k.d. laing sings Neil Young's Helpless at The Canadian Songwriters' Hall of Fame

Dead Poets Society #52 Edward Thomas: Adlestrop

Adlestrop by Edward Thomas

Yes. I remember Adlestrop—
The name, because one afternoon
Of heat the express-train drew up there
Unwontedly. It was late June.

The steam hissed. Someone cleared his throat.
No one left and no one came
On the bare platform. What I saw
Was Adlestrop—only the name

And willows, willow-herb, and grass,
And meadowsweet, and haycocks dry,
No whit less still and lonely fair
Than the high cloudlets in the sky.

And for that minute a blackbird sang
Close by, and round him, mistier,
Farther and farther, all the birds
Of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire.

Last night's set lists

At The Habit, York: -

Ron Elderly: -
You Better Move On
Just My Imagination

Da Elderly: -
Human Highway
I'm Just A Loser

The Elderly Brothers: -
When Will I Be Loved
Crying In The Rain
The Night Has A Thousand Eyes
If Not For You
Baby What You Want Me To Do

Given that it was throwing it down outside, we were astonished that the place was so full. A sizeable chunk of the audience was made up of students from the college of music and they entertained us for the best part of an hour in various ensembles, solo, duo and trio. Nonagenarian Don went down a storm with acapella renditions of That Certain Smile and Around The World. Regular Deb sang Kate Rusby's Cruel and a song of her own, but I didn't catch the title. A couple holidaying from 'the mighty Boro' introduced themselves saying that they'd come specially to hear The Elderly Brothers having enjoyed our 'turn' on their last visit, sometime last year - we have fans!! They requested "that Jimmy Reed song" and we duly obliged. We also introduced a "new" song to our repertoire - Bobby Vee's hit The Night Has A Thousand Eyes which was well received. Don confirmed his charmer status by dancing with a young lass during our set - strictly ballroom of course.

Women of Noir #16 - Bogart gets lucky again; this time with Joy Barlow (The Big Sleep, Hawks, 1946)

"I'm your girl, bud."

Seriously? When I catch a cab the driver is usually fat, male and racist with the aroma of last night's kebab hanging over him without any sense of irony.

Taxi Driver:
If you can use me again sometime, call this number.
Philip Marlowe:
Day and night?
Taxi Driver:

Uh, night's better. I work during the day.

Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash at The Split Chimp, Newcastle

Bob Dylan - Trouble No More - November 3

Bob Dylan ‘Trouble No More – The Bootleg Series Vol. 13 / 1979-1981’ Coming November 3

30 September 2017

Bob Dylan – Trouble No More – The Bootleg Series Vol. 13 / 1979-1981 to Be Released by Columbia Records/Legacy Recordings on Friday, November 3

Deluxe 9 Disc (8CD/1DVD) Box Set, Latest Volume in Acclaimed Dylan Bootleg Series Presents Definitive Retrospective of a Pivotal Period in the Artist’s Canon

Essential Dylan Anthology Premieres 100 Previously Unreleased Live and Studio Recordings including 14 Unreleased Songs

Deluxe Box Includes an Exclusive DVD of “Trouble No More: A Musical Film,” a New Feature-Length Film Incorporating Never-Before-Seen Footage from Dylan’s 1980 Tours

Columbia Records and Legacy Recordings, the catalog division of Sony Music Entertainment, will release Bob Dylan – Trouble No More – The Bootleg Series Vol. 13 / 1979-1981 on Friday, November 3.

Pre-order Now: Bob Dylan – Trouble No More – The Bootleg Series Vol. 13 / 1979-1981

The latest chapter in Columbia/Legacy’s highly acclaimed Bob Dylan Bootleg Series showcases the music Dylan wrote and performed during one of the most surprising, controversial and inspired periods of his career.

As the 1970s ended and the 1980s began, Dylan responded to the changing of the decades with a three album trilogy–Slow Train Coming (1979), Saved (1980) and Shot of Love (1981)–of spirit-filled songs of praise, worship and devotion. These songs were as deeply personal and packed with poetics as any Dylan had ever written, but the force of conviction and power of faith evident in these performances baffled segments of Dylan’s fanbase (just as Dylan’s “going electric” had alienated folk purists in 1965).

