Too often media ask us questions like “Who is the greatest guitar player of all time?” The answer, of course, depends on many things: Who is asking? Who is answering? What does greatest mean?
Perhaps the better questions is “Who is the most influential guitarist of all time?” or simply, “What guitarist influenced you the most?”
Graffiti said Eric Clapton was “God.” Woodstock devotees likely answer Hendrix.
I think it’s better to avoid the whole question and admit what all must: Hendrix was an amazing, groundbreaking, and immensely influential guitarist.
And Buddy Guy was one of Hendrix’s influences.
James Marshall Jimi Hendrix
Woodstock Music and Art Fair
There were many performers scheduled for the Woodstock Music and Art Fair that easily convinced me that I had to attend. The Who. Jefferson Airplane. Crosby, Stills, and Nash. The Band.
At the top of that list was Jimi Hendrix.
Joe Cocker opened day three. Then the skies darkened and the torrents fell.
Tired, wet, hungry, worried whether our car was still parked on the side of the road eight miles away, having to be at work in 14 hours, friend Tony and I reluctantly left Max’s field that muddy Sunday afternoon and headed back to Jersey. No Hendrix.
So did 370,000 other fans in similar straits.
James Marshall Jimi Hendrix
1967 New York Rock Festival
I have been very fortunate in many ways and missing Hendrix simply meant I did not see him a second time.
On August 23, 1968 I saw the Experience with the Soft Machine, the Chambers Brothers, and Big Brother and the Holding Company. Big Brother featured, of course, Janis Poplin. That’s how the program listed Joplin. Twice.
Though no Woodstock, the New York Rock Festival was drier and we didn’t have to walk eight miles to get to our seats. A great night.
Elevator
I was on my dorm’s elevator on September 18, 1970 when I heard Jimi had died. I was on the same elevator 16 days later when I heard Janis died. Two of the greatest to many Boomers. Two of the greatest to anyone with ears to listen.
November 27 – 28, 1917: responding to increasing public pressure and likely overturning of prisoners’ convictions on appeal, government authorities order unconditional release of Alice Paul, Lucy Burns, and 20 other suffrage prisoners. (see Dec 6 – 9)
Women serving in combat units
November 27, 2012: the American Civil Liberties Union announced that it was suing the Department of Defense to lift immediately all restrictions on women serving in combat units. The military did not allow women to serve in ground combat units, such as infantry, artillery, armor or as special operations commandos, but recent wars without clear front lines have frequently pushed women assigned to support roles directly into the fighting. [US News article]
Malala Yousafzai
November 27, 2012: The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for a failed attempt to bomb the car of television anchor Hamid Mir, whom the militant group had earlier threatened because of his reporting on the shooting of schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai. A Taliban spokesman told reporters that Mir had been following a secular agenda and warned the group would target others like him. Police had defused a bomb found under Mir’s car Monday in Islamabad after a neighbor reportedly spotted the device. [RFE article] (see January 3, 2013)
November 27 Peace Love Art Activism
The Red Scare
November 27, 1954: after 44 months in prison, former government official Alger Hiss was released and proclaimed once again that he was innocent of the charges that led to his incarceration. Upon his release, Hiss immediately declared that he wished to “reassert my complete innocence of the charges that were brought against me by Whittaker Chambers.” He claimed that his conviction was the result of the “fear and hysteria of the times,” and stated that he was going to “resume my efforts to dispel the deception that has been foisted on the American people.” He was confident that such efforts would “vindicate my name.” (see Dec 2)
November 27 Peace Love Art Activism
Black History
Albany Movement
~ November 27, 1961: after the holiday, more than 100 Albany State College students marched from campus to the courthouse where they picket to protest the trial of those arrested at the bus depot. A mass meeting — the first in Albany history — packs Mt. Zion Baptist church to protest the arrests, segregation, and a lifetime of subservience. At the end of the meeting they rise to sing, “We Shall Overcome.” Student song-leader Bernice Johnson (Reagan) described the effect, “When I opened my mouth and began to sing, there was a force and power within myself I had never heard before. Somehow this music … released a kind of power and required a level of concentrated energy I did not know I had.”
