DIY Granola

Granola is one of those superfoods I don't remember to eat as often as I would like to. It's wonderful for breakfast, providing you lots of protein and fiber to get you through the morning. As a girl, Carla Emery enjoyed this too. She says,

"When I was a little girl, I liked a bowl of raw rolled oats with milk and honey for breakfast in the summertime. Then somebody came along and invented granola, which is even better. You'll have to visit your health food store (or grocery store) for some of these ingredients. It's pretty hard to grow almonds, coconuts, and carob in your yard unless you live in southern California. Granola recipes are fun to make, so good to eat, and so healthy! Store any granola in an airtight container. It will keep several weeks. It's best stored in the freezer or in plastic bags or jars in the refrigerator."

The easiest way to enjoy granola is to buy it at the grocery store, as many of those classic granola ingredients are difficult to grow. But it can be an expensive item. Luckily, it is possible to make granola at home. I think Carla's Basic Baked Granola recipe sounds delicious and could be varied to fit your specific tastes:

Basic Baked Granola Mix together:

1 c. rolled oats,

1 c. rolled whole wheat,

1⁄2 c. grated dried coconut,

1⁄3 c. Wheat germ,

1⁄2 c. chopped nuts (almonds, cashews or peanuts),

1⁄2 c. hulled sunflower seeds

7 t sesame seeds, if you can get them.

Now heat to just under a boil. Add:

5 t. honey,

5 t. vegetable oil,

1 t. vanilla

Mix with dry ingredients.

Spread about 1⁄3 to 1⁄2 of the mixture in a thin layer in a large shallow pan.

Bake in a 325˚F oven for 25 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Repeat with remaining mixture, or use 2 or 3 pans.

Then add:

1⁄4 c. seedless raisins or chopped dried fruit like prunes, dates, currants, or apricots.

Be sure to stir in the fruit while the granola is still warm.

Store.

Granola is delicious all by itself, but here are a few unexpected ways to use it:

Add a cup or two to your bread or cake (you'll have to add more liquid, too), or to poultry stuffing, cabbage roll stuffing, or apple stuffing. Eat it plain as a snack or use it as an ice cream topping. Serve stirred into yogurt instead of with milk. Or use it as a topping on cooked fruit. Or make candy out of it by mixing it with peanut butter, honey, and powdered milk and rolling into little individual balls. Or start with an egg and 2 T. milk, add enough granola to make a batter, and fry in a greased skillet for pancakes (top with yogurt).

A - Chapter

ACCESSORIES

A pair of jeans can be personalized by a number of details: zipper, buttons, rivets, labels, leather tag, flag, size indicator, hang tag or back pocket flasher.

ACID WASH A very successful wash and a controversial issue. World famous, acid wash was first commercialized by the Italian firm Rifle, at Inter-Jeans in 1986. It turned into a boom and proliferated in a number of variations, but the process was actually patented by the Italian Candida Laundry company the same year. It consist of soaking pumice stones with chlorine and using their abrasive power to bleach jeans into sharp contrasts. Also known as moon, fog, marble, ice and frosted

ACQUAVERDE

*1981; France; by Latino SA. Created by Alain Knafo, who established Latino in 1988 after nine years with Big Star France/Mad Engine. Aqcuaverde has developed a reputation for basics in antique ring and left-hand denims.

AGED

A form of wet processing which, through prolonged abrasion, gives the garment and artificial aged look and a softer hand

AHMED, Shami

*1961 (Karachi, Pakistan) Entrepreneurial founder of the Manchester-based cult label The Legendary Joe Bloggs, Shami(he prefers being known simply by his first name) uses sports and music sponsorship, product placement and special events as well as conventional advertising to promote his brands. Bought to the UK at the age of two, he appears to have followed the advice of his father, Nizam, who set up the Pennywise cash-and-carry warehouse in Manchester: “If you’re going to aim high, you might as well for the sky”. Shami ambition is to repeat his British success abroad, with Germany as the first target.

ALBERT, 

Otto Albert Bekleidungswerke, Germany Manufacture of Marshal, one of the great jeans labels, which had  its peak in the ‘70s and ‘80s. The traditional coat producer, established in 1948, entered the jeans market in 1971. When the second generation took over the family business (1973 Wolfgang Albert, 1976 Cornelia Dussman-Albert) the commercial and mid-style jeans range was supplemented by fashionable sportswear. Jointly with the Austrian subsidiary, a second label, Albergo, was developed. In the early  ‘80s the company became heavily involved in foreign markets. In 1985 for the first time special women’s and men’s fits were offered. The British Vivat Holdings (which also owns Lee Cooper) took over Otto Albert Bekleidungswerke GmbH & Co. and management was restructured. Wolfgang Albert and Cornelia Dussman-Albert left the company. The new proprietor changed the collection makeup as well as the label name—from Marshal to Ken Marshal. The jeanswear label was repositioned as a lifestyle label, but had little success. 1991 saw the jeans label struggling for survival; Vivat Holdings withdrew financial backing and the company dissolved. Since then the Ken Marshal label has been continued through the independent Otto Albert Bekleidungswerke in Braunau, Austria.

