Spirits in the Sky - The Day the Music Came Alive - Buddy Holly born September 7, 1936

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If  February 3, 1959 was the day the music died when Buddy Holly was killed in a plane crash in Iowa, the September 7, 1936 was when the music came alive at his birth.  What a decade preceded the birth of Buddy Holly, especially when it came to American icons.

Marilyn Monroe was born June 1, 1926, James Dean February 8, 1931, Elvis Presley January 8, 1935 and Buddy Holly September 7, 1936.  All would grow to dominate the entertainment industry and all would die way too early in life.  There respective ages were Buddy Holly 23, James dean 24, Marilyn Monroe 36 and Elvis 42.

Buddy Holly was popular for all of two years while alive, 1957 - 1959 and during that time he created a remarkable body of work so extensive that new Buddy Holly albums were released until ten years after his death, in 1969.

Among entertainers citing Buddy Holly as a major influence on their careers were the Beatles, Elvis Costello, the Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan.  Rolling Stone magazine ranked Buddy number 13 on its list of the 100 greatest artists of all time.  He was one of few white entertainers to ever appear at the Apollo Theater in New York City performing shows August 16-22, 1957.

In perhaps an indication of his awareness that he had little time on Earth not only did he stockpile a wealth of recordings but he met his wife to be, Maria Elena Santiago in NYC and proposed on the first date, married her two months later, and died six months later.  She had just discovered she was pregnant and canceled touring with him.  Within 24 hours of hearing of his fatal plane crash on the news she had a miscarriage and lost their child.

Buddy, parents & Maria Elena

The following is an article written by Alan Hanson comparing the careers of Buddy Holly and Elvis Presley.

Buddy Holly and Elvis Presley Comparisons

by Alan Hanson

“Buddy Holly could have been a country singer, or pop crooner, could have and probably would have fitted his talent to whatever music was happening when he came along. It happened to be rock ’n ’roll. But it only fully became rock ’n’ roll the day Buddy Holly started singing it.” —Paul Williams in his book, “Rock ’n’ Roll: The 100 Best Singles”.

Elvis center Buddy far right

Paul Williams may have been over stating things a bit, but Buddy Holly certainly earned his currently accepted status as one of rock ’n’ roll’s founding fathers in the late fifties. In 1986, Buddy and Elvis Presley were both named charter members of the newly established Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The two men had many other things in common. Both were born in the deep south and raised in poverty. Early contact with country music and rhythm and blues stimulated their youthful, creative musical spirits. There were obvious differences, as well. Buddy looked like the typical boy next door, while Elvis’s smoldering looks oozed sexiness. Holly was an accomplished guitar player and songwriter; Elvis was neither. On stage, Presley’s voice and energy were boundless, while Buddy depended more on instrumentation and his unique “hiccup” vocal style.

Elvis Presley was born on January 8, 1935, in Tupelo, Mississippi. Buddy Holly was born a year and a half later on September 7, 1936, in Lubbock, Texas. Coincidentally, the currently accepted definitive biographies of both men were published a year apart—Peter Guralnick’s Last Train to Memphis in 1994 and Ellis Amburn’s Buddy Holly: A Biography in 1995. Most of the following references to Holly’s life and career come from the Amburn volume.

• Family backgrounds were important

Growing up in the late and post-Depression years, both Buddy and Elvis were “mama’s boys,” due to weak father figures. According to Amburn, “The situation would have far-reaching consequences for Buddy, who would make the mistake of relying on stronger personalities who were not always trustworthy.” Elvis had the same weakness, but fortunately for him the man in whom he put his trust, Colonel Parker, brought Elvis incredible fame and wealth, while Buddy’s manager held him back and stole a fortune from him.

An advantage that the young Buddy had that Elvis lacked was a trusted sibling. The youngest of four children, Buddy found in his eldest brother, Larry, a confidant he would cling to for the rest of his life.

When his other brother, Travis, came home from the war in 1945, he taught Buddy how play the guitar. Around the same time, about 900 miles to the east, Elvis Presley received a guitar for his eleventh birthday and began learning how to play it with help from his uncle and church pastor. A natural affinity for the instrument allowed Buddy’s guitar playing to progress at a rate that amazed his family.