Albany State students Bertha Gober and Blanton Hall were expelled for disobeying the dean’s orders to use the “Colored” waiting room. Students marched to the college President’s office to protest the expulsions and 40 more were expelled for disagreeing with the administration. Gober will later compose civil rights song, “We’ll Never Turn Back.” (BH, see Nov 28; see Albany Movement for expanded chronology)
MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR
November 27, 1962: speaking in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. gave a speech using the “I Have a Dream” construction, nine months before his famous speech at the March on Washington on August 28, 1963. (King is also said to have used the phrase even earlier, including a speech in Albany, Georgia, on November 16, but the Rocky Mount speech is the earliest known transcription.) The Rocky Mount Evening Telegram’s account of the speech did not mention “I Have a Dream”; it quoted King as saying: “Old Man Segregation is on his death bed. The only thing now is how costly the South will make his funeral.”(BH, see Dec 14; MLK, see April 3, 1963)
Laquan McDonald
November 27, 2018: the trial began regarding an alleged cover-up by Chicago police in the fatal shooting of Laquan McDonald (B & S and LM, see see Dec 4)
November 27, 1965: Ken Kesey began his Acid Tests, a series of parties held in the San Francisco Bay Area centered entirely around the use of, experimentation with, and advocacy of LSD. It may have included the first performance by The Grateful Dead, still known as The Warlocks. This one was held in the small neighborhood of Soquel. It was a small semi-public event advertised only at the local Hip Pocket underground bookstore, (LSD & Dead, see Dec 4)
Whipped Cream and Other Delights
November 27, 1965 – January 7, 1966 – Herb Albert’s Whipped Cream and Other Delights the Billboard #1 album. The album cover is considered a classic pop culture icon. It featured model Dolores Erickson wearing chiffon and shaving cream. The picture was taken at a time when Erickson was three months pregnant. (see Whipped Creamfor expanded story)
November 27, 1970: George Harrison’s “All Things Must Pass” released. It was his first solo work since the Beatle break-up in April. The original vinyl release featured two LPs of rock songs as well as Apple Jam, a third disc of informal jams. Often credited as rock’s first triple album, it was in fact the first by a solo artist with the multi-artist Woodstock live set having preceded it by six months.
In regards to the album’s size, Harrison stated: “I didn’t have many tunes on Beatles records, so doing an album like All Things Must Pass was like going to the bathroom and letting it out.”
The album was critically acclaimed and, with long stays at number 1 in both the US and the UK, commercially successful. It was certified 6x platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America in 2001. (see Dec 11)
November 27 Peace Love Art Activism
Vietnam
November 27, 1965: tens of thousands of Vietnam War protesters picketed the White House, then marched on the Washington Monument. The Pentagon informed President Johnson that if General Westmoreland was to conduct the major sweep operations necessary to destroy enemy forces during the coming year, U.S. troop strength should be increased from 120,000 to 400,000 men. (seeDec 9)
November 27 Peace Love Art Activism
Watergate Scandal
November 27, 1973: the US Senate voted 92–3 to confirm Gerald Ford as Vice President. (see Watergate for expanded chronology)
November 27 Peace Love Art Activism
FREE SPEECH
November 27, 1974: since 1969 New Hampshire had required that noncommercial vehicles bear license plates embossed with the state motto, “Live Free or Die.” Another New Hampshire statute made it a misdemeanor “knowingly [to obscure] . . . the figures or letters on any number plate.” The term “letters” in this section had been interpreted by the State’s highest court in State v. Hoskin to include the state motto.
George Maynard and his wife, both Jehovah’s Witnesses, viewed the motto as repugnant to their moral, religious, and political beliefs, and for this reason they covered up the motto on the license plates of their jointly owned family automobiles. On November 27, 1974, Maynard was issued a citation for violating the state statutes regarding obscuring of the state motto. (see George Maynard for expanded story)
November 27 Peace Love Art Activism
LGBTQ
George Moscone and Harvey Milk murdered
November 27, 1978: former Board of Supervisors member Dan White murdered Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk at City Hall in San Francisco, California. White, who stormed into San Francisco’s government offices with a .38 revolver, had reportedly been angry about Moscone’s decision not to reappoint him to the city board. Firing upon the mayor first, White then reloaded his pistol and turned his gun on his rival Milk, who was one of the nation’s first openly gay politicians and a much-admired activist in San Francisco. (see Dec 4)
Cleopatra De Leon and Nicole Dimetman
November 27, 2013: Cleopatra De Leon and Nicole Dimetman (who were legally married in Massachusetts in 2009 and had a son together) and Victor Holmes and Mark Phariss of Plano, TX, who had been together 16 years, wanted to marry in Texas. Both same-sex couples challenged Texas’ constitutional ban on gay marriage in a San Antonio federal court.
