Donald Windham (with Paul Cadmus) & Sandy Campbell in PaJaMa photos of the early 1940’s.
I recently rediscovered this piece written by Windham for a 1988 issue of Christopher Street. I bought the magazine at a West Village newsstand back in the day, and it has remained in my possession all these years, proving yet again why I never throw anything away. Because you never know…
Back in 1987, Donald Windham had published Lost Friendships: A Memoir of Truman Capote, Tennessee Williams, and Others. This article was written the following year in response to the publication of Gerald Clarke’s 600+ page biography Capote, which Windham describes as “misguided.” Clarke’s book would later be adapted into the 2005 film, with Phillip Seymour Hoffman winning an Oscar for his portrayal of troubled Truman.
Note that the photos accompanying the article are credited to Sandy Campbell.
This photo appears in several places on the internet misidentifying Capote as Sandy Campbell with Donald Windham, Piazza San Marco (1948)
Capote with Sandy Campbell at the Kansas border, October 1964
Seven years after Blondie went on hiatus, “Debbie” become “Deborah” as she released her third solo album, Def Dumb and Blonde – an eclectic 15-track collection that most fans consider to be her best effort outside of the band. Although the album did not crack the US Billboard top 100, it reached the top 10 in the UK and other countries.
I got tickets to the November 11 show. This was the second of three sold out shows at the Lower East Side club. The guy I was seeing when the tickets went on sale was no longer in the picture by the time the show came around, so I ended up taking my older sister, Kari. She had been a Blondie fan a decade before – it was her cassette of Parallel Lines that we wore out.
We came up out of the F train at Houston Street and First Avenue and started heading east into Alphabet City, walking briskly past the homeless huddled around burning trashcans and assorted drug-induced shenanigans. Kari was holding onto my arm, talking a mile a minute – engrossed in a story that I hoped would keep her distracted for as long as possible. We were somewhere between Avenues A & B when she finally looked around, slowed a bit, gripped my arm tighter and said “Oh my god. Where are you taking me???”
“Almost there!” I said, although I wasn’t sure if we were.
I knew nothing about The World – a 16-and-over nightclub that payed little attention to underage drinking, a quaint complaint given the other activities that allegedly went on there. Housed in a crumbling former catering hall, it had that air of faded decadence prevalent in many East Village hangouts. It was as if the party continued on in the ruins of past generations…. clubs and galleries in the dilapidated haunts of German, Polish, and Ukranian immigrants, followed by another generation of hippies and poets, then punks and artists who had now come and gone. We were in the last months of the 1980’s and all that the decade had wrought was slipping into the past. But would Debbie, um, Deborah Harry?
There was an air of anticipation as to how this show would go: her first solo tour at age 44 – the same age as Tina Turner at the time of her Private Dancer success 5 years earlier. Given that Harry was back on her home turf – just a few blocks from CBGB’s – would she lean into her rock/punk roots? Surely this would not be a parade of greatest hits.
Still, it was a surprise when she quietly took to the stage along with her ever-present creative partner Chris Stein and opened her set with the jazzy Motown ballad “The Hunter Gets Captured By The Game.” This Marvelettes cover was the final song on Blondie’s 1982 LP The Hunter. It was an intriguing choice for an opening number, as if she & Stein were picking up right where Blondie left off.
And then the show shifted into gear: playing through a set heavy on Def Dumb & Blonde‘s edgier cuts while seamlessly mixing in Blondie album tracks like “Cautious Lip” & “Detroit 442”. The set wound down with “Brite Side,” her latest single which segued into a cover of The Velvet Underground’s “Waiting For The Man”.
For the encore, she took off her jacket and returned the stage in just a black bra. When presented with a bouquet of roses, she bit the head off of one and spit it back at the audience. She tore through a couple of conciliatory hits: “Call Me” & “One Way Or Another”, plus her minor solo hit “French Kissin’ In The USA”.
Here’s where memory gets tricky: I recall that she did a Ramones cover as her final song. In the years following this show, I saw The Go-Go’s and Kirsty MacColl both cover “I Wanna Be Sedated” as final encores at their concerts. Some mental wires got crossed and 30+ years later, I thought Harry sang it too. But thanks to the internet and her fanatic fans, I am reminded that the Ramones song she covered on this tour was “Pet Sematary,” the theme to the Stephen King movie that her old friends had released earlier that year.
Here’s a recording from The Roxy in LA on October 23, 1989 – two weeks prior to The World shows in NYC:
My sister had gone off during the encore to find a bathroom. Towards the end of this song, she reappeared, white as a ghost, saying “Ohmygod ohmygod you have to help me! I have to pee SO bad and there’s only ONE bathroom for everyone! NO STALLS. I asked someone if it was the ladies room and she said ‘Men, women… what’s the difference?’ ohmygod you have to help me!”
Downstairs in the bathroom, I stood with my back to her, holding my full-length wool coat open like some sort of reverse-flasher trying to block her from the view of everyone except the woman sitting on the toilet right next to her having a conversation with her friend. I was trying not to laugh too hard as my sister kept muttering behind me “ohmygod ohmygod unbelievable… men, women, what’s the difference… unbelievable….”