The previous two volumes in Columbia/Legacy’s Bob Dylan Bootleg Series each took home the Best Historical Album Grammy Award for its respective eligibility year: Bob Dylan – The Cutting Edge 1965-1966, The Bootleg Series Vol. 12 in 2017 and Bob Dylan – The Basement Tapes Complete, The Bootleg Series Vol. 11 in 2016.

The live concerts from this crucial epoch in Dylan’s history contain some of the most intensely jubilant and transcendent performances of his career. Bob Dylan – Trouble No More – The Bootleg Series Vol. 13 / 1979-1981 offers fans and music lovers the opportunity to fully experience for the first time this extraordinary chapter in Bob Dylan’s musical journey.

The deluxe box set includes a hardcover book featuring an introduction by Dylan scholar Ben Rollins with liner notes by Amanda Petrusich, Rob Bowman and Penn Jillette.

Available exclusively on the deluxe box set is a DVD which includes “Trouble No More: A Musical Film,” a new feature-length cinematic presentation combining unreleased footage from Dylan’s 1980 tours with new material written by Luc Sante and performed by Academy Award nominee Michael Shannon. Directed by Jennifer Lebeau, “Trouble No More” has been selected to premiere at the prestigious 2017 New York Film Festival. Bonus extras on the box set’s exclusive DVD include a rare performance of “Shot of Love” from Avignon 1981 and more.


Bob Dylan – Trouble No More – The Bootleg Series Vol. 13 / 1979-1981 will also be available in 2CD and 4LPS configurations featuring the first two discs from the deluxe box.

With the exception of “Ye Shall Be Changed,” released in 1991 on The Bootleg Series, Vol. 1-3), none of the tracks on Trouble No More have been previously released. This collection debuts 14 previously unreleased songs and a multitude of unreleased live performances, rare studio outtakes and more.

BOB DYLAN
TROUBLE NO MORE
THE BOOTLEG SERIES VOL. 13 / 1979-1981
DELUXE EDITION

Disc 1: Live
1. Slow Train (Nov. 16, 1979)
2. Gotta Serve Somebody (Nov. 15, 1979)
3. I Believe in You (May 16, 1980)
4. When You Gonna Wake Up? (July 9, 1981)
5. When He Returns (Dec. 5, 1979)
6. Man Gave Names to All the Animals (Jan. 16, 1980)
7. Precious Angel (Nov. 16, 1979)
8. Covenant Woman (Nov. 20, 1979)
9. Gonna Change My Way of Thinking (Jan. 31, 1980)
10. Do Right to Me Baby (Do Unto Others) (Jan. 28, 1980)
11. Solid Rock (Nov. 27, 1979)
12. What Can I Do for You? (Nov. 27, 1979)
13. Saved (Jan. 12, 1980)
14. In the Garden (Jan. 27, 1980)

Disc 2: Live
1. Slow Train (June 29, 1981)
2. Ain’t Gonna Go to Hell for Anybody (Unreleased song – Apr. 24, 1980)
3. Gotta Serve Somebody (July 15, 1981)
4. Ain’t No Man Righteous, No Not One (Unreleased song – Nov. 16, 1979)
5. Saving Grace (Nov. 6, 1979)
6. Blessed Is the Name (Unreleased song – Nov. 20, 1979)
7. Solid Rock (Oct. 23, 1981)
8. Are You Ready? (Apr. 30, 1980)
9. Pressing On (Nov. 6, 1979)
10. Shot of Love (July 25, 1981)
11. Dead Man, Dead Man (June 21, 1981)
12. Watered-Down Love (June 12, 1981)
13. In the Summertime (Oct. 21, 1981)
14. The Groom’s Still Waiting at the Altar (Nov. 13, 1980)
15. Caribbean Wind (Nov. 12, 1980)
16. Every Grain of Sand (Nov. 21, 1981)

