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April 3, 2002
Robert Fisk
The Siege of Bethlehem
Alexander
Cockburn
The
Sins of the Church
April 2, 2002
Uri Avnery
Murdering Arafat?
Jeff Chang
Is
Protest Music Dead?
Lev Grinberg
Israel's State Terrorism
Norman
Madarasz
Bullying
Brazil
Robert Fisk
Farce and Terror
in Ramallah
Steve
Perry
Let's
Roll! ®:
The Marketing of Lisa Beamer
April 1, 2002
Stanton / Madsen
America's War Inc.
Rep. Dennis
Kucinich
Peace
and Nuclear Disarmament: a Call to Action
Bahour / Dahan
Bloodshed in Palestine:
A Way Out
Molly
Secours
Tennessee's
Kangaroo Court
Phyllis Pollack
The Making of Exile
on Main Street
Dave Marsh
DeskScan:
This Week's
Top 10 CDs
Francis Boyle
The Big Lie:
Palestine, Palestinians
and International Law
March 31, 2002
Jordan
Flaherty
Last
Night the Israeli
Military Tried to Kill Me
Kristen Schurr
Live from Bethlehem
Maha Sbitani
The
Israeli Army Took Over My House
Robert Fisk
Lies Leaders Tell When
They Want to Go to War
March 24/30, 2002
Alexander Cockburn
The Year
of the Yellow Notepad:
Plagiarism and History
Rep. Ron Paul
Slavery and the Draft
Fidel
Castro
A
Better World is Possible
Edward Said
What Price Oslo?
José
Saramago
Justice
and Democracy Denied
Azmi Bishara
Talking to Tanks
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Clearcutting
Montana
Alexander Cockburn
50 Years of James Bond
Wilhelm
Reich
Gethsemane
Claud Cockburn
The Horror of It All
Dave Marsh
What's
Playing at My Houe
David Vest
Remembering Tammy Wynette
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Waylon
Jennings:
an Honest Outlaw
March 23, 2002
Mokhiber/Weissman
A
Corporate Lawyer
Speaks Out
Saeed Vaseghi
The US and Iran's Quest
for Democracy
Brian
J. Foley
Does
Pedophilia Scandal Spell an Opportunity for Catholics?
Sheperd Bliss
American Soul and Empire
James
Packard Winkler
Occupation
and Terror:
Politics from a Gun Barrel
M. Shahid Alam
A New International Division
of Labor
T.W. Croft
Enron's
Attack on Our
Economic Security
March 22, 2002
Robert Jensen
Corporate Power is a
Threat to Democracy
Tommy
Ates
The
Future of Black Academia
Rep. Ron Paul
Why are We in Ukraine?
March 21, 2002
McQuinn,
Munson, & Wheeler
Stars
and Stripes:
Killing for the Flag?
John Chuckman
How Change is Wrought
David
Vest
Hail
to the Chaff
March 20, 2002
Kay Lee
Censorship at Angelfire
Robert
Jensen
The
Politics of Pain
and Pleasure
Sheperd Bliss
Notes from Hawai'i:
Trouble in Paradise
Rick Giambetti
Prozac
and Suicide:
an Interview with
Dr. David Healy
Philip Farruggio
Bullies
Lori Allen
Live
from Ramallah:
The Madness of Occupation
Resources:
100s of Links
About 9/11
CounterPunch:
Complete
Coverage of 9/11 and Its Aftermath
Five
Days That
Shook The World:
Seattle and Beyond
By Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
Photos by Allan Sekula
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Published March 1, 2002
Read Whiteout and Find Out
How the CIA's Backing of the Mujahideen Created the World's Most
Robust Heroin Market and Helped to Finance the Rise of the Taliban
and Osama bin Laden
Whiteout:
CIA, Drugs & the
Press
by Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The New Crusade:
America's War on Terrorism
By Rahul Mahajan
The Memphis Blues Again:
Six Decades of Memphis Music Photographs
Photos by Ernest Withers
Text by Daniel Wolff
The New Intifada:
Resisting Israel's Apartheid
Edited by Roane Carey
A Pocket Guide to
Environmental Bad Guys
by James Ridgeway
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The
Phoenix Program
by Douglas Valentine
Al Gore:
A User's Manual
by Cockburn
and St. Clair
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This Explosive
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Reviews of Gore:
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April 3, 2002
Sting of Stings?
By David Vest
This is the story as I watched it unfold, and
as those who could get into rooms I couldn't enter shared it
with me. Most of it I know to be true, the rest I have on good
authority.
The year was about 1965. It was the biggest
country music show to hit Birmingham in many years. As a matter
of fact, it was so big it made no sense. All over town, music
professionals were shaking their heads. Even if he sold out the
Municipal Auditorium, filling every seat, how was the promoter,
a man named Larry Sunbrock, planning to cover his expenses and
pay all the high-priced talent he had booked?
Surely Sunbrock knew what he was doing.
He had been a successful promoter at least since the 1930s, when
he used to stage wildly popular fiddling contests.
But if you did the math, multiplied the
ticket price ($3 or $4) by the number of seats in the old Albert
Boutwell Municipal Auditorium (well under 5,000), you couldn't
see how Sunbrock was going to break even, much less make a profit.