In court papers, the couples said the Texas ban violates their right to get married and to enjoy the legal benefits or marriage. They argued a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning the federal Defense of Marriage Act suggests that bans on same-sex marriage violate the federal constitution and they want the judge to issue an injunction against enforcing the Texas law.
Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott pledged to defend the law, which was overwhelmingly approved by voters in 2005. (see Dec 16 or see December 13, 2022 re DoMA)
Transgender/Military
November 27, 2017: Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly ruled that the military must abide by the Obama-era policies that were defined in a “June 30, 2016, directive-type memorandum,” which granted transgender individuals the right to enlist from January 1, 2018.
“Any action by any of the Defendants [i.e., the Trump administration] that changes this status quo is preliminarily enjoined,” Kollar-Kotelly wrote in her ruling. (LGTBQ, seeDec 4; military, see Dec 22)
November 27 Peace Love Art Activism
IRAQ
November 27, 2002: U.N. specialists began a new round of weapons inspections in Iraq. (see Dec 7)
November 27 Peace Love Art Activism
Iraq War II
November 27, 2008: Iraq’s parliament approved a pact requiring all U.S. troops to be out of the country by January 1, 2012. (see Dec 14)
November 27 Peace Love Art Activism
ADA
November 27, 2012: the New York City Council approved a measure to improve access to taxis for the visually impaired. The council voted unanimously to require that the taxi payment technology include an auditory component. That way, visually impaired passengers will hear their fare from a machine, rather than simply taking the driver’s word for it. The equipment will also tell passengers how to pay with a credit card if they wish to do so. (see January 23, 2013)
November 27 Peace Love Art Activism
STAND YOUR GROUND
Westbrook with grandchildren
November 27, 2013: homeowner 34-year-old Joe Hendrix shot and killed72-year-old Ronald Westbrook, an Air Force veteran with advanced Alzheimer’s, after Westbrook rang Hendrix’s doorbell and tried to turn the handle on the door.
Hendrix confronted Westbrook and when Westbrook, who was practically mute from the Alzheimer’s, didn’t respond to Hendrix’s commands, the homeowner fired four shots, one of which hit Westbrook in the chest and killed him.
Georgia’s 2006 law stated that a person “has no duty to retreat” and has the right to “stand his or her ground,” including the use of deadly force pertaining to self-defense of one’s home or property.
On February 28, 2014 District Attorney Herbert Franklin announced that Hendrix would not be charged in what his office called a “tragic shooting death.” (NYT article) (see December 17, 2014)
November 27 Peace Love Art Activism
Native Americans
November 27, 2017: President Trump transformed a White House ceremony to honor Navajo veterans of World War II into a racially charged controversy, using the event as a platform to deride Senator Elizabeth Warren as “Pocahontas.”
Standing in the Oval Office alongside three Navajo code talkers, whom he called “very, very special people,” Trump dispensed with his prepared remarks and took aim at Warren without naming her, resurrecting a favorite nickname as the veterans stood stonefaced.
“You were here long before any of us were here,” Mr. Trump said to the veterans, ages 90 and older, who wore their military uniforms for the occasion, juxtaposed with turquoise and silver, hallmarks of Navajo culture. “Although we have a representative in Congress who, they say, was here a long time ago. They call her Pocahontas.”