ALLOVER

Term referring to a type of sanding treatment in which the garment is shot allover with sand blasted from an airgun.

ALPUENTE, Liberto

*1946 (Pamiers, France). The Heart and wandering soul of French jeanswear. Co-conspirator with Jean Elbaz in the colorful, eclectic image of French Cimarron since 1986. At age 20, working in secondhand buying and selling for the retail store Jess, Alpuente was on the Bordeaux docks as the U.S. forces were closing French bases, leaving tons of surplus behind. In 1971, he formed the jeanswear brand Liberto with partners Christian Dain, Joe Escaffit and Pierre Morrisset. This group lasted until 1974, when Alpuente left them for a hippy existence in Aix-en-Provence, where he designed a collection called Mémé Féé. A number of freelance design assignments followed, including the well-known Tristan Villeroy and Custer.

ALT GRUPPE, Germany

The industrial service company with headquarters in Heilbronn and an annual turnover of DM 60 Million (1990) is one of leading European textile finishers, its key customers being in the jeanswear industry. Founded in 1952 as a dry cleaner by Franz Alt Jr., the firm gave up dry cleaning when Franz Alt Jr. joined the firm in 1982. It then began to specialize in washing and dyeing denims and flat weaves. In the  ‘90s, the company’s technological know-how was aimed at developing environmentally compatible finishing methods. Alt Gruppe’s total service is unique and it has subsidiaries worldwide. Alt Textileservice GmbH (founded 1982) washes and dyes, Freshtex Textil-Finishing GmbH (1988) caters for finishing, and Texlog International GmbH (founded 1991 as a joint company with Spedition Schenker, Frankfurt) takes car of the logistics through to retail distribution. In 1991, the washing and dyeing capacity was expanded with the founding of Alt Textileservice GmbH in Hamburg. Alt Textil-Leasing GmbH and Sanitex GmbH are also part of the group

AMERICAN SYSTEM

*1985; Italy; by Simint Spa. Born as a sweatshirt line designed by Olmes Carretti and originally produced by Biesseci for the activewear segment, American System was sold to Simint at the sam time as Best Company. It has grown into a complete collection that also features jeans and caters to younger consumer

A.N.G.E.L.O.

*1960 (Lugo Di Romagna, Italy) A.n.g.e.l.o di Lugo Di Romagna is the pseudonym of real person (Angelo) who prefers concealing his full family name. Insiders of the denim trade know him as the largest Italian collector of secondhand jeans—about 1000 items, primarily Levi’s, Lee, and Wrangler, which he not only stores and cherishes but also rents, for four-month periods, to designers keen to study the secret of vintage denim. A.n.g.e.l.o.’s surplus collection, numbering 10000 items, including accessories, is presented to the public and connoisseurs in the vintage palace in the center of Lugo, where there is also a shop catering to customers driven by nostalgia.

ANGELS

*1980; Germany; by Fleckenstein Jeanswear GmbH. Modern basic jeanswear with emphasis on good fits for women. This specialization and its flexible trend statements have established the label in the medium price segment on the German market. Heidi and Reinhold Fleckenstein, company and label founders, are responsible for the concept. Production is in Italy. Sales are primarily to the German jenaswear specialist trade. A men’s counterpart collection, RF5, was created in 1991

ANIMALI

*1987; Germany; by Animali Jeans & Casuals Fashion GmbH. The Animali philosophy is based on the longstanding retail experience of the two label founders Ebba and Isaac Rabinovitz. Settled in medium price segment, Animali offers basic-oriented jeanswear with fashion details, innovative fabrics and outstanding fits. The collection aimed at girl’s fits is distributed mainly in Germany, exclusively to specialized jeans retailers.

ANTIFIT

A jeans style, popularized by Rifle and others, that loose and baggy in shape.

ANTI-TWIST

A step in the finishing process, before sanforization, that corrects denim’s natural tendency to twist in the direction of the diagonal twill weave. Also known as skewing.

ANTIQUE

A denim finish achieved through sanding and washing, which gives an look to the garment. Antique is also a type of ring denim in the yarn is strongly uneven

APPALOSA

* 1986; Italy; by Edwin International. Created by Elio Fiorucci, The jeans feature saddle stitching and ring fabrics, for those jeans aficionados who love the wild country and its free, natural lifestyle. Fiorucci calls it “the Hermes of jeans”.

