I am continuing my string of "bugaloo" songs. This discussion was
started in the "Monster Hunter Nation, Hunters Unite", back in December 2019?
it is a Facebook group with enthusiast of the ILOH "International Lord
of Hate" A.K.A Larry Correia.
We were talking about what song would we use if we looked out of our
window or glanced at our security camera and saw this.....I got the
inspiration for this song driving into work for overtime:) and I had my
Sirius/XM on the 70's channel or #7 and this song came one and the Tragedy would be either for them or for me and truth be told it would be for all Freedom loving Americans because it means that the Republic is truly gone and the Empire has arrived. so We prepare ourselves when the Gas in the sprinkler system gets
engaged. ( now this is for educational/entertainment purposes only)
One
of the alphabet bois lining up to take down your house...What would be
your "Valhalla" song and you would set it up to play as you load up
magazines and prepare yourself.,set up the tannerite rover and refill the lawn sprinkler lines with"Foo-gas."
I
figured it would scar the alphabet boys if they come busting in and
hearing a song that is related to Disco and Porn in the 1970's. What
can I say, My humor is warped....just a bit. Next week will be "You
Should Be Dancing By the BeeGee's", Now that should really cause some
psych evals., hehehe, some poor ATF guy trying to explain the attraction
to his mother because of Disco. and the possibility of Leisure Suits,
Flared Collars and
Tannerite Rover :D, Now can you imagine "Old NFO" or "Old AFSarge" wearing a leisure suit? and making the moves like John Travolta did in Saturday night Fever? It IS their generation, LOL
I decided to go with the BeeGee's .....again. I know that some people
didn't like the BeeGee's and they got typecast as a Disco band. The
truth is that they have been around longer than the Genre but they have
been typecast. I like Disco, I do remember the the anti disco
sentiment, especially in the early 80's. Disco had gotten squeezed out
by the new wave coming out of England. I think the backlash came from
the fact that Disco was around longer than it should have been, rather
than be remembered fondly like I do with my 80's music now, it was
crammed down people and it was too much. This caused the backlash. I
knew that the BeeGees were more than a Disco band, but Disco is where
many people really heard of them for the first time. The BeeGee's were
extraordinarily talented musicians and the range of their music spoke of
their talent and showcased it. I also know that they seemed to drop
off the planet for about 10 years. I didn't know why but I am sure the
anti-disco backlash caught them up as did many other acts from that era.
Spirits Having Flown is the fifteenth album released by the Bee Gees. It was the group's first album after their collaboration on the Saturday Night Fever
soundtrack. The album's first three tracks were released as singles and
all reached No. 1 in the US, giving the Bee Gees an unbroken run of six
US chart-toppers and tying a record set by The Beatles. It was the first Bee Gees album to make the UK top 40 in ten years (not counting the soundtrack for Saturday Night Fever), as well as being their first and only UK No. 1 album. It has sold 20 million copies worldwide. Spirits Having Flown marked the tail end of the band's most
successful era, prior to a severe downturn in the early 1980s when they
would endure a near-total radio blackout (particularly in America) that Robin Gibb would refer to as "censorship" and "evil" in interviews.
The Bee Gees had been effectively typecast as a disco group after Saturday Night Fever,
and in a 1978 interview Barry remarked "People think we're just about
disco now. Of course that's not true. If you look at the SNF soundtrack,
there's some dance music, but we also have ballads like More Than A
Woman." In an attempt to counter this typecasting, the first single from
Spirits Having Flown was the ballad "Too Much Heaven". The horn section from Chicago (James Pankow, Walt Parazaider and Lee Loughnane) made a guest appearance on this album. At the time, they were next door working on the Chicago album Hot Streets.
Thus the Bee Gees would return the favour as they appeared on Chicago's
song "Little Miss Lovin'" and their keyboardist Blue Weaver appeared on
"No Tell Lover". The Bee Gees also recorded "Desire" for the album but it was rejected and instead released as a solo single by their brother Andy.
Barry, Robin and Maurice Gibb wrote this song and "Too Much Heaven" in an afternoon off from making the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band movie in which they were starring. In the same evening they wrote "Shadow Dancing" which was performed by Andy Gibb (and reached #1 in the US).
Though not originally in Saturday Night Fever, it has subsequently been added to the musical score of the West End version of the movie-musical. The song knocked "I Will Survive" by Gloria Gaynor
off the top spot in the US for two weeks before that song again
returned to #1 for an additional week. In the US, it would become the
fifth of six consecutive #1s, tying the record with the Beatles for most consecutive #1s in the US.