Hank Williams, Sr., was Buddy’s first musical idol. According to Amburn, though, when Buddy first heard Fats Domino sing on the radio, he saw his future. “It was as if the heavens had opened,” Amburn explained. “But it was more than just the music. From that moment on, Buddy identified closely with blacks.” Meanwhile, an adolescent Elvis was experiencing a similar epiphany in Memphis, to where his family had moved in 1948.

Although a year younger, Buddy Holly got started in professional music before Elvis. Around 1951, when Buddy was 15 years old, he started jamming with another Lubbock musician, Jack Neal. The two put together a country and western act and played live entertainment Saturday morning for youngsters at Lubbock movie theaters. In September 1953, “The Buddy and Jack Show” made its debut on KDAV radio. On November 10 that year, a station DJ recorded an acetate of the duo singing and playing. It was just a few months after Elvis had walked into Sam Phillips’s Memphis Recording Service to make an acetate of “My Happiness” and “That’s When Your Heartaches Begin.”

• Buddy the tortoise, Elvis the hare

As rock ’n’ roll became more prominent on the radio during Buddy’s senior year in high school, he and Jack began playing the new music at sock hops, store openings, and community shows. Meanwhile, things were happening much faster for Elvis in Memphis. By the time Buddy graduated from high school in 1955, Elvis already had four singles out on Sun Records and had worked the concert circuit across the south for a year and a half.

Everything changed for Buddy when Elvis came to Lubbock five different times in 1955. “What is certain beyond any doubt,” Amburn declared, “is that when Elvis Presley hit Lubbock in 1955, he transformed all the C&W pickers in Buddy’s circle into rockers. ‘Without Elvis,’ Buddy once said, ‘none of us could have made it.’ Though rock ’n’ roll had burst on the world of West Texas the previous year with Bill Haley’s ‘Shake, Rattle, and Roll,’ it was Elvis who whispered freedom into the ears of embattled Baptist boys like Buddy and unleashed a new generation of rockabillies.”

“Elvis changed Buddy,” singer Waylon Jennings, then another young West Texas musician, later told Elvis biographer Peter Guralnick. “It was the beginning of kids really starting to think for themselves, figuring things out, realizing things that they would never even have thought of before.”

Buddy’s brother Larry remembers when Elvis was late for one of his early 1955 appearances at Lubbock’s Fair Park Coliseum. “In Elvis’ absence, Buddy and his front band blew the roof off the coliseum, playing until Elvis came on,” Amburn reported. “Many people in the audience preferred Buddy to Elvis, Larry proudly recalled, although Buddy was still a beginner.”

On October 15, 1955, Elvis appeared at two venues in Lubbock. After finishing up at the coliseum, he gave another show at the Cotton Club, the city’s major dance hall. “We opened for Elvis,” recalled Sonny Curtis. “Bales of cotton were stacked around the stage to protect him from the audience. The most beautiful girls in Lubbock were trying to climb the bales to get at him. That’s what impressed us as much as his music. We’d been hillbillies but after the Cotton Club we were rockers like Elvis.”

• Buddy Holly knew Elvis “quite well”

The extent of Buddy’s personal relationship with Elvis in 1955 is unclear. “Buddy and Elvis got along pretty good,” Larry claimed. “When Elvis came to town, Buddy found him a girl. She was not anyone you’d find on this side of town.” As for Buddy, during his Australian tour in 1958, he told a DJ that he’d once known Elvis “quite well.”

Back in Lubbock in 1955, though, Elvis was clearly Buddy Holly’s idol. Buddy even made a leather guitar case for his J-45 that matched the one Elvis used to carry his Martin D-28. “I Forgot to Remember to Forget,” Elvis’s Sun record that topped Billboard’s C&W chart in late 1955, was Buddy’s favorite Presley song. Late in the year, Buddy and his band performed on "The Big D Jamboree," Dallas’s Saturday night country and western radio show. Sid King, another musician on the show that night, described Buddy as “virtually a carbon copy of Elvis.”

According to Amburn, in 1955 there was another Lubbock visitor who would play an important role in the careers of both Elvis Presley and Buddy Holly. Colonel Tom Parker came to town looking for a talent to manage. Amburn says that both Elvis and Buddy “intrigued” the Colonel, who decided to focus on Elvis. He thought enough of Buddy, though, to recommend him to Nashville talent agent Eddie Crandall.

