Patrotic Peace Parade Plywood Float! World War Two Dove of Peace Folk Art

 

Initially I thought this was a somewhat primitive church piece from a somewhat primitive alter, but it didn't take me long to realize it is a parade float fragment from the end of World War Two.  Over 4 feet long and nearly as tall, the dove of peace would wiggle along the parade route on the wire stand.  Two-sided plywood with creamy white paint on the letters and dove,  a nice red base with a hole to connect it for the slow ride through town.

Peace Plywood Parade Construction circa 1945 Collection Jim Linderman

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The Michigan Elvis : Lonnie Barron Shot through the Head in Muttonville Michigan

The Michigan Elvis : Lonnie Barron Shot through the Head in Muttonville Michigan

I think the first shot went into his arm…whether it was his strumming arm is unclear, but the second shot took a good chunk of Lonnie Barron's head and put him away. 

Lonnie Barron was a honky-tonker who suffered the same fate as many a roadhouse rogues…taken out for good by a jealous husband.  Though he died at a younger age than Jimi and Janis, you won't see him listed in any of those dreadful "Rock and Roll Heaven" articles.  He isn't singing any duets with Amy Winehouse either.  When alive, Lonnie sang "hillbilly weepers" and "thumpers" which was the music most likely to encourage the swoons of young rural Michigan women during the 1950s.  Northern girls far too isolated to see the real Elvis. 

So Lonnie made out.  He was a Mississippi catfish out of water.  A big fish in the Michigan pond.  He was industrious and talented, especially for a southern cracker's son who dropped out of school at 14.  He wrote songs, played multiple instruments,  worked as a disc jockey and even operated his own juke-joint, The White Eagle Hall in Richmond, Michigan.  All by age 24.  He lived next door to the dive, and it was in the bathroom of that house his corpse fell.

Lonnie's big hit was Teenage Queen, in which he brags he was "having fun" with his teenage queen when she was seventeen.  Not to worry, he makes her an honest woman.
 

The Michigan Elvis was mis-named, as about the only thing he had in common with the King was that the post-mortem "tribute" cash-in above was on the Crown label.  The disc calls him a "Country Music Star" and shows him in the ponderosa shirt he performed in.  (After treatment by "Fazzio" who air-brushed many of the Crown sleeves)  That is a kerchief, not a choker.   Crown records was a budget label subsidiary of a cut-out bin conglomerate.  It was formed as a way for the Bihari brothers to dump their cast-offs.  Any thing "good" on the label was a mistake.

B. B. King Sings Spirituals
Bongo Madness by Buddy Collette
The Drink Along album by the Sing Alongs

They were based in Hollywood, and it is likely the only time the principals had been to Michigan was to rip-off Detroit master John Lee Hooker (which they did) but they smelled a few bucks after Lonnie's death and rounded up twanging label-mates Evelyn Harlene and Casey Clark to re-record his hits.   Evelyn was hot.  Her rocking single on Sage has lyrics like "hitch my hot rod to the stars"  and "a set of wheels and a radio, away I go."   Casey Clark was a portly fake cowpoke who had a TV show out of Detroit aimed up to white trash in the thumb.
 
It is commonly understood in the music community that the Bihari brothers claimed authorship of a good deal of the material they released.  They got the royalties and the artist got the royal shaft.  Although the cover is worn, the record inside is mint, but it skips.  That's another thing the Biharis were known for…chunks of cheap vinyl rock in their grooves.  The disc does not even credit the songwriter of Lonnie's big hit Teenage Queen.  It was Lonnie.

Billboard Magazine contains an ad showing the tribute record selling for 99 cents.  The disc is undated, but certainly not long after Lonnie's death.  It receives five stars on Amazon, but from only one person, and I can't rate it as I got mine from a garage. 

Barron was a, well…redneck Romeo?  Down-home P-hound?  While the press said things like he didn't drink and he read the bible, they did find hundreds of love letters from hormone-gourged women fans in his house…a pile of them were found in the bathroom Lonnie fell into trying to escape the bullets.  Whether his murderer threw them over Lonnie's body is unknown.

