Operation Uranus

On this date in 1942, the massive Soviet counteroffensive, codenamed Uranus, was launched north and south of the city of Stalingrad, beginning the final phase of a battle that began on August 23, 1942 and would end on February 2, 1943.  For the prior twelve weeks, the German Sixth Army had tried to crush the last of the ferocious Red Army resistance within the city, while relying upon its Romanian, Italian, and Hungarian allies to protect its long flanks running across the open steppes outside the city.

The Soviet build up had gone undetected by the Germans, and the timing and scale of the counteroffensive caught the Nazis off guard.  The undermanned and outgunned armies of the allies crumbled and, by November 23, the Sixth Army was encircled, an encirclement frantic German efforts to break ended in failure.  Combined with Hitler's refusal to allow the Sixth Army to attempt to break out, it spelled doom for the 210,000 surrounded soldiers.

(from encyclopedia brittanica) 

(from wikipedia) 

Stalingrad was the deadliest battle of the bloodiest war in human history.  Perhaps appropriately, the two sides were the most brutal regimes in modern history.  Total casualties may have reached two million, including Germany and its allies, and Soviet military and civilians, of whom more than 750,000 were killed.

The scale of the battle and of the Soviet victory was so overwhelming that the Communist regime was able to suppress public and historical knowledge of its failed counteroffensive around Moscow, codenamed Mars and initiated at the same time as Uranus, with 300,000 Red Army soldiers killed, wounded or missing.  It was only with the collapse of the Soviet Union that a full account of Mars became available.

The Soviet counteroffensive around Moscow in December 1941 was the moment when it was clear that Germany would not be able to conquer the Soviets.  The Battle of Kursk, in July 1943, was the moment from which point the German army would be constantly retreating until the end of the war.  But Stalingrad was the military turning point and, more importantly, the psychological turning point.  It was then that Hitler and the top military commanders knew they were doomed, absent the availability of "miracle weapons", and when Stalin and his high command knew victory was inevitable.

Aspects of the battle and the greater German-Soviet conflict can be found in two prior posts:

The Annotated "Roads To Moscow", based on the 1970s Al Stewart song, tells the entire story, including the crushing of the hopes of returning Soviet soldiers that their wartime efforts would lead to a less harsh post-war country.  Stalin had other ideas.

Life and Fate is the title of one of the 20th century's greatest novels, by Vassily Grossman, who was at Stalingrad (and later in the war, among the Red Army troops first entering Auschwitz).  

Operation Uranus was the capstone of the turnaround in Allied fortunes in Europe since the summer of 1942 when the Germans were rolling through the steppes of south Russia, crossing the Don, and advancing into the wild lands north of the Caucasus Mountains, and approaching the Caspian Sea.  

In North Africa, Rommel had routed the British, capturing Tobruk (and causing a crisis for Churchill's government which faced a vote of confidence in Parliament) and advanced into Egypt, reaching El Alamein, less than 70 miles from Alexandria, and threatening the Suez Canal.  The rest of North Africa seemed secure for the Axis, under the rule of Vichy France and Western Europe was securely under German occupation or influence. 

While Japan had suffered a stunning setback at Midway in June 1942, its vast territorial empire, reaching the borders of India, occupying the most prosperous parts of China, threatening Australia, and occupying most of the island chains of the Pacific seemed invincible.

By the time of Operation Uranus, the strategic situation was already changing.  In late October, the British, New Zealanders, and Australians of Montgomery's 8th army defeated Rommel at El Alamein, and the Germans began a slow, but steady, retreat into Libya.  Then, on November 8, American, British, and Canadian forces landed in Morocco and Algeria, and began racing towards Tunisia.  North Africa, which had seemed so secure for the Axis, was quickly crumbling.

In the Pacific, a small force of Marines had landed at Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands, and was holding its own against increasingly desperate Japanese attempts to dislodge them.  This was the first successful allied ground defense against Japan since its attacks began in December 1941.  But it was still touch and go; after the naval battle of Santa Cruz in late October, the United States was reduced to two operational carriers in the entire Pacific.  For the longer-term the industrial might of America would proved the decisive factor.  By June 1944 the American fleet supporting the invasion of the Marianas included 15 aircraft carriers, carrying new, fast, and maneuverable planes that destroyed Japan's naval air force.

The Banshees

Went to a movie theater today for the first time since early 2020 and saw The Banshees of Inisherin.  Very good and very dark, in some ways even darker than In Bruges.  The film looks lovely, shot on two islands off the west coast of Ireland, which is good because the story deals with some dark emotions, though often injected with humor.  Brendan Gleeson, Colin Farrell, Kerry Condon, and Barry Keoghan are splendid.