APPLE JEANS (In Germany, *1978† c.1982); Japan; by Texwood. Apple Jeans was launched in Germany by Tuxedo GmbH, the Hamburg distributor, under license from Texwood, on of Hongkong’s biggest jeans manufacturers. The establishing of Apple Jeans as a classic label in jeanswear retailing prospered chiefly because of selective advertising activities. The label disappeared from German market in the early ‘80s.

AQUAWASH A denim fabric introduced by Italian textile company Montebello in 1990. It look like faded bleached indigo, but in reality is a red indigo denim (a lighter shade of blue), which makes the wash-down process easier.

ARIZONA JEANS

*1973; Germany; by Otto Versand. Proven in-house label for the Hamburg mail-order firm Otto. Arizona Jeans for women, men, and children appear in the Otto main catalog (circ.1990/91: seven million) and in the more selective trend catalog. The jeans with the favorable price/quality ratio are available in Holland, Switzerland and Germany.

ARMANI, GIORGIO

*1934 (Piacenza, Italy) Internationally known star of Italian fashion design who rose the fame in the early ‘80s, thanks largely to his innovative approach to jacket construction. His very successful jeanswear line, Armani Jeans, is considered to have been the first Italian designer jeans.

ARMANI JEANS

*1981; Italy; by Simint Spa. Due in part to Giorgio Armani’s commercial charisma, the line quickly established it self as an Italian bestseller, opening the path for the designer jeans era in Europe. The typical Armany Jeans is shapely, fitted at the waist and hips and loose on the legs. Recognizeable by its famous “eagle” logo, the collection normally features trendy pieces and innovative fabric and color ideas.

ASKARÍ

*1977; Germany; Kübler Bekleidungswerke GmbH & Co. Created in 1964 as a second label of the workwear producer who, with this label, started up production of fashionable jeanswear in 1977. In 1984, in order to better exploit this market segment, the company joined an Italian styling office, and since then has offered a fashionable women’s jeans range in the medium price segment. Distribution in Austria and Germany.

ATLANTIC MILLS, UK

Formerly the European operation of Burlington USA, this Ireland-based manufacturer of heavyweight denim is jointly owned by Dutch group Ten Cate and French giant DMC. Main markets are Germany, France and the UK; Atlantic is known for its innovation at the middle to top end of the market. Among its claims are that it was the first European mill to produce blue/black denim, the first to introduce ultra-blues and the first to bring in high-contrast denims. New in 1991 was Retro, an open-end denim with a ring-spun look. Atlantic is licensed to use the Cotton USA mark.

AU VIEUX CONTINENT, FRANCE

Giant two-level store near Paris’ Place des Victoires which introduced the idea of jeans store as an event. Opened in 1991 by Jean-Michel Signoles of Chipie, Arnaud and Jacques Ventilo and Philippe Avanzi, the store features several shops-within-a-shop and includes everything from an antique jeans museum, vintage cars and motorcycles and rare records to old decorated plates from U.S. cafetarias and private clubs.

AUDIGIER, Christian

*1958 (GAP, France) One of France’s leading jeanswear designers and founder of the first jeanswear styling office, Topsider, later called Christian Audigier and His Gang. He began his career as manager of Jean Machine. Soon he was designing jeanswear for Mac Keen, then women’s wear for Fiorucci. In 1991, he redesigned the jeans and Young Fashion floor of Paris department store La Samaritaine.

AUTHENTIC¹

A finishing process similar to vintage, using stonewashing or a cellulose enzyme wash, with or without bleach, for an old and worn look. Also a type of ring fabric in which the ring yarn has evident slubs.

AUTHENTIC²

A jeanswear adjective that became a marketing buzzword in the early ‘90s as the quest for original denim qualities swept the European market. Among the characteristics of “authentic” jeans are traditional fabric weaves and finishes and jeanswear styling details.

AVIATIC

*1983; France; by Aviatic SA. Founder Michel Faraut has maintained Aviatic’s basic identity with models like “Vintege Button Fly” in heavy denim woven on old 70 cm looms. In 1988 Aviatic began exporting, notably to Japan, the U.S. and England, thanks to its timely introduction of the Used Wash.

AVIREX

*1975; USA; by Avirex Ltd. Originally in business as Cockpit, a catalog/store that specialized in reproductions of World War II flight jackets, Avirex later expanded into a wholesale line, which cam to include jeans. The line is classic in styling, with retro-American themes of authenticity, nostalgia and romance. The markets are menswear and juniors.

AVONDALE MILLS, USA

Denim producer based in Sylacauga, Alabama, with two mills in the U.S. Its product offerings are strictly all-cotton indigo, in 14 ¾ oz. and 11 ¼ oz. It has been manufacturing denim for nearly 100 years.