That led to Buddy’s first big break in show business. When he and his band opened for Bill Haley and the Comets at Fair Park Coliseum in October 1955, Crandall was there to see Buddy. On December 2, Buddy signed an exclusive management contract with Crandall. That was less than two weeks after Elvis left Sun Records and signed a contract to record for RCA. Soon Crandall got Buddy a record deal with Decca.

As 1956 dawned, it looked like both singers’s dreams of fame and fortune were about to come true. Both Elvis and Buddy had January dates in Nashville for their first recording sessions for their new labels. While 1956 would turn out to be a spectacular breakout year for Elvis, for Buddy it was a year of failure and exploitation that would test his resolve to make it as a professional entertainer. In RCA’s Nashville studio on January 10, Elvis recorded “Heartbreak Hotel,” which would reach the top of Billboard’s pop chart in May, launching Presley’s fabulous run through the end of the decade. Meanwhile, Buddy’s Nashville Decca session on January 26 was a disaster that led to nowhere.

• Decca a little bit country, RCA a little bit rock ’n’ roll

Amburn explained how differing philosophies at RCA and Decca dictated totally different outcomes for the two young singers. “In the growing conflict between C&W and rock ’n’ roll … country music would be split down the middle, RCA and at least half of the C&W establishment fleeing to rockabilly … and the other half remaining straight country singers.” Some at RCA may have had their doubts, but they allowed Presley to do his thing. “At Decca,” noted Amburn, “Buddy’s mentors would prove less amenable to the new music; in fact, they hated rock ’n’ roll.”

The result was that instead of viewing Buddy as a potential new rockabilly star, Decca tried to force him into the existing country music model. The result was predictable. After Buddy’s first single, “Blue Days, Black Nights” and “Love Me” was released on April 16, it sold only 19,000 copies. “It’s a wonder the world ever again heard of Buddy Holly,” Amburn noted. Buddy’s second release for Decca also failed miserably, and at year’s end the label declined to renew his contract. As 1957 dawned, Buddy was penniless, his career no further along than it had been 12 months before.

The one positive thing Buddy took from his failed year at Decca was some experience with songwriting. For his January 1956 Nashville session, the label asked Buddy to show up with four original songs. One of the songs Buddy wrote and recorded for Decca, “That’ll Be the Day,” came off poorly and was never released by the label.

In January 1957, without a manager, a band, or a recording contract, Buddy returned to Lubbock and considered quitting the music business. Deciding to give it one more try, he formed another band and drove ninety miles northwest of Lubbock to record at Norman Petty’s recording studio in Clovis, New Mexico. There, on February 24, 1957, Holly’s life changed when he recorded a rocking version of “That’ll Be the Day.”

Petty took the acetate to Nashville and got Buddy a one-record contract on the Brunswick label. Amburn called Brunswick, “a kind of trash-basket label in which Decca dumped its undesirables.” “That’ll Be the Day” by the Crickets, the name of Buddy’s new band, was released nationally on May 27, 1957. It spent 22 weeks on Billboard’s Top 100 pop chart, peaking at #3. It reached that same number on Cash Box magazine’s list of “Best Selling Singles.” Buddy Holly had finally hit the big time.

• Buddy Holly's career took off in ’57

He had a lot of catching up to do, however. By the time “That’ll Be the Day” became Buddy’s first hit record, Elvis already had five #1 singles and eight gold records. Holly had two more of his own compositions lined up to follow his first hit—“Peggy Sue” and “Oh Boy,” both recorded at Clovis in July 1957. Both charted in the top 10 late in the year.

Suddenly, Buddy Holly was in great demand. With the Crickets, he appeared three times on American Bandstand and twice on The Ed Sullivan Show. At Christmas time in 1957 Buddy co-starred with Fats Domino, Jerry Lee Lewis, and the Everly Brothers on Holiday of Stars Twelve Days of Christmas Show in Times Square. As the new year began, Buddy Holly found himself Decca’s top recording artist.

Like Elvis had in 1956, Buddy Holly spent much of 1957 and 1958 on the road. Unlike Elvis, though, who headlined his own tours, tightly controlled by Colonel Parker, Buddy’s only option was to join the great rock ’n’ roll package tours, organized by promoters like Alan Freed and Dick Clark. “Planned and mounted like military campaigns, these all-star caravans swept across the country in buses,” Amburn explained, “playing as many as 70 cities in 80 nights.” Buddy toured the nation and Canada with other rock stars, such as Frankie Lymon, Gene Vincent, Paul Anka, Jerry Lee Lewis, Eddie Cochran, The Everly Brothers, Connie Francis, The Drifters, Chuck Berry, Buddy Knox, and Danny and the Juniors.