The comment drew swift rebukes from Native American leaders, including one who was present for the ceremony. Russell Begaye, the president of the Navajo Nation, called the president’s mention of Pocahontas “derogatory” and “disrespectful to Indian nations.” [NYT article] (see January 9, 2018)
November 26, 1931: the first cloverleaf interchange to be built in the United States, at the junction of NJ Rt. 25 (now U.S. Rt. 1) and NJ Rt. 4 (now NJ Rt. 35) in Woodbridge, New Jersey, was featured on the cover of the Engineering News-Record. (see February 16, 1937)
November 26 Peace Love Art Activism
US Labor History
Newark, NJ fire kills 19
November 26, 1910: six young women burn to death and 19 more die when they leap from the fourth-story windows of a blazing factory in Newark, N.J. The floors and stairs were wooden; the only door through which the women could flee was locked. (see March 25, 1911)
Portland Teacher Strike
November 26, 2023: the union representing teachers, counselors and other school employees in Portland, Ore., reached a tentative deal with the city’s public school district on Sunday, ending a strike that had kept nearly 45,000 students out of classes for more than three weeks in Oregon’s largest district. [NYT article] (next LH, see )
November 26 Peace Love Art Activism
FREE SPEECH/book burning
November 26, 1935: New York City on this day burned “tons” of allegedly obscene books and magazines, with an estimated retail value of $150,000. The material had been seized and burned at the instigation of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice, the anti-obscenity organization founded by Anthony Comstock, author of the infamous Comstock Act (enacted on March 3, 1873). The burned material included 476 books, 11,450 magazines, and about 100,000 pamphlets. Not all of the burned books were confiscated because of sex-related themes. Fifteen copies of the book The Man in the Monkey Suit were seized and burned because it presented policemen in “an unfavorable light.”
The burning of the books took place despite the publicity surrounding the burning of “offensive” books by the new Nazi regime in Germany over the previous year and a half. (see Dec 18)
November 26 Peace Love Art Activism
BLACK HISTORY
MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR
November 26, 1960: on NBC’s nationally televised program “The Nation’s Future,” the Martin Luther King Jr. debated James J. Kilpatrick on the subject of sit-in demonstrations. Kilpatrick, editor of The Richmond News Leader at the time, was a prominent segregationist. The subject: “Are Sit-In Strikes Justifiable?”
Kilpatrick: “… it is an interesting experience to be here tonight and see Mr. King assert a right to obey those laws he chooses to obey and disobey those he chooses not to obey and insist the whole time that he has what he terms the highest respect for law, because he is abiding by the moral law of the universe.”
King: “… I think in disobeying these laws, the students are really seeking to affirm the just law of the land and the Constitution of the United States. I would say this — that all people should obey just laws, but I would also say, with St. Augustine, than an unjust law is no law at all. And when we find an unjust law, I think we have a moral obligation to take a stand against it …” (BH, see Dec 5; MLK, see May 13, 1961)
Rodney King
November 26, 1991: Superior Court Judge Stanley Weisberg ordered the trial of the four officers charged in the Rodney King beating [Sgt. Stacey Koon and officers Laurence Michael Powell, Timothy Wind, and Theodore Briseno ] to be moved to Simi Valley. [LAT article on riots] (BH, see March 31, 1992; King, see April 29, 1992)
November 26 Peace Love Art Activism
November 26 Music et al
November 26, 1962: Beatles record their second single, “Please Please Me.”
From Beatles Bible:“At the end of the session George Martin addressed the group over the studio’s talkback system. “Congratulations, gentlemen,” he told them, “You’ve just made your first number one.”(seeDec 7)
November 26 Peace Love Art Activism
Vietnam
Memorandum 273
November 26, 1963: the administration of new President Lyndon B. Johnson administration issued National Security Action Memorandum 273, which officially reaffirmed the U.S. commitment to the Republic of Vietnam and pledged “to assist the people and Government of that country to win their contest against the externally directed and supported Communist conspiracy.” Johnson also gave his personal sanction for a stepped-up program of “clandestine operations by the GVN (Government of Vietnam) against the North.” (document) (see Dec 24)
“Alice’s Restaurant”
November 26, 1965: Arlo Guthrie arrested in Great Barrington, MA for littering on Thanksgiving in the nearby town of Stockbridge. The resulting events and adventure would be immortalized in the song “Alice’s Restaurant.” (see Nov 27)
John Lennon, MBE
November 26, 1969: John Lennon returned his MBE to the Queen on this day, as an act of protest against the Vietnam war. His typical Lennon-esque note to the Queen read:
Your Majesty,
I am returning my Member of the British Empire as a protest against Britain’s involvement in the Nigeria-Biafra thing, against our support of America in Vietnam and against ‘Cold Turkey’ slipping down the charts.