The movie is set in April 1923 and there are occasional references to the ongoing Irish Civil War, at least twice we can hear gunfire and explosions across the passage separating the island from the Irish mainland.  I realized that at least one of the themes of the movie was as commentary on that Civil War, which occurred between June 1922 and May 1923, and left bitter scars on Irish society that took decades to erase.

The Civil War occurred because of an oath.  From shortly after the end of WW1 until the summer of 1922, the Irish rebels had fought a non-conventional war in order to end several hundred years of English occupation.   Britain eventually agreed to negotiate and after months of talks in London an agreement was reached (Winston Churchill was one of the British negotiators).  While it was short of full independence for the entire island (leaving six northern counties in Britain) and created what was to be called a Irish Free State, within the British Empire and, most importantly, requiring an oath of allegiance to King George V, as the King in Ireland, not King of the United Kingdom.  It was this oath that led to a split within the Irish revolutionaries, the Free Staters supporting it, however reluctantly, and seeing the Free State as the first step towards inevitable independence, while the Irish Republican Army saw the oath as a repudiation of all its principles.

War broke out between the factions in late June.  It was brutal, devolving into murders and executions.  The Banshees starts with a seeming inconsequential conflict over not much of anything and escalates from there, despite the wishes of the principals, as they are carried along by sticking by their principles.  Prior to the Civil War, two rebels, Michael Collins and Harry Boland, were very close friends but Collins was Chairman of the Irish Provisional Government of the Free State and supported the oath, while Boland opposed the treaty with England.  On July 31, 1922 Boland was shot by Free State soldiers attempting to arrest him and died the next day.  Collins attended his funeral.  Three weeks later, Collins was dead, killed in an ambush.  All over an oath.  An oath that ended friendships, that led to friends killing friends, that led to decades of bitterness, and delayed economic development.  An oath that meant nothing in the longer-term.  Under the 1931 Statute of Westminster all British dominions, including the Irish Free State, became effectively independent and the oath of allegiance was dropped by the Free State shortly thereafter, without reaction from Britain.  In 1937 a new constitution was adopted, in which the Irish Free State disappeared to be replaced by the nation of Ireland, a constitutional Republic.  By its setting in the midst of the Civil War, I think writer and director Martin McDonagh, also considered Ireland's leading playwright, meant to make that statement. 

But there are other themes also running through the film, and the interview with Gleeson and Farrell below explores one of them, as does this movie review. Worth seeing.  Just be ready for it.

NOTE:  It turns out the downside of being back in a movie theater is having to watch so many awful trailers, all played at top volume, and varying in quality from boring, to "seen it before", to repellent.

At The Fillmore East Again

Part 2 of our trek back into an ancient land, going through the rest of the Fillmore East program from May 16-17, 1969.  Part 1 can be found here.

Joshua Light Show worked the lights for both of Bill Graham's venues in San Francisco and New York.  Never was much into the whole aura and mystique of the light shows.  The Musician's Classified is a real view into how things worked back then.  Tried tracking some of the names but couldn't find anything verifiable.

 

Bill Graham was a tough guy and took on everybody.  Graham, Jewish and born in Germany in 1931, was one of of six children. His father died two days after his birth, and as conditions worsened his mother placed the two youngest, Bill and a sister, in an orphanage, from where in 1939 he was one of a group of Jewish children exchanged with Christian children in a French orphanage.  From there he reached the U.S. (his mother was killed at Auschwitz), where he was placed in a foster home.  Drafted in 1951, he fought in the Korean War, receiving the Bronze Star and Purple Heart (for his wounds).  Graham died in a 1991 helicopter crash returning from a Huey Lewis & The News concert.  Here he goes after the New York Times.

 

The upcoming shows for the Fillmore East, demonstrating the eclectic selection of acts.  Imagine hearing Woody Herman & His Orchestra, followed by Led Zeppelin.  If you can't, listen to Woody & Company on the Ed Sullivan Show.  My mom was a fan and I saw the Herman and his band perform sometime in the 60s at a local high school.  Seats at the Fillmore cost $3, $4, or, if you wanted to splurge, $5.

 All the basics for the venue: rules and the crew, "The Fillmore East Family".  Best reminder of a long ago time: "Public Telephones are located in mezzanine (upstairs) lobby."

 You may have noticed on the upcoming Fillmore East schedule a June 1969 appearance by Chicago, at the bottom of a three act bill.  The album pictured here is from The Chicago Transit Authority, the same group.  CTA, an unusual double album from a new band, was released in April 1969, prompting threatened legal action by the real Chicago Transit Authority, leading the band to change its name.  The first album was a best seller and spawned four hit singles.  Hey, let's attend some free seminars and workshops on music in Oakland, California.  It'll be cool, Country Joe McDonald, Elvin Bishop, Mike Bloomfield and Jerry Garcia will be there!