Disc 3: Rare and Unreleased
1. Slow Train (Soundcheck – Oct. 5, 1978)
2. Do Right to Me Baby (Do Unto Others) (Soundcheck – Dec. 7, 1978)
3. Help Me Understand (Unreleased song – Oct. 5, 1978)
4. Gonna Change My Way of Thinking (Rehearsal – Oct. 2, 1979)
5. Gotta Serve Somebody (Outtake – May 4, 1979)
6. When He Returns (Outtake – May 4, 1979)
7. Ain’t No Man Righteous, No Not One (Unreleased song – May 1, 1979)
8. Trouble in Mind (Outtake – April 30, 1979)
9. Ye Shall Be Changed (Outtake – May 2, 1979)
10. Covenant Woman (Outtake –February 11, 1980)
11. Stand by Faith (Unreleased song – Sept. 26, 1979)
12. I Will Love Him (Unreleased song – Apr. 19, 1980)
13. Jesus Is the One (Unreleased song – Jul. 17, 1981)
14. City of Gold (Unreleased song – Nov. 22, 1980)
15. Thief on the Cross (Unreleased song – Nov. 10, 1981)
16. Pressing On (Outtake – Feb. 13, 1980)

Disc 4: Rare and Unreleased
1. Slow Train (Rehearsal – Oct. 2, 1979)
2. Gotta Serve Somebody (Rehearsal – Oct. 9, 1979)
3. Making a Liar Out of Me (Unreleased song – Sept. 26, 1980)
4. Yonder Comes Sin (Unreleased song – Oct. 1, 1980)
5. Radio Spot January 1980, Portland, OR show
6. Cover Down, Pray Through (Unreleased song – May 1, 1980)
7. Rise Again (Unreleased song – Oct. 16, 1980)
8. Ain’t Gonna Go to Hell for Anybody (Unreleased song – Dec. 2, 1980)
9. The Groom’s Still Waiting at the Altar (Outtake – May 1, 1981)
10. Caribbean Wind (Rehearsal – Sept. 23, 1980)
11. You Changed My Life (Outtake – April 23, 1981)
12. Shot of Love (Outtake – March 25, 1981)
13. Watered-Down Love (Outtake – May 15, 1981)
14. Dead Man, Dead Man (Outtake – April 24, 1981)
15. Every Grain of Sand (Rehearsal – Sept. 26, 1980)

Disc 5 – Live in Toronto 1980
1. Gotta Serve Somebody (April 18, 1980)
2. I Believe In You (April 18, 1980)
3. Covenant Woman (April 19, 1980)
4. When You Gonna Wake Up? (April 18, 1980)
5. When He Returns (April 20, 1980)
6. Ain’t Gonna Go To Hell For Anybody (Unreleased song – April 18, 1980)
7. Cover Down, Pray Through (Unreleased song – April 19, 1980)
8. Man Gave Names To All The Animals (April 19, 1980)
9. Precious Angel (April 19, 1980)

Disc 6 – Live in Toronto 1980
1. Slow Train (April 18, 1980)
2. Do Right To Me Baby (Do Unto Others) (April 20, 1980)
3. Solid Rock (April 20, 1980)
4. Saving Grace (April 18, 1980)
5. What Can I Do For You? (April 19, 1980)
6. In The Garden (April 20, 1980)
7. Band Introductions (April 19, 1980)
8. Are You Ready? (April 19, 1980)
9. Pressing On (April 18, 1980)

Disc 7 – Live in Earl’s Court, London – June 27, 1981
1. Gotta Serve Somebody
2. I Believe In You
3. Like A Rolling Stone
4. Man Gave Names To All The Animals
5. Maggie’s Farm
6. I Don’t Believe You
7. Dead Man, Dead Man
8. Girl From The North Country
9. Ballad Of A Thin Man

Disc 8 – Live in Earl’s Court – London – June 27, 1981
1. Slow Train
2. Let’s Begin
3. Lenny Bruce
4. Mr. Tambourine Man
5. Solid Rock
6. Just Like A Woman
7. Watered-Down Love
8. Forever Young
9. When You Gonna Wake Up
10. In The Garden
11. Band Introductions
12. Blowin’ In The Wind
13. It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue
14. Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door

Disc 9: Bonus DVD
Trouble No More – A Musical Film

DVD EXTRAS:
Shot of Love
Cover Down, Pray Through
Jesus Met the Woman at the Well (Alternate version)
Ain’t Gonna Go to Hell for Anybody (Complete version)
Precious Angel (Complete version)
Slow Train (Complete version)

http://www.bobdylan.com/news/bob-dylan-trouble-no-more-the-bootleg-series-vol-13-1979-1981-coming-november-3/

FRIDAY NIGHT BOY COOL #417

Global Warming? You're having a laugh...

