint the poem here because I feel that it should always be available. Mike has always been one of my favorite writers, going back to his punkzine days in the late 70’s and early 80’s, and in recent decades, one of my favorite poets. In 2009, I said the following about his work: “As Mike has a lifelong involvement in music, both as a writer-historian and as a musician-songwriter himself, it’s not surprising that there is a musicality of phrase and a wonderful sense of tone and modulation to his verse….Whether writing about sex or longing or poetry readings, or describing the yuppie condo block that now sits where SF’s legendary Winterland once rocked, Michael Layne Heath is an original. He manages to nail the uncertainty and ennui of this curious age in which we live, but he remains positive because the future always has promise, and that next cigarette or the next poem or the next attractive guy met at a watering hole just might bring some kind of salvation…or at least keep one occupied!”

Let’s forget about the poet for a minute, though, and focus on the poem….and then focus on the man who is the subject of the poem, Brian Epstein. Let the poem take you into Epstein’s world–not into his mind (how presumptuous it would be for someone to try to do that!), but into Brian as seen by those who knew him and cared for and about him, those who saw the trajectory of his life at close range, those who lived alongside him. Those who knew….

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BLUES FOR BRIAN EPSTEIN

 

And the week before

Best friends and business associates alike said:

 

There are people who love you

You don’t have to shell out for it

Do not trust tight Levis and unfiltered ciggies

Especially among Midwest Americans

Who in bed call you pardner instead of dude

When they mean ‘I hate weak faggots like you’

Don’t get mile high it is not worth losing a briefcase

Put the keys to the Bentley away

The downers away

The doubt away

You have the vision you know

The ears the instinct

That no one can take away

That owns three houses in three parts of the continent

Any number of queer dudes on either side of the pond

Why pay for it and yeah you think why not

But then there are as many

Even smarter even more discreet

Who care for you and your career.

 

 

What does it take

Who does it take

But does it take the night watchman

Waking you up at four a.m.

Casting your vision to the phial of Seconal

Your maid, knowing barely

a string of English phrases, asleep

While Avalon and the ghosts of music hall

and Cochran and Holly beckon

after far too late a night over Iowa skies

Hey Brian put on the Motown

It’s Smokey and the Miracles child

Let them have the cars the homes

All you had to do

All you ever did was dream

Of a favorite band

You could hang at the back of the hall and scream for

 

 

So yes Brian

Queer Jew visionary

Rest and rest assured

Yours was not a life wasted if perhaps insecure

You are honored by those

who would have honored you

at least secretively

A cuddle across the miles for awhile

Before trashing Stonewall or the Sorbonne

Which was if you think of it

All the same fight

and remains so

 

 

Meanwhile yes

since you asked I’m the taxman

Your new landlord

Your parents await you

Your admirers occupying more than

one country one tongue

 

 

Oh dear man you’ve done enough for  us

Keep the pennies

 

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Michael Layne Heath

11.9.08, San Francisco

MLH, reading in San Francisco from the chapbook in which the poem originally appeared

MICKIE MOST AND THE PLAYBOYS, “Hear The Most, The Best Of…” (Rock-In-Beat CD, Germany)

One good-sized body of work from the original rock and roll era that’s never been reissued legitimately is the material MICKIE MOST—-the legendary producer of The Animals, Donovan, Herman’s Hermits, The Yardbirds, and many others—-recorded in South Africa in the 1960-62 period. Most (real name Michael Peter Hayes) was of course a Brit, but he was married to a South African lady, Christina, and returned with her there to test the waters, sensing that there might be a shortage of wannabe Elvises and Buddy Hollys and Cliff Richards. It turned out there was, and Most assembled a band, The Playboys (with varying personnel, according to the few online sources dealing with the subject), and beginning in late 1959, he was referred to as “The Human Dynamo” in Johannesburg and throughout South Africa and Rhodesia.