On our way out, I poked my head into the lounge, where futuristic electronic music played. I could only make out strange silhouettes in the dim colored lights of the smoky room. It seemed like a cross between the Creature Cantina and something out of The Jetsons.
Still got that t-shirt…
After a quick t-shirt purchase at the merch booth, we were back on the street. Kari was holding on to my arm as we headed down East Second Street. A panhandler approached and said “Now there’s an attractive couple!” My sister let out a sustained “Eeew” which I punctuated with “She’s my SISTER.”
“My apologies.” He responded quickly and moved on to the second half of his spiel as he walked alongside us. “I’m having a rough time right now. If you could reach down into your pockets and help me out with anything, anything at all, I would really appreciate it.”
Kari, absentmindedly reached down into her pocket and presented him with a matchbook. He was not amused.
We turned on to Avenue A as he stood there screaming after us “Fuck you bitch! Fuck you! I will fucking BURN you bitch!”
She didn’t seem to hear him. Shaking her head, she said, “Oh my god. That bathroom.”
It would be another year and a half before I relocated to the neighborhood. But The World ended just two weeks before I got there: On June 27, 1991 co-owner Steven Venizelos – described by the New York Times as “a corpulent man with a penchant for jewelry” – was found murdered on the balcony of the club. He was shot three times at close range. There were no signs of robbery and the case went unsolved. In keeping with the East Village trend, the building was demolished to make way for “luxury” apartments.
The Record, 6/29/91
And Debbie? She’s still going strong. As she sang in “I Want That Man,” Here comes the 21st Century… it’s gonna be much better for a girl like me… the reunited Blondie brought in the new millennium with “Maria,” a #1 hit in the UK. They were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2006.
Her latest collaboration is with The Dandy Warhols – “I Will Never Stop Loving You.”
Paul Cadmus & Jared French, Fire Island, PaJaMa (1940)
I have previously written about The PaJaMa collective’s Fire Island summers. They were frequently joined by fellow artists George Platt Lynes and Bernard Perlin, as well as a parade of friends and lovers, performers and literary types from their New York social scene. They were almost exclusively attractive young gay men who served as models and muses for the artists.
Back in 2018, I posted two collections of artist/photographer Don Herron’s Tub Shots, a series of images featuring the famous and near-famous posing in their bathtubs. This coincided with an exhibition of 65 photographs at the Daniel Cooney Gallery here in NYC. The blog posts (Pt. 1 and Pt. II) still garner a considerable amount of traffic, as well as a third collection posted 2 years ago. Now we have a fourth selection of the collection: a Christopher Street magazine feature from April, 1980 and recollections from the subjects.
The April, 1980 issue of Christopher Street, with football player David Kopay sharing the cover with a very nice Tom of Finland illustration.
Among those featured in the Christopher Street layout was artist Mel Odom, who shared memories of the experience in Pt.1.
Ronald Chase is a San Francisco-based artist, photographer, educator, independent filmmaker and opera designer.
Demetrie Kabbaz (1944-2014) was a painter known for his highly stylized portraits of Marilyn Monroe and other iconics of pop culture.
The article mentions a 1981 exhibit at Jehu gallery in San Francisco. The tub shot of gallery owner Ron Jehu (1937-2007) is also included alongside actress Mink Stole and popular San Francisco DJ Sheila Rene (1939-1998).
Writer Felice Picano: “Don came to my duplex at 317 E 11th Street, now owned by Annie Leibovitz and he was a sweet man, so he climbed onto the back of the bathtub where he was cramped but also supported by two walls and he shot a bunch of photos.
“He then asked if I could recommend others to shoot, and I sent him to either George Stavrinos or to Victor Hugo (Halston’s lover). By the time Don was done, he had gotten a pretty full and accurate portrait of Bohemia In New York City in the period. And, as I wrote in my book Art & Sex in Greenwich Village, Don captured what was probably the last unified downtown NYC bohemian community.”
Peter Hujar (1934-1987) was a photographer primarily known for his portraiture. His photo is featured on the same page as fellow photographer Robert Mapplethorpe (1946-1989). Annie Leibovitz would later recall, “Peter and I shared a distaste for Robert. One of the reasons is that Peter thought Robert was silly, you know, which he was. And he thought that Robert copied him in certain ways, which of course he did.”
Belle de Jour was New York’s most notorious dominatrix in the 1970’s and 1980’s. She ran a successful commercial dungeon and a weekly S&M theatre in her midtown loft. Submissive men, suburban couples, and thrill seekers were known to fill the bleachers to watch Belle and her entourage perform.
Don Herron‘s own Tubshot can be seen in this ad for a 1982 gallery showing:
Sur Rodney Surrecounts his tub shot: “We used the bathroom of Cynthia Chiarulli’s loft for the photo shoot, which was styled by Suzan Silver, a jewelry maker who made her wares from mirrored plastics she purchased on Canal Street. She provided the lipstick and sprayed the sides of my hair silver.