Dead Poets Society #51 Jacques Prévert: The Message

The Message by Jacques Prévert  

The door that someone opened
The door that someone closed
The chair on which someone sat down
The cat that someone petted
The fruit that someone bit into
The letter that someone read
The chair that someone tipped over
The door that someone opened
The road where someone is still running
The woods that someone crossed running
The river in which someone jumped
The hospital where someone died.

Joan Osborne does Bob Dylan...

Joan Osborne boldly takes on 'Songs of Bob Dylan'

Bob Doerschuk
USA TODAY
30 August 2017

Unlike almost everything in today’s popular music and in the great standards of years past, the songs of Bob Dylan can be savored in multiple ways. The finest among them are elusive and accessible, puzzling and informative, all at the same time.

None of this intimidates Joan Osborne. In fact, that’s why she dedicates her new album entirely to his works. More than a tribute to his legacy, Songs Of Bob Dylan, releasing Sept. 1, also captures Osborne at her best as a vocal interpreter. Much of this stems from the insight she’s gained into his intentions as a writer.

“One of the great lessons of Dylan’s writing is that his songs are obviously about something or someone very specific to him,” says Osborne, 55. “And yet he uses this poetic language that allows it to be about many other things. This makes them all the more powerful because you want the listener, even more than the singer, to take in that story in a way that means something to them.”

This repertoire has fascinated Osborne since her earliest years. She drew from it onstage in Greenwich Village nightclubs and bars after moving east from her home state of Kentucky. As her reputation spread nationally in the wake of her hit single One of Us, Dylan himself took note. And in 1998, he sent her an unexpected invitation to join him on a duet version of his elegiac Chimes Of Freedom, to be featured on the 1999 NBC mini-series The ‘60s.

“We recorded on the same microphone,” she recalls. “My face was literally inches from his face. We did Chimes Of Freedom three times. Each one was very different from the others. Because Dylan has this very restless intelligence, he can change his approach very quickly from one moment to the next. So I had to really lock onto his phrasing and basically stare at his lips so that I could match what he was doing with my harmony. It was actually a positive thing for me because I had to concentrate fully, so I didn’t have any mental energy left over to be like, ‘Oh, my God, I’m on the microphone with Bob Dylan!’”



The decision to tackle this project stems from Osborne’s two-week residencies in 2016 and 2017 at New York’s Cafe Carlyle, each one featuring Dylan’s songs exclusively. For those engagements, she fashioned many of them into personal statements that honored his spontaneity as well as his writing. Many of these turn up on Songs Of Bob Dylan, including Rainy Day Women #12 & #35 transformed into dreamy shuffle and Ring Them Bells as a cascade of piano chords, tumbling like a carillon sounding the hour.

Just one track, Masters Of War, pushed Osborne to focus on the literal rather than figurative qualities of the lyric. There’s nothing obscure about its scorn for war profiteers, a message that was well understood in the 1960s and relevant to current events as well.

“The thing that connected with me is the line in the first verse: ‘I want you to know I can see through your mask,’ ” she says. “That’s very direct, this concept of speaking truth to power, not just saying it in a general way but addressing it directly to a person. As a mother, the verse about fearing to bring children in the world also resonates with me. This is a frightening time to be alive. And it’s this kind of moment when our great artists and poets are most needed. We need songs like this more than ever to crystallize our passion and to express what we’re feeling.”

https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/music/2017/08/30/joan-osborne-boldly-takes-songs-bob-dylan/614094001/

Women of Noir #15 - Lee Remick just about survives an Experiment in Terror (Edwards, 1962)

And a great opening too:

Our man (and woman) in Dubrovnik

Dubrovnik by cable car (taken just before they were arrested for spying)

Lunch at the harbour

Harry Dean Stanton RIP

Harry Dean Stanton obituary

The long-time David Lynch collaborator left a legacy of quintessentially American roles that spanned decades and won him an army of admirers

Ronald Bergan

The Guardian
Saturday 16 September 2017

Harry Dean Stanton, who has died aged 91, was a vintage performer, only reaching his full potential in his late 50s.

