Honoring all actors who brought us everything from Blacula to Cabin in the Sky to Purple Rain to The Thing With Two Heads -- and everything in between!
Before Purple Rain and The Revolution, the fancy suits and hairdos, a young Prince Rogers Nelson - donning anything from gold spandex to a trench coat with leg warmers - could be seen on several music programs like Don Kirschner's Rock Concert and Midnight Special. On his left was a sometimes spiky-haired guitarist Dez Dickerson, whose attire was a mashup of New Wave/thrift store chic, playing his ax. When you saw bassist Andre Cymone to his right, you knew the string solo would rival that of Ernie Isley and the late Jimi Hendrix.
In the song "1999", Dickerson sang the most memorable line - "Life is just a party and parties weren't meant to last". Also, his guitar solo on Little Red Corvette (1983) was named in Guitar World's Top 100 that same year. That would be one of his last recordings with The Purple One. Yup, how time flies.
Shortly after, he was replaced by Wendy Melvoin, who would go on to write movie and TV scores with former keyboardist Lisa Coleman. While Dickerson made a brief musical appearance in Purple Rain, he's been mainly behind the music scenes for 40 years. At one point, he found his musical home in the Christian genre, where he was an A&R person for Starsong Communications. He also ran his own Christian rock label, Absolute Records.
Dez also wrote a book, a personal account of his time with Prince, which was published in 2003. Since his departure, he's remained active in the music scene and kept a low profile except for appearances at SXSW. When asked by journalists about his last conversation with Prince before his untimely passing, Dickerson wasn't about that life.
Today, he's suffering from a few ailments but has not yet publicly disclosed what or his reason for a Go Fund Me campaign. Reddit posters had some interesting takes on the subject, including money Dickerson rightfully deserved during Prince's peak musical period. Before his health took a turn, he also worked as a host for a Tennessee radio station.
Look at popular 70s flicks featuring Black actors. Diana Ross and Billy Dee Williams. Harry Belafonte and Sidney Poitier. Even Pam Grier and the late Sig Haig (yes, he was Armenian but still a person of color) worked on numerous films together spanning two decades.
But that was then. Now, we have this little thing called social media that allows us to share (and sometimes, overshare) our feelings and thoughts. Now, when a public figure has a camera on them to record every word, body gesture, and surrounding events, it takes PR to another level. And it either backfires or creates a new discussion for social media fans.
Recently, the black gossip universe got an earful from veteran actor Taraji P. Henson about her treatment on The Color Purple (2023) set. According to her, everything from catering to pay to transportation was below par for the entire cast until Oprah Winfrey (or possibly, other powers-that-be) made it right. With an all-star cast, this sounds really absurd but from looking at the business aspect, it may not be so far-fetched.
It's About the Bottom Line
When Taraji's career catapulted from sitcom guest spots like Half and Half to The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008) in less than a decade, we were happy...for a minute. While she received an Academy nod for Best Supporting Actress, the disappointment came when it was revealed that her pay was barely a fraction of what lead actor Brad Pitt received.
At the time, the community mostly knew her as "Yvette" from Baby Boy and some forgettable supporting roles in a few urban flicks. However, the crossover certainly paid off, as Henson would later star in a few prime-time shows, including the Fox network's Empire. While this seems like it would translate into long-term notoriety for a Black actor, like everything else, we have to work harder in order to be considered equal to non-Black actors. And let's not forget gender bias.
We Can't Help Who We Know But...
While I don't think an actor's work should be judged by their personal life, this is also an industry where reputation is everything. It's also who we admit to knowing...and standing up for. Late last year, a message board topic titled "The Problem with Taraji" detailed all of the men she worked with. This list includes disgraced former manager Vincent Cirroncione (he also managed Halle Berry before he was convicted of sexual assault by former clients) and Jussie Smollett.
Now, we have fellow actors Vivica A. Fox and Academy Award (c) Mo'Nique chiming in about their experiences. While the latter appears to show full support for any POC actor who may be the underdog, Ms. Fox claimed it never applied to her. So what's her secret outside of those Lifetime movies? Possibly producer credits along with acting in the occasional urban flick and those car "insurance" commercials with Ice-T.