In 1979, NBC aired The Bee Gees Special which showed how the sound effect for the explosion was created. Barry
cupped his hands over a microphone and made an exploding sound with his
mouth. Several of these sounds were then mixed together creating one
large boom heard on the record. The song is also playable on Rock Band 3.
The accompanying music video for "Tragedy" was directed by David Amphlett. It starts with a Doraemon-shaped
alarm clock ringing and sees Faye, Claire, and Lisa getting married.
The lads, Lee and H, sabotage all three weddings before they all go to a
disco. The church and disco scenes were filmed in All Saints' Church, Harrow Weald, London and the adjoining Blackwell Hall, respectively. The external location shots of the boys leaving their house and driving were filmed in Blackheath,
South London. The group's actual families all took part in the video,
with the girls' fathers walking them down the aisle, and record producer
Pete Waterman appears as the wedding DJ.
This is another Vietnam War article from "CherryWriters" that I get in my email. I had done a post of "Martha Raye" back in 2014 from an email from my "Dad". Another little factoid that we both had found humorous was that we both know a certain Australian Entertainer that was partially responsible for busting up a huge gambling ring of the Enlisted clubs in Vietnam. She provided the background that got a lot of people in jail except the SMA the first one "William O Woolridge" he managed to avoid jail, but a lot of his underling got sent to "Leavenworth" but he managed to skate out of. My Dad was one of the CID agents that were investigating the clubs when this broke so he knew a bit about it and they were getting a lot of command pressure to "step off" from the Provost Marshall office at that time and this infuriated my Dad and the other agents who wanted to "get everyone involved" because of the massive betrayal of trust and malfeasance involved.
My Copy of the book, I also have Dads copy of the book. I am friends with June Collins on Farcebook believe it or not, I had "friended" her years ago and I had talked to her on messenger. She lives in Australia now and she remembers my Dad, funny that, LOL. My Dad of course remembers her when I mentioned her to him, he chuckled and said " That lady, She is a Pistol", which is a compliment. I keep wanting to send my copy of my book to her and have her sign it, but I haven't done that. She is a really nice lady and I do like talking to her.
Most
of us that served in Vietnam were occasionally treated to some
entertainment in the form of Go-Go Dancers, singers and musicians who
would come to Vietnam and entertain us.
The
best known was the Bob Hope Shows, but few of us were ever actually
able to attend one of his Christmas Specials. Instead, we were treated
to shows by Filipino bands and occasional Australian or American
entertainers.
Not
until today did I know that many of those entertainers were not under
the USO, but were booked privately to play at various Military Clubs and
remote bases, being largely left to their own accord for security and
protection, except of course when at a Base camp performing.
Some lost their lives or sustained wounds while touring. Here are their stories:
Martha Raye
Martha Raye. known as “The Big Mouth” was considered the female equivalent of Bob Hope. Martha Raye was
an American icon. It was well-recognized that she endured less comfort
and more danger than any other Vietnam entertainer.
“Colonel
Maggie,” Martha Raye, was an honorary member of the Special Forces. She
had received her prized Green Beret and the title of Lieutenant Colonel
from President Lyndon B. Johnson, himself.
From
1964 to 1973, Martha traveled from camp to camp in isolated areas
throughout Vietnam, making eight (8) visits. She would stay “in-country”
from four to six months at a time–usually at her own expense–to be with
the troops she so dearly loved. She used the nurse’s aide skills she
learned back in the 1930s, and surgical techniques she picked up during
World War II to help treat the wounded. Whatever her official nursing
qualifications, her help was often needed and very much appreciated. Her
presence, whether as an entertainer or as a nurse, helped to make life
bearable for so many enlisted troops and officers.
Hollywood
blacklisted her as a warmonger for working ten years on and off with
the medics under fire in the field. She was wounded twice while visiting
these remote bases, but didn't let it interfere with taking care of her
troops. Maggie died in 1994 at 78 and is the only non-military person
buried in Fort Bragg.
Joe Martin and Cathy Wayne with Leslie Uggams on TV Special
The
teenage pop star from Australia ignored the warnings and embarked on a
tour of military bases in Vietnam. Things were going well with her
“Sweethearts On Parade” tour until one night, 50 years ago, at a U.S.
Marine Corps base in Da Nang. Burt Kearns and Jeff Abraham chronicle how
the unthinkable happened: Someone got away with murder.
Cathy
Wayne, a pretty teenage Australian pop star, made history on July 20,
1969. Fifty years ago, on the day Neil Armstrong and the Apollo 11 crew
landed on the moon, Cathy Wayne became the first Australian woman to die
in the Vietnam war. She was nineteen years old. A bullet killed her
while performing on stage.
Born
Catherine Anne Warnes in Arncliffe, an outer suburb of Sydney, she soon
became Cathy Wayne. She made records and recorded advertising jingles.
