Greg Guidry liked to sing gospel and play piano. As a teenager, he formed a band with future Doobie Brothers keyboardist/vocalist Michael McDonald. In 1977, with his friend and collaborator Rich Lang, Greg drove from his native St. Louis to New York City to pursue a career in the music industry. The pair wrote and …
No use for you to cry I’ll see you by and by ‘Cause I’m walkin’ to New Orleans
“She’s livin’ in sin with a safety pin.” Nancy Spungen came into this world with her umbilical cord wrapped around her neck and her life only got worse. As a child, she constantly cried and threw tantrums until she was out of control. She was prescribed a liquid barbiturate, but it did nothing to suppress …
With her mother working two jobs and her father tending to the home, Leona Gage was on her own. At 13, Leona met 24-year old US Air Force airman Gene Ennis. The two were married and Leona gave birth to their first child at 14. Ennis shipped out for duty and never responded to Leona’s …
Everyone knows about my love of cemeteries. I have been to many cemeteries and I have seen a lot of graves. However, no grave is as opulent as the Taj Mahal. It was commissioned in 1632 by the Mughal emperor, Shah Jahan, to house the tomb of his favorite wife, Mumtaz Mahal.
In 1962, Charles Bradley was taken to the venerable Apollo Theater by his sister to see a performance by energetic soul singer James Brown. Charles was inspired. He soon left home to escape poor living conditions and found himself on the streets, homeless and sleeping on subway cars at night. He found salvation with the …
Maybe somewhere down the road a-ways You’ll think of me, wonder where I am these days Maybe somewhere…
In 1953, Hugh Hefner started a worldwide, multi-million dollar publishing and entertainment empire on his kitchen table with an eight thousand dollar loan. Hef once said: “Life is too short to be living somebody else’s dream.” Hugh Hefner, the embodiment of the American Dream, passed away in September 2017 at the age of 91.
In 1927, as a minor leaguer, Del Bissonette led the International League in five categories — runs, hits, doubles, triples, home runs, and RBIs. The next season, Del signed with the Brooklyn Robins (a team that would eventually become the Brooklyn Dodgers) as a first baseman. He achieved a .320 batting average and became only the third Major Leaguer to be …
Animator Chuck Jones once said: “June Foray is not the female Mel Blanc. Mel Blanc was the male June Foray.” June, who passed away in July 2017, was the voice of our childhood. Yesterday would have been her 100th birthday.