Lonnie Barron released his own recordings on the Sage and Sand label, sometimes credited as "The Mississippi Farm Boy" and it was there he came from and to where he returned in a box on a train.  First through Chicago,  then down the tracks along Big Muddy.

The Mount Clemens newspaper reported "friends of the victim" as saying he "did not have an enemy in the world" but that means what it usually does in the papers.  He did… one with a gun.  Reportedly one Roger Fetting,  a "jobless carpenter" who confessed to the murder with a radio newsman.   UPI carried the story.  Fetting was not only married to a woman who admitted "illicit relations" with Lonnie, but apparently related to the woman who ran Lonnie's fan club.  Roger's wife wrote Lonnie love letters, but Roger found one she didn't mail. End of story.  

In Memorial to Lonnie Barron with Casey Clark & Evelyn Harlene  Crown Records LP Collection Jim Linderman

The best article on Lonnie Barron is found at the Hillbilly Music site HERE

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Ghost Boxers (Rather, Ghost Boxer times two) Double Exposure Fighting Stance

A fantastic double exposed snapshot of a young pugilist twice, and a coincidence as a fellow found photo friend just published a lament on the lost art of double exposed images HERE on the Tattered and Lost website which is always full of surprises.   Great minds think alike...or in double.

Anonymous Snapshot circa 1930, Untitled (Double Exposed Boxer) Collection Jim Linderman

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Paul Dutch, Chairologist Stunts a Matter of Balance

Paul Dutch, A matter of balance.  Hy Green as Broadway Danny Rose.

Real Photo Postcard collection Jim Linderman

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George Jones

I didn't really want to write about George Jones, as he is too personal for me...which I am sure will come out as I write this.  I didn't really WANT to write this, but all day long folks who know me have been reminding me Mr. Jones passed away.  That is one of the strangest things about Facebook.  People have some odd compulsion to immediately rush to their device and share a celebrity death.  I don't know why that is.  Citizen journalists.

I will cry at some point about George Jones.  Maybe as I write this. 

It is no secret to my friends or folks who have read my material over the years that I had a drinking problem, and I loved George Jones.  I've been sober 24 years, fortunately, but I quit to save my life.  It was that bad.

Being drunk is nothing exceptional.  Quitting is and I know how lucky I am.  A few folks over the years I have counseled have not been as lucky, and today they are gone.  As one put it to me, "It has a powerful draw" and that I understand.  I have empathy many of you won't ever have, and that is good for both of us.

You will be given You Tube links to George whether you want them or not.  Three minutes won't do it.  I lived intimately with George Jones in my head for decades.  I heard them all.  Not a clunker in the bunch, and even the INTENTIONAL clunkers were great.  If you know his body of work, you'll know what I mean. If you don't, it is too late to start now.

Frank Sinatra once called George Jones the second greatest singer in America, and he was wrong.

George Jones was the greatest singer this country has produced, and he did it (as I read somewhere) singing through clenched teeth the whole time.  George Jones could tear anything out of a song he felt like.  The word used  most often to describe his voice is ethereal.  That means a voice too good to describe.  That means a voice which hurts.

Here is another reason I am a lucky man.  I worked quite a while in Manhattan on 6th Avenue midtown.  Across the street was a record store.  Yes.  A record STORE.  You won't find one now, nor will you be seeing as many "in-stores" as there used to be.  One afternoon I walked out of the office for lunch, and there was George Jones outside the record store having just finished an appearance. 1991 I believe.  He was alone except for an assistant.  I didn't even know he was going to be there.

No one likes country music in Manhattan.  A friend who ran the ticket office at Radio City Music Hall once told me "I can't get you any free tickets...except I can for any country act.  Those, you can have whenever you like."   Needless to say, Mr. Jones wasn't mobbed. 
 
I walked right up to him and shook his hand.  I leaned in and said "Mr. Jones, I would like to thank you for what your work has meant to me over the years.  You and Bob Dylan are just about the only things I have kept from my drunk days."  The entire time I fumbled it out, Mr Jones was staring right into my eyes, holding my hand, and he said "Thank you son.  That means a lot to me."

