In The Wall Street Journal this week, I interviewed actress Eva Longoria for my "House Call" column in the Mansion section (go here). Eva's family in the 1700s helped settle what would become Texas, making her 9th generation American, which may come as a surprise to many. She has a wonderful sense of humor and is tireless when it comes to work and family. She says her mother is the same way. Growing up, Eva and two of her sisters looked after their older, developmentally challenged sister. The experience taught her a great deal about character. [Photo above of Eva Longoria at the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills, Calif., by Shayan Asgharnia for The Wall Street Journal; the pantsuit is from Australian designer Rebecca Vallance.
Here's Eva with Craig Ferguson about 10 years ago. Listen how fast she is and how she keeps the repartee going without a break. It's like listening to Tracy and Hepburn. Not easy...
SiriusXM. Last week I was on SiriusXM's Feedback (Ch. 106) with Nik and Lori to talk about the writing and recording of Killing Me Softly With His song, recorded first by Lori Lieberman and next by Roberta Flack. To listen to the broadcast, go here.
Francis Wolff site. Mosaic Records has set up a new site featuring the powerful jazz photos of Francis Wolff (above), a co-founder of Blue Note and its chief photographer. As Mosaic co-founder and producer Michael Cuscuna writes...
The Mosaic Images website is now operational, where the most famous Blue Note session photographs are available to the entire world. Over 2400 black & white images and over 300 color images are available for licensing in publications, album and book packaging, documentaries, films, and more. In addition, over 90 of the best and most famous images are available for sale as fine art prints in three sizes.
The site is full of features like the Mosaic Jazz Gazette, the history of Mosaic Records, Mosaic Images and a biography of Francis Wolff. There are also links to a number of video features on Blue Note’s graphics and Wolff’s photography as well as interviews about the history of the Blue Note label.
To visit the site, go here.
Amazon Prime. As a celebrity interviewer, I have to watch quite a bit of alt-TV—my term for the multi-episode series produced for streaming platforms such as Amazon Prime, Netflix, etc. This medium is growing rapidly and fast replacing the movies. I have a fairly sizable new iMac, so it's easy to knock off a couple of episodes each night after writing. For Prime subscribers looking for stuff to watch, here are the series I've enjoyed most so far:
- The Americans
- Jack Ryan
- Goliath
- Widow
- Hannah
- Fleabag
Art Neville radio. The late Art Neville of Neville Brothers fame died on July 22. Chris "King" Cowles paid tribute to him recently on his WRTC-Hartford radio show—Greasy Tracks. The Neville show includes interviews with guitarist Leo Nocentelli, one of the founding members of the Meters; guitarist Brian Stoltz of the Neville Brothers and Funky Meters; and drummer Russell Batiste, Jr. of the Funky Meters. For best results, use Firefox or Safari. Go here. [Photo above of Art Neville courtesy of NPR]
What the heck. The Chants were a doo-wop group from Liverpool in the early 1960s whose music was a fascinating combination of vocal soul and the big Merseybeat. No city's population knew more about black and white music trends and the pop charts than Liverpudlian teens in the early 1960s. Well, maybe Philadelphia. At the time, Liverpool numbered upward of 300 bands. The Chants were on the U.K.'s Pye label, which meant they were distributed in the U.S. on Philadelphia's Cameo label.
Here are the Chants performing their 1964 hit, I Could Write a Book...
Oddball album cover of the week.
Here's a Brazilian bossa-nova bass and organ player who was moderately successful in Rio and desperately in need of a name change.