A/X

Armani Exchange. An ambitious retail program conceived in 1991 by Giorgio Armani and Simint Spa, with an eye toward conquering the American jeanswear market with strong price-point awareness and good basic styling.

AZOULAY, GUY

*1957 (Algiers, Algeria) The founder of Charles Chevignon started with distressed leather blousons inspired by fighter pilots, which he perfected with the help of his cousin, designer Jean Elbaz, in 1979. Azoulay turned his fascination with Americana—his impressive collection includes American advertising art and Coca Cola vending machine—into France’s hottest logo-covered sportswear of the ‘80s. 

ROBERT SHELTON

 

The late Robert Shelton, ex New York Times Folk Critic and the author of No Direction Home, would have been 85 today. The puzzlingly fuzzy photograph above, which I took in 1973, is shown uncropped and more clearly at www.michaelgray.net/photos.html  -  where it's one of several different pictures added last week.

IT WAS 30 YEARS AGO TODAY . . .

The second edition of my critical study of Bob Dylan's work  -  the one with the original title and subtitle reversed, making it THE ART OF BOB DYLAN: Song & Dance Man, was published in the UK thirty years ago today. It came out in simultaneous hardback and paperback from Hamlyn. It was a revised and updated version of the first (1972) edition, but was mainly notable for the very generous number of photographs I was allowed to include, the great majority of which were integrated with the text. Many of the pictures were by Jim Marshall.

There was one giddy week, when Dylan was playing Earls Court that year, when the book filled the window of a W.H.Smith's store round a couple of corners from the venue. On the first night, I handed in an inscribed copy of the hardback to be given to Bob. Naturally I never heard back, though as with every other edition, his office had given me permission to quote copiously from his lyrics at a more or less nominal fee.

In North America, this 2nd edition was published by St.Martin's Press in 1982, also in simultaneous hardback and paperback.

DYLAN 22 JUNE 2011

photo by Paolo Brillo, copyright 2011; used by permission

Weird Ways to Deter Pesky Pests From Your Home Garden

Here on the streets of Seattle, the only wild fauna I ever encounter is the occasional sneaky raccoon or opossum scurrying down my alleyway. However, if you live in a suburban or more rural area and are growing a garden, you will have to worry about losing your hard work to hungry critters. The main offenders will most likely be birds, deer and rodents. In The Encyclopedia of Country Living, you'll find some standard methods for tackling pests, as well as some more unusual ones, courtesy of Carla Emery.

If birds are a risk, there are several ways to deter them, including purchasing a bird control net that you can stretch over your garden. Carla suggests trying an old-fashioned method, which might be fun to make - the scarecrow:

"A well-made scarecrow that moves in a breeze really will help keep them away, especially if you supply it with real people-clothes, shiny foil hanging strips for 'hands,' and a foil face."

If you live in a suburban area, you have probably seen deer in your garden or lawn. Although beautiful to look at, their increasing population is making them bolder as they search for food. To keep your garden safe from deer can be tricky, Carla recommends high fencing to keep them out. Or, you can try one of these effective methods:

"Other deer deterrents are human hair, human urine, and rotten eggs. Ask your local barber or hairdresser to save cut hair for you; spread that around the outside edge of your garden. (Put out fresh hair every few weeks.) Or break rotten eggs around that garden edge. Or send the family's males to urinate around that garden perimeter. Or blast music. Or bring home lion and bear manure from the local zoo and spread it around the perimeter. Or spray garden veggies with hot pepper spray. Or any combination of these."

Rodents will also try to eat up your crops before you can get to it. Gophers and moles are two creatures that exasperate many a gardener. Traps, poison gases, or bait can eliminate them, all of which you can purchase at any garden supply store. Or, try gum:

"One old-timer kills the gophers around his eastern Oregon garden with gum. He digs down to a part of the hole under the mound. He unwraps the gum (don't touch it and leave your scent), and puts 2 sticks down in the hole. He uses large leaves (or paper) to cover the hole where he dug down, and puts dirt on top of that. (Block the light, but don't cover the gum with dirt.) Only one kind of gum works for this. It's 'juicy' and 'fruity.'"

SIMPLE TWIST: BOB ON GUITAR

JOHN LEE HOOKER

John Lee Hooker died ten years ago today. Here's his entry in The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia:

Hooker, John Lee [1917 - 2001]

John Lee Hooker was born a few miles south-east of Clarksdale, in the tiny community of Vance, Mississippi, on August 22, 1917. He became an influential, and very successful, post-war bluesman: a singer, guitarist and songwriter with a distinctive voice people either like or dislike strongly, and a shambling style that seemed as old as voodoo chants yet always managed to sound modern and knowing.