“I used the photo for the cover of my first book of poems… I organized an exhibition of Donald’s prints at the Tribeca club Stilwende and also showcased Suzan’s jewelry. I also screened a new version of my TV talk show – the All New Sur Rodney Sur Show. Sometime after the event I produced a version of my talk show where I interviewed Holly Woodlawn in a bubble bath for a photo shoot with Donald in a television studio in Chelsea.”
Valery Oisteanu: “I remember being introduced to Don by Timothy Greenfield and Don was part of the East Village Arts scene. He was very friendly. I was writing a monthly column at that time in Cover Arts magazine called ‘The Wall Patrol’ about art galleries…. Don took a photo of me naked wearing a Mylar face mask and there are also butt plugs as a humorous prop.”
Colette Justine (aka Colette Lumiere) is a multi-media artist who is considered a pioneering street performance artist and “photographic tableau vivant.” She is also known for playing with male/female gender roles through different guises and personas.
Käthe Kruse, performer/artist: “I was staying with John Heys when he was photographed by Don. When we met in John’s apartment and he saw my hair, he asked to photograph me too. So after the shoot with John, I got off my clothes and laid down in the bathtub and he arranged my hair. Then he climbed up to the edges of the bathtub and started to photograph. He told me that he always takes the same number of photos (eighteen) and then he stopped. I love these kind of concepts. When I was back in Berlin I received one print and after all these years it is still hanging in my home. I love the photo and I am very happy and thankful to have been photographed by Don.”
Photographer/visual artist Christopher Makos (1980)
Stanton Weiss (1952-2022): “New York in the 1970’s was an unparalleled place. There was an edge to it and a feeling that anything could happen. I had a seemingly conservative job working for Dick Ridge, the renowned interior designer. The phone rang. ‘Stanton darling, it’s Pat. Don Herron wants to photograph me and I need to use Dick’s tub! My bathroom is being painted.’ Pat was Pat Loud, America’s first reality star of PBS’ An American Family. She is a stunning woman, and unlike other reality stars, she is the epitome of grace and style. She posed with calla lilies and then Don asked me if I would like to be photographed as well.”
Pat Loud (1926-2021): “I recall Don calling me to say he was doing a series of photographs of people in their bathtubs and would I pose for him. I told him I didn’t do bathtubs but he assured me that nudity was not his objective and I could use all the bubble bath I wanted…. I don’t know whose idea the calla lilies were that seem so dominant and strategically placed and yet so out of place for such a photo.”
Dick Ridge (1928-2021): “I received a phone call from Pat Loud, who asked me if I would pose along with other people of the moment for a picture in my bathtub. Having just returned from Southampton, I had a pretty good tan and decided ‘Why not?'”
Poet Michael Ratcliff, Performer/Fashion designer Katy K (Kattelman), Legendary nightlife performer Joey Arias.
Marcus Leatherdale (1952-2022) was a Canadian portrait photographer who was personally and professionally associated with Robert Mapplethorpe.
Michael Musto: “Don contacted me with the idea of photographing me in my bathtub. I thought that was a novel idea, especially since I usually took showers, not baths. He wanted the photo to express my eccentric side, so I wore the shower cap, shades and white lipstick. I found Don to be likeably quirky and creative. This was a time of horror because of the mounting epidemic, but it was also a time when LGBT culture, nightlife, and solidarity were on the rise. I used my Village Voice column as a venue for both anger and humor at the same time, while also expressing myself via fashion and nightlife antics. Don’s photo captured my multiple moods.”
The Winter, 2024 issue of Bindle Zine is out and once again my husband Tobias and I are delighted to be included in the collection of writers and artists, which you can find here. Toby’s artwork, “The Second Time You Die” is inside the front cover and he also contributed an illustration to accompany my essay, “General Slocum.”
The Second Time You Die by Toby Fox Ferrari
General Slocum
I was sitting at a table outside the Life Café when the self-appointed mayor of Avenue B waved his change cup towards Tompkins Square Park and said “It’s just beyond those trees – a pink marble monument, engraved on one side: In Memory Of Those Who Lost Their Lives In The Disaster To The Steamer General Slocum, June 15th, 1904– 1,100 or so lost – they never did get a total- burned on board or drowned in the East River. Women and children, mostly. The heart of this neighborhood, they said.
“You go ’round to the front of the monument where a boy and a girl look away from you – gazing back towards the river with faces obscured by design and a century of wear. Can’t hardly read it anymore but it says: They were Earth’s purest children, young and fair.
“Below that, a lion head spits water into the fountain with a stream that arcs over 100 years, as if to say ‘Here I bring you water to douse the fires in which your loved ones perished…this water, tamed of its currents that swept away your young. Here it flows in its simplest form as you reflect upon what has been lost.’
“But nobody reflects. ‘Cuz nobody remembers. That monument – erected so they would not be forgotten – has been forgotten.”
bin•dle(noun): a bundle of clothes or bedding, stereotypically carried on a stick by runaway children and transients
“We all wander through our lives, and we collect memories, possessions, and relationships. Bundle them all together, and you have yourself a bindle. Our zine represents a collection of writing and art and photography – a bindle of creativity that we send across America, a tramp in search of a mailbox.”
