“Yours Is the Light” from Santana’s Welcome album. Music by Michael Shrieve lyrics by Richard Kermode. Vocal by Flora Purim
In the band v in a band
It seems to me that the more members a band has, the less likely all members are well-known. That may be especially so when the leader is very well known.
Janis Joplin was a member of Big Brother and the Holding Company, though after awhile the band’s name seemed to become Janis Joplin and Big Brother.
When Joplin left Big Brother in 1968 she formed a back up band. And being in a back up band is not quite the same thing as being in the band.
Kozmic Keyboardist Richard Kermode
WY > NY > CA
Richard Kermode was born in Lovell, Wyoming and grew up in Buffalo, NY where he became a well-respected keyboardist. In 1969 he moved to California just in time for Janis Joplin to add him to her new Kozmic Blues Band. He was also just in time to be in the band for the Woodstock Music and Art Fair.
Kozmic Keyboardist Richard Kermode
Post Janis
When Janis Joplin died, Kermode became mainly a sessions musician including three albums for Carlos Santana: Welcome (1973), Lotus (1974), and Dance of the Rainbow Serpent (1995).
He also played with the group Malo. Jorge Santana, Carlos’s brother, was one of that band’s founders. He developed a passion for Latin music while playing with Malo and worked with numerous Latin jazz, salsa and Brazilian bands. He also recorded with Patti LaBelle, Luis Gasca, Pete Escovedo, Airto and Purim.
Kozmic Keyboardist Richard Kermode
Illnesses
In 1990 he suffered severe kidney and liver ailments, but recovered. He was able to resume his musical career and played in bands on USO tours. He toured South Korea and Japan.
In 1994 he moved to Denver to work on salsa music projects.
Yours Is the Light
Yours is the light that will always shine And shine eternally, eternally Mine is the search, never ending search Until I am with you For you, fill my life All my days and nights With memories of you
Yours is the light that will always shine And shine eternally Mine is the search, never ending search Until I am with you For you, fill my life All my days and nights With memories of you
Kozmic Keyboardist Richard Kermode
Kenmore memories
Kermode died on January 16, 1996. He was 49 There are many touching memories by his high school friends at the Kenmore West High School Class of 1965 site.
Richard was one of the most respected musicians in Buffalo in the 1960’s – wanting to be a jazz player. When Richard left WNY in 1969 to take that immense talent to California as one of Buffalo’s premier jazz keyboardist, he had no way of knowing he would end up on multi platinum and gold albums as keyboardist…
Autherine Lucy was born in Shiloh, Alabama and She began classes at the University of Alabama on…
February 3, 1956
She was the first Black person to ever do so.
Autherine J Lucy
The name Autherine Lucy was not in my childhood history books. I hope her name is in them today, but am not sure about that. Rosa Parks, deservedly so, is and is perhaps the main Black female name in those books. Sojourner Truth, too.
Just as Claudette Colvin refusal to give up her seat on a bus had preceded Rosa Parks, Autherine Lucy’s struggle to attend a “White” university preceded James Meredith’s.
Autherine J Lucy Foster
Selma University
In 1947 Autherine Lucy attended Selma University for two years, then she studied at the all-black Miles College. She graduated from Miles with a BA in English in 1952.
In September 1952, Lucy and a friend, Pollie Myers applied to the University of Alabama. Both were accepted. Then school authorities discovered they were not white and their acceptances were rescinded.
Autherine J Lucy Foster
Lucy et al. v. ADAMS
Backed by the NAACP, Lucy and Myers charged the University of Alabama with racial discrimination in a court case that took almost three years to resolve.
On June 29, 1955, the NAACP secured a court order preventing the University from rejecting the admissions. The Dean of Admissions of the University of Alabama fought the court order.
On August 25, 1955, the United States District Court N. D. Alabama, W. D. decided for Lucy. In their decision they stated that, “Plaintiffs are entitled to a decree enjoining the defendant, William F. Adams, his servants, agents, assistants and employees, and those who might aid, abet, and act in concert with him, from denying the plaintiffs and others similarly situated the right to enroll in the University of Alabama and pursue courses of study thereat, solely on account of their race and color.”
The University appealed to the US Supreme Court, but on October 10, 1955, the Supreme Court upheld the lower court’s decision to admit Autherine Lucy and Pollie Ann Meyers.
Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote for the majority, The injunction which the District Court issued in this case, but suspended pending appeal to the Court of Appeals, is reinstated to the extent that it enjoins and restrains the respondent and others designated from denying these petitioners, solely on account of their race or color, the right to enroll in the University of Alabama and pursue courses of study there. The motion is denied.
Autherine J Lucy Foster
Attempts to begin school
February 2, 1956 the University of Alabama Board of Trustees rejected the now-married Polly Myers Hudson on the grounds of her “conduct and marital record” (Hudson had had a child before marrying). The Trustees likely hoped Lucy would not attend without a friend to be with.
Finally on February 3, 1956 26-year-old Lucy enrolled as a graduate student in library science. She was the first African American ever admitted to a white public school or university in Alabama.
But on February 4, 1956 New York Times article reported: Resentment over the first Negro student at the University of Alabama exploded today in a shouting demonstration of 1,000 man students. A car occupied by Negroes was damaged.
Roy Wilkins in press conference with Autherine Lucy and Thurgood Marshall, director and special counsel for NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund].” 1956 March 2. Prints and Photographs Division of the Library of Congress.