Off the top of my head, I can't think of any recent Matt and Ben-type collaborations in the Black acting community. There was once a time when Ice Cube and Mike Epps starred in a few flicks outside of the Friday franchise. While not as memorable (but less buffoonish) esteemed actors Alfre Woodard and Sanaa Lathan have starred in several successful projects over the years.
My question is during a time when money is funnier than ever, should POC actors be obligated to share long-term success secrets? While Ms. Henson has a hair care line sold exclusively at most Target stores and has a net worth of $12 million, should she change more than her management team? An exit plan because she may have overshared how unfair the entertainment business can be?
For years, there's been an online debate about the cast and storylines of this iconic sitcom from the 70s. Where did Carl go (or better, what was his purpose)? What did that kitchen door lead to? Were Willona and James more than friends? Many of us probably will never know the truth behind the scenes or why creator Norman Lear made these interesting choices.
You're probably like me where in the past few years you've probably had time to binge in front of the set and ponder a few things. I did when I was on bed rest a few years ago. While it seems like a Good Times series remake is out of the question for now, we can have a little fun with these facts about the popular show.
The J.J. Evans character was loaded with charm and talent, making him a somewhat unlikely match for a bevy of beauties during its run from 1974 to 1979. Have you ever noticed that women who were overly affectionate are still working actors today? Yup, Sheryl Lee Ralph, Debbie Allen, Debbie Morgan, Tina Andrews, and the late Rosalind Cash had success in front of and/or behind the camera.
But what about the others? Let's see what they're up to.
Beverleigh Banfield who played the original T. C. (Bookman's assistant), is still active in the business. After taking guest starring roles in the 80s and 90s, her last acting credit was as a voiceover artist in the cartoon Static Shock. Since the 2010s, she's parlayed her talents as a producer and director. She's alive and well at 69 years young.
Rosanne Katon was in an early episode where her snob parents wanted their teen daughter to date someone who wasn't from the PJs. From the mid-70s through the 80s, Katon starred in a number of guest roles and was also known for being one of the first Black Playmates. She quietly retired from acting by the early 90s to focus on family and humanitarian efforts.
Renee Brown didn't play a love interest but a painting student of J.J.'s who quietly forced him to eat a big piece of humble pie during a local art competition. After starring in a number of 70s sitcoms and light crime dramas like James at 16, Brown retired from acting in the early 80s to focus on family.
Ta Tanisha played one of J.J.'s early girlfriends that didn't exactly have his back yet he was so whipped. Anyway, her career goes back to 1969 when she guest-starred on an episode of Mod Squad and remained pretty busy from the 70s to the 80s with sporadic appearances. She also made an uncredited appearance on Alex Martin's (daughter of Whoopi Golberg) reality show in the 00s.
Rolanda Douglas is one of the few actresses who played different roles on the sitcom. First, it was the snobbish girlfriend who was ready to go and cared less about a burned Penny Gordon. Then she was the second T. C. who actually did make a move on the lean, chocolate, loving machine after undergoing a makeover. Her acting credits range from 1976 to 1987.
Brenda Sykes was J.J.'s chain-smoking date who proved an important lesson about the dangers of tobacco products. Besides an extensive list of acting credits for the small and silver screen, she's also known as the former wife of musician and poet Gil Scott Heron. This 1978 role was also her last, according to IMDB.
Fay Hauser played the married woman who wanted to have her cake and eat it at J.J.'s expense (or his developing ulcer). At 74 years young, she's still booked and busy with recent credits including Glee and Shameless. Hauser also has recent producer and director credits to round out her long list of roles that go back to 1978.
While it's nice to see the majority of these actresses are healthy and well, here are some other things that may have been overlooked.
Dap Sugar Willie (above), who played Lootin Lenny, got his start on the comedy circuit. Like Redd Foxx and Richard Pryor, he sold albums of his performances and this was also a promotional tool that landed him roles in a number of 1970s sitcoms. Sadly, he died in 1994 at the age of 55.
Penny (played by Miss Jackson, of course) is actually named Millicent, which is a clever but odd name choice for a Black child of the 70s.