Most and crew recorded 30+ sides there, featured on three albums (HEAR THE MOST, MICKIE MOST, and BIG BEAT BALL), some EP’s,  compilation appearances, and many hit singles. 25 of those South African sides were made available on this grey-market CD on the Rock-In-Beat label from Germany in 1998. Despite Most’s huge influence on the UK music scene (he was viewed as a kind of starmaker and master-producer, and he appeared extensively on British TV in the 70’s in the role of a sage about all-things-pop), he never sought to re-release any of his early recordings (which he could have done easily on his successful early 70’s RAK label) and generally laughed off this period of his career in a self-deprecating way, once referring to these recordings as “awful” but admitting their chart success in Southern Africa and his drawing power and fan base as a live performer. Tracks 1-25 (see below) document this period, and I must say I’m quite excited by this material.

1              Doesn’t Matter Any More             2:22

2              Johnny B. Goode              2:25

3              I Dig You Baby   1:36

4              That’s What You Do To Me           2:24

5              Think It Over      2:23

6              Paralyzed            2:38

7              You’ve Got Love                2:15

8              Boney Marony  1:58

9              Reeling And Rocking       2:22

10           Tom Dooley        2:56

11           Shake Rattle And Roll      1:58

12           Rave On               2:22

13           Pick A Bale Of Cotton     2:29

14           Sweet Little Sixteen        1:48

15           Greenback Dollar             1:50

16           Down By The Riverside  2:40

17           Heart Beat          2:18

18           Corrine Corrina 2:25

19           What Do You Want To Make Those Eyes At Me For           1:58

20           I Shall Not Be Moved      2:15

21           Guitar Boogie Shuffle     1:44

22           The Twist             1:39

23           Whole Lotta Twisting      1:53

24           Blue Moon          2:56

25           Green Corn         2:02

26           The Feminine Look          2:25

27           Money Honey   2:18

28           That’s Alright      2:07

29           Sea Cruise           2:25

30           It’s A Little Bit Hot            1:45

The S.A. recordings are all cover versions, and while they are taken from a wide variety of sources (R&R, folk, R&B, gospel), there is a consistent sound to the records. Most’s main-man is clearly Buddy Holly, and his band-model the Crickets (including the post-Holly Crickets), and he does about a half-dozen songs related to the Holly/Crickets axis. Most’s own voice is in the same range as Holly’s and he does a similar vocal hiccup on some of the tracks. However, there is none of the Tex-Mex tinge of The Crickets, which is not surprising with Most being a Brit who is working in South Africa, and the musicians do not resemble (and to their credit, do not attempt to imitate) Jerry Allison’s drumming or Holly’s guitar work (only on “Heartbeat” do we hear the signature Holly gtr phrases). One strong element in these recordings is that unlike much of the pre-Beatles rock and roll coming from the UK, these Most sides ARE NOT at all slick, and there are no studio musicians or pizzicato strings or cloying backing vocalists in sight. What you get is a small rocking quartet—-singer/2nd guitarist, lead guitarist, bassist, and drummer—-plowing through the material in what must have been a fairly close approximation of their live act. They also do not attempt carbon copies of the original recordings–the arrangements are changed up and the guitar solos do not ape the solos on the records.

When I first heard these sessions, I was reminded of the late 50’s/early 60’s New Zealand R&R sides included on the ROCK FROM THE OTHER SIDE compilation LP”s (there were five) issued in the 1980’s on the Dutch Collector-White Label’s “Down South” subsidiary. I owned volume 1 (see pic) back in the day and played the grooves off of it. These were raw and rocking sides, but they were a bit “off” compared with American or even British R&R. However, after a few plays, I began to appreciate the novelty and freshness of the bands’ approaches to the music and could feel the excitement that the New Zealand audiences must have experienced with their homegrown R&R groups. They were locals, they were approachable, and you could see them at your local club and buy their records on local labels. And they really did not sound like their American models.

Mickie Most and His Playboys also reminded me of the pre-Liberty recordings of Bobby Vee and The Shadows, especially the Suzie Baby-era sides recorded at Kay-Bank Studios in Minneapolis. Most’s band has the same treble-heavy sound, twangy and reverbed guitar, and dynamic vocals free of any direct blues/R&B influence (the boys being from the Upper Midwest) heard on Vee’s early local recordings. Of course, there is not the rich, deep, bank-vault reverb of Kay-Bank that’s so thick you can slice it….a sound echoed (no pun intended) in other Upper Midwest recordings, such as the records made by James Kirchstein at Cuca Records in Wisconsin. If I did not know what these Most recordings were (and you deleted the local references to the Transvaal and the Free State), I might well place the sessions as coming from the US Midwest, and speculate that the singer had been an exchange student in the UK for a year or two and picked up an accent on some words.

