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The
"Your Life is Your Story" Blog Archives
© Tom
Gilbert
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quality family history and life story news, views, methods, products,
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...and whatever else catches our fancy of personal
historian
August, 2021
current
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Charlie Watts Drumming Had Rock, But Mainly Roll
August 26, 2021
 The
news that Charlie Watts, drummer for the Rolling Stones, had passed
away on Tuesday hit the music world pretty hard. It certainly was one
of those deaths that made me pause, like the wind had gone out of me,
and I literally had to sit with this information for a couple of days
beforeI could post about it.
Arguably, the Rolling Stones are the seminal rock n' roll band. And
Charlie, the smooth, dapper dresser and drummer, had a wonderful way of
keeping the beat steady and just this side of sloppy. What I mean by
that is he wasn't a pounder of the skins, not a basher. And he also
wasn't one of those cocktail piano jazz backbeats. He was indeed a
lover of jazz and that had a lot to do with how he played. But he also
understood the rock n' roll the Stones created and championed for
nearly 60 years.
I must credit MIke Edison, author of Sympathy for the Drummer: Why Charlie Watts Matters, for the insight that Charlie had the "roll" so crucial to rock n' roll.
I heard him interviewed on a local radio station this morning, discussing
his book and the recent passing of Mr. Watts. And he made that point.
It's inevitable that many of the important music makers of the 60s and
70s are dying off. Ok, boomer. I am from that generation. Charlie Watts
was 80, surrounded by family and he reportedly went peacefully. I hope
at 65 I have many more good years, but one never knows.
What is important is how we live our lives. Everyone seems to share he
same opinion about the importance of the Stones' drummer. Keith and
Mick both admit that they he was the driving force, as it should be with a rhythm instrument like drums. Watts had the rock and the roll.
Cell Phone Inventor Changed the World
August 23, 2021
 My
first "car" phone was like a regular phone attached to a big box. I
could take it out of the car or plug it into the car. This was in 1987
and I was working in Southern California for a radio station. It
was a primitive time for cell phones, but I thought I was quite the
"hot shot" to have this phone courtesy of my employer.
Those phones in the 1980s were vastly different from the
smart the phones of today. Remember those big brick size phones
that looked like an Army two-way radio?
Marty Cooper was and is a visionary. He is the "Father of the cell
phone" and without his innovations and tenacity for seeing the birth of
the cellphone become a reality our world would be very different. Think
of all the apps and social media on top of texting and calling that we
do with our modern devices.
Cutting the Cord
is Mr. Cooper's memoir. In it you can learn the whole story and it
sounds like he's lived an amazing life. I found out about it by
watching CBS Sunday morning yesterday. You can see that segment here.
Journalist Finds Out He Only Has Months to Live
August 17, 2021
Jack Thomas was a working journalist for more than 60 years. He covered
major events and was no stranger to news about death and tragedy.
Then he got some news quite personal and right away he knew the
way he would deal with the news that he had terminal cancer with just
months to live was to do what he'd been doing for so many years. He
would write about it.
I imagine he approached the task with a real sense of urgency. After
all, he couldn't really delay. There were things to process and then
say and he went about it with the zeal he applied to so many writing
assignments over the years working at a bigtime newspapers, the Boston Globe. He'd had assignments where he interviewed elderly people on death's door. Now it was his story and he was eager to tell it.
I thought the article, "I just learned I only have months to live. This is what I want to say" was riveting and heartfelt. Read it yourself and see what you think.
Poet Morrison
August 8, 2021
 I
was 15 when Jim Morrison, lead singer of the Doors, was found dead in
his bathtub in Paris on July 3, 1971. That was over 50 years ago and
the legend and influence of both Poet Morrison and the Doors has grown.
Robby Krieger, John Densmore and fellow UCLA film school graduate and
co-founder of the group, Ray Manzarek burst upon the music and cultural
scene in those heady days of 1967.
Morrison wasn't really a musician, per se. Densmore and Krieger on CBS Sunday Morning said he was more of a "word musician", or word magician. I like that.
I've been a big fan of the Doors and their music is, in my opinion,
timeless. The music and the words formed something very powerful. At
times full on rocking, at other times whimisical or mysterious.
Jim Morrison was charasmatic and certainly filled the role of a rock
band lead singer. But he really was a poet. His sister, Anne
Morrison Chewning, has archived much of his work, including multiple
notebooks and scraps of papeer containing his many word and writings.
She has compiled them into a tome of more than 600 pages, The Collected Works of Jim Morrison (Harper Design). On the same CBS Sunday Morning show today she was interviewed about it. It was fascinating.
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