Billed as Dean Stanton throughout the 1950s and 60s, the narrow-faced, weather-beaten actor with the hangdog expression was probably the busiest actor of his generation. His distinctive features and style proved a godsend for casting directors in search of conmen, misfits, sleazeballs, losers and eccentrics.

In the first half of his career, Stanton made scores of television appearances, mainly westerns, and dozens of films, mostly in brief roles. His face but not his name gained recognition.

That is until he came into more focus in Ridley Scott’s Alien (1979) as a downtrodden engineer on the doomed spaceship. Then, in 1984, greatness was thrust upon him when he was given two of his rare leading roles, in Alex Cox’s Repo Man and Wim Wenders’ Paris, Texas, which were, understandably, his own favourites. A few years later, he was celebrated by Debbie Harry in the 1989 Blondie hit I Want That Man.

Stanton was born in a small town in Kentucky, where his father, Sheridan Harry Stanton, was a tobacco farmer and barber, and his mother, Ersel, a hairdresser and cook. After leaving high school in 1944, he served in the US navy in the second world war, during which he saw action in Okinawa. He then returned to study journalism and radio at the University of Kentucky, where he became seriously interested in acting after playing Alfred Doolittle in a college production of Pygmalion.

He dropped out of university and headed for California and the prestigious Pasadena Playhouse, where he acted alongside Gene Hackman and Robert Duvall. Four years later, Stanton, who was also an excellent singer, and played the harmonica, bass and guitar, toured the country with The American Male Chorus. In Cool Hand Luke (1967), Stanton got to sing Just a Closer Walk With Me, accompanying himself on the guitar. He also taught Paul Newman the song he sings, I Don’t Care if it Rains or Freezes, Long as I Got My Plastic Jesus.

After touring with the chorus and working in children’s theatre, Stanton headed back to California where he began to get work in films and TV. One of his earliest features was the western The Proud Rebel (1958), in which he played the first of many villains, in this instance, framing Alan Ladd for starting a brawl.

For most of the 60s, Stanton was a regular in TV horse operas like Laramie, Have Gun, Will Travel, Bonanza and Rawhide. In the cinema, he was noticed as an evil outlaw with an eyepatch in Monte Hellman’s cultish low-budget western Ride in the Whirlwind (1965), written and starring Jack Nicholson. (Stanton was best man at Nicholson’s marriage in 1962, and the pair lived together in Laurel Canyon after Nicholson’s divorce in 1968.)

Stanton’s film career really took off in the 70s, with two more roles for Hellman – Two-Lane Blacktop (1971) and The Cockfighter (1974) – and Sam Peckinpah’s Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (1973). Stanton recalled that during the latter, he became friends with Bob Dylan. “We hung out quite a bit during the shoot,” he said. “Drove together all the way from Guadalajara, Mexico, to Kansas City together. We jammed together quite a bit.” Stanton sang with Dylan and Joan Baez in the sprawling film Dylan directed, Renaldo and Clara (1978).

He played an FBI man in The Godfather II (1974), supported Marlon Brando and Nicholson in The Missouri Breaks (1976), and was convincing in Straight Time (1978) as an ex-con, bored with his middle-class existence, who, while lying beside his pool, asks Dustin Hoffman, planning a heist, to “Get me out of here!”.

In 1979 came Alien and John Huston’s Wise Blood, with Stanton excellent as a fraudulent blind preacher in the latter. Stanton then proved his versatility in three comedies: as the smooth-talking recruiting sergeant in Private Benjamin (1980), who gets Goldie Hawn to sign up to the “new” army; as the pathetic chain-smoking dognapping vet in The Black Marble (1980), and announcing that “there are over 100 bodily fluids and I have tasted each and every one of them”, as a medic in Young Doctors in Love (1982).