Hard to believe but it has been a year since the last Artist’s Muse profile – these are men who inspired and were subjects of 20th Century painters, photographers, and other artists. It was last January that we cast the spotlight on Jose “Pete” Martinez. Chuck Howard was profiled in September, 2022 and is currently being featured in George Platt Lynes photographs on exhibition at Childs Gallery in Boston. If you read our post and then take a look at their press release, you might surmise the primary source of their biographical material.
Our latest Artist’s Muse is William Weslow, a ballet dancer with an extraordinarily long career who was also a Broadway performer, artist, and masseur. He posed for George Platt Lynes’ camera during their brief relationship, and was later involved with choreographer Jerome Robbins. He posed nude for dance photographer Kenn Duncan when he was in his 50’s, looking as fit as in photos from 25 years earlier.
The Columbian, Vancouver, WA (6/7/44)
William Edward Weslow was born on March 20, 1925 in Seattle, Washington. His mother had been a Ziegfeld dancer, and he soon followed her lead. As a teen, Weslow studied with famed dance instructor Mary Ann Wells. His 1943 draft registration card lists him as a student at Broadway High School in Seattle. Later that year, he joined the Navy Coast Guard and was stationed in the Alaska.
Annie Get Your Gun (1946) Ethel Merman with Weslow on the right (Photo: Eileen Darby)
After his stint in the Navy, Weslow headed to New York to continue his ballet study. He joined the Ballet Theatre, but soon turned his attention to the Broadway stage. He was in the original Broadway casts of two Ethel Merman vehicles: Annie Get Your Gun and Call Me Madam, the latter choreographed by Jerome Robbins. Besides touring companies, he also appeared on Broadway in the original casts of The Girl In Pink Tights and Wonderful Town with Rosalind Russell.
Weslow photographed by George Platt Lynes (1951)
It was around 1951 that Weslow had his brief relationship with photographer George Platt Lynes. The affair was so fleeting that it did not garner a mention in Allen Ellenzweig’s recent Lynes biography. In David Leddick’s Intimate Companions, it is summed up in a single anecdote:
Dancer William Weslow, who had a transitory but more serious than usual romance with George Platt Lynes in the early 1950’s, evidently treated the photographer to the kind of temperament Platt Lynes had displayed to his admirers in the past. Dining at Platt Lynes’s apartment before a performance, Weslow had requested a steak because of the demanding dancing that was to be done that evening. Instead, Platt Lynes served him an elaborate veal dish, which the young dancer flung against the wall before leaving in search of a steak.
Lynes’s photographs of Weslow are also rare, due in part to the paper negative process that the photographer was experimenting with at the time. This cost-cutting technique gave the photos a quality that have been described as either “ethereal” or “muddy.”
When he wasn’t on stage, Weslow enjoyed painting and sketching, with an affinity for exotic birds, both real and imagined. His work garnered several gallery showings through the years.
Buffalo Courier Express (4/1/51) &New York Post Star (7/9/71)
New York Daily News(1/1/54)& (11/6/54)
Weslowwas a soloist at Radio City Music Hall, New York Daily News (6/20/56)
In 1955, he originated the role of Levi Stolzfuss in the Amish musical Plain and Fancy. After nearly 10 years in musicals, he felt the need for a change. When the show closed the following year, he rejoined the Ballet Theatre for a brief stint before settling in at the New York City Ballet for the rest of his dance career.
Like his relationship with Lynes, Weslow’s dalliance with choreographer Jerome Robbins was so fleeting that most biographers fail to mention it. It is worth noting as it caused friction between the two while they continued to work together. Weslow is not alone in saying that Robbins could be vindictive, manipulating his dancers because of personal grudges, often pitting them against each other.
Weslow also caught the eye of New York City Ballet Director Lincoln Kirstein. He rebuffed his advances, stating “I don’t find you attractive, Mr. Kirstein.” “Who asked you to find me attractive?” Kirstein snapped, “I was just asking you to come over to the house for a few drinks and stay over.”
Later, the two had a chance meeting at a gay bathhouse. Weslow greeted him loudly with “Why Lincoln, hello! Come here often?” The married Kirstein did not respond and left the establishment.
1963 Ad for New York City Ballet
1963: Weslow & Suki Schorer in Variations from Don Sebastian (photo: Martha Swope)
1964: Weslow & Sara Leland in La Valse (photo: Martha Swope)
1964: William Weslow & Carol Sumner are the dancers in the first of 4 Temperaments – NYCB filmed for Canadian Television
1965: New York City Ballet rehearsal for Don Quixote (l-r) Nicholas Magallanes, George Balanchine, Richard Rapp, Jillana, William Weslow (photo: Martha Swope)
Camden Courier Post, New Jersey (3/8/66)
1966: Weslow & Marnee Morris in A Midsummer Night’s Dream (photo: Martha Swope)
1967: Weslow & Leslie Ruchala in Don Quixote (photo: Martha Swope)
In the mid 1960’s, Weslow began cultivating a side career as a masseur, working on fellow ballet dancers including Alicia Alonso and Edward Villella, who credited Weslow’s massages with extending his career by several years. Weslow makes a brief appearance as his masseur in the 1968 documentary Man Who Dances: Edward Villella.