After an adolescence in Memphis, where he worked as a theater usher, Hooker moved north to Detroit in 1943, played in the city’s important black entertainment district around Hastings Street, and kept a home in Detroit until 1969, by which time he had achieved crossover hit singles in European hit parades as well as in the US. He first recorded in 1948, starting as meant to continue with a sizeable hit, ‘Boogie Chillen’, and then between 1959 and 2000 released a staggering 77 albums. The titles of the earliest of these suggest his popularity with the folk-revival market: the first was Folk Blues and the next handful included The Country Blues Of John Lee Hooker and The Folk Lore Of John Lee Hooker.

Ludicrously, granted his unmistakeably individual voice and style, many of these early records were made under pseudonyms for rival labels to Modern, the one that had signed him: pseudonyms like Delta John, Texas Slim, Birmingham Sam & His Magic Guitar and, as Tony Russell notes, ‘flimsiest of all, John Lee Booker on Chess, a label for which he made some particularly compelling sides in 1950-51’. Nevertheless it was with Modern and under his own name that he followed up his first hit with ‘Hobo Blues’ and ‘Crawlin’ King Snake’ (1949), and ‘I’m In The Mood’ (1951).

He has had no discernible impact on Dylan’s style, yet he occupies a special place in his history: for it was a tangible step forward for Dylan when he was given support-act billing to Hooker for a two-week stint at Gerde’s Folk City in April 1961 (the weeks of April 11-16 and 18-23), and named as such on the handbills. Dylan proudly sent copies of these back up to Minneapolis, to impress his friends. Dylan’s friend Sybil Weinberger told the makers of BBC-TV’s 1993 Arena Special ‘Highway 61 Revisited’ that in the early Village days, Dylan loved Hooker, and that whenever he was playing, Bob would be there.

In Chronicles Volume One, although Dylan makes no comment on Hooker, he does mention him in noting ruefully that his own harmonica playing was too basic to ever attract any comment, with the exception of one time ‘a few years later in John Lee Hooker’s hotel room on Lower Broadway… SONNY BOY WILLIAMSON was there and he heard me playing, said, “Boy, you play too fast.”’ That ‘a few years later’ probably means ‘not long afterwards’. In 1985, Hooker said of Dylan: ‘Bob is a beautiful person. A good, good man. Very sweet, very kind. I met him when I was playing in the coffee houses. He wasn’t famous then but he came to see me. We played some shows together and he’d come back to my place and we’d stay up all night playin’ and drinkin’ wine.’

Hooker went on to create band-backed 1960s R&B cross-over hits out of ‘Dimples’ (actually cut in 1956) and ‘Boom Boom’ (1962), and crossed too from the solo ‘folk blues’ of Dylan’s Greenwich Village days to the electric blues mainstream of that decade’s end. In the 1970s he was taken up by younger star names like Elvin Bishop and VAN MORRISON; for most of the 1980s he more or less disappeared, but turned up onstage for the encore of Dylan’s concert with TOM PETTY & THE HEARTBREAKERS at Mountain View, California, on August 5, 1986 to perform ‘Good Rockin’ Mama’ backed by all these rock musicians (augmented by AL KOOPER).

Not long after that Hooker made one of those unpromising albums that gathers up clusters of star guest performers, The Healer, in 1989  -  on this occasion CARLOS SANTANA, Robert Cray, Los Lobos, George Thorogood, Charlie Musselwhite and Bonnie Raitt (yielding, with her, a much-admired vocal duet revisit to his 1950 hit ‘I’m In The Mood’)  -  which turned out to become the biggest-selling blues album in history and was followed by the similarly stellar-supported Mr. Lucky (with Albert Collins, Ry Cooder, KEITH RICHARDS and Van Morrison).

John Lee Hooker died of natural causes at his home in Los Altos, near San Francisco, on Thursday, June 21, 2001. He was 83.

[John Lee Hooker: ‘Boogie Chillen’, Detroit, Sep 1948, Modern 20-627, US, 1948; ‘Hobo Blues’, Detroit, Sep 1948 or 18 Feb 1949, Modern 20-663; & ‘Crawlin’ King Snake’, 18 Feb 1949, Modern 20-714, 1949; ‘I’m In The Mood’, Detroit 7 Aug 1951, Modern 835, 1951; ‘Dimples’, Chicago, 17 Mar 1956, Vee-Jay VJ 205, US, 1956; ‘Boom Boom’, Chicago, late 1961, Vee-Jay VJ 438, 1962; The Healer, California, Jan 2 & Oct 1987 & Apr-May 1988, Chameleon LP 74808, US, 1989; Mr. Lucky, nia, Apr 1990-May 1991, Silvertone ORE CD 519. (There is a monumental Hooker discography online at http://web.telia.com/~u19104970/johnnielee.html, by Claus Röhnisch.) Hooker quote on Dylan: Brian Walden, ‘Questionnaire: John Lee Hooker’, Q no.85, London, Oct 1993. Bob Dylan: Chronicles Volume One, p.257. Tony Russell quote, The Blues - From Robert Johnson To Robert Cray, 1997, p.69.]           