November 26, 1970: a group of about 200 Native-Americans protested Thanksgiving with a demonstration at Plymouth Rock, Massachusetts. Representatives from 25 tribes from around the country declared it a “national day of mourning.” One leader stated that the landing of the Pilgrims from England in 1620 “was the start of everything bad that has happened to the American Indian.” Several members of the group attempted to “bury” the original Plymouth Rock by pouring sand over it. Another 25 boarded the replica of the Mayflower, the ship that brought the Pilgrims to America. (see June 12, 1971)
Baby Veronica
November 26, 2013: with custody of the girl Veronica awarded to Matt and Melanie Capobianco, the South Carolina couple has filed a motion to collect more than $1 million in attorneys’ fees from Brown and his tribe. Court documents filed by the Cherokee Nation state it would be “inappropriate, unreasonable and unconscionable” for the adopted parents of a 4-year-old Cherokee girl to seek the legal fees.
The tribe claims federal and state law gives the tribe sovereign immunity. But that would not apply to Dusten Brown, the biological father who had custody of Veronica for two years and fought a legal battle to keep her in Oklahoma.
The Tulsa World reported that a judge in Nowata County, where the Brown family lives will likely have a hearing on the issue. (see BV for expanded chronology)
November 26 Peace Love Art Activism
Watergate Scandal
November 26, 1973: President Richard Nixon’s personal secretary, Rose Mary Woods, told a federal court that she’d accidentally caused part of the 18 1/2-minute gap in a key Watergate tape. Arlo Guthrie will later claim it was Nixon listening to Arlo’s “Alice’s Restaurant.”(see Watergate for expanded chronology)
November 26 Peace Love Art Activism
Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme
November 26, 1975, a federal jury found Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme, a follower of Charles Manson, guilty of trying to assassinate President Gerald R. Ford. (see Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme for more)
November 26 Peace Love Art Activism
Iran hostage crisis
November 26, 1978: Muslim religious leaders and politicians seeking to topple Shah of Iran called a general strike that virtually paralyzed the country. (see Dec 2)
November 26 Peace Love Art Activism
Iran–Contra Affair
November 26, 1986: President Ronald Reagan announced that on December 1 former Senator John Tower, former Secretary of State Edmund Muskie, and former National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft would serve as members of the Special Review Board looking into the scandal (they became known as the Tower Commission). Reagan denied involvement in the scandal. (see Dec 19)
November 26 Peace Love Art Activism
Jack Kevorkian
November 26, 1994: hours after Michigan’s ban on assisted suicide expired, 72-year-old Margaret Garrish died of carbon monoxide poisoning in her home in Royal Oak. She had arthritis and osteoporosis. Kevorkian was not present when police arrived. (see JK for expanded chronology)
November 26 Peace Love Art Activism
2000 Presidential election
November 26,, 2000: Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris certified Republican George W. Bush the winner over Democrat Al Gore in the state’s presidential balloting by 537 votes. (see Dec 13)
November 26 Peace Love Art Activism
TERRORISM
November 26, 2010: federal agents arrested nineteen-year-old Somali-born Mohamed Osman Mohamud during a sting in Portland, OR. Mohamud was accused of planning to detonate van of explosives during Christmas tree lighting ceremony. [NPR story on sentencing] (see January 8, 2011)
November 26 Peace Love Art Activism
Nuclear/Chemical News & ICAN
November 26, 2011: the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons [ICAN] welcomed am historic resolution adopted by the International Red Cross and Red Crescent movement in favor of an international agreement to prohibit nuclear weapons. (Nuclear, see January 30, 2012; ICAN, see March 5, 2012)
November 26 Peace Love Art Activism
Women’s Health
November 26, 2013: the U.S. Supreme Court accepted for review two cases challenging the federal contraception rule, which required the inclusion of contraception coverage in health plans. One of the cases was brought by Hobby Lobby, an arts and crafts supply chain with over 13,000 employees. The other case was brought by Conestoga Wood Specialties, a Pennsylvania wood furniture company. [ACLU article] (see Dec 31)
November 26 Peace Love Art Activism
Space
November 26, 2018: InSight [Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport] sent back acknowledgment of its safe arrival on Mars. That was the end of a journey of more than six months and 300 million miles (launched on May 5). It set down at Elysium Planitia, near the Equator in the northern hemisphere.
As InSight descended and each milestone of the landing process was called out, “the hairs on the back of my neck would start rising a little bit higher, a little bit higher,” Tom Hoffman, the project manager for the mission, said at a news conference after the landing. “And then when we finally got the confirmation of touchdown, it was completely amazing. The whole room went crazy. My inner four-year-old came out.” [NYT article] (see Dec 13)
November 26 Peace Love Art Activism
What's so funny about peace, love, art, and activism?