In 1972, Weslow was dismissed from the New York City Ballet. He was 47 years-old and had been with the company for 14 years. In the book I Remember Balanchine, he recounts Balanchine telling him, “You’re too old. You have to leave company. We only want young, pretty dancers here. Old dancers – you see, when they get old they should just go away and die. This is what they should do, die. Because you’re not pretty. No youth… Besides, dear, you’re not going to commit suicide, are you?”
He replied; “To please you, no, I wouldn’t, Mr. Balanchine.”
“And that was that,” Weslow writes; “He didn’t say ‘You have been a good dancer’ or anything. It was just ‘Go away. Go away.’ I was close to tears. It was a terrible blow because I adored the company.”
Weslow’s massage work helped him to keep a connection to the dance world while easing into the next phase of his life, as he became known as “masseur to the stars.”
1976: Weslow was 51 years old when he was photographed by Kenn Duncan
When former ballet dancer Anne Byrne (aka Mrs. Dustin Hoffman) was profiled in the New York Daily News, her masseur William Weslow was there to lend a hand or two. (1/22/78)
William Weslow (1997)
When interviewed later in life, a reporter recalled “He seemed to love Maria Tallchief and had a poster of her on the wall. He also had kind words for Allegra Kent. He could be quite sarcastic, compassionate, cranky and deeply moving remembering certain people and other things.”
Allegra Kent called him “the funniest comedian ever” while also noting his empathy for others. He could also be quite brutal in his assessment of those he had worked with. Of Kirstein he said, “There was cruelty in Lincoln.” Jerome Robbins, he told a biographer “should have been cut up in small pieces and burned in a microwave somewhere because he was so horrible to me.”
William Weslow (2000)
While photographing male nudes for his 2011 book Shades of Love, photographer Demitris Yeros recounts how a naked octogenarian William Weslow would repeatedly interrupt the photo shoot, arms waving to chase the pigeons from his veranda.
William Weslow passed away at age 87 on January 29, 2013 in New York City. He was remembered in a Dance Magazine article as “A flamboyant personality with a sassy comeback for any remark directed his way…. (he) was as colorful off stage as on.”
I know I am not alone when I say that I take comfort in the annual repetition of the holidays: revisiting holiday-themed music, films, television shows… and now internet posts. Dave Holmes’ account of Patti LaBelle’s disastrous performance at the 1996 National Christmas Tree lighting is worth an annual revisit. Trust me.
Not to get meta or anything, but the post you are currently reading has been reworked and updated each year since 2020.
While we’re mining the past and dusting off our chestnuts, here’s the intro to the 1999 holiday episode ofBri-Guy’s Media Surf, an NYC Public Access show that featured yours truly lip-synching a little Esquivel:
Whenever the song pops up on my holiday playlist, I still do this.
I find it interesting that we immerse ourselves in certain pop culture favorites for exactly 6 weeks of the year and then pack them up in mothballs with the ornaments until next year. I mean, Brenda Lee’s “Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree” is currently at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100. Burl Ives, Bobby Helms and Andy Williams are also in the top 10. Are any of them on your 4th of July playlist? They aren’t on mine.
Gabe Pressman (left) with Marilyn Monroe (1956)
I used to look forward to the annual Christmas Eve tradition on NBC New York’s evening news when reporter Gabe Pressman would read “Yes Virginia, There Is A Santa Claus.” I taped it in 2011, knowing that the tradition wouldn’t last forever. The self-described “little Jewish kid from the Bronx” was 87 years old at the time and continued to work at NBC until his death at age 93.
NBC New York reporter Gabe Pressman’s annual segment on Virginia O’Hanlon’s 1897 letter to the New York Sun Newspaper.
In keeping with this revisit, my other blog posts of Christmas past are back to haunt you like A Christmas Carol, Mr. Scrooge:
Copyright issues kept my 60 Degrees Girl Group Christmas playlist out of commission but now it’s back! I plan to post other episodes of my old radio show in the new year.
My Canine Christmas Tail is a true story about my dog Sunshine, a basset hound with an appetite for tinsel.
Have you watched Christmas In Connecticut yet this year? How about that delivery woman? This year I was able to update my 2019 post, identifying Daisy Bufford as the actress who played the unbilled role.
The original version of “¿Dónde Está Santa Claus?” is featured in “Llamacita,” this year’s Amazon Prime holiday commercial. Here’s a little backstory on the song & Augie Rios, who sang the original version.
Also – would you like to hear my Spotify holiday playlist?
Way back in 2002, when Limewire was a thing and people listened to music on silvery discs, I started creating Christmas CD mixes that I would mail out or give to people. These were received with a heartwarming combination of feigned delight, veiled indifference and deafening silence. None of these CDs had a pressing of more than 20 copies. I’d like to call them “much sought after” – but no, that’s not really the case, although every once in a while, someone really got into them and would ask for copies of other volumes.