She toured around Australia with the Bandstand Family, and though she
was under the legal age to enter the joints, performed in nightclubs.
SWEETHEARTS ON PARADE arrived
at the United States Marine Corps’ 1st Reconnaissance Battalion base,
four miles southeast of Da Nang, on July 20. That evening, they
performed at a club for non-commissioned officers. This meant that the
other enlisted men on the base — the grunts, the infantrymen — were not
allowed to be among the 75 higher-ranked soldiers and staff members
enchanted by the charms of sweetheart Cathy Wayne and the go-go girls.
Corporal
Robert Stockham was one of the Marines who wasn’t invited. He
remembered the night and the events that transpired in his barracks.
There were several people in the hooch and we were in there talking and
drinking beer. Sgt. Jim Killen came in. We referred to him as ‘Pappy’
because he was so old. He was twenty-eight years old and the rest of us
were nineteen or twenty. He had heard that I had a .22 high-standard
automatic with a silencer. This was the type of pistol that we’d taken
out on patrols with us to do prisoner snatches. Pappy asked me if I
still had the gun, said he wanted to use it. I asked him what he was
gonna do with it. He told me that he was going to go down to the
perimeter and shoot at some feral dogs that would hang out around
there.”
Sgt.
James Killen headed out with Cpl. Stockham’s gun and silencer. Not far
away, the Sweethearts on Parade were giving the noncoms and staff
members some good old Caucasian stimulation.
It
was around 9:15 pm. Inside the officers’ club, Cathy Wayne, wearing a
pink miniskirt, had finished a song and was introducing some of the
other Sweethearts when she stopped short — and suddenly dropped like a
marionette with severed strings.
“We
were halfway through the show and I was playing the organ and all of a
sudden she fell down!” Jimmy Taylor said. “And I thought she’s got an
electric shock from the microphone, and I thought, ‘Hang on’ — and I
knew then that she’d been shot. And, of course, I just fell to pieces. I
wiped all the beer off the top of the organ — there were about twelve
cans of beer that went everywhere — and I said, ‘My God!’ I just lost
control. There were no lights on. Everyone was running around screaming
and it was just awful.”
Cathy
Wayne had been shot in the chest. Blood spread across her breasts and
seeped through her sexy costume. She died almost immediately because the
bullet had severed her aorta. Clive Cavanagh, who’d climbed over his
drum kit as soon as Cathy collapsed, now cradled his lover’s body in his
arms, his tears splashing across her ashen face.
What made the scene even more chaotic was that nobody heard the shot. No one knew where the bullet came from.
WHO SHOT CATHY WAYNE? An
investigation revealed that the bullet was fired from behind a Jeep
about 35 yards away from the club and had passed through the insect
screen of an open window before entering the left side of Cathy Wayne’s
body and exiting the right side. No one heard the shot, Marine Corps
investigators explained, because the .22 caliber pistol that was fired
outside was equipped with a silencer. So who did it? The finger pointed
to Pappy, Sgt. James W. Killen of Winter Haven, Florida. He allegedly
had been trying to kill his commanding officer, Major Roger E. Simmons,
who was inside the club, watching the show from the front row.
Killing
your superior during a time of war? Not so unusual, Cpl. Stockham
admitted. “There were officers that were fragged in Vietnam. If you’re
in combat and you blindly follow your leader and he’s incompetent,
something’s got to give somewhere. Cathy Wayne was an innocent party who
was voluntarily there to entertain the military.”
Marine
Corps Sgt. James W. Killen was court-martialed later that year in Da
Nang for the killing of Cathy Wayne. He insisted from the start that he
didn’t do it and pleaded not guilty to a charge of first-degree
premeditated murder. Two corporals, including Robert Stockham, testified
that on the night Cathy Wayne was shot, Killen had entered “Hooch Six”
demanding a weapon and ammunition. They said he found the pistol under a
rubber air mattress. A sergeant testified that Killen entered his room
and pulled up his shirt to show off a pistol in his belt. “Look at what
I’ve got,” he supposedly said, pointing to the silencer.
All three witnesses said this occurred around 9:15 pm, the time Cathy Wayne was shot.
Killen,
who’d been in Vietnam three years and had received a Purple Heart and
the South Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry, testified in his own defense.
He admitted taking the pistol from the hooch. He claimed that he went
out to shoot the dogs that had been running into the barbed wire on the
base’s perimeter, but didn’t see any. He said he returned to the
Enlisted Men’s Club, where he drank eleven or twelve beers before
leaving around 9:30.