SHORT CHRONOLOGY OF SNIPPETS

JUNE 12: CARL GARDNER, lead singer of the Coasters, died in Port St Lucie FL aged 83.

JUNE 15: C.F. MARTIN, guitar maker, died this day in 1986, in Nazareth PA, aged 91.

JUNE 16: BOB DYLAN live in Cork, Ireland, included 'I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine'.

The Perks of Having a Chicken Coop

Raising chickens in your own backyard can be a wonderful experience, and even urban dwellers can try this small act of self-sustenance. Imagine eggs in the morning and a fresh chicken on the table for dinner.

If you want eggs to eat, and not to hatch, you should hold off on buying a rooster. You will want to collect the eggs several times a day and refridgerate them immediately. Don't worry about the color of the eggs, they are exactly the same on the inside.

If you come across a nest and are unsure of the freshness, the best way to determine if it is safe to eat is by looking at it. Carla Emery says the egg will be "hard to crack because the membrane inside the shell has become tough. It may smell bad, and if you just start to crack the shell, yucky stuff may come oozing out." Or, try placing it in a pan of water: "Fresh eggs will lay on their sides on the bottom of the pan. If the egg's a few days old, one end will tip upwards. If stale, an egg will stand on end. If plumb rotten, it will float."

Fresh chicken meat is another satisfying and delicious perk of owning chickens, but comes at a price - you will have to kill the chicken. Assuredly, one would want to do this in the most humane way possible, with the least amount of distress for the chicken. Much more information on this matter can be found in the Encyclopedia of Country Living. Here are a two of the simplest ways it can be done:

Buy a killing cone: "You can mail-order a commercially produced killing cone from a poultry supplier or from a local farmsupply store or make your own."

To make a homemade killing cone

* Cut off the bottom of a 1-gal. plastic bottle.

* Cut about 2 inches from the top and handle.

Or, opt to hire out: Lots of communities have backyard chicken butchering entrepreneurs. You bring them live birds in the evening and pick up dressed, bagged, chilled chicken the next morning.

JACKIE DE SHANNON & RY COODER 1963

I've had my attention drawn to a terrific website/resource called Wolfgang's Vault, which puts online some of the recordings & other items that seem to have belonged to the late Bill Graham, promoter extraordinaire whose heyday was the 1960s and 1970s. One of the most remarkable items  -  and you can hear it in full  -  is a club performance from September 1963 by the 19-year-old Jackie de Shannon accompanied by 16-year-old guitar prodigy Ry Cooder.

I've always admired some bits of Jackie de Shannon's work  -  her version of 'Needles and Pins' was incomparably better than the Searchers', as was her original recordings of her own composition 'When You Walk In The Room', which the Searchers also covered in enfeebled form.

On this 1963 performance from the Ash Grove in Los Angeles, there are a number of songs included which hold an interest for Dylan afficionados, but the one that strikes me most is Ms de Shannon's version of Rabbit Brown's sublime  'James Alley Blues'. I'd have thought this was uncoverable. She does it superbly well.

The whole thing is here but here is 'James Alley Blues':

The Sweet and Exotic Persimmon

Growing up, we had a small persimmon tree in our garden that never got very much attention, although it didn't seem to need it. We never ate them - I guess we didn't know how, but it makes me smile to remember our miniature dachshund jump into the tree, grab one of the unripe persimmons with its teeth, and shake until it came loose. Although for us humans, Carla Emery points out: "Persimmons are memorably puckering - just like a walnut hull, until they ripen; don't even try it"

Persimmons make excellent additions to gardens, as they are virtually disease-free in the United States. They thrive best where there is generous sunlight, but can make it in even the poorest soil. They are quite drought-resistant as well; some can get by being watered just once a month. Once persimmons ripen, they become incredibly soft and "make a sudden, miraculous transformation, and become - and one of the most delicious - of all fruits."

If you're thinking about planting a persimmon tree, or have one in your garden already and are wondering what to do with the fruit, here are a few helpful tips and recipes:

Ripening Persimmons in a Hurry

Put them in a plastic bag together with a few ripe apples. Close the bag so that it is airtight. Leave at room temperature for as long as 4 days. The apples release a gas that has a ripening effect on the persimmons.