I saw George perform a few years later at Tramps, a slutty nightclub just off the Hudson river.   A room full of drunks were shouting the whole time.  He was good, of course, and he churned through 25 great songs in less than an hour. By this time, his act was virtually an hour long medley of hits.  Mr. Jones was no stranger to Honky-tonks, having practically invented them.   He played them fifty years.  But It was a particularly loud crowd, and an unusual place for a George Jones gig.

Willie Nelson will turn 80 this weekend.  I was all prepared to celebrate for Willie, but George opened and stole the show.

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Finally

Fashion Makeovers from the Past

In 1909, Conde Nast purchased Vogue. Some believe that was the origin of modern-day fashion photography. Conde Nast, in case you do not know, is the name of an individual, not a corporation, though it could be one now. Conde Montrose Nast was a native New Yorker born in 1873. He started his magazine work at Collier's, where he remade the struggling weekly into a profitable machine. Nast left and subsequently made Vogue the premier fashion magazine in the world, along the way also developing Vanity Fair, House & Garden and Glamour.

Others claim the origin of modern day fashion photography to the pictures Edward Steichen took of of couturier Paul Poiret's gowns in 1911 which were published in Art et Decoration.

These photographs, while as far from the work of Steichen, Horst P. Horst, Irving Penn, Louise Dahl-Wolfe and Richard Avedon as they can be, none the less illustrate in 1928 "fashion" a staple of today's magazines for women...the makeover. Maybe not glamour, and maybe not even possible to determine which was "before" and which was "after" they are none the less primitive and early examples of what has become a billion dollar plus-sized industry. 

Group of Early original "Makeover" photographic Layouts 1928 Collection Jim Linderman

Bearded Band House of David Musicians RPPC

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Duck Dynasty the Band?  Nope.  City of David Real Photograph Post Card mailed from Benton Harbor, MI 1947.  Collection Jim Linderman

World's Largest Mosquito Attacks, Kills Man Snapshots collection Jim Linderman

Early snapshots, and I think while one would expect these to be "trick" photographs of some type, I think they actually built a giant bug!  Enlarge and see.  Comments?

Group of Three original snapshots, circa 1930?  Collection Jim Linderman

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John Meyers of Michigan and the Bear Den of Spikehorn's Bears RPPC

 

Favored local crank and bear wrangler John E. Meyers, A.K.A "Spikehorn" peers around the corner of his ramshackle "bear's den" in this real photo postcard circa 1935.  He seems to be waiting for potential lawsuits…and yes, there were maulings.  Welcome to Michigan!

Maybe that primitive rendering of a child petting the hungry stomach of a big one wasn't too smart.  Kids COULD shake bear hands, and no, there wasn't a "Don't pet the bears unless you are THIS tall" sign in the yard.

Spikehorn's tombstone "bears" his name and the title "Central Michigan Naturalist" but they omitted "inventor of the sugar beet lifter" whatever that is. 

In 1937 the Owasso (Michigan) press reported Spikehorn was providing entertainment with trained bears at the founding of an early Michigan conservation club, so he must have had a den on wheels too. 

The bear dens burned down in 1957, and Spikehorn spent the last two of his 87 years in a rest home in Gladwin, MI. 

In 1994, T. M. Sellers wrote a book on Spikehorn, and later one of the cubs born in his den grew up to become famous as "Cubbie" in a children's book.  

Every few years a Michigan writer claws up the tale of Spikehorn, and this is mine…but he is increasingly known only by those who attend postcard shows.

See Spikehorn Meyers in action (in color!)  below.

 

Spikehorn Meyers  Harrison Michigan Real Photo Postcard circa 1935? Collection Jim Linderman

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Folk Art Carved Articulated Wood Man

Folk Art Carved Articulated Wood Man circa 1930? 

Limberjack Dancing Man  Collection Jim Linderman

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Sunbonnet Sue Sews AND Sings! Folk Art Sunbonnet Sue and the Doughboys.

