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Arts and Music |
The Prater's Creek Gazette 14th Issue Summer 2007 Page #10 |
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Flatt & Scruggs Martha White Shows Released On DVD
No tapes of the show, which aired in various southern markets from 19 –19, were known to exist until 1989 when a man who had worked for Martha White Mills cleaned out his garage and found 24 episodes of the shows on movie reels and videotapes. Until they were found, it was believed that all shows had been erased or taped over. But they were found and we can buy them! And watch them over and over and over and over! These shows are perfect because they aren’t perfect. On one number with Earl and fiddle player Paul Warren doing a duet, Earl kind of muffs the ending and Lester laughs and says if he keeps working on “he’ll get that ending yet.” Every fan of true bluegrass needs these DVDs. BETTY HUTTON - (February 26,1921 - March 11, 2007)
But her definitive role came in Annie Get Your Gun for MGM studios. Ms. Hutton landed the role after Judy Garland was suspended by MGM from the picture for unprofessional behavior, and the studio asked Paramount Pictures to loan her for the film Her life’s story could, and should be made into a movie. She was born in Battle Creek, Michigan, the daughter of a railway worker, Lum Thornburg, who abandoned his wife and daughters (four-year-old Marion and two-year-old Betty) in 1923. In order to support them, their mother opened a speakeasy in their home, where Betty, age 3, sang for the customers. The police ran them out of town and they moved to Detroit where a young Betty sang for money in the bars to keep her mother in booze. When she turned 13 she started singing for big bands and was discovered by Hollywood. After years of big pictures, she had a falling out with Paramount over the studio not letting her husband direct her films. She made one more film, 1957’s Spring Reunion. Once at a big Hollywood premiere of her new movie, the police escorted her to the theater. Her mother, who was with her, said “This time the police are in front of us”. In 1967, Ms. Hutton filed for bankruptcy, saw the end of her fourth marriage, and soon became addicted to alcohol and drugs, alienated her children and attempted suicide, which resulted in a nervous breakdown. In an interview at the time, she said: "I'm so mixed-up and blue. I just can't take any more setbacks ... I don't even have many friends any more because I backed away from them. I think things are going to go right for me again. I'm not old. I'm old enough, but I photograph young, thank God, and I still get fan mail. I don't know where it's all going to lead." In the early 70’s she met a priest in Rhode Island and, with his friendship and help, she started putting her life back together working as a cook and housekeeper in the parish rectory. With the priest’s help she enrolled in college earning a bachelor’s degree in 1986 and M.A. two years later. Cousin Ray’s (The Drovers Old Time Medicine Show) daddy said Betty Hutton was "the best actress of her time". The Ultimate Mix For Your Summer Dance Party If you’re going to have a Summer party, and you want people to dance, then just play the following songs and you’re guaranteed to have everybody dancing. Even the most uptight white boy will want to, and will be able to, dance to these songs. Now we ain’t gonna get "jiggy" with it. Nor is there any “Whoomp! There it is” crap. Your guests won’t be doing any “vogueing”, and there won’t be any MC Hammer. There won’t be any songs about gay men at the YMCA or in the Navy. And hopefully any hippies attending won’t be twirling around thinking they’re dancing when they’re really just acting whiter than white. No, The Gazette has picked songs to get doooooown to! And we picked some good slow songs so you can hold your baby tight.
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Last year I was
reading an article on Led Zeppelin, that said you could find a lot of
great live footage on the band on YouTube.com. I thought that site only had
teenagers doing stuff, but I visited the site and saw some amazing Zep
footage. “Hmm” I thought to myself, “I wonder if they have any old
bluegrass?” I typed in “Flatt & Scruggs TV Show” and there were about a
dozen clips from 1961 broadcasts of their Martha White Show! Just like when
I see any old footage of bluegrass in a documentary I ask the heavens “Why
can’t I buy this somewhere?!!!”. Then, a couple of months ago, in the
Friday edition of USA Today newspaper’s new DVD column it said that two
DVDs, each containing two shows, were coming out the next Tuesday!
Born Betty June
Thornburg, the world knew her as Betty Hutton, the most popular of the many
loud voiced, blonde singers of the 1940’s. She starred in such films as The
Fleet's In, And the Angels Sing, and Here Come the Waves (with Bing Crosby).
At first she was always in second female role, usually behind Dorothy Lamour.
Following the release The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek (1944), Betty was
indisputably a major star and with the release of 1945’s Incendiary Blonde,
Hutton had supplanted Lamour as Paramount's number one female box office
attraction.