If you think Bernadette Stanis (Thelma) has disappeared from the silver screen, you're mistaken. Since the show's end in 1979, she's made numerous appearances on sitcoms, done voiceovers, and also attended the prestigious Julliard to upgrade her thespian skills. Her last credit was on TV One's Family Business series which stars Ernie Hudson.
Well, it's good to be back y'all and I hope you can stop by every few weeks where we deliver something different.
Been away longer than I planned but thought I'd return with good news. My favorite mag, Wax Poetics, is currently taking orders for the posthumous tribute edition. Issue 67, according to the email I received last night, will be free of ads with full color pages throughout, available as a hard or soft cover copy.
For those not familiar with Wax Poetics (WP) magazine, it's pretty much the Lexus of all periodicals that represent hip-hop, R&B, jazz, and all the subgenres. Issue 50, which was originally released back in 2013, featured the music legend and featured extended interviews with those who were once close to him musically. This also was for pre-sale and though re-released in May 2016, is the best-selling edition in the magazine's history.
As for the collector's value, most WP issues bring in a nice return, as most give intimate details and/or exclusive interviews with recording artists of past and present. I was able to sell my David Bowie/ATCQ issue for almost three times what I paid for it. Remember back in the day when you went over someone's house and they had the latest issues of Ebony or Jet spread across the coffee table? If you've got little ones (or kids at heart) that like to scribble on things, you might want to keep these hidden at all costs.
Happy New Year folks, I'm restructuring here and realize I still owe you an old-school countdown. I didn't want my first post to be an obit but this is a true story I can't get out of my head. As you may know, jazz trumpeter and anti-Apartheid activist Hugh Masekela died at the age of 78. At this time, there is no direct cause but, like many musicians who have left us in recent, I'm happy for his contributions. However, I didn't realize some years ago how grateful I should've been to be in his presence or to celebrate what was a historic moment. Back in the early 90s, I was a big super-brat woman/baby who really didn't know if she was coming or going. One day, I woke up and decided that I was going to attend Job Corp in Downtown L.A. because it was free. It was not one of my best moments but on top of free job training, medical care and food (I didn't live there), I could go to events for free. Not long before dropping the program for good (I also worked a full-time job near LAX), I got an invite to see a newly-freed Nelson Mandela at the L.A.Coliseum. Didn't have to work that evening but me and about a half-dozen folks packed into some car and got pretty good seats. Once again, very fortunate to have not experienced the nosebleed section. Looking back, the concert was long. Very long. And back then, on top of drinking and partying, I ingested a lot of caffeine (and this was a couple of decades before energy drinks were a way of life) so I can remember being near tears because I had to coordinate how to get back home without risking my life. But in-between, I had a hoot explaining to my reformed gangbanger buddies why Paul Simon, Sting, and many others with pink toes were there to celebrate the South African hero. However, amusement turned into anxiety when Mr. Masekela went into a set that lasted more than an hour long. Sting and James Taylor's sets were less than 15 minutes and other notables (whom I don't remember) were restricted to maybe one song. Since then I have not seen so much love and unity for mankind displayed on a single stage. Gangsta rap was beginning to cross into the mainstream and the riots were less than two years away. My generation has few leaders, as many seem to care more about commerce instead of a solution to make things better.
The irony is that while gangsta rap is supposed to be about being a badass, I've yet to see any of its representatives take a real stand against a minor injustice...just abuse or battery against a woman. Anyway, I still have a thing about Soul Train reruns and ran across this rare episode with Mr. Masekela and fellow trumpeter Herb Alpert.
If you can ever get your hands on this album here, consider yourself one lucky sonofagun.
The reason why I say this is because this the album, alone, that would make her the Queen of Soul. I never bought that "Empress" title and realize that another notable may not be in the best of health as I type. That understood, I will never change my mind on how awesome this album is...the vocals, arrangements, everything. So while there are many tracks to fall in love with (and I'm not a fan, btw), I'm going with the title track though I don't know where this performance took place.
