Anderson Johnson of Newport News Artist Singer Preacher

The congregation of Reverend Elder Bishop Anderson Johnson numbered in the thousands, but they were virtually all painted by the preacher himself and most hung by threads from the ceiling instead of sitting in pews. Surrounded by crime, blight, drugs and wig shops, he lived a quiet life on Ivy Street in Newport News, VA following a long career of selfless ministry. I am only now beginning to appreciate, some 15 years after my first visit, how special was his gift and talent. 

 Within the door of his church and home a dark cave of religious passion entirely of his own making awaited. Completely surrounded by his own paintings of "followers" he performed on guitar, pedal steel and piano, hidden within the walls and largely for himself. I was surprised years later to find he had recorded commercially. Despite many conversations about his life, service and mission, he never mentioned his gospel steel guitar recordings made by Henry Stone in Florida in the late 1950's released on the Glory and Angel Labels. I understand there has been a resurgence of steel guitar gospel players in Florida since, I suspect the roots of this movement were planted by Reverend Johnson.

One has recently been posted on YouTube, using one of my photographs, so I am taking the time to repost this entry in Dull Tool Dim Bulb.
Reverend Johnson passed away near poverty, but at least one painting was added to the Smithsonian American Art Museum in 1998. He once told me, in all seriousness, the reason he painted so many portraits was that he hoped to find work as a courtroom artist. The house he transformed was destroyed by urban renewal (which in this case was needed, believe me) Portions of the environment also remain in historic preservation museum projects in Virginia and in private collections. There is a beautiful essay about his life on the website of the Middle Passage Project run by the College of William and Mary. Some of Mr. Johnson's recordings have been reissued, one appears on the Dust-To-Digital "Goodbye, Babylon" box set of 2003

Original 35mm photographs 1993-1995 collection Jim Linderman

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19th Century Wooden Carved Folk Art African-American Man

Folk Art Carved Wooden Man.  Pine, likely southern American, circa 1860-1880  21"  Doll.  Collection Jim Linderman

Turn of the Century Show Business Portly Gents Vaudevillians RPPC

A portly pair of buffoons battle bellies in Chicago at the stage door, circa 1900.  Play unknown.  Yiddish theater?  

Real Photo Postcard, Azo Back Circa 1900 Collection Jim Linderman

Whorls DNA Fingerprints and Bernice Pepperling

Whorls DNA Fingerprints and Bernice Pepperling.

Are all fingerprints unique?  Well…if you've been following here long, you probably know the answer.  Not really.  We'll get to that later.

Fingerprint and Identification Magazine.  Fingerprint Magazine ran for some 50 years, and guess what?  The Genealogy Today website is indexing all the issues into their database as fast as they can find them! 

The magazine was sold to 16,000 police chiefs who in turn shared it with ten patrolmen.  (yes, sold…it was a subscription item your local chief had to pay for.)  See the stats on the cover?  16,000 sold, 160,000 readers.  In the publishing business that is known as the pass-along rate.  "Mac…stop screwing around.  Go study the Fingerprint magazine."

It ran profiles and the whorls of wanted desperadoes, including gunsel (and cover girl) Bernice Pepperling (AKA Marie Riley) here who tried to slip a weapon into jail to her lover.  She is presumed innocent until rounded up.  If you are doing some genealogical research on your great aunt Bernice, you are in for a surprise.

They also has curious little news items, like the one here about fingerprints being used to control quarantined Detroit citizens…You'll see they fingerprinted the resident of every rooming house to prevent the spread of smallpox.  Sorry privacy advocates.  Public Health wins out every time,  just like it did back in 1924.  Read the piece and you'll see some guys were sending in ringers to give prints for them so they could keep on spreading germs.

I looked for the newest issue of Fingerprints at Barnes and Noble, but it must have slipped back behind one of the Brides magazines or something.

Anyway, back to the initial question.  Is every fingerprint one of a kind?  Turns out it is kinda like every snowflake being different.  Wilson Bentley found identical snowflakes, and he only had to look at 5,000.  We had that many nearly every DAY last winter on my PORCH.  Then Mr. Bentley died of pneumonia.  (True) 

That is, the uniqueness of a fingerprint is  "a working hypothesis"  which is why in court they used to pay someone to come in and say it's a science.  I guess in the trade the problem is known as "false positives" which is an oxymoron, but it works. 

I quote.  "Five examiners made false positive errors for an overall false positive rate of 0.1%. Eighty-five percent of examiners made at least one false negative error for an overall false negative rate of 7.5%."  For you sticklers, the citation is  "Accuracy and reliability of forensic latent fingerprint decisions"  by Bradford T. Ulery" National Academy of Sciences. Even better is THIS ONE.

Fingerprints are increasingly being replaced by DNA.  DNA never lies, but the problem is often getting juries to believe in science.  Some jurors zone out around 10:30 and miss the explanation…and they zone out again after those two hour lunch breaks.  I do know there has been a marked decrease in the number of perps trying to file or burn their fingerprints off…something which happened in movies during the depression and in Dick Tracy comics.  By the way, did you know John Dillinger tried to burn his fingerprints off with acid?  Yep…not long after this magazine appeared.

Fingerprint and Identification Magazine September 1924 Collection Jim Linderman

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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

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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

CLICK TO ENLARGE

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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