Autherine J Lucy Foster
Mob
A mob had assembled to prevent Autherine Lucy from attending classes. She was struck by eggs while being escorted across the campus and windows of the car in which she rode were smashed. Highway patrol officers slipped her away at the height of the demonstration when more than 3,000 students and others were on the campus.
Autherine J Lucy Foster
Editorial supports States Rights
That same day, the Augusta Chronicle ran an editorial, saying that the tragedy was not that Lucy was being denied her rights, but rather that the courts were usurping states’ rights by interfering with the University of Alabama’s admittance policy. The editorial concluded:
It is nothing less than tragic that the Supreme Court has furnished both the dynamite and the match by usurping the power of the various states to operate their schools, and other public facilities, in a manner best fitted to the needs and the welfare of all of their people. For this the court must bear the onus for ushering in an unhappy and tragic era in our history whereas before its decision, all was going well.
The next day, February 7, “The University of Alabama’s first Negro student was ordered excluded until further notice late last night for the “safety” of herself and other students and faculty members.”
And on January 18, 1957 Federal Judge Hobart H. Grooms ruled that University of Alabama officials were justified in expelling Autherine Lucy Foster and in March she stopped her struggle to attend.
Lucy became a high school English teacher.
Autherine J Lucy Foster
Justice delayed …
In April 1988, the university board overturned her expulsion. She re-enrolled in 1989 and in 1992 received her Masters in Elementary Education. The same day, her daughter, Grazia Foster received a bachelor’s degree in corporate finance. Grazi was one of 1,755 blacks among the 18,096 students on campus. (NYT article)
Marker
On September 15, 2017, the University of Alabama unveiled an historic marker honoring Autherine Lucy Foster. (Wall St Journal article).
She began her speech by saying, ““To the student body and to all of you standing around, I want you to know that the last time I saw a crowd like this at the University of Alabama . . .”
Irony Defined
February 3, 2022: in an amazingly ironic declaration, the University of Alabama renamed its Graves Hall to Lucy-Graves Hall. Bibb Graves was a former Alabama governor and an officer of the Ku Klux Klan. [Crimson White article]
According to a CBS42 article, a University of Alabama board member Judge John England said, ““On the one hand, Gov. Graves is regarded by historians as one of, if not the most, progressive and effective governors in the history of the state of Alabama, Some say he did more to directly benefit African American Alabamians than any other governor through his many reforms. Unfortunately, that same Gov. Graves was associated with the Ku Klux Klan. Not just associated with the Ku Klux Klan, but a Grand Cyclops. It’s hard for me to even say those words.”
Emulating the view that “When they go low, we go high,” Autherine Lucy Foster said she doesn’t mind having her name next to Graves’.
“Everybody can change,” she said. “Maybe he changed before he left this world.”
Irony Recognized
February 11, 2022: the University of Alabama reversed course and decided to remove Klansman’s Gov. Graves name and honor only Autherine Lucy on what was Graves Hall. [AL.com article]
Less than a month later, Ms Lucy died on March 2, 2022. [NYT article]
Before there was Rock ‘n’ Roll, there was Rhythm & Blues. We don’t call rock R & R (that’s something else), but we do call the latter R & B and when Wynonie Harris sang R & B, it was rock and roll.
Wynonie Harris Good Rockin Tonight
Wynonie Harris
Most seem to agree that Wynonie Harris was born in Omaha, NE. What the actual date and year were is not as definite. On August 24, 1915? 1920? Not that important I suppose.
Harris initially found success in his hometown at Jim Bell’s Harlem,club. He danced. Played drums. Sang.
Mr Blues
In 1940 he moved to Los Angeles and continued to find success as a live performer. In 1944, while in Chicago, bandleader Lucky Millinder hired him as his band’s new singer.
Harris’s nickname was Mr Blues, not because of soulful singing as his lyrics which some thought smutty and indecent. (“I like my baby’s puddin’ I like it best of all…She promised she wouldn’t give no one her puddin’ but me.”)
Lucky Millinder
Harris first appeared on stage with Lucky Millinder and his Orchestra on April 7, 1944. One of the songs he sang was “Who Threw the Whiskey in the Well.” He recorded that song with Millinder in May though Decca did not release it until April 1945 because of the war shortage of the shellac used to press records.
The song was a big hit with both black and white audiences, a rare thing in the 1940s.
Wynonie Harris Good Rockin Tonight
Goin’ solo
Harris quit the orchestra (money issues) and moved back to Los Angeles. Over the years he signed with various labels, but Harris continued to sing powerful songs that, unless one looks at the songs’ dates, are surely great rock songs.
One of his biggest hits was Good Rockin’ Tonight written by Roy Brown. Brown offered the song to Harris who refused it. Brown recorded it himself and had a hit with it.
Wynonie Harris Good Rockin Tonight
Rockin’?
Then Harris recorded it in his style which gave the great song even greater energy. In this case, the rockin’ referred to is music, not sex as the term rock and roll is a euphemism for.
In 1954 Sam Phillip’s Sun Records released the 19-year-old Elvis Presley’s cover of the song. It was Presley’s second release. It was not a hit for him.
Covers
Many others have covered the song. Carl Perkins, Paul McCartney, Bruce Springsteen, and Ricky Nelson among them, but did you know that the Doors, minus Jim Morrison, covered it?
Death
Harris died of esophageal cancer on June 14, 1969, aged 53, at the USC Medical Center Hospital in Los Angeles.