Although Buddy never met Elvis again after their 1955 encounters in Lubbock, their paths almost crossed again in Vancouver, B.C., in the fall of 1957, when both were out on tour. Elvis was there on August 31 for his controversial show at Empire Stadium. Buddy came through eight weeks later with a package tour booked into the Georgia Auditorium. Hall of Fame DJ Red Robinson interviewed both stars prior to their shows. Buddy expressed a longing for a break in the grueling rock ’n’ roll grind. “Enervated from singing his guts out in nightly rock shows,” Amburn explained, “he longed for a radical change in musical trends, confessing that he’d rather sing songs that didn’t require him to scream and shout.”

Elvis and Buddy both recorded their rock ’n’ roll versions of some R&B classics, including “Good Rockin’ Tonight,” “Ready Teddy,” “Shake, Rattle, and Roll,” and “Rip It Up.” Although Elvis never recorded a Buddy Holly song, Buddy recorded one of Elvis's from the soundtrack of his 1957 film, Jailhouse Rock. According to Waylon Jennings, Buddy’s version of “(You’re So Square) I Don’t Care” is the best example of the “Buddy Holly sound.”

The package tour format allowed Buddy to perform overseas, something Elvis often expressed a desire to do but never did. In January 1958, Buddy, along with Anka and Jerry Lee, flew out of New York for a tour in Australia. They stopped in Hawaii along the way, where Buddy performed a free show for military personnel at Schofield Barracks, the same venue where two months earlier Elvis had given his final concert of the 1950s. While in Australia, a DJ asked Buddy if Elvis was his favorite singer. “I guess he’s one of them,” Buddy responded. Soon after returning from Australia, Buddy and the Crickets left for England, arriving on March 1, 1958, for a twenty-five-day British tour.

• Rock ’n’ roll’s first wave played itself out

While Buddy was still in abroad, cracks were beginning to appear in his career and in rock ’n’ roll music in general. Buddy’s record sales began to decline. His single releases of “Maybe Baby” and “Rave On,” both considered early rock classics today, stalled at #18 and #37 respectively on the Top 100. “It’s So Easy,” another Holly classic, didn’t chart at all in 1958. Neither of Buddy’s albums reached the Top 40 on Billboard’s album chart. When Alan Freed’s forty-four-day “Big Beat” package tour, which included Buddy, ended with a riot in Boston, it galvanized the societal enemies of rock ’n’ roll to mount an all out war against it. Elvis was taken away by the army, and Jerry Lee Lewis’s career never recovered after it was revealed he had married his 14-year-old cousin.

The only good news for Buddy Holly in the latter half of 1958 was his marriage to Maria Elena Santiago in August. That fall, however, Buddy and his wife left Lubbock and moved to New York City. Buddy had fired his manager, but it was too late. Much of the money he had earned through record royalties and touring was gone, spent or tied up by the man Buddy had trusted to handle his financial affairs. (Reading Ellis Amburn’s account of how Norman Petty mismanaged Buddy Holly’s career should make all Elvis fans say, “Thank God for Colonel Parker.”)

In early 1959, Buddy Holly, with a pregnant wife and living off the generosity of his wife’s aunt, did something he didn’t want to do—he signed on for still another all-star package tour. The “Winter Dance Party” was to be a twenty-four-day meander across the upper mid-West in a converted school bus in the dead of winter. His death at age 22 in an Iowa cornfield plane crash on February 3, 1959, abruptly ended the brief yet brilliant career of Buddy Holly.

According to Peter Guralnick and Ernst Jorgensen in their book, Elvis: Day by Day, Elvis learned of Holly’s death at his army posting in Germany on February 5. The authors state that Colonel Parker’s assistant, Tom Diskin, sent a telegram of condolences to Holly’s family on Elvis’s behalf.

• Death brought fame to Buddy Holly

Recognition as one of rock ’n’ roll’s pioneers, denied him in life, came to Buddy in many forms in death. In addition to being charter members of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, both Holly’s and Presley’s images appeared on U.S. Postal stamps in 1993. Buddy had five entries—“That’ll Be the Day,” “Not Fade Away,” “Rave On,” “Peggy Sue,” and “Everyday”—on Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. (Elvis had 11 on the list.) “That’ll Be the Day” and “Peggy Sue” are on the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s list of songs that shaped rock ’n’ roll.