If you like pre-Beatles local rock and roll bands doing a repertoire of cover versions and want to hear 25 tracks of spontaneous, exciting rockers with enthusiastic vocals and twangy guitar, delivered with a warts-and-all honesty, that’s what you get here. If you are the kind of person who enjoys small-label rockers from the post-Elvis, pre-Beatles era and look forward to the hundredth cover of a Chuck Berry standard (after all, that’s how a band proves themselves—-didn’t Greg Shaw once say that he could never accept a band who could not do a decent version of “Louie Louie”?), I can’t imagine that you wouldn’t enjoy these Mickie Most South African recordings.

Wait, you may ask…..aren’t there 30 tracks on this CD? Yes, the final five are sides Most made in the UK after his return, circa 1963-64 (see pic of “The Feminine Look”). All of them are first-rate British Beat records which would fit well on a BEATFREAK compilation. “Money Honey” and “Sea Cruise” could easily have been part of Most’s 1959-62 South African repertoire (maybe they were), and hearing the 63-64 UK beat recordings of the songs immediately after 25 of the earlier records, it becomes crystal clear what elements were added to basic post-Elvis rock and roll to turn it into 63-64 era Beat. You can hear this transformation also by listening to the Beatles’ Hamburg recordings, both studio and live, and then their EMI sessions. Most’s vocals on the British recordings are much more carefully recorded than on the S.A. sessions, where you are basically getting a live-in-the-studio experience, and it’s clear the man could have had a revived career as a singer/frontman in Britain had he not had such success as a producer. However, as the producer who found “House Of The Rising Sun” for The Animals and who became a virtual industry in 60’s British pop music, he surely recognized he could make a much bigger impact behind the microphone instead of in front of it, which he did.

Going back to the 20’s and 30’s, there were a number of artists who found success as producers/publishers/A&R people and left the performing aspect behind, people such as Irving Mills and Ed Kirkeby (even Clarence Williams), and then in the 50’s and 60’s, people such as Ray Rush, Felton Jarvis, and Ray Ruff (or even Ozzie Nelson’s pivotal role in his son Rick’s early musical career). Who better to prepare and give advice to young up-and-coming performers than someone who has been there themselves.

Some of Most’s South African sides can be found on You Tube, and there is also another CD on the French “LCD” label (home of the Nowhere Men UK beat compilations) that includes 20+ tracks (though fewer than on this one).

If you want to see Mickie Most at the height of his production fame, circa 1968, acting like the rock star he clearly enjoyed being (those teenagers in Johannesburg gave him a taste of something he did not want to lose) and opining about all aspects of record-making, take 40 minutes to watch this BBC documentary (link below). It will give you a very clear picture of Most’s larger-than-life persona. It’s a shame there is no film footage (that I know of) of Most performing in Southern Africa circa 1959-62. He could have been worked into a club scene in a film the way that Bill Haley was in Mexico or Dean Reed was in Argentina. Oh well….just look at the picture at the top of this post of Most posing in front of a huge poster advertising his band and their upcoming live shows, play one of his rockers (I’ll post a You Tube link at the bottom here), and it’s not hard to imagine him on stage. First, though, here is Mickie in 1968, pop-production guru:

It’s a shame that with his power and connections Most never chose to acquire the tapes of his South African recordings, remaster them, and put out a selection on his RAK label. Britain has always had a dedicated roots-rock and 60’s beat following after the end of that era–they still do today–and surely that audience would have loved these sessions. Maybe he was embarrassed by them, feeling that in an age of sophistication they were sloppy and primitive; maybe he did not want to deal with the fallout from having worked in Apartheid-era South Africa. In any event, they ARE out there for you to hear…with a little searching.

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