Stanton’s off-kilter performance in Repo Man, passing on his philosophy of life to his protégé (Emilio Estevez), perfectly gelled with the sensibilities of the tale involving punk-rockers and creatures from another planet. In Paris, Texas, in a role written for him by Sam Shepard, he is first seen walking alone in the Texan desert and does not speak for the opening 20 minutes. Stanton’s attraction to eastern philosophy and spirituality may have helped his still, eloquent performance, brilliantly evoking an outsider, a voyeur of life. “I can’t relate to the Judaic-Christian concept at all,” he once claimed. “It’s a fascistic concept. All fear-based. All about there being a boss. Someone in charge. A creator.”

Stanton continued to reveal his more tender side with several gentle performances such as the guardian angel in One Magic Christmas (1985), as Molly Ringwald’s burnt-out father in Pretty in Pink (1986), and as a sweet-natured, but ill-fated, private investigator – “so clever he could find an honest man in Washington” – in David Lynch’s Wild at Heart (1990). Also for Lynch, he made a touching cameo appearance in A Straight Story (1999) and in the cryptic Inland Empire (2006), he makes the most of his short role as Jeremy Irons’s debauched and broke assistant.

Television offered him the chance to return to his villainous ways as a satanic church leader of a polygamous group in 39 episodes of Big Love (2006-2010). On the whole, the quality of his films declined, but Stanton could always be relied upon to hold audience’s attention, paradoxically, with his understated portrayals. “Usually, I just play myself,” Stanton explained. “Whatever psychological traumas or conflicts I’m going through at the time I try to put into the role. Sometimes it’s quite a feat to pull off, but sometimes it works.” His final film, Lucky, directed by John Carroll Lynch, is due for release at the end of September.

Apart from his busy film schedule, Stanton had a parallel career as a musician, on guitar and singing in The Harry Dean Stanton Band, which played their own mixture of mariachi and jazz. He lived alone in a house on LA’s Mulholland Drive, where his doormat read, “Welcome UFOs”. In 1996, he happened to be home when burglars struck, tied him up and pistol-whipped him before stealing some expensive electronics and taking off in his car. But they were soon apprehended after the car was traced by a tracking device. Stanton suffered only minor injuries. He rarely talked publicly about his private life but, though he never married, he once said he had “one or two children”.

Harry Dean Stanton, actor; born 14 July 1926; died 15 September 2017

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/sep/15/harry-dean-stanton-obituary

FRIDAY NIGHT BOY COOL #416

A Friday Night Boy in Croatia...

Dubrovnik by bus

Roman Ibramovich's superyacht moored in front of the hotel in Cavtat

Dead Poets Society #50 Kenneth H. Ashley: Out of Work

Out of Work by Kenneth H. Ashley

Alone at the shut of day was I,
With a star or two in a frost-clear sky,
And the byre smell in the air.

I'd tramped the length and breadth o' the fen;
But never a farmer wanted men;
Naught doing anywhere.

A great calm moon rose back o' the mill,
And I told myself it was God's will
Who went hungry and who went fed.

I tried to whistle, I tried to be brave;
But the new ploughed fields smelt dank as the grave;
And I wished I were dead.

Young Frankenstein's Last Supper

Bob Dylan: Trouble No More at The New York Film Festival

Trouble No More is due to screen during this year's New York Film Festival

Bob Dylan’s new concert film documents his “born again” era

Michael Bonner
Uncut
29 August 2017

Variety reports that the film Trouble No More, is due to screen during the New York Film Festival.

The Festival has carried a break-down of the film, which is scheduled for Monday, October 2.

The film is directed by Jennifer Lebeau and runs just shy of an hour.

In connected news, Pitchfork notes that there’s a companion book coming, too:Trouble In Mind: Bob Dylan’s Gospel Years – What Really Happened, and you can find some further info about that over on the book’s Amazon page.



http://www.uncut.co.uk/blog/bob-dylans-new-concert-film-documents-born-era-101362