No Graceland exists for Buddy Holly pilgrims. His birthplace in Lubbock was demolished years ago, and in the 1990s, his family sold off their Buddy Holly keepsakes and memorabilia. In Lubbock there is the Buddy Holly Center, inside of which is The Buddy Holly Gallery, a permanent display featuring, according to the center’s web site, “Artifacts owned by the City of Lubbock, as well as other items that are on loan.” Included in the display are “Buddy Holly’s Fender Stratocaster, a songbook used by Holly and the Crickets, clothing, photographs, recording contracts, tour itineraries, Holly’s glasses, homework assignments, and report cards.”

Like Elvis’s fans, the Buddy Holly faithful honor their rock idol by gathering each year on the anniversary of his death. Starting in February 1979, on the twentieth anniversary of his death, the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa, where Buddy gave his final show on February 2, 1959, has hosted an annual Buddy Holly tribute weekend. The 2013 event is being expanded to four days to accommodate the ever-increasing number of rock ’n’ roll fans who attend. It’s not quite the same as the candle-light vigil at Graceland during Elvis Week, but those who are moved to do so can trek through the snow to a nearby cornfield where a marker memorializes the lonely spot where “the music died” back in 1959. | Alan Hanson (October 2012)

By Alan Hanson - The Elvis History Blog 

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Obamaville - August 27, 2014 - Secret Obama "End of Days" Strategy Leaked

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In yet another example of the porous condition of the Obama sinking Ship of State,  there has been another breach of security with the discovery of a top secret strategy for the remainder of the Obama presidency to divert the attention of the public, continue the intellectual constipation of the congress and hoodwink the lethargic news media while pursuing a new set of objectives before Obama's forced retirement in 2016.

Highlights of this top secret document by Obama Minister of Propaganda David Puff were found this morning on Twitter and include some of the following stunning revelations and a whole lot more unstunning things.  Ironically the Tweet was sent from the Twit Harry Reid website, Harry's Harangues, under the secret coding "End of Days".

In recognition of the fact Obama can never regain his popularity with the American public because you "can't fool all the people all the time", the Puff Master has concocted a new set of strategies to get what you want before it's too late, sort of a "bleed the beast" game plan.

The new Obama foreign policy doctrine - American Dwindlism - shall be pursued with vigor as it is the only policy initiative that worked in the eyes of the public.  Polling has shown that the gullible public will buy anything cloaked in the "more for less" strategy in which the less we do around the world the more we have to spend on our own special interests.

No one cares that millions are dying in Africa from wars and Ebola.  No one cares if women are slaves in terrorist states.  No one cares if Moslems kill Christians, Jews kill Moslems, Moslems kill Moslems, Jews are killed by Moslems, Russians kill Ukrainians, Ukrainians kill Russians, hip hoppers kill rappers, and cell phone radiation kills kids.

In fact, American funding of all our foreign enemies will end and Obama will no longer accept speaking engagements from any nation that has the audacity to ask us for handouts, and that does not have modern golf courses, although not necessarily in that order.

As for the home front here in the colonies, the Puffball has that all figured out as well.  The new Obama domestic policy is Selective Socialism Works Best, a new call to arms for all the Liberals who are bent out of shape by the bizarre Obama style of socialism.

Puffy encourages disenchanted liberals to pull up their skirts and focus on the possible like keep the news media attention on Gay Marriage so they don't look too close at failed health care.  Keep the attention on voting rights for illegal immigrants so the news media won't look too close at the collapsing education system.

There will be a new two-tiered wealth redistribution program 1.) from the Middle Class to the poor, 2.) from the Middle Class to the rich.

The new left motto is to be - Deconstruction rather than Resurrection - meaning I guess you have to die before you can be saved.

Other gems from the new Obama strategy include the Timothy Leary waiver of liability to any drug (pharmaceutical) corporation, selling legal or illegal drugs that are guaranteed to make people feel happy for as long as they remain under doctor's care, or induce forgetfulness on the addict that can be diagnosed as Alzheimer's disease thus making it eligible for lifetime medical assistance from Medicare.