My other choice is also not 100% personal. Though I love Sly and the Family Stone, my knowledge of Larry Graham was limited until he opened for Prince back in 1997. Let's just say I couldn't wait for the main attraction. People ask me to this day if he sang his 1980 hit 'One in a Million' and I say no, it was like a Sly Stone concert with no Sly and a loud guitar.
However, there was this one song I couldn't get out of my head growing up. Never knew who sang it and it was one of the few my mom hated (because she pretty much had a record store...we lived down the street from a VIP Records, btw). So anyway, decades pass and one of the few times Soul Train was in reruns, I discovered some new ish (because hip-hop was dying, rock-rap wasn't far behind and neo-soul was starting to sound alike). Anyway, I have a new respect for this man and hope they do an Unsung episode for his musical contributions.
There's too much good stuff from which to choose right here, so I decided to go with a compilation. If you haven't seen their Unsung episode, I recommend it highly. A portion of their humble beginnings was also featured in the highly-praised 2017 movie Detroit. Here is an interview that aired before the passing of founder Ron Banks.
Secondly, this track by the incomparable David Ruffin is pretty damn funky. Most people (Gen-X and younger) remember Mr. Ruffin from the Temptations biopic but I remember seeing him perform this song on a Soul Train rerun a few years ago. It's pretty memorable.
Veteran actor and star of the 1970s hit comedy series Benson, Robert Guillaume dies at 89. After co-starring in a number of films, he rose to commercial success playing the butler to a fictional governor Benson DuBois in the popular sitcom Soap. The video below was one of his last televised interviews where he described why he almost didn't accept the iconic role.
Earth, Wind and Fire has been one of my favorites since I was little and I ran across this video a couple of years ago. If you miss the old lineup, I think you'll like this short even though I Can't Let Go wasn't one of their huge hits. I also want to wish belated birthday wishes to my fellow Libra, former sax player and percussionist Andrew Woolfolk, who was with them into the early 1990s.
I know I've been slacking on this but beginning next week, I'm combining the two (Wayback Wednesday and Throwback Thursday) for the remainder of the year. It will be an A-Z of old school music acts and I'm looking forward to putting this together. Truth, its the least I can do since I've slowed down mentally and physically....but I will keep you updated! CYA
This is only a small fraction of this legend's accomplishments. His meatier roles can't be embedded and I was really hoping that that his 1979 TV drama, Harris and Company would be available in some form. More than two decades before Flex Alexander played a single Black father in a network show, Casey did it first in an hour-long drama. After it was unceremoniously dropped from ABC's lineup, these episodes haven't seen the light of day since.
Thank you for sharing your talents with the world, Mr. Casey.
Their music has been sampled by Biggie, Mc Lyte and was once featured in an episode of Scandal. However, Black Heat was one of those rare entities in funk that was mostly overlooked by the history books. On September 16, leader King Raymond Green passed away from causes currently unknown. Courtesy of Soul Tracks.
Though Black Heat would go on to have a strong following in DC's Go-Go music scene, Green would go on to have a successful career in music on his own terms. After the group broke up in the late 1970's, he would study Audio Engineering at Drexel University, where he received a bachelor's degree in 1981.
Green was also a member of The Original Clovers and CEO of his own Powerhouse Productions. His songwriting and audio engineering skills were in great demand with recording legends like Carlos Santana,Harvey Fuqua,and the late Chuck Brown.
According to at least one commenter, I give Bounce TV a hard time. Nothing could be farther from the truth. I mean, the station comes on digital and cable, they edit movie titles that contain the N word and their original programming , from what I've seen, depicts us in a positive (but sometimes dull) light.
However, I must say that they do listen to their critics. Not long ago, I signed up for the Bounce streaming service and gave what I thought was an honest review. This was due to the fact that commercials gave little information about the then-new product.
So several corny (and non-informative) TV commercials later, I have to say that the inventory has greatly improved. They've added hard-to-find joints like The Spook that Sat by the Door and I believe I even saw Pipe Dreams and Mean Johnny Barrows. I mean, a person can scroll for hours ....if there using the right device.