And so, I’m offering this simple playlist…. for kids from 1 to 92. Unfortunately some of the tracks on these dozen CDs are not on Spotify, but I keep adding songs that would be on the current CD volume… if there was one. And now the playlist is over 17 hours of holiday tunes. I recommend listening on shuffle – there’s something to irritate everyone. Enjoy!
Here’s one more nugget to stuff in your stocking: This vid went viral in 2011. Choreographed and performed by Alex Karigan & Zac Hammer of the Amy Marshall Dance Company, it was filmed in one continuous take at the New 42nd St. Dance Studios. There’s something infectious about it: the joy, the corniness, the celebratory queerness of it all. It makes me want to dust off my jazz shoes. Once a year.
Back in the dinosaur days of VHS tapes, there were various companies that offered music video subscription services to commercial businesses. Every month a new videocassette with the latest music videos would arrive in the mail, just for viewing in their establishment. These tapes were not for sale to the general public.
One of the most popular companies in the U.S. and Canada was Telegenics, a New York-based operation that produced monthly tapes over an 11 year span, from 1983-1994. They offered a variety of music styles to choose from: Top 40, Progressive, Urban, and Pop Rock with some occasional specialty releases of 12″ Remix, Dance Classics, and Christmas, to name a few.
In the late 1990’s I used to buy these tapes in second hand stores and then later on eBay. In the days before YouTube, this was often the only way to see music videos that didn’t get airplay on MTV or VH1. I had my NYC public access show Bri-Guy’s Media Surf at that time and would air obscure music videos from artist like Kirsty MacColl, Alison Moyet and others that the music video channels paid little attention to.
Billboard (Jan 1988)
But the Madonna MegaMix was something else: A 7-song, 11 minute remix of hits up to the summer of 1988 when it was released. The medley features “La Isla Bonita,” “Who’s That Girl,” “Open Your Heart,” “Into The Groove,” “Papa Don’t Preach,” “Where’s The Party,” and “Dress You Up.”
“Where’s The Party” is of particular interest, as there was never a music video for this album track, but one is created here using clips from many of Madonna’s other music videos.
I aired the video on Media Surf a couple of times during the show’s 10-year run. In 2012, I digitized the clip and uploaded it to YouTube to share. It was immediately flagged for copyright infringement and blocked from viewing worldwide. Although it was not visible to the public, I left it uploaded to my channel and promptly did nothing with it for 11 years.
And now, as Madge has come around and is embracing her legacy with a 40th anniversary tour, YouTube (or Warner Music, or the lady herself) have decided to allow for such things to be viewed by the general public. Enjoy it while you can! It may be gone tomorrow.
I have always loved Christmas music. I tend to listen to older music all year round, but when it comes to sharing music with the general public, this is the only time of year when Brenda Lee is considered cool. To combat the 60’s holiday tracks that are over-covered and overplayed, I am always searching for more obscure holiday recordings by girl groups and female vocalists that are not on radio or Spotify playlists.
When I began hosting my internet radio show 60 Degrees with Brian Ferrari back in 2008, I started an annual tradition of putting together a holiday program full of female 60’s singers and girl groups interspersed with vintage commercials and sound clips from classic holiday movies and television shows. You can listen to the Halloween show here.
East Village Radio was a pirate radio station that went legit and switched to the internet, broadcasting from a storefront in New York’s Lower East Side. This first 60 Degrees holiday show debuted on December 22, 2008 and was repeated annually throughout the shows 5 year run. By 2012, the holiday programs had gained such a following that 60 Degrees was given an uninterrupted 16-hour marathon on Christmas Day.
At the beginning of Part 2 of this episode, I read a Christmas poem that I wrote about an incident from my childhood involving our tinsel-eating dog Sunshine, which has previously been posted here and also on The Good Men Project website. You can’t say I don’t recycle!
Other than my speedy vocal delivery (someone tell that guy to slow down) and some minor sound level issues, the show holds up pretty well. There are a few mis-statements that I wish I could fix:
I said that Maya Rudolph’s mother, the late great Minnie Riperton was not singing lead on The Gems tracks. But it turned out that she was.
I mis-pronounce the Meditation Singers as “The Mediation Singers” and would add that soul singer Laura Lee was a member of the group, having replaced Della Reese in the 1950’s.
Janice Orenstein is the singer on “There’s Always Tomorrow” from the Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer soundtrack.
Over the past year and a half, research has found me scanning through online databases of the many African-American newspapers of the 1920’s and 30’s. There I became familiar with Neeka Shaw, a glamorous and ultimately tragic showgirl who garnered considerable press coverage at the time. This was due in part to her pleasing promotional photos, which publishers found to be a welcome addition to their newspaper layouts, but also because the talented young Broadway performer was profiled as a “home town girl” in news outlets from Richmond to the Windy City.
Pittsbugh Courier, (2/23/29)
From the Pittsburgh Courier, 2/23/1929: Yes, our little youngster has left “we Quakerites” to enter the theatrical firmament, and if she is accorded the same favoritism which was manifested toward her during her school career, stardom will be hers in the not too remote future! For she is chock-full of all the winsome personality ever possessed by aspirants who “make good.” Already she is a “principal.”