Of course corrupt bankers, financial managers, home mortgage executives, auto industry executives, union bosses, lobbyists, politicians, Wall Streeters, MSNBC mouthpieces and Ivy League teachers and graduates still in good standing with the Obama Campaign Committee retain their shield of immunity until the end of the End of Days.

Finally, priority for White House party bookings will be given to any musical acts on the endangered species list that are threatened by bar fights, night club shoot outs, inflammatory lyrics, immoral actions or friendship with Justin Beiber or Miley Cyrus.  I mean if Obama saves all those billions in foreign policy flops some should go to the personal enjoyment and gratification of those card carrying members of the White House hood.                  

The Last American Icon - Marilyn Monroe - and the end of innocence in America

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Who Done It?  The Murder of Marilyn Monroe!

It was 53 years ago last week that Marilyn Monroe died, at age 36, one of the brightest stars of post-World War II America.  Ever since her shocking death, with the death certificate listing suicide as the probable cause of death, controversy has swirled over what really happened.  

Goodbye Norma Jean Elton John official video

You help solve the mystery of who killed the most famous Hollywood icon of the 20th Century.  When the world awakened on August 5, 1962, the most celebrated actress in Hollywood, Marilyn Monroe, was found dead in her home in California at the young age of 36.

It was the end of a tumultuous and meteoric rise from rags to riches for America's sweetheart and Hollywood icon whose name crossed paths with the rich, the powerful, the revered and the most sinister characters in the world.

The medical examiner quickly concluded she died of an overdose of prescription medicine but forensic evidence was insufficient to declare it a suicide so her death was labeled as "probable suicide".

The mishandling of the crime scene, the manipulation of evidence, the inconsistency or her actions prior to the death and the onslaught of media hype pushing the suicide theory by powerful forces triggered a firestorm of suspicion and doubt.

But a series of national and international events the next 15 months would bury her story in the avalanche of media coverage of the Cold War with the Soviets, the Kennedy administration war with the La Casa Nostra, the evolving Vietnam war and the Kennedy assassination.

  

For the past 52 years the American public has been brainwashed with stories of the addictions and depression of film legend Marilyn Monroe that led to her death by suicide.  She has been pictured as an insecure and fragile girl whose mother was sent to an insane asylum as Marilyn was bounced from foster home to foster home to orphanage.

In fact according to Marilyn she was sent to ten total places, foster homes and the orphanage, before she married a merchant marine when she turned 16 to avoid being sent back to the orphanage.  Because of her shuffling between homes she attended 6 different elementary schools in seven years.

But the vast majority of her experiences were good, she got along well with other children and often created games for her friends to play.  It was during this period she developed her desire to be a star and began to create the persona she believed she needed to be successful.

Her first marriage lasted about 4 years, 1942-1946, although her husband was  away during most of World War II.  She was working in an armament factory toward the end of the war when she was discovered at an assembly line by a photographer searching for the next pin up queen for the soldiers.

By 1946 Norma Jean first began using the name Marilyn Monroe when her popularity as a pin up queen got the notice of movie studios.  Marilyn had already begun singing and dancing lessons and had developed exceptional fitness and diet routines on her own, routines that would result in her being known as the most beautiful woman in the world.

At first it was her voice that got recognized although she did not get along with the movie tyrant Darryl Zanuck, head of 20th Century Fox, her studio most of her short career.  Many of her early film roles were uncredited, even when performing songs, a way the studio could avoid paying performance fees to actors.

Marilyn seemed to know what was expected of Hollywood stars in the golden age of film and she gave the studio what it wanted.  She quickly grew from a $125.00 a week extra to singing and then acting roles as she became more popular but as did most studios at the time, she was treated as a commodity.

In 1952 and 1953 her film roles pushed her to the top of the list in popularity but her studio handlers still insisted she play the dumb blond in comedies and though her films made more money than those of Elizabeth Taylor, Monroe was paid $100,000 per film compared to Taylor at $1 million per film.

Our next installment will review the actions the supposedly dumb blond pulled that turned the movie industry upside down and eventually would force the studios to give her challenging dramatic roles like she wanted along with a salary equal to Elizabeth Taylor.

While she would be known as Marilyn Monroe from the late 1940's on she did not have her name legally changed from Norma Jean Mortensen to Marilyn Monroe until 1956.

As for the mystery of her death, by 1953 she was already acquainted with several people on the list of suspects or collaborators whose connections to others on the list in the immediate future would result in her becoming a serious threat to their careers and would endanger her life.

