Paul Talbot unwraps 12-year-old Kurt Russell’s birthday gift, sex kitten Susan Oliver, ‘The Evil That Men Do,’ an uncooperative James Coburn shooting one of the greatest boxing movies, unfulfilled scripts, and Bronson’s haunting descent into Alzheimer’s
When not supervising Blu-ray commentary tracks for such action flicks as The Valachi Papers and Chino, two-time Charles Bronson biographer Paul Talbot found the time to grapple with the bullshit-eschewing Death Wish architect’s early sagebrush sojourns Empire and The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters. That kindled a page-turning romp through other infrequently examined facets of Bronson’s 50-year career on a Tinseltown marquee. Ride back to the past chapter of the interview [“Scholar Paul Talbot Chronicles Badass Action Hero Charles Bronson”] if you’re just joining the rodeo.
“Do You Believe This Town” was Roy Clark’s overlooked July 1968 social commentary on covert rural prejudice, recorded several months before Jeannie C. Riley’s much-ballyhooed “Harper Valley P.T.A.” A nameless pastoral community is not as it seems. Town pillars, from the mayor to the chief of police, are knee-deep in hypocrisy. The church deacon “preaches brotherly love every Sunday, and forecloses loans on widows’ homes every Monday.” The final verse is even more scathing — “Do you believe they burned a house down yesterday…if the folks who lived there had a-known their place, they could still be hangin’ around.” The…
Inducted into the Grand Ole Opry in 2020, the “Fourteen Carat Mind” country emperor plainspokenly probes stage fright, tough crowds, lucky charms, sycophants, guitars, COVID-19, and his looming 35th studio album, tentatively titled “Outside the Box.”
The Gene Watson Interview, Part One
You’re a natural entertainer, but does stage fright ever rear its head?
It’s not a problem for me. Way down deep inside I’ve always been a people’s person. The audience makes up so much of my show. I go onstage and be myself. I never plan out a show or what song will be next. I always play it straight off the cuff and take note of whatever vein the crowd’s in. We try our best to do what the people wanna hear, and it usually works pretty good.
Was that always the case?
You do have to go through…
The death of Jimmie Rodgers at age 87 from kidney disease and COVID-19 complications on Jan. 18, 2021, prompted a deep dive into his discography. Between 1957 and 1967, the Camas, Washington-raised artist accumulated 14 Top 40 Billboard singles such as “Honeycomb” [No. 1], “Kisses Sweeter Than Wine” [No. 7], “Oh-Oh, I’m Falling In Love Again” [No. 7], “Secretly” [No. 3], “Are You Really Mine?” [No. 10], and “Bimbombey” [No. 11]. Rodgers’ composition “It’s Over” [No. …
Deconstructing The Rat Pack: Joey, The Mob, and the Summit biographers Richard A. Lertzman and Lon Davis exclusively strip back deadpan Jewish comic Joey Bishop’s rendezvous with Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis, Johnny Carson, the Three Stooges, John Wayne, and unexpected mistress Nora Garibotti. Son of a gun!
The Lon Davis Interview
Who developed the proposal for Deconstructing the Rat Pack?
The book was Rick Lertzman’s idea, and he knew Joey Bishop personally. Sadly, I never met Joey. At the time he considered writing it, Bishop was the last man standing from the Rat Pack [1918–2007]. Rick’s idea was to do a book about the…
Saddle up, pilgrims! The INSP cable network augmented 2020’s quarantine Christmas with a marathon sampling nine of John Wayne’s best Westerns distributed between 1944 and 1972. Within an astounding 167-film canon, the American institution appeared somewhere in the neighborhood of 87 Westerns in his workaholic 50-year career on the silver screen.
Affectionately known as the Duke by his army of aficionados, the late action star’s cultural impact is still felt over three decades after his death from the ravages of stomach cancer. Believe it or not, Wayne regularly places in the Top Five on the annual Harris Poll of America’s…
A chronological, complete list of the enigmatic Southern Gothic siren’s 46 compositions recorded between 1967 and 1977
Forty-six Bobbie Gentry compositions have been issued, principally from her 1967–1971 stretch on Capitol Records. From the three million-selling “Ode to Billie Joe” to the dark horse, funky country of “Fancy,” the Mississippi-raised chanteuse’s legacy continues to proliferate. The Girl from Chickasaw County box set [2018] is approaching 15,000 units purchased with an asking price of $80. Two years later the two-CD Delta Sweete deluxe edition sold out its first pressing of 5,000 in 24 hours. The Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame also inducted Gentry in 2020. Never before has a chronological Gentry songwriting list with accompanying albums, A-side /…
In 1972 Miller’s Hardware unfastened its doors at 701 East Marion Avenue, indelibly impacting Berrien County’s economy for the subsequent 47 years. Former owner Roy Miller and wife-office manager Bonnie hosted a genuinely international Thanksgiving summit inside their conspicuously flat-roofed, French-designed home about a mile and a half northeast of Nashville, Georgia. Including daughters Angela [Vernon] Chambless and Amanda Miller and grandkids Colbie Spann and Finley Grace Miller, six, count ’em six, countries were compassionately acknowledged in this pointedly divided era.
Colbie, a 24-year-old chestnut-haired, spring 2020 Valdosta State University alumna, recently charted a new southbound course when she planted…
Sandra B. Tooze’s third tome is the engaging Levon: From Down in the Delta to the Birth of The Band and Beyond. So far it’s the sole biography of the cash-strapped sharecropper’s kid from Turkey Scratch, Arkansas, who established rockabilly roots in Toronto upon high school graduation, backed Bob Dylan when he abandoned acoustic folk, and served as the groundbreaking Americana quintet’s quadruple threat of a signature tenor vocalist, groove-laying drummer, mandolinist, and inspiration to songwriting architect Robbie Robertson. …
Flanking the northeast side of the Alapaha River at Sheboggy — a mile and a half east of Alapaha, Georgia — a small-scale creosote plant owned by Bertie Moore once existed post-World War II until about 1957. Derived from the distillation of black tar from coal or wood — beech trees are a common source in the eastern United States — creosote is a dirty, thick preservative found on railroad cross ties and wood fence posts. It has since been prohibited for residential use as carcinogens can be leeched into groundwater.
At Sheboggy drawing knifes were used to peel pine…
Jeremy Roberts
Retro pop culture interviews & lovin’ someone fierce sustain this University of Georgia Master of Agricultural Leadership alum. Email: jeremylr@windstream.net