Like every other episode in the life of Bob Dylan, the “born again” period that supposedly began with the release of Slow Train Coming (1979) and supposedly ended with Shot of Love(1981) has been endlessly scrutinized in the press. Less attention has been paid to the magnificent music he made. This very special film consists of truly electrifying video footage, much of it thought to have been lost for years and all newly restored, shot at shows in Toronto and Buffalo on the last leg of the ’79-’80 tour (with an amazing band: Muscle Shoals veteran Spooner Oldham and Terry Young on keyboards, Little Feat’s Fred Tackett on guitar, Tim Drummond on bass, the legendary Jim Keltner on drums and Clydie King, Gwen Evans, Mona Lisa Young, Regina McCrary and Mary Elizabeth Bridges on vocals) interspersed with sermons written by Luc Sante and beautifully delivered by Michael Shannon. More than just a record of some concerts, Trouble No More is a total experience.

https://www.filmlinc.org/nyff2017/films/trouble-no-more/

Laurel and Hardy memorabilia for auction in Newcastle

Laurel and Hardy comedy scripts go under the hammer in Newcastle
A Laurel and Hardy expert is putting 30 lots from his collection on the comedy duo up for auction in Newcastle

Tony Henderson

The Evening Chronicle

11 September 2017

A leading authority on comic genius Stan Laurel has chosen to sell part of his extensive collection on the performer on Tyneside – because of the star’s North East roots.

A. J Marriot has written seven books on Stan and his comedy partner Oliver Hardy and from 2002 until last year was editor of the Laurel and Hardy magazine.

Fred Wyrley-Birch from Anderson and Garland auctioneers in Newcastle with the Laurel and Hardy memorabilia

Stan, born Arthur Stanley Jefferson, spent his formative years from age five to 15 living in Dockwray Square in North Shields, where his father managed the local theatre.

A photograph of Stan Laurel from the Marriot collection which is to be auctioned

As he gained worldwide fame, he maintained his connections with North Shields and corresponded with people in the area until his death in 1965.

Because of the links, Barnsley-based Mr Marriot has elected to sell 30 lots from his collection – expected to fetch a total of around £12,000 - on Tuesday at Newcastle auctioneers Anderson and Garland.

The sale includes original Laurel and Hardy comedy sketch scripts, including one for their only British TV appearance in 1953, which itself is estimated at £700 - £1,000.

Laurel and Hardy memorabilia at the auction

The scripts were written, typed and then overwritten by Stan Laurel.

One was performed on Laurel and Hardy’s US Tours, and the others on their three post-war tours of British variety theatres.

There are also files of signed photographs, film posters and a range of theatre programmes from Laurel and Hardy tours, including that for their show at the Newcastle Empire in 1952.

Stan and Ollie with staff at the Grand Hotel, Tynemouth 

After making his name in the United States, Stan Laurel visited North Shields in 1932 where he was given a civic reception.

Mr Marriot’s research shows that in his speech at the reception, Stan said: “I was not born in North Shields, but I feel that I just belong here. I am proud to be amongst you all.”

When he returned to Britain in 1947, he and Oliver Hardy visited Dockwray Square.

Mr Marriot wrote in his Laurel and Hardy “British Tours” book: “They were guests of the Mayor of Tynemouth Francis J. Mavin, who had them chauffeured to Dockwray Square. At his last attempt, in 1932, Stan had been unable to enjoy the visit in solitude owing to the mass of fans but, this time, having the whole week in which to chose his moment, found the square relatively empty.

A photograph of Stan Laurel from the Marriot collection 

“Hardy was to say that Laurel was so excited as he neared his home, ‘he almost jumped out of the car.’”

Mr Marriot’s books have sold in 40 countries and one will be the basis for a film next year.

He started researching for his first book. Laurel and Hardy – The British Tours in 1987, which took six years of fact-finding and the writing of 600 letters to people seeking information and first-hand memories.

The Stan Laurel Statue in North Shields

Other books followed, covering the duo’s US and European tours and Stan Laurel’s solo stage tours plus two volumes on Stan and Ollie’s Life and Times.

Mr Marriot said: “During my research I contacted hundreds of people who were part of the Laurel and Hardy story, plus gathering material from scores of library, newspapers, collectors, auctions and agencies.

“But now, after the fun of gathering the items from all four corners of the globe it is now time to let others have the fun of owning this personalised memorabilia.”

http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/laurel-hardy-comedy-scripts-go-13602050

FRIDAY NIGHT BOY COOL #415