I'll have to check out Palmer's autobiography; he did play on
a lot of great records & his solo. You might be
interested in UNDER A HOODOO MOON the autobiography of Dr.
John (who as a session musician played with Palmer on a
number of classic New Orleans R&B cuts)--it also has its
hardboiled moments as Dr. John recounts his life as petty
thief, pimp & junkie. Little Richard's autobio is also
worth reading, although not "hard-boiled" in the usual sense,
it is full of strange ancedotes like his threesome with Buddy
Holly backstage. There are some great jazz autobios out there
as well, Mezz Mezzrow & Charles Mingus come to
mind.
Max
Palmer in BAKCBEAT is gutter tough, very hardboiled
> but with a hint of natural grace.
>
> Who was Earl Palmer? Little Richard correctly said
he was the
> greatest session dummer of all time. Little Richard
should know
as
> Palmer practically invented the R&R backbeat
when he did "Tutti
> Frutti" and other hits. He was also the drummer on
Fats
> Domino's "I'm Walking", Richie Valens' "La Bamba",
Bobby
> Day's "Rockin' Robin", plus "You've Lost That
Loving
> Feeling", "Summertime Blues", "Deadman's Curve", and
a host of
other
> hits by Lloyd Price, Eddie Cochran, Bobby Darin,
Dizzy Gillespie,
> Count Basie, Sonny & Cher, Tom Waits, Elvis
Costello, Willie
Nelson,
> Ray Charles and too many others to name.
>
> Sitting in a session more recently with a group
called Cracker,
the
> lead asked Palmer if he needed to rehearse. "Nah, I
invented this
> shit."
>
> He also has a great hardboiled style, as witness
this paragraph
about
> growing up in New Orleans:
>
> "Round there it was protect yourself. You came up
hard. The
Treme
> (minus the accent mark my keyboard doesn't have) is
the ghetto;
the
> gangbangers and the drug dealers will rob you there.
It's not a
safe
> place to be! Back then it wasn't like it is now, but
it was
always
> tough. They had this chick named Ruth, she was known
to be a
tough
> chick around there. Stand up straight like a man and
fight you
with
> her fists. On Robertson between St.Phillip and
Urulines, Ruth and
> another woman fought with knives to the death. Women
were
crying. I
> was crying, because I knew Ruth. People begged them,
`Please
stop,
> y'all, please don't, y'all gonna kill each other.
Somebody please
> stop them!' Al Dennis tried to break it up, and Big
Red, big
light-
> complected guy. These were guys you'd expect could
just walk in
> there and stop it-couldn't get close. I saw the
other woman fall
> down for good, and Ruth kept on stabbing her. She
was dead by the
> time the ambulance came. Ruth was on her knees,
groggy, looked
like
> she didn't have the strength to fall over. Blood
running
everywhere
> in the dirt. We later heard Ruth died in the
hospital; she may
have
> died on the way there. The ambulance driver probably
took his
time,
> didn't give a shit how long it took two niggers to
kill each
other."
>
> Friends, if that isn't hardboiled, I don't know it
when I read
it.
> And all this from one reference to New Orleans that
awakened old
> memories and then a Google search on Peter Herman
plus New
Orleans!
> Heck, I am skipping the story of the burlesque star
Wild Cherry,
who
> danced in Herman's club or the discovery that the
fine, modern
noir
> writer Katherine Dunn is writing for boxing
magazines. But back
to
> Steve's post:
>
> > The only book of Kersh I ever read was Night
& The City, and I
had
> come to
> > the book through the magnificent J. Dassin film
(the best and
> meanest film
> > noir to my eyes) with brilliant performances of
Richard Widmark,
> Francis L.
> > Sullivan and Stanislaus Zbyszko as Gregorius
the Great, and the
> story of the
> > Polish wrestler/intellectual is worth reading
since it probably
> inspired a
> > lot of the Kersh
> > story...(
http://www.pwinsider.com/ViewArticle.asp?id=4243&p=1).
> Stanislaus
> > was inducted in the Wrestler¹s Hall of Fame in
2003 and I
learned
> about that
> > in a French film magazine!!...
> > I read in France as a younster the S鲩e Noire
version called
³Les
> Forbans
> > de la Nuit² (SN480), translated by S. Henry and
R. Amblard,
which
> I still
> > have, and about 20 years ago bought a copy of
the Dell Book
(#374)
> at a
> > second hand bookstore in a small town in
Michigan. This version
has
> a
> > picture from the film on the cover and a map of
Œunderworld
London¹
> on the
> > back with a complete list of the locations
mentioned in the
story
> such as
> > the Silver Fox Club or Fabian Promotions or
East & West Caf鮮..
> > I bought a cassette of the Dassin film on e-Bay
for about $5.00,
6
> months
> > ago since there are yet no DVD¹s of this
magnificent film. The
92
> version is
> > farce, and a sad reminder that a sometimes
interesting Producer
> should
> > remain on the phone and not behind the
camera...poor Jessica
Lange
> > participated (that¹s the best one can say in
that case) to this
> debacle
> > which has one redeeming value: the presence of
Eli Wallach....
> >
> > Steve Novak
> > le Montois de D鴲oit
> >
>
> I love the old Dell Mapbacks but have never seen
their edition of
> Kersh's NIGHT AND THE CITY. I also love the Serie
Noire series,
> most especially SN 1925, SN 1929 and SN
1933.
>
> Looking over the Kersh books I have handy I see
another novel not
> previously mentioned that has the hard edge. It is
THE DEAD LOOK
ON
> (Heinemann 1943) that describes in detail the Nazi
atrocities in
> Lidice. Here is the opening paragraph:
>
> "'As long as iron can take a point, watch your
backs!' Petz,
> clutching his cigar, stood in a ring of ashes. Dry,
hot-eyed and
> dark, with his charred eye-sockets and his clipped
grey hair and
> moustache which had the carbonized iridescence of
coke, he seemed
to
> have burnt himself out in the night. Even his voice
had a husky
> rasp, as of cinders. He said: `The trees grow
cudgels: wear
your
> helmets! String can strangle: mind your throats!
While there is
a
> roof for a stone to fall from, watch your step! As
long as men
have
> toes to creep on, sleep light! Beware of strange
women, shadowy
> doorways, and quiet streets. Dark nights are
dangerous: don't
walk
> alone!'"
>
> Ah, Mr. Kersh, I am a sucker for your stuff. And
Crippen & Landru
> has in print a collection by Kersh of his Karmesin
stories-
KARMESIN-
> THE WORLD'S GREATEST CRIMINAL OR MOST OUTRAGEOUS
LIAR edited and
with
> an introduction by Paul Duncan that I highly
recommend. While it
is
> not Kersh at his most serious, it is Kersh being
quite
entertaining.
> Kersh was a master at the framed tale and as with so
many others,
in
> the Karmesin stories Kersh himself provides the
frame as the
writer
> who stumbles across the person with a story to
relate.
>
> Kersh himself considered his best novel to be 1957's
FOWLER'S END
> (Simon & Schuster), which alas I have not read.
I have owned a
copy
> for years, and even picked up a second copy because
it was
> autographed, but it hasn't yet made my reading
schedule. Ranked
> before it on my "to-be-read" list is Kersh's THE
IMPLACABLE HUNTER
> (Heinemann 1961) a novel about St. Paul.
>
> There is much by Kersh I do not have, most never
published in the
> U.S. such as the collection with the great title THE
UGLY FACE OF
> LOVE and a novel entitled A LONG COOL DAY IN
HELL.
>
> How can books with titles like that not be great
reads!
>
> Richard Moore
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 02 Feb 2005 EST