Lance
Corporal Ronald Prohaska testified, however, that Killen returned to
the hooch while the search for a presumed enemy sniper was still
ongoing. “Why in the hell did you do something like that for?” Prohaska
said he asked. He said that Killen replied, “She was just winged.” When
he asked about the gun, Prohaska said Killen told him it was “taken care
of.” The weapon was later found in a ditch. There were no fingerprints,
and no witnesses.
On
October 29, an eight-man court-martial panel convicted James Killen of
un-premeditated murder in the second degree. Sentencing took place the
following day. The panel ordered that Killen receive a dishonorable
discharge, busted to the rank of private, and forfeit all pay and
allowances. Then they sentenced him to 20 years of hard labor.
Killen
went to prison. A year and a half later, the Navy Court of Military
Review looked at the case and found that the two corporals had altered
their testimony after an offer of immunity from prosecution. Killen’s
verdict and sentence were set aside. On August 4 and 5, a new trial took
place at Camp Pendleton in southern California. This time, James Killen
was cleared of all charges. He was released after serving two years and
nine days in prison.
He told Shane Green of the Sydney Morning Herald:
“Were they aiming at Cathy? Well, they may have been aiming in the
general direction and pulled the trigger because that was the only real
noise in the camp that night, a band playing, and that’s where the
lights were.”
Cathy
Wayne — Catherine Anne Warnes — was one of three Australian women
killed in Vietnam during the war. The other two, Lee Makk and Margaret
Moses, were welfare workers who died in a plane crash in 1975.
Brandi Perry & The Bubble Machine
When
Dorothy sang about going over the rainbow, she was imagining a place
where there isn’t any trouble. Paula Sargent used to imagine that place
too until she found it.
“For me, it’s here," she told a class of high school students in Lake Balboa.
Born
Paula-Sue Levine, Sargent has been teaching for roughly 30 years – more
than half of them at Birmingham Community Charter High School. Even
after retiring, she continued to substitute.
Teaching,
however, wasn’t always her goal. In the late 1960s, when she was barely
older than the students she teaches now, Sargent was hired as the lead
singer of a pop music group.
“We were called Brandi Perry and the Bubble Machine," she said, "They changed my name to Brandi.”
She
and her bandmates, none of them older than 20, traveled overseas to
entertain the troops in Vietnam. They were there for less than a month
when their vehicle was attacked.
It was July 5, 1968, their truck left Saigon for Vung Tau near the end of the day and were halfway
to their destination when they were ambushed from the side of the road
by VC sympathizers. The attack caused the truck to run off the road and
turn over in a ditch. The drummer and keyboard player Phil Willis + Kurt
Pill, both only 17 years old, were killed, and the bassist and vocalist Jack Bone + Paula “Brandi Perry,” Levine were wounded.
SP4
David K.Hamilton U.S.Army was assigned to the HQ Company, 1St.
Logistics Command volunteered to drive the pickup truck with the band
and Brandi (Paula Levine) to a camp for a performance when they were
ambushed by Viet Cong forces on Highway 15 in the middle of a combat
zone, according to Miss Levine, Hamilton, a Malden MA. native was
covered with wounds when he threw himself over the actress and ordered
the rest of the troupe to “play dead”. Two band members died and two
survived, the survivors credited SP4 Hamilton with their survival by
listening to his commands to stay still and play dead so the enemy
wouldn’t kill them. The actress Paula Levine flew from Hollywood to
Malden MA to attend the funeral and bring Hamilton’s belongings that he
entrusted to her before he died. Hamilton was 19 years old, his name is
etched on the VietNam Memorial Wall along with over 58,000 of our brave
American heroes.
Their vehicle was repeatedly fired upon and looted. “We couldn’t do anything," she recalled.
They
hid there waiting for help for hours. Army Sargent David Hamilton, who
was escorting the group, was also shot and unconscious. He later died at
a hospital in Japan.
“His name is on the wall," she said, pulling a rubbing of his name from her scrapbook.
After
that, Brandi went back to being Paula and 50 years later, she still
sings. Sargent has a regular gig performing with her brother at Las
Hadas in Northridge.
But
her best performance is still in the classroom. She is not just
teaching kids about musicals, but about strength and survival. Even they
ask her to sing and then surprise her with a show of appreciation when
eventually she gave in. She says she gets the same joy from teaching
that she does from singing.
“I love the people contact," said Sargent. "Everybody is with you and you are with them. That’s what I love about it.”
So much so that after 30 years, it’s more than a career. It’s her home.
“And as Dorothy would say, and you know she’s going to say it," she told the students, "there’s no place like home.”
The following entertainersperformed for U.S. military personnel and their allies in the combat theatre during the Vietnam War (1959–1975). How many do you remember?