Using and Preserving

Low-tannin persimmon varieties can be eaten while still crisp, like an apple. For high-tannin types, wait until the fruit is very soft, then eat it with a spoon; or substitute it in any recipe calling for applesauce or bananas. Persimmons are traditionally eaten either raw, dried, or in a pudding. A dried whole American persimmon resembles a dried fig except there are no seeds inside (if you have a seedless fruit). In modern times, we also freeze them, or even can them.

Persimmon Roll Candy

Start with 2 c. fresh or frozen persimmon puree.

Mix in 1 c. sugar

1⁄2 c. brown sugar

1 lb. smashed graham crackers

1 c. chopped nuts

1⁄2 lb. miniature marshmallows

Lay out a sheet of waxed paper and spoon 1⁄3 of persimmon mixture onto the paper in a roll shape about 3-4 inches wide. Roll it up in the waxed paper, with a sheet of aluminum foil or plastic wrap on top of that, and freeze it. Do the same with the rest of the mixture. To serve, partially thaw a roll, and cut about 8 slices, each of which will be an individual dessert serving.

Canned Persimmon Pudding

Phyllis Bates, Tangier, IN, invented this, and her husband, Allan, learned how to can it. "It's yummy."

For every 2 c. persimmon pulp

add 2 beaten eggs

1 c. of either dark or white sugar

1⁄2 t. double-acting baking powder

1⁄2 t. baking soda

1⁄2 t. salt

1⁄2 c. melted butter

2 c. milk

2 t. cinnamon

1 t. ginger

1⁄2 t. nutmeg or allspice

To eat right away, bake the pudding in a 9-inchsquare greased baking dish, at 325˚F for 1 hour. To can it, fill pint jars only two-thirds full. Can at 15 lb. pressure for 25 minutes.

BOB'S 1966 TOUR DRUMMER MICKEY JONES . . .

. . . is also turning 70: tomorrow. Here's his entry in The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia:

Jones, Mickey [1941 - ]

Michael Jones was born in Houston, Texas on June 10, 1941, but grew up in Dallas, learning to play drums early in life and dropping out of high school to play on tour with Trini Lopez, whom he followed to Los Angeles, where Lopez had a regular gig at PJ’s nightclub. When Lopez was signed to Reprise, they wanted an album Live at PJ’s, and this, released in 1963, launched Lopez’s career. From it came his big hit single of ‘If I Had A Hammer’, which he had learnt from a PETER, PAUL & MARY records. Hence even Mickey Jones’ first recording success had a tenuous Dylan connection   -  and yes, that finger-snappy, thin, echoey drum sound on Lopez’s irksomely chirpy ‘If I Had A Hammer’ is Mr. Jones.

From Lopez he went to work for smoothed-out-rock’n’roll hitmaker Johnny Rivers (an act Bob Dylan seems to have been inordinately fond of, and whose 1968 version of ‘Postively 4th Street’ Dylan says he liked better than his own, even calling it his favourite cover version). Mickey Jones stayed with Johnny Rivers for three years, playing on seven of his albums and including in his touring a March 1966 trip to Vietnam with Ann-Margret.

Before that trip, Dylan caught Johnny Rivers at the Whiskey-A-Go-Go in LA, called Jones over to his table, told him he loved his playing and offered him a job. The job began straight after the Vietnam trip: it was playing live on the Hawaii-Australia-Europe tour of 1966 with Dylan and the Hawks, after LEVON HELM had earlier dropped out and been replaced by SANDY KONIKOFF, who had played the February-March 1966 US dates. Mickey Jones made his début with the group on April 9 in Honolulu. He rode it out right through till after the London Royal Albert Hall concert of May 27  -  and he was up for the further North American dates he’d been led to expect, including New York’s Shea Stadium, till Dylan had his motorcycle crash and cancelled everything. Except, apparently, Jones’ paychecks. ‘I had a two-year deal, and Bob never tried to renege,’ said Jones. ‘He’s a man of his word.’

Opinions vary as to the quality of Jones’ contribution. Barney Hoskyns writes scathingly about him, as musician and personality, in his biography of THE BAND, Across the Great Divide (1993), calling him ‘the overweight Texan’ with a ‘penchant for collecting Nazi regalia’, whose ‘sensibility was as different from that of the Hawks as his ham-fisted drumming technique was from the rangy, loose-limbed style of Levon Helm.’ And he quotes D.A. PENNEBAKER as saying:  ‘The Hawks’ hearts were down in the swamps of Lousiana…. Mickey’s wasn’t, I’ll tell you that. He’d gotten out of Texas as fast as he could, and he wanted the bright lights.’