Outside of these 90 year-old news stories, there was virtually no mention of the “clever and charming soubrette” who dazzled audiences from New York to Paris in the 1930’s.
Afro-American, (3/16/29)
Born in Richmond, Virginia on May 19, 1911 – the day after Haley’s Comet, her publicist would later point out – Neeka was the middle child of Wilton and Frances Shaw, who initially raised their family just outside of Philadelphia. When Neeka was in her early teens, the family moved to Chicago, where she graduated from Wendell Phillips High School at age 15. Neeka attended one year of college before directing her attention towards her burgeoning performance career. She headed to New York with a friend and soon garnered a contract with renowned producer Henry Creamer.
At 18 years old, Neeka made her Broadway debut in a Creamer production titled Deep Harlem, an “all negro musical comedy” that both opened and closed in the second week of January, 1929. Although reviews were poor, Billboard did praise her excellent dancing.
The following month she was on the road with another Creamer production: The Jazz Regiment, a musical revue that enjoyed an extended run at Philadelphia’s Gibson (Standard) Theater on South Street. The show moved on to Washington D.C. and Baltimore, where The Afro-American review of the show highlighted Neeka’s “feminine pulchritude” and noted that she danced and sang “with that abandon that has been the mark in trade of race musicals.”
Afro-American, (11/1/30)
Neeka’s exotic looks were attributed to a mixed lineage of African/Mexican/Native American ancestry. The Afro-American ran a brief anecdote highlighting Neeka’s ability to “pass” for a Spanish dancer while working in New York. She was also said to have inspired one of the main characters in Vera Caspery’s popular 1929 novel The White Girl, about a dancer of color who passes for white.
In December, 1929 Neeka was working in the Jungle Drums review at The Plantation Club, a private night spot that competed with The Cotton Club for the attention of wealthy New Yorkers eager to venture up to Harlem. This engagement led her back to Broadway in June of 1930, where she played Josephine Peppers in the musical comedy Change Your Luck. Reviews of the show were scathing although the performers were complemented for their efforts to overcome the lackluster material. The show closed after two weeks.
A reboot of Lew Leslie’s 1928 Broadway hit Blackbirds was Neeka’s next stop. The 1930 edition of this “all-colored revue” starred Ethel Waters and the vaudeville team of Buck and Bubbles. Neeka had two new Eubie Blake songs to introduce to the world: “Lucky To Me” and “Cabin Door.” After successful stints at The Majestic Theater in Brooklyn and The Lyric in Boston, Blackbirds landed at Broadway’s Royale Theater on October 22, 1930. While Ethel Waters received rave notices, reviews for the show itself were tepid. The show closed in December, with a regional tour booked through March of 1931. However, Neeka left the production in Philadelphia a few weeks later, following other headliners (including Buck and Bubbles). Mr. Lesley reportedly was not forthcoming with several weeks of back pay.
Richmond Planet, (12/13/30)
Neeka’s next employment was in Singin’ the Blues, another musical revue that played in Atlantic City and Brooklyn but failed to make it to Broadway.
The autumn of 1931 brought Fast and Furious, which would prove to be Neeka’s last Broadway credit.
A fellow named Floyd G. Snelson was pulling double (or triple) duty at this time: working as a New York-based columnist/theater critic for the Pittsburgh Courier. Elsewhere in the same newspaper, one can find an advertisement for his publicity agency, with Neeka Shaw listed as one of his clients.
He writes of Neeka in his September 26, 1931 “Broadway Bound” column: She is small in stature, weighs 110 pounds and has two lovely dimples in her cheeks. She is 21 years old and has as great a portion of the proverbial “IT” as any artist in the profession. She maintains an apartment at 80 St. Nicholas Avenue, where she resides with her mother.
Brooklyn Times Union, (9/16/31)
On the same page of the newspaper is Snelson’s review of Fast And Furious, titled “Not As Hot As Its Name.” His review spares Neeka, writing “The diminutive pretty brownskin baby-faced soubrette… gets off nicely with the hit song of the piece ‘Walking On Air’…”
Although this appears to be a conflict of interest for Snelson, his review is in line with those in other outlets. Billboard‘s coverage began; “It is this corner’s unpleasant duty to report that Fast and Furious… was neither of those things.” However Neeka is described as “delightfully charming.”
Another standout performance noted amongst the poor reviews was a young comedienne named Jackie Mabley, long before she had adopted her “Moms” persona.
Fast and Furious closed by the end of the week.
In a Billboard wrap-up of the year 1931, columnist Eugene Burr offers “good will and thank yous… to various players who, by excellent acting and sterling performances, have made a bit easier the entirely thankless task of play reviewing.” He offers thanks “to Neeka Shaw, a charming little tan-skin sprite who did what she could in Fast and Furious, a revue that completely failed to live up to its title.”
By that time, Neeka had been on the road for several months with Bill “Bojangles” Robinson’s Hot From Harlem revue. Neeka once again received special recognition, with a notice from Washington D.C.’s Howard Theater engagement stating “Neeka Shaw, demure tiny star of Harlem, was the big reason for the success of Bojangles’ show…”
1932 brought another middling revue, Harlem Scandals, which played the same Philadelphia/Atlantic City/Brooklyn circuit as her previous shows, but it did not transfer to Broadway. She was back with Bojangles’ Hot From Harlem review in the spring, but it had all been done before, and Neeka needed to make a change.