Now my problem is not the selection but the service itself. They've fluctuated from a one-month trial to a one-week trial. Ordering from the website or Google/Amazon. One time, I had a movie load perfectly and play with no buffering on my smartphone but I couldn't get that on my Chromebook to save my life. Then there's billing.
According to their customer service, there is no continuous billing protocol. Without giving away too much information, Google can only do so much in terms of choosing the right card? In reading through the reviews, I wasn't the only person not getting service beyond the initial billing period (maybe this is why they stopped airing commercials with Pam Grier and Fred Williamson - as they're two examples of blaxploitation actors that do receive residuals from their work).
But like I said their customer service does come through. I dealt with a charming (no sarcasm) person named Foxy Yazmin, it took time to find out that the system may still have a bug or two. At one time, you could access a personal account via the website to see payment methods but going through a 3rd party seems to be more hassle than it's worth. Yet, I stand true by my promise to return sometime in the future.
On 7/4/17, we lost veteran actor Ji Tu Cumbuka to causes not yet determined. Cumbuka, whose acting credits date back to 1968's Uptight (starring actor/ screenwriter Max Julian), make a remarkable presence on the stage, television, and the silver screen. Update: It's been reported that he was suffering from a number of ailments, including vascular disease.
While major mediums mention Roots and Harlem Nights as his most notable roles, blaxploitation movie fans remember him as Skillet from 1972's Blacula. With Cumbuka's stand out, gap-toothed smile, he was THAT dude in the club. Rest in heaven bro.
If the summer heat is too much to deal with, Brown Sugar Saturday night has you covered with a blaxploitation triple threat. Starting with Black Gunn (1972), Take a Hard Ride (1975 with Fred Williamson), and I Escaped from Devil's Island (1973). Jim Brown has a lot in common with my favorite, Bernie Casey, as they always played solid characters on screen and got their start playing professional ball. Of tonight's trifecta, I recommend Black Gunn. It's filmed in L.A.'s west side, has an interesting plot, and the leading lady is the late Teresa Graves of Get Christie Love. Hopefully, you'll enjoy the little bonus I threw in at the top, 1967's Riot.
"Over that Rainbow" is a stark contrast to the uptempo jams Day is known for. Today is the one year anniversary of Prince's passing and I haven't seen this much love for the man since his career began nearly 40 years ago.
Check out the I Love Old School Music blog to read the interview where Morris Day talks about the last time he saw Prince.
Firstly, prayers to go out to the Murphy family and loved ones. Secondly, I wish the world had gotten to know him like they know little bro Eddie. Here, he talks to VLAD TV about starting his stand-up career in his early 40s, having a career with a famous brother, being misunderstood, and his desire to spit a little something (whoever said he was too old must not have known about Hammer, who was WAY older than 28 when he was crab walking in genie pants)
The early episodes of Sanford and Son were the best...particularly those dealing with affairs of the heart. When it came Grady's turn, it was just cold-blooded all around. His fiancee (played by Norma Miller) tried to place brother on lock. Not gonna give away the entire plot but it's one of the best laughs anyone with a pulse can have.
Anyway, according to sources Ms. Milller is still around and feeling good at 97 years young. Here's a 2016 article,r where she shares her secrets to a long life.
Sorry, if I'm a little MIA, had back-to-back exams and projects to complete. But I've been lurking on the some of the blogs about what some of these new entertainers REALLY think about Black women. Now, being from L.A., I think people should date who they please but respect their own as well, whether it be Black, Brown, or whatever. Seems the rappers have particularly strong feelings. While Kendrick Lamar has praise, others go in on women with dark brown skin, natural hair, and features that are far from keen (but if you have an Inflata-Booty you MIGHT be allowed to party with those who don't have half the wealth they floss). Anywho, I was so into my gym time today that I let my music tracks do their thing and ran across this gem by Meshell Ndegeocello. A truly underrated sis whose Plantation Lullabies CD (from 94/95?) was truly on point. Talk about reading sellout brothers for pure filth...
Mr. Jarreau was a music icon and a 50-year veteran who has won many Grammys. He was in the middle of touring when he was recently hospitalized for exhaustion, his songs have become a staple in American culture. Read more at Yahoo.