The history of Sunbonnet Sue begins, I believe, with Illustrator Kate Greenaway, but as she was a Brit,  I prefer to give credit to homegrown Bertha Corbett Melcher, who not only created the Sunbonnet BABIES but also came from the great American West.  Here is a panel drawn by Ms. Melcher depicting the young sunbonnets swiping a baby! 

However, left out of most Sunbonnet Sue stories is my favorite version of the tale, by the Fort Worth Doughboys, who at the time I believe had the magnificent Bob Wills in the group.  That would be Mr. Wills in an unusual photograph in which he appears to be standing straight upright and sober! 


The Sunbonnet Sue above is a needle holder, and has the unusual distinction of having several layers of petticoats to hold needles.

Sunbonnet Sue was later a lousy movie, which lost every bit of cowboy fun and when sung by the "Golden Voiced" Phil Regan?  Shudder.  Show tunes.


Play the Doughboy's version again.  I promise you will be singing it all day long.

Sunbonnet Sue Needle Holder Handmade circa 1930 Collection Jim Linderman

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Gertie Cochran Mental Wonder Vaudeville Performer (First Human Computer?) Photograph by Frank Wendt

CLICK TO SEE WHAT GERTIE KNOWS, AND YOU DO NOT

She answers like a flash on lightning, purely from memory, thousands of difficult questions on all subjects.  Biblical history, national history, population of all the large cities of the earth, dates of discoveries, dates of great battles, with generals officiating and numbers killed and wounded, national debt of all nations, including our own national debt…"

Gertie Cochran was speaking at age seven months and was not long forced to memorize everything!  Well, maybe to everything, but certainly more than I feel like taking the time to copy!  Gertie was on the road was on the road at age 5, and "she…created a perfect "furore" wherever exhibited."  Click to enlarge the patter…and be prepared to ask questions.  Gertie takes them all on.  Prepare to be dumfounded.

A cabinet card photograph by Frank Wendt, likely used, and sold, as a souvenir at Little Miss Gertie's shows.  Wendt was understudy to the famed circus  freak photographer G. Eisenmann, and worked out of both New York City and later Boonton, New Jersey.  The card dates to a performance in 1898 in Lake Chautaugua, New York.  Wendt was also known for his circus and sideshow photographs, but the book below collects his numerous photos of young women forced on the road at an early age.

See the book HOOFERS AND SWEETHEARTS: THE Little Women of Frank Wendt.  Vintage Photographs from the Collection of Jim Linderman.  80 pages.  Paperback $21.95 Ebook $5.99.  

FaceTime Etiquette Secret Codes Handwriting Analysis Typewriter Tracks and Cam Communication in the 21st Century

Since touch pads and keyboards have finally eliminated handwriting, and the long anticipated "face to face" telephone has arrived through camming with surprisingly little fanfare, I thought it time to rerun the "Eye Flirtation" chart here which one should always keep in mind when having some FaceTime.  Let's see…do I have to put a trademark next to FaceTime?  No…but when I type it on my Apple, they automatically add the capitalized T for me.  Strange. 

Anyway, one used to be able to analyze potential dates through their handwritten requests.  I guess delivered by hand through calling cards, butler to butler?  So gentile.  Not anymore.  I write every day, but even signing a check hurts my fingers now.  They are out of shape.  Writing by hand, and the ability to tell if a written by hand letter was composed by a serial killer is now officially over. 

 

Remember back when criminals were convicted because one of the keys on their typewriter had a distinctive character?  Now, as everything we type is stored forever somewhere, it's been a long time since anyone was called to testify about a little chip out of the comma key on a crook's Underwood.

Anyway, for your delight and despair, if you have been giving out messages you wish to have kept private, here is the official guide to "eye flirtation" I posted long ago.  It is back, but through technology, it is growing more useful every day.

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It's OFFICIAL

Proud (and OFFICIAL) participant in the system!

Mastercraft Decal Company, No Date Collection Jim Linderman

Two Sided Bathing Beauty of Wood Folk Art What does your Swimming Suit reveal? # 6

 

It is a bit early, as Spring is not even Spring yet here, but it isn't too early for number six in the "What does your Swimming Suit Reveal" series.

