TUMBLR
A scrapbook of stuff I'm reading / looking at / listening to / thinking about...
Posts tagged "mothers"
Black History Month Story time:
Merry Clayton - “Gimme Shelter”
Before 1969, Merry Clayton was just a Brooklyn-based singer trying to scrounge up any back-up gig she could find. When The Rolling Stones were recording “Let It Bleed,” they started looking for backup singers for their new song “Gimme Shelter,” and their manager suggested Clayton.
Six months pregnant, Merry came to the studio to record her now-infamous backup track. The Stones themselves were very obviously impressed with her talent. Around 3 minutes into the Stones version, you can even her Jagger let out a “Whoo!” when Merry cracks open the note over the word “Murder.”
Though the recording session put to tape one of the most memorable backup performances in the history of Rock N’ Roll, the memory would not be a good one for Merry Clayton. Just after the session, she suffered a miscarriage in her home. Many blame the intensity of her performance.
When the Stones heard this, they were heartbroken. They approached her and offered partial ownership of the track. They also wanted her to record her own version.
This is it. Be careful, it will melt steel.
Merry said, of the whole ordeal, “That was a dark, dark period for me, but God gave me the strength to overcome it.”
Amazing story.
Andrea Dezsö’s Embroidered “Lessons From My Mother”
I met Andrea in San Diego last year and was immediately floored by her work. (Also, being 1/4 Romanian but still knowing almost nothing about Romania, I’m always fascinated by Romanian artists.)
From afar, the stitching and calming colors looked like the work of a doting grandmother, but up close there were images of vaginas, fetuses and a study of the myths that mothers told their daughters in Transylvania, Romania, where Ms. Dezsö, 39, was raised…
Working in the city has provided fodder for many of her ideas and for her embroidery series, which she stitched while traveling throughout the city. A woman stitching in public is viewed differently in different neighborhoods, Ms. Dezsö found.
“If I’m in Queens, people think I’m a traditional woman,” Ms. Dezsö said. “If I’m in Manhattan, it’s the hippest thing.”
See more of Andrea’s work here.
This was my favorite paragraph in Tina Fey’s New Yorker piece about juggling work and motherhood. She can really write. Our house is looking forward to her book, Bossypants.
“Julia Warhola,” by Andy Warhol, 1974, silkscreen ink and synthetic polymer paint on canvas, 40 x 40 in., from the collection of The Andy Warhol Museum
From “82 Things You Didn’t Know About Andy Warhol”:
20. Julia Warhola moved to New York to live with her son in 1952. Warhol and his mother would live together until 1971, a year before she passed away.
21. His mother often contributed artistically to Warhol’s paintings, and would sometimes sign them for him.
22. Warhol was a self-proclaimed “mama’s boy.”
Lyrics from “Open House” by Lou Reed and John Cale:
It’s a Czechoslovakian custom my mother passed on to me
the way to make friends Andy is invite them up for tea…
It’s a Czechoslovakian custom my mother passed on to me
give people little presents so they remember me