Pittsburgh Courier, (6/18/32)
On June 3rd, 1932 Neeka sailed for Paris on the Ile de France, where she was engaged for 10 weeks at the legendary café society nightclub Chez Bricktop. This booking was followed by an extended stint at the fashionable Chez Florence, a nighclub named for American jazz singer/dancer Florence Embry Jones.
Chez Bricktop in Paris (1932) Ada “Bricktop” Smith raises a glass on the right.
In a Chicago Defender feature that ran exactly one year after Neeka’s departure for Paris, reporter Edgar Wiggins took readers on a tour of “High Spots in Famous Montmartre”: “We shall cross to the opposite side of Rue Fontaine, now from Boudon’s cafe. Immediately we are in front of the Melody’s Bar, which in reality is the most popular night club in Monmartre. Dainty little Neeka Shaw, who has been entertaining there for the past three months, is still enjoying a wonderful success.”
Pittsburgh Courier, (7/15/33)
The following month, the Pittsburgh Courier reported that Neeka would be staying in Paris indefinitely and had sent for her mother Frances, older brother Wilton, and younger sister Theda to join her. In December she opened her own cabaret on Rue Pigalle called Hot Feet.
In his memoir Trumpet Story, Bill Coleman fondly recalls jamming at Hot Feet with resident pianist Freddie Johnson and trumpeter Arthur Briggs.
Hot Feet lasted just six months and the Shaw family then returned to the U.S. Neeka remained in Paris and would go on to charm audiences with an engagement at Le Grande Ecarte as well as return appearances at Melody’s Bar and Chez Florence.
In May of 1935, Neeka ventured to London to make her West End debut in the musical comedy Gay Deceivers with Charlotte Greenwood and Clair Luce. She garnered several favorable mentions, with The Stage noting that “Neeka Shaw makes Bedelia, a native girl, stand out prominently.”
Neeka closed out 1935 with a month-long engagement alongside Harry Watkins at Berlin’s Dschungel (Jungle) Bar. In a Chicago Defender column that does not age well, Edgar Wiggins writes “Despite all uncomplimentary rumors of the Nazi regime, both entertainers claim to have been treated wonderfully in the German capital and their entertainment highly appreciated.”
Unfortunately, little Neeka would not live to see how that story played out.
Back in Gay Paree, Neeka was cast as Kokolani in the premiere production of the operetta Au Soleil du Mexique (In The Mexican Sun). The show was a critical success and ran for 232 performances through September, 1936. She then returned to the U.S. for a three month trip to visit her family.
Upon her return to Paris, Neeka became “a great favorite at the (legendary cabaret) Boeuf-sur-le-Toit” as reported by Langston Hughes in The Afro-American.
The Afro-American, (3/12/1938)
On February 12, 1938, Billy Rowe’s Harlem Notebook reported “Neeka Shaw is in a serious condition in Europe. She’s suffering from T.B. and other ills which doctors report are too far gone to be cured.”
No other ailments were ever named – it is likely that the columnist was trying to be tactful, given the stigma that tuberculosis still carried at the time. The Chicago Defender would later report that “examining medical authorities adjudged her case as ‘helpless’, resulting from improper medical treatment for more than three years, and gave her ‘three weeks at the most’ to live. Her determination and will to live forestalled death for ten weeks.”
Frances Shaw rushed from New York to Paris and reached her daughter’s bedside several days before she died on April 30th – three weeks shy of her 27th birthday. The Chicago Defender painted a cinematic tableau:
“… she was conscious of everything, recognized her mother, conversed happily with her, laughed and spoke of her expected recovery. Neeka’s gay and uncompromising spirit – in view of her predicament – elicited profound admiration from all her many friends and acquaintances who visited her private ward, which was always filled with flowers, fruits, champagne and other gifts. Neeka was always cheerful and high-spirited and even when the end came, she met it with a smile.”
The California Eagle carried an obituary, noting “And so, Paris has added another name to the long list of its victims from the ranks of Negro performers. Two months ago, Raymond Thomas, one of the dancing ‘Cracker Jacks’ died at the American Hospital. Others who have succumbed in recent years are Joe Caulk, Strut Payne, and Johnny Dunn.”
Neeka was cremated, as per her wishes. Frances Shaw intended to bring her daughter’s remains back to New York for interment. She soon discovered that the steamship lines charge to transport an urn of ashes at the same cost as though Neeka was alive, or if the body was in a casket. Unable to pay another 5,000 francs to return home, Mrs. Shaw had no choice but to have her daughter interred in Paris.
In 1941, Neeka’s name once again appeared in newspapers when her beloved younger sister Theda died in New York City at the age of 18. In his Harlem Notebook column, Billy Rowe wrote:
“Notwithstanding that throughout the world death for all those who are innocent and young seems to be the order of the day and things to come, the seemingly untimely end of a girl who left the span of her life still unfinished is not without its deep sadness…“
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