The legendary Red Foley topped the bill.
Then came Sonny James, followed by The Wilburn Brothers (Teddy
and Doyle) and young Hank Williams, Jr., plus a busload of veteran
Nashville musicians including Don Helms on pedal steel guitar,
and a special appearance by the reigning Miss World.
As if this weren't enough, local musicians'
union rules required Sunbrock to hire a local back-up band on
top of everything else. The best-known local outfit was the Country
Boy Eddie Show Band, which featured Wynette Byrd (later known
as Tammy Wynette) on vocals and yours truly on piano.
The show had everything but fire-eaters,
so Country Boy Eddie brought one along.
The thing to consider is that in those
days any one of these major acts might have filled the hall unaided.
Red Foley, famous for songs like "Smoke on the Water,"
"This Old House" and "Old Shep," was something
like the Bing Crosby of country music, not to mention Pat Boone's
father-in-law. Sonny James was a local favorite and major crossover
artist with a string of pop hits. The Wilburn Brothers had their
own syndicated television show out of Nashville. Hank Williams,
Jr. was only 14 or 15 but had his first hit record on the charts
("Long Gone Lonesome Blues") plus his famous father's
name and his mother's road managing skills (yes, Audrey Williams
was on the show, too).
No doubt about it, Birmingham was excited.
Country Boy Eddie had Sunbrock on his program all week, giving
him free air time for promotion. Homer Milam gave him the run
of his recording studio to tape radio spots, feeling it was good
for business just to be associated with an event of this magnitude.
Milam later said that Sunbrock ran up a sizable long distance
bill on the studio phone.
As the Country Boy Eddie band took the
stage, just before the curtain opened, Hank Williams, Jr. appeared
at the piano with a guitar and said, "Gimme an E."
I had barely played the note for him when his mother appeared,
glaring at me and telling Hank, Jr., "Don't be talking to
him!" as she pulled him away. I have no idea what that was
about. I asked Red Foley about it and he said she was keeping
the boy on a tight leash and not letting him out of her sight.
The people in the audience probably had
no idea that the opening act included someone who would become
one of the greatest stars in country music history. The artist
not yet known as Tammy Wynette sang her number and joined in
background vocals. It was a strange assembly. The band included
Whitey Puckett, an Albino clarinet player (not every country
and western act had one of those); Butterbean Flippo, who painted
speckles on his face with a magic marker and played electric
bass; Johnny Gore, a lady's man who played hot electric guitar
but tended to solo all the way through every song; Mickey, the
fire-eater; Mason "Tex" Dixon, Lee Hood and Bill Compton
on acoustic guitars; a steel player whose name I don't recall;
me on piano; and Country Boy Eddie on fiddle and spontaneous
(and highly realistic) mule noises.
We played our tunes and got offstage,
returning later to help back up The Wilburns and Red Foley. At
one point Miss World came out and I was asked to dance with her
while the band played "The Twist."
I walked out into the audience to watch
Hank, Jr. Everyone in the business had been talking about him.
In those days he sang nothing but his father's material, but
he was damned effective in doing it. You could feel the goosebumps
rising in the crowd. Hank, Sr. had been dead only about 13 or
14 years, and many of the audience had seen him perform.
Shortly before Red Foley was to go on,
there was a commotion backstage. A stretcher appeared, and the
promoter, Sunbrock, was on it. Someone whispered that he had
suffered a heart attack. I got close enough to see that his usually
pink skin was pale. There was a white line around his mouth.
Red Foley leaned over to him and said,
"Larry, this is awful. I'm so sorry. Obviously we'll send
everyone home right now and attend to you."
"No," said Sunbrock, "no,
never mind me." And, painfully trying to lift himself, he
said, "the show must go on."
"I can't go out there now, under
these conditions," said Foley. "I couldn't live with
myself, and you like this."
"Please, Red," said the man
on the stretcher. "Please. For me."
"All right, Larry, all right."
You could practically feel the lump in Foley's throat as he promised
the fallen promoter that he'd say nothing to the audience and
fulfill the commitment.
So we went back onstage and played "Chattanooga
Shoe Shine Boy" and "Old Shep" and the other favorites.
The crowd roared its approval.
Later someone came backstage and announced
that the gate receipts were missing. It was rumored that a satchel
of money had been carried out on the stretcher, under the sheet.
Calls were made. None of the local hospitals had admitted a Larry
Sunbrock. Someone claimed to have seen Sunbrock's assistant driving
the ambulance, heading out of town.
A few months later I visited Red Foley
in his office, in Nashville. He told me that none of the artists
had been paid for the Birmingham show. "I understand that
Sunbrock put on a rock and roll show the next night in Mississippi,"
he said. And a gospel show in Louisiana soon after.
I thought it best not to mention that,
unlike the famous people, and unlike Homer Milam, I had been
paid for my night's work. Musicians Local #256 had required the
money up front for the local players' services.
Whether it was the sting of stings or
just a bizarre misunderstanding, it was one hell of an experience.
David Vest
writes the Rebel Angel column for CounterPunch. He is a poet
and piano-player for the Pacific Northwest's hottest blues band,
The Cannonballs.
He can be reached at: davidvest@springmail.com
Visit his website at http://www.rebelangel.com
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