Probable Suspects, Collaborators and Contributors

Frank Costello, Joseph Kennedy partner & New York mobster

Sam Giancana, Chicago, Miami & Los Angeles mob boss

Joseph Kennedy, patriarch of Kennedy family

John F. Kennedy, former president

Robert Kennedy, former attorney general

Peter Lawford, Kennedy in law

Arthur Miller, former husband to Marilyn

Santo Trafficante, Jr., Florida mob boss

Ralph Greenson, Marilyn psychiatrist

Eunice Murray, Marilyn housekeeper

Who do you think did it?
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Taylor Swift 2010 Prediction Comes True - Taylor moves to Pop

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January 6, 2010 I wrote the following article.  Country fans of Swift said it would never happen.  Today it did.  See second article on CMA and Taylor Swift.

Coltons Point Times
January 6, 2010

Taylor Swift carries Country Music industry but may soon be lost to Pop

Carrie Underwood - Yet Another Country Act Like Taylor Swift Lost to Pop?



Country music continued a decline in sales dropping 9% in 2009 although it was not because of Taylor Swift whose Fearless album was the top seller of the year in all categories of music and her millions of sales and sold out tours kept the country music industry from falling flat on it's face.



Like it or not Taylor Swift is a genuine pop star and her sweep of all kinds of awards this year have established that beyond a doubt. But she belongs in the pop world. Her lyrics, music, videos and appearances long ago left country music behind. More important, she made it with the sacrifice and help of her mother, not the production company from American Idol like Carrie Underwood, and all the while Taylor has carefully maintained creative control of her life while Carrie never had creative control.

In fact I was surprised Taylor Swift bought a condo in Nashville and not Los Angeles but with her wealth a second mansion in LA should be just around the corner. She should enjoy and take advantage of her position as the top selling female artist of all genres of music this year. To young Taylor Swift country was a stepping stone, not the end game.



Like a young Olivia Newton John, Taylor's transition from new country artist of the year to pop was lightning quick. As she solidifies her position in the pop world through her media savvy and television show appearances she will take along with her the millions of adoring fans who were new to country music this past year because they were not country fans in the first place but young teens who related to Swift and her saga of a teen's life.



She has a lot in common with her friend Miley Cyrus who is a wannabe fellow Disney protégé like Britney Spears, at least a Britney without all the hang ups, and also a young teen sensation. Country music is not their natural home, lifestyle or future.

Forget their roots, Hollywood has first claim on these rising stars with the combination of a far greater pop fan base, motion picture and television contracts, TV appearances and more money than Midas. It is a pretty irresistible lure for a teen queen and perhaps more so for someone later in their career. In truth they should capture the moment for such a moment may never come again in a lifetime. Celebrity worship in America is a very fickle and overwhelming occupational hazard.



Carrie Underwood is not Swift however. Urban backgrounds and leather outfits do not make one a pop star. Hers will be a more difficult path than that of her younger peers like Taylor and Miley. Underwood could have been a country queen but in the end I fear her country music career will suffer as she continues to push her way into the pop field. None of the ladies mentioned are pure country or even country pop and their fan base has not helped other artists sell records unless they happen to be touring with Taylor Swift.

Yet the country record labels will be betting their futures on finding the next Taylor Swift and more traditional country music will be pushed farther into the background with less opportunities for record deals and less opportunities for older, established artists. We will watch the next five years as country labels chase the dream of the next Taylor Swift and lightning doesn't strike that often. While pop songs and teen stars are pushed on the public the real country writers and artists will once again be shoved into the background with the door slammed shut rather than opened.

The handful of kings and queens of country will still rein supreme but the aspiring country songwriters and artists will have to adopt the pop genre to get a deal and make it on the concert tour. Once again country music seems to be self-destructing in the interest of maintaining formula songs and copycat acts.

Once upon a time country music encompassed a great range of styles and looks. Once upon a time country was the innovative genre in music and country fans embraced a wide diversity of styles and looks but once upon a time seems to be a thing of the past. In the world of today many great older acts will be pushed into early retirement by an industry whose obsession with the dollar will always trump their interest in preserving all that is good about country music.

As for Carrie Underwood, who could be a country artist, her handlers have demonstrated over and over again that the American Idol approach is the only one. How much do they understand the record buying public? Well they have captured some impressive pop sales from Idol but look at the enormous exposure it took to pull it off. Any aspiring artist given a television audience of 20-30 million week after week could sell records.



