Happy New year, Mom!!
Same to you Miss Shana! Looks like it’s time for a brand new year of Quizzes!
And announcements! I’m sure you’ll like this first one. “The PJs” turned 20 years old! You remember that we featured Muriel and Thurgood Orenthal Stubbs in the June quiz last year?
That quiz was a real winner!
Revisiting: Another Famous Person Quiz–Muriel and Thurgood Orenthal Stubbs
Speaking of which, you know how we always have to say goodbye to the people we lost in the previous year?
Oh yes, we definitely have to do that!
But wait, I have some last minute deaths to report!
OMG!!!! More deaths???
Last year we lost animator Will Vinton, best known for “Meet the Raisins”, AND for producing 5 episodes of “The PJs” (see quiz link above).
And last year we also lost two members of the Funk Brothers (the Motown studio band).
We did?
The first one is Melvin Ragin, also known as “Wah Wah Watson” who joined the Motown house band in 1968.
Nowhere is his contribution more apparent than on The Temptations #1 hit, “Papa Was A Rolling Stone”. His guitar at times seems to be saying “Whacka-whacka” and at other times, “Wha-wha”; at any rate, his guitar takes the starring role. It’s fitting to play this now, as we also lost Temptations lead singer Dennis Edwards last year.
Here they are now–The Temptations, “Papa Was A Rolling Stone” with Wah-Wah Watson on guitar:
We also lost another Funk Brother, Eddie Willis
who performed on such classics as “Please Mr. Postman” by The Marvellettes and “The Way You Do the Things You Do” by The Temptations–even on Jr. Walker’s “Shotgun”.
I don’t know if either of these two men appeared in the movie “Standing in the Shadows of Motown”–the movie about The Funk Brothers– but since we ordered it, I guess we’ll find out soon enough!
A man named Billy Dawn Smith also died. It turns out he wrote most of songs by The Crests, maybe all of them except for “16 Candles”. He definitely wrote “The Angels Listened In” and “Step by Step”.
Yeah, those were the good ol’ days!
Mom, unfortunately, no one knows what you’re talking about!
Listen, we left out a death last year, and we can’t let this go by! My girl, Denise LaSalle, died a year ago this month at 78.
I love her #1 hit from 1970, “Trapped By A Thing Called Love”:
I probably should mention that the only good thing to come out of Conan’s show being cut to a half an hour is that he has an internet archive of his Late Night Shows starting from 1993 to the present so that’s very exciting.
I seriously doubt that anyone cares! Can we possibly start the Quiz now?
Mom, first we have to say our good-byes to:
Denise LaSalle
Dennis Edwards of The Temptations
Yvonne Staples of the Staples Singers
Eugene Pitt of The Jive Five
and
The Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin
You can start the Quiz now.
After a moment of silence … OK. And now for the January Quiz!!!
OK, this is another Quiz by text message!
Who’s the patient?
Um….I need a fictitious name. OK, how’s this: “Rosetta Stone”.
What the heck kind of name is that?
Do you have a better idea?
Not really.
OK, then here she is now, for the first time ever at Hpathy.com, Miss Rosetta Stone!
Good grief.
********
Hi Elaine, Hopefully this is coherent. My daughter just literally was shutting the trunk to our min-van and slammed it into the top of my head!
I hate it when that happens!
I felt like I was going to pass out and just fell to my knees. There is no blood, but by the time I came inside I had a huge goose egg. I took Arnica 1M, do you think that is strong enough? My head hurts so bad right now.
Everything seems loud, I keep shushing everybody. Do I repeat Arnica?
No, take ____________________.
Next day:
Rosetta, did you get my text message about _____________?
I did get your text about _______________. It helped. I still have a decent bump and I can hardly stand to touch it. It still hurts. All in all it’s not awful compared to last night. I was glad to get rid of the headache and feel more myself.
The headache’s gone?
Yes, that night.
***********************
OK everybody, what was the remedy? Write to me at [email protected] and let me know. The answer will be in next month’s ezine. See ya then!
————————————
Elaine Lewis, D.Hom., C.Hom.
Elaine takes online cases and animal cases too!
Write to her at [email protected]
Visit her website: https://ElaineLewis.hpathy.com
As a teenager I was unaware of the reputation of the Temptations as being the ‘bad boys of soul’. With thoughts of head injury in mind I am reminded of a half century long rumour that Tammi Terrell’s fatal brain tumour came about because boyfriend and Temptation David Ruffin attacked her with a hammer. According to the Michigan Chronicle, organist Funk Brother Earl Van Dyke recalled Ruffin beating up Terrell in the Hitsville building. He and some of the other musicians were furious and attempted to intervene but Tammi screamed, “Don’t hurt him!”
Terrell’s death at the age of 24 in 1970 was a great loss to the music world as it was to her collaborator Marvin Gaye with whom she performed the Motown classics, ‘It takes two’ and ‘Ain’t no mountain high enough’ Perhaps a few doses of natrum sulph might have helped her but with a history of migraines from childhood perhaps natrum sulph’s suitabilty in head injuries especially those followed by mental symptoms and in cancerous affections, the remedy mightn’t have been similar enough to the history of her pathology.
Oh geez! OMG! A hammer???? Well, David’s father beat him as a child. Not that that’s any excuse. And what remedy is Tammi, trying to protect her attacker, Staphysagria? I didn’t know the Temptations had a reputation–I thought it was The Contours. Anyway, no one knows what we’re talking about! Thanks, Kevin!
Perhaps it’s as well! I didn’t learn of the Temptations’ reputation until recently – I just loved their music as a teenager.
I thought Carcinosin, but Staphysagria would fit too. Both came in very useful during my treatment for terminal cancer from 1999 onwards- those and just about every other nosode and of course Natrum Carb, my homoeopath’s most useful cancer remedy.
Apparently Tammi also had a very stormy relationship with James Brown and she was seen on occasions with him with her eye blacked so perhaps your suggestion of Staphysagria would be more appropriate. She was a rare and was a beautiful singer though.
Take care!
Honestly, I have to tell you, I don’t believe the Temptations had that reputation. They kicked David out of the group. He tried to get back in and they wouldn’t let him. They kicked Paul out when he developed a drinking problem. I think if anyone had that reputation it was The Contours. Have you heard Tammi’s version of “This Old Heart of Mine”? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJ2Idk_S7So
You clearly know Motown far better than I do Elaine and I have to admit that when I read of their reputation I was surprised although I had known the story about Tammi and the hammer for a long while. Frankly, I remember thinking something like, ‘How could the group that made My Girl possibly be bad boys?’ That song is close to perfection in my book- like For Once in my life by Stevie Wonder, Hearbreak Hotel by Elvis and perhaps a Night in Tunisia by Charlie Parker.
Tammi can do no wrong in my book. I’d never heard her singing This old heart of mine but I’m really glad you pointed it out- thankst. Radio DJs here in the UK used to refer to her as Tammi Terrible for no other reason than a play of words and everyone laughed. It seemed inconceivable that she should have gone so soon afterwards. Her singing seems to have so much life.
Tammi Terrible? How idiotic is that?
Idiotic word play in the way that only British sixties and seventies djs seemed capable of. Another one I remember was Olivia Newton John who became Olivia Neutron Bomb. Just silliness I suppose but given Tammi’s qualities and her fate it seemed so terribly inappropriate. Listening to this old heart of mine really brings home that rare combination of strength and vulnerability she had.