Folk Art wooden Bathing Beauty in a Bikini circa 1940  (From an upstate New York Motel Swimming Pool) Collection Jim Linderman 

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Pair of 19th Century Folk Art Children's Drawings by Harry Moar More Folky than Children's Drawings of Today?

Two consistent drawings by young Harry Moar which I am dating to around the turn of the century.  The 19th one.   They are signed on the reverse, so young Harry had an idea of his own capabilities as an artist, or his parents did.  Some young and naive artists have no idea they should imprint their stamp on a work until they are told to claim it.  It would take a mighty precocious child to sign his work before being told.

Lined paper such as this came into being around 1900.

19th century drawings by children look more like folk art to me than those done today.    A children's art specialist could tell me more (and maybe one will write in) but these just look more folky than kids draw today.  


Now that kids draw with the "help" of touch pads these days... I won't have anything to find at antique shows, and I suspect they'll all start to look more or less the same.
 
Pair of original 19th century drawings by Harry Moar.  Collection Jim Linderman

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Risque Hurly Burly Hootchie Cootchie Dancers of Professor G. W. Van Sideshow Burlesque

CLICK TO ENLARGE COLLECTION JIM LINDERMAN

CLICK TO ENLARGE  COLLECTION JIM LINDERMAN

 

COLLECTION JIM LINDERMAN

COLLECTION JIM LINDERMAN

Professor G. W. Van presents his talent in this, frankly, remarkable group of photographs I was able to purchase recently.  They are unusual not only for the content, which shows a pleasant afternoon full of hurly-burly, hootchie-cootchie and risqué behavior for the time, but also splendid examples of period dress, gentlemen when hats were virtually required (even for dusty fairgrounds) and a wonderful group of original painted sideshow banners.

The same banners are shown elsewhere in a photograph dated 1915.

Prof. G.W.Van was from Lockhaven, PA according to one of my heroes A. Stencell, who promised me an interview once but I am too intimidated.  His book Seeing is Believing is essential for anyone interested in sideshow history (or simply a good book)

I don't watermark items from my collection posted, but credit appropriately if you repost. 

The New York State Historical Association in Cooperstown owns a photo of the same touring troupe HERE


Group of Original Photographs Anonymous circa 1915 G.W. Van sideshow 
Collection Jim Linderman

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Oddities Antiques and the Curiosities Business Not Dead Yet Reality Shows of Pickers Spur Interest in Antiques

 

To be honest, I am not sure if "OUF" is a name or a group of initials, but unfortunately she has passed away.  Memorial cards are among them most common cabinet card photographs, but this one has the distinction of delicate hand-tinting and the curious tribute to OUF apparently hand-stamped over her flowers.

Netflix is streaming the complete two seasons of Oddities, the Discovery series on curious and creepy antique dealers Mike Zone, Evan Michelson and Ryan Matthew,  master bone articulator.  The three ghouls are the Pawn Stars of the Dead and American Pickers of the Body Farm.  Twenty episodes in a row, a binge viewing totally unlike me, has left my mind with an odd and curious feeling of morbidity and mortality.  So the funeral card here is shared.

Hopefully, the popularity of Oddities will help the antiques business.  Everyone needs a hobby after all, and in these digital days a few actual physical objects on the shelves would be nice.

Cabinet Card circa 1900?  Reed Studio MA.  Collection Jim Linderman 

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Adbul "calls in sick" 1941 Penmanship Lesson Example

Those of you who might need just one more day after Spring Break may find this useful, a template page from New Model Semi-Upright Copy Book Number 6 used to teach writing to students in India. Bunder Road, Karachi.

New Model Copy Book circa 1941 Collection Jim Linderman

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Ventriloquist Dummy (Vent Figure) circa 1940 Collection Jim Linderman

Circa 1940 Handmade Ventriloquist Figure Collection Jim Linderman

SEE ALSO the new book I'M WITH DUMMY: Vent Figures and Blockheads  Vintage Photographs from the Jim Linderman Collection.  78 Pages  Softcover or ebook.  Nearly 100 original photographs 1900 - 1980 of ventriloquists and vent figures never before published.  Creepy?  Yes!

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