             

It’s true that Levon Helm’s playing was more subtle and flexible, but for many, Mickey Jones’ drumming was perfect for the radical, incendiary electric music that Dylan and the Hawks were hurling out at their audiences. The uncompromising defiance of his snare-drum attacks, like volleys of machine-gun fire, cranking up the pitch of excitement unfurled by this most glorious music, propelled the sound and the spirit of the whole fiery ship on through hostile oceans. It was the surely the best rock drumming since its obvious precursor, D.J Fontana’s thrilling, galvanising rat-a-tat-a-tat-a-tat on ELVIS PRESLEY’s ‘Hound Dog’ ten years earlier.

Even the ‘overweight’ jibe seems slightly unfair. Alongside the Bob Dylan of 1966 nearly everyone else in North America looked overweight. None of which lessens the pleasing witticism of the editing on a fleeting moment of the concert footage of ‘Ballad of a Thin Man’ put together by Pennebaker as a promo for Eat the Document (back when he thought Dylan would co-operate with his version of that project). Before the extraordinary riches of extant 1966 concert film were glimpsed more generously in SCORSESE’s No Direction Home in 2005, bootleg copies of this would-be promo film, centred upon a Scandinavian concert’s ‘Ballad of a Thin Man’, offered the only complete song-performance to be seen  -  and there’s a neat moment within it where Dylan sings that chorus line ‘You know something is happening but you don’t know what it is, do you, Mr. Jones?’ and as he completes the question, the film cuts to Mickey Jones, pudgy and blonde, in the dark behind his drumkit.

It isn’t a fair connection, and isn’t meant to be  -  plenty of people were in the dark at the time, while Mickey Jones understood the thrust of the music and helped make it  -  but it was a gem of editing (and it was surely HOWARD ALK who devised it).

After the tour, Jones’ moment of glory, his contribution to history, was over. It was straight downhill into Kenny Rogers & the First Edition after that, and ‘I Just Dropped In To See What Condition My Condition Was In’. When Kenny Rogers went solo in 1976, to become rich as Croesus in the multi-platinum late-1970s country superstar stakes, Mickey Jones concentrated on acting, encouraged by a small part alongside Rogers (and with music supplied by the First Edition) in the TV film The Dream Makers in 1975. As he grew larger, hairier and more piggy-eyed he became increasingly suited to rôles as the menacing biker, the creepy backwoodsman, ‘man at pizza joint’ and ‘burly miner’. He enjoyed a starring rôle as the Ice Man in Misfits of Science (supported by Courteney Cox), played the character Peter Bilker in the TV series ‘Home Improvement’ throughout the 1990s, and according to Edna Gundersen in USA Today, ‘he became a household face as the burly biker in a long-running Breath Savers commercial.’

In 2002 he released the video/DVD Bob Dylan - World Tour 1966: The Home Movies - Through the Camera of Dylan’s Drummer Mickey Jones. Its anecdotes, told by Jones with some verve, are inevitably interesting, though as one punter-review on Amazon noted, the overall package was ‘heavily criticised by fans, who felt that a DVD with the words “World Tour 1966” in the title should contain at least some concert footage. (It does, but without sound.)…. It is a collection of primitive silent home movie clips, some of which actually include Bob Dylan in the frame.’

In 2007 Jones finally succeeded in publishing his memoir That Would Be Me: Rock & Roll Survivor to Hollywood Actor by settling for the print-on-demand process.

           

[Mickey Jones: That Would Be Me: Rock & Roll Survivor to Hollywood Actor, Bloomington & Milton Keynes: AuthorHouse, 2007. Barney Hoskyns, Across the Great Divide: The Band and America, London: Viking / Penguin, 1993 (New York: Hyperion, 1993); 2nd edn London: Vintage / Ebury, 2003. Edna Gundersen, USA Today, US, 16-18 Oct, 1998; this is also the source of the Jones quote re his salary from Dylan. DVD review by ‘Docendo Discimus’, seen online 4 Feb 2006 at www.amazon.com.]

SLOWLY INTO AUTUMN 2011

Sarah and I have scheduled a new set of Bob Dylan Discussion Weekends to take place at our house in France this September (2011). The details are here

JIMI & THE DRIFTER (OUTTAKE) 1970

THE CAPTAIN'S TOWER

When I was at the Bristol University Bob Dylan Conference on, yes, May 24th, I was handed, by two of its three editors, a copy of a smart smallish paperback called The Captain's Tower: Seventy Poets Celebrate Bob Dylan at Seventy. The title misleads, since a number of poems were written by people who died long before they could celebrate any such thing, but it's an interesting collection. My favourite bit on first glance is something in the short paragraph about one of the contributing poets (and co-editors), presumably written about himself, at the back of the book. It goes like this:

"Damian Furniss first heard Bob Dylan on an Open University radio documentary about the civil rights movement when he was thirteen, tuning in from under the bedclothes when he should have been listening to John Peel."