What
You're Missing in our subscriber-only CounterPunch newsletter
THE INSIDE HISTORY OF THE ISRAEL
LOBBY
Former top
CIA analysts Kathleen and Bill Christison give CounterPunchers
the real scoop on the Israel lobby and precisely how powerful
it is. Read
how US presidents from Wilson, through FDR to Truman were manipulated
by the Zionist lobby; how Israel bent LBJ, Reagan and Clinton
to its purpose; how Bush's White House has been the West Wing
of the Israeli government; how Washington's revolving doors send
full-time Israel lobbyists from think-tanks to the National Security
Council and the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans. For all who want a
true measure of the Lobby's power, the Christisons' 8-page dossier,
exclusive to CounterPunch newsletter subscribers, is a MUST read. CounterPunch
Online is read by millions of viewers each month! But remember,
we are funded solely by the subscribers to the print edition
of CounterPunch. Please support this
website by buying a subscription to our newsletter, which contains
fresh material you won't find anywhere else, or by making a donation
for the online edition. Remember contributions are tax-deductible.Click
here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please:Subscribe
Now!
Billy Preston
died this week after a prolonged coma, during which he was lovingly
cared for by his friends Joyce and Sam (of Sam and Dave) Moore.
Preston was only 59, but his career spanned much of the history
of rock and soul. At the age of 12, he played W.C. Handy as a
child prodigy in St. Louis Blues, a biopic about the composer.
As a teen, he played piano and organ in the touring bands of
Sam Cooke and Little Richard. He was befriended at an early age
was none other than Ray Charles, who produced his first album,
yielding the minor hit "Billy's Bag," and got him a
standing gig as the keyboard player for the house band on Shindig,
the weekly dance and music show on ABC. Preston was groomed on
gospel and never really lost that flavor to his playing, as evident
on his album The Most Exciting Organ Ever (no pun intended
then, though later on that other organ would land Billy in a
spot of trouble). His own records were good, but not great, marred
by his limited voice. But Preston helped make great records for
other bands and musicians, notably the Beatles (Let It Be and
Get Back), George Harrison (All Things Must Pass and the Concert
for Bangladesh) and the Rolling Stones (Love You Live). Indeed,
Preston was known as the Fifth Beatle-the single "Get Back"
was credited to The Beatles with Billy Preston. Preston had a
big hit with Stevie Wonder's "Will It Go Round It Circles",
while his own song, You Are So Beautiful, soared to number one
featuring the broken voice of Joe Cocker.
In the 1930s,
Blind Boy Fuller, a native of the North Carolina piedmont, traveled
up and down the East Coast playing a unique form of country blues.
Between 1935-1940, Fuller recorded more than 135 songs before
a debilitating illness, which thought was God's punishment for
playing the devil's music, prompted Fuller to devote himself
to spirituals, recording stunning versions of "Twelve Gates
to the City" and "Precious Lord." The conversion
didn't do Fuller any good. He died in 1941 at the age of 33.
Truckin' My Blues Away, with classic cover art by R. Crumb, captures
the best of Fuller's music, which is some of the bawdiest blues
ever recorded: "Meat Shaking Woman", "Bad Luck
Blues" and the hilarious and X-rated "Sweet Honey Hole."
Blues for the
summertime. The most popular bluesman in Atlanta in the 1920s
and a top seller for Columbia Records, until his tragic death
in 1931 at the age of 29, Bob Hicks was a virtuoso of the 12-string
guitar, featuring an aggressive attack that might humble Jimmy
Page or Roger McGuinn. Hicks was also a witty and prolific songwriter,
specializing in multi-layered sexual innuendo in songs like "She
Shook Her Gin", "Atlanta Moan" and "Goin'
Up the Country". A neglected titan of the country blues,
who, as Dave Marsh reminded me, is a largely unknown influence
on the stylings of Van Morrison and, by extension, the hordes
of singers who swiped from Van the Man.
The Brains:
Electronic Eden (Mercury)
Cut to Atlanta
60 years after the demise of BBQ Bob for the thrashing music
of the best (and one of the few) southern punk band. You'll search
in vain for a single blues riff, but the camaraderie of spirit
is inescapable. The political combo's mini-hit "Money Changes
Everything" is angst-ridden southern rock informed by a
speed-reading of the Communist Manifesto,
I said I'm sorry baby, I'm
leaving you tonight
I've found someone new, he's waiting in the car outside
Oh honey how can you do it, we swore each other everlasting love
I said yeah I know, but when we did there was one thing
We weren't thinking of
And that's money
Money changes everything
The best Aussie
punk band? How far can you dispute the claim, against songs like
"I'm Stranded," "Swing for Crime" and "Church
of Indifference." These days perhaps even Olivia Newton-John
is grunting out the lyrics to "Madman Wrecked My Happy Home".
LA saxman,
brawler and heroin addict Art Pepper teams up with Miles Davis's
rhythm section (and fellow devotees of the opiated spike) to
produce one of the greatest West Coast sessions in the history
of jazz. Pepper's autobiography, Straight Life, is a harrowing
account of the life of a musician, ex-con and junky, including
his bracing detour into the strange cult of Synanon.
Music from
a real vampire slayer, who made LBJ's enemies list as a "singer
who should be suppressed". The early work of the Cree singer-songwriter,
including Universal Soldier, Where Have the Buffalo Gone and
The Incest Song, holds up better than most of the folk music
from a decade that fetishized authenticity. Her version of the
traditional song "Cripple Creek" is so much
better than The Band's lugubrious send-up. Buffy come home, the
resistance needs you.
Jeffrey St. Clair's music writings (as well as CPers Ron
Jacobs, David Vest and Daniel Wolff) can be found in Serpents
in the Garden. He can be reached at: sitka@comcast.net.
Now
Available
from CounterPunch Books!
The Case
Against Israel
By Michael Neumann
CounterPunch
Speakers Bureau Sick of sit-on-the-Fence speakers, tongue-tied and timid?
CounterPunch Editors Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St Clair
are available to speak forcefully on ALL the burning issues,
as are other CounterPunchers seasoned in stump oratory. Call
CounterPunch Speakers Bureau, 1-800-840-3683. Or email beckyg@counterpunch.org.