...but I like it...

 
Merle Haggard

Considering the Rolling Stones recently, and thinking about Mick Jagger, it occurred to me, as it has before, how some people in show business have names that are exactly right for their genre, and those are their actual, real names:  they aren't names that were selected, or dreamed up, to use as their stage name.  (To me, it's a marvelous coincidence.)

        Now, there isn't anything wrong with having an invented stage name - you know, I'm not criticizing that, at all.  Some of them take a stage name because it's easier to spell, pronounce, remember, than their real name.

        In earlier times - more in the 20th Century than our current Century - some actors and actresses with "ethnic"-sounding names were pressured by studios to change to a more Anglo-Saxon sounding name:  hence, Anna Maria Louisa Italiano became "Anne Bancroft."

And some of them take a different name because when they go to get their Screen Actors Guild card, to work professionally, sometimes it happens that someone already in the Guild has that name already, so the person selects a different name, or a variation, or uses a middle initial.

        For example, I read that when Julia Roberts was going to get her SAG card, her name was Julie Roberts, & there was already an actress registered with that name.  So the "Pretty Woman" changed hers from Julie to Julia.

But the ones I'm thinking of here, are people who are show-business performers and they use their real name and it's absolutely perfectly fitting for the type of entertainment they do.  I can think of three, and they're all singers:

Mick Jagger

Loretta Lynn

Merle Haggard

--------------------------- I mean, imagine - if you were born with the name Merle Haggard, you can't really become a minister, or a bond trader, or a college professor - you just have to be a country singer!  LOL - I mean, it just fits.

Loretta Lynn - great name for a country singer.  And Lynn is her real married name.  (Her family name was Webb.)  The alliteration - both the first and last name starting with the letter "L" - helps make it memorable.

        And Mick Jagger - born with that moniker, you're going to have to grow up to be a force to be reckoned with in Rock & Roll, that's it.  

        His name is Michael Philip Jagger.  Mick is a common nickname for Michael, in the UK.  (In the U.S., we use "Mike" more often....)

Mick.  Jagger.

Would it be enough for your cheatin' heart, child? - I said, 

I 

know, 

it's only rock and roll but I like it.  I know, it's only rock and roll, but I like it, like it, yes I do. 

Well I like it - I like it - I like it - I said, can't you see, this ol' boy's been a-lonely?

...

If I could sing - a love song so divine -

Would it be enough for your cheatin' heart,

If I broke down and cried?

I said, I know - it's only rock and roll - but I like it, like it.......................

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whatever that was...

 

A much younger Mick Jagger, in an early-1960s Rolling Stones performance of the song "It's All Over Now" - is working out his dance style, influenced by both Tina Turner and, incidentally, James Brown.

A :38-second clip is on You Tube:

video titled -

Birth Of The Chicken Dance

uploader / channel:  Jim Cim

        when you play it and view it, you get a sense of the vibe...

My favorite Viewer Comment under the video:

"Whatever that was he owns it lol"

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never stop, never stop

 

----------------------- [excerpt from I, Tina - written by Tina Turner with Kurt Loder.  Copyright 1986, Harper Collins] --------------------------

        Tina:  Mick wanted to learn the pony.  He said, "How do you guys do that?"  

So we all started dancing - and I finally saw what he had been doing onstage.  

        I said, "Look at the rhythm on this guy!  God, Mick, come on!"  

I mean, we laughed.  Because Mick was serious - he wanted to get it.  

He didn't care about us laughing at him.  

        And finally he got it, in his own kind of way.

-------------------------------------------------

That was in 1966.  

        Fifty-eight years later - there's a tape of Mick practicing in his home studio - it's on You Tube.  You type in 

Mick Jagger's Dance Moves at Age 80

It's quite the inspiration, for us all, to continue moving, as we age.

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onstage; offstage

 

-------------------- [excerpt from I, Tina - written by Tina Turner and Kurt Loder, copyright 1986, Harper Collins] ----------------------

Tina:  Well, the first night of the Stones tour, at the Albert Hall, I was nervous - we'd never worked a hall that big.  But we went out and did what we did, and the people loved it.  They didn't like "Please, Please, Please" - we cut that immediately - but they accepted us.  And from there on, I became more comfortable.

        We were something a little different for British audiences then - four wild women up there onstage. ...

        After a while, I started noticing this face offstage when the girls and I were out there.  I said, "God, who's that boy with the big lips?"  It was unusual to see a white person that looked like that, you know?  

He would just stand behind the speakers and all you could see would be this white face and these eyes and this mouth.  

        Finally, Ike brought him into the dressing room one night - they were really fans of Ike Turner - and I said, "Ike, who's that boy standing there?"  

He said, "Oh, that's Mick."  Mick went like, "Heyyy," and I was startled by the way he spoke.  He had the English accent, of course, but you could also hear in his voice that he was really into black music and black people. ...

        After that, Mick would come into the dressing room and we would sing a lot together.  He never  knocked, so you'd always have to stay kind of dressed, because he was friendly enough with Ike that he could just walk in.  

But we'd sing and talk and laugh - everything was funny in those days, with Mick around.  He'd be telling me about Keith Richards, too...and it'd be Keith-this and Keith-that, and we'd laugh it up some more.

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do I love you, my oh my

 on You Tube, video titled

Ike & Tina Turner - River Deep Mountain High (original 1966 promo, edited)

channel / uploader:  amajor2002

                -  play -

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wall of sound

 

Jeff Beck

--------------------- [excerpt from I, Tina - written by Tina Turner, with Kurt Loder.  Copyright 1986, Harper Collins] -----------------

        It was an uproarious excursion.  The Rolling Stones launched their tour at the Albert Hall with tape recorders running to capture the show for a projected in-concert album, Got Live if You Want It.  

Six songs into their set, though, the house erupted into a near-riot, with fans clambering up onstage....  For chitlins-circuit veterans who thought they'd seen it all, that opening night offered the Revue members a new kind of eyeful.  And, for Ike and for Tina, an earful, too.

        Tina:  I remember I was in the dressing room and I heard somebody playing guitar - and were they ever playing it!  I followed the sound out into the hallway, and I came to this other dressing room, and there was Jeff Beck, just sitting there, playing.  He was the lead guitarist for the Yardbirds, who were also on the bill.  Jeez, you should've heard him!  I couldn't believe it.

        Ike said, "Man, these guys can play over here!"  He was really blown away. ... I think maybe Ike should've just moved to England then, because he could've really got into a rush with those guys.  But, well . . .

        Mick Jagger:  I think we worked much harder after Ike and Tina had been on, you know?  Because they would really work the audience very, very hard.  But that's the reason we had them on.  

There's no point in having some jerk band on before you - you have to have somebody that'll make you top what they do.  And Ike and Tina Turner certainly did that job admirably.  

Tina's voice was very powerful, and also very idiosyncratic - easy to pick out.  "River Deep-Mountain High" was an excellent record because she had the voice to get out in front of Phil Spector's so-called wall of sound.

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available, right now

 

Tony Curtis and Burt Lancaster in Sweet Smell Of Success (1957)

On Amazon Prime, now:

Sweet Smell of Success

and

Goodbye, Columbus

on Netlifx, now:

The Sting

enjoy

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