But do they always know what works? Simon Cowell is the genius behind American Idol and locks up the singers participating with his music company. He then works out deals with record labels to sell the records. Carrie Underwood and Kelly Clarkson are country singers who won American Idol and both are being pushed into the pop fields. Surprised? Don't be. Look at the demographic profile of American Idol, which the New York Times’s Bill Carter described as “a phenomenon built on new artists singing mainly middle-of-the-road pop songs of the ’60s and ’70s.”



Susan Boyle, the frumpy Scottish loser of the British version of American Idol, also controlled by Cowell, came within an eyelash of beating Taylor Swift out for the most album sales of 2009 with her new and first CD, I Dreamed a Dream, shooting past 3 million in sales the first month. Music companies thought it would not succeed because she mixed a variety of pop styles on it and it was primarily marketed as a real CD, the kind you had to buy in stores.

The same American Idol team produced Carrie Underwood's televised holiday special that I watched just before Christmas and it confirmed my belief that yet another young country music artist has been lost to the lurid lure of the pop world joining fellow rising star Taylor Swift.



The special was billed as a holiday feature but there was very little country or holiday in it as far as I could see. The producers chose to have Ms. Underwood start the show by forsaking all that is good about country and appearing in a skin tight leather outfit far more suited to a Las Vegas lounge than a family audience. Even her song, Casanova Cowboy, was far from a holiday offering.

It was the same when Underwood and two friends, all white, pimped the Black groups of the 1960's and sang songs like Leader of The Pack, Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow, and Be My Baby with Kristen Chenoweth and Christina Applegate.



Her pop arrangements along with several others was most certainly intended for the American Idol audience, not CMT, and though she did have Brad Paisley and Dolly Pardon appear, they were almost after thoughts to the pop feel and urban bawdiness projected throughout. They almost seemed uncomfortable being part of the show.

The sexy costumes, staging and songs were far from the country music I grew up listening to and watching, and were augmented by rather stupid skits about Jesus and gays which contributed nothing to the holiday season or Underwood reputation. If it were billed as anything but a family, holiday, country music special it would not matter.

Other skits made Carrie out to be an egotist which hardly seemed to be the Underwood I remembered. Clearly the American Idol crowd who controlled the special and control Underwood have no clue about the value of traditional American music during the holiday season. More clearly, they are trapped in their own egos and developed a script for Underwood that made her seem like a juvenile jerk.

Anyway, it was symptomatic of the perilous future for the country music industry. It was almost as if she was reaching far beyond her comfort zone to try and establish her standing in the Taylor Swift world of pop music, as if saying I belong there and I was first. It hardly seems like the Underwood of the past but it is consistent with the American Idol money machine.

Taylor Swift found her own way to the world of pop with her independence, charisma and hard work. No multi-million audiences every week on American Idol. Carrie Underwood had the audiences and sold out to the show producers and now is being pushed out of country into the more profitable pop world. Time will tell if it is a smart move.

Country music in general, and aspiring country writers and artists in particular will be the ones to really suffer.  They have no where else to go until the Internet takes over the future direction of the country music industry from the ditto record labels.

Article today....

August 20, 2014

Country Music Association Says Goodbye to Taylor Swift

By Antoinette Bueno 22 hours ago

Taylor Swift and The Country Music Association break up.

It was nice knowing you?

When Taylor Swift made it very clear in her Yahoo Live stream Monday that despite her country roots, her fifth album 1989 is her "first documented, official pop album," The Country Music Association responded shortly after with a tweet of their own.

"Good luck on your new venture @taylorswift13! We've LOVED watching you grow! #TaylorSwiftYahoo," the tweet read.

Though presumably because some of her fans took the response as a not-so-subtle dig at the "22" singer, they have since deleted the tweet.

But those following Swift's career have had to see this coming -- the first single from her new album, "Shake It Off," is indeed unabashedly pop, which should come as no surprise given that its produced by Max Martin and Shellback, the team behind the 24-year-old’s other genre-crossing hits "We are Never Ever Getting Back Together" and "I Knew You Were Trouble."

Just last November, The Country Music Association presented Swift with its prestigious Pinnacle Award, given to an artist who has achieved worldwide success and recognition that's unique to country music.

Country legend Garth Brooks was the only other performer to ever win the award.

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