Never heard of Ford Theatre before seeing this program.  According to Wikipedia, "Their sound was similar to other Boston-based psychedelic rock bands of the era, but more genuine", whatever that may mean.  This was their second, and last, album.  Ford Theatre disbanded in 1971.

We are here at the beginning of the brief rise of Delaney & Bonnie Bramlett.  This is their second album and it created a lot of buzz in the industry and if you were reading Rolling Stone.  Eric Clapton spotted them and they were signed to be the opening act for Blind Faith's US tour in 1969.  Clapton ended up preferring to perform onstage with Delaney & Bonnie and when they put together a big tour in 1969/70 under the name of Delaney & Bonnie and Friends, Clapton usually appeared with them.  Others joining the tour at times included Duane and Greg Allman and George Harrison.  This is D&B at their peak, performing in December 1969, with Clapton, Harrison as well as Rita Coolidge, Bobby Keys (sax on many of the Rolling Stone albums of that period), and Carl Radle, Bobby Whitlock, and Jim Gordon, the last three going on to form Derek & The Dominoes with Clapton.  D&B did alright for a couple of years, and then things fell apart due to drugs and Delaney's apparent abuse of Bonnie.

I don't know about you, but Royal Rags definitely sounds to me like the place to go to find things you'll only wear or use once.

 

Channel One was a comedy group active between 1967 and 1971.  Chevy Chase was a member at one point.  You can find out more about them here, and they even have a Facebook page.

 

Liberty Records had been around since 1955 and before the British Invasion featured artists like Eddie Cochran, Bobby Vee, Jan and Dean, and The Chipmunks.  They survived the transition and several of the albums and artists featured on this page made it big.  The 5th Dimension had its first big break with 1967's Up, Up and Away and this album, The Age of Aquarius, was a monster seller.  One single, Laura Nyro's Wedding Bell Blues, topped the charts, but it was dwarfed by the success of Aquarius/Let The Sunshine, which topped the charts for six weeks in April and May of 1969 and became the best selling single of the entire year.  You could not escape the song, from the Broadway show Hair, even if, like me, you wanted to.

You heard about Johnny Winter in Part 1.  Canned Heat had a brief but very successful run until its two leaders died of drug overdoses.  Traffic's Last Exit, a band I am still a fan of, was supposed to be its last, but it reformed a couple of years later and had another successful run.  Albert Collins was a talented blues guitarist.

I'm glad they're telling me who Clarence Carter is because I don't have much of a recollection.

 

Well, this is a useful combo.  Fusion was a music magazine published in Boston from 1967 to 1974.  Don't know anything about it, but they published stuff by Lester Bangs, so respect must be paid.  I like the implied endorsement by John Lennon.  And glad to know Zotique Limited was there to meet my astrologically guided choices in books, clothes, and gifts, if I had any interest, ever, in astrology.  Didn't then or now.

 

Vanguard Records was a folk/jazz label.  This was jazz guitarist Larry Coryell's first album and he went on to release more than two dozen over the course of his career.  I had the Country Joe & The Fish album.  It wasn't very good; my favorite song remains Sweet Martha Lorraine, from their first album.  Buffy Sainte-Marie had a long career and is still active.

The Joan Baez record was dedicated to her then-husband serving jail time as a draft resister.  Baez had a wonderful voice, but she approached every song with the same intensity, always sounding like she was giving a musical lecture, so never cared for her.  And I'll never forgive her butchery of The Band's The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down.

Sweetwater had a music school?  Strobe lights were cool back then.  My buddies and I "liberated" some things and built our own strobes to operate while our band played.  The House of Oldies was apparently different from Village Oldies, though the stores were only a block apart on Bleecker Street.

The Band's second album would be released on September 22, 1969.  It was, and remains, a perfect album.

Three more nearby stores and The Edwin Hawkins Singers.  Based on 1755 hymn by an Englishman, rearranged in gospel style by Edwin Hawkins, Oh Happy Day became a surprise international hit after its release in April 1969.  Hawkins was choir director at the Ephesium Church of God in Christ in Berkeley, California, where the song was recorded.  Lead singer Dorothy Combs Morrison was still active as of 2019.

The dirigible set off on its maiden voyage in January '69.  You know the rest.

Nice to see Swingin' England weighing in.  London Records was the home of the Rolling Stones in the 60s.  Didn't know AUM or The Deviants at the time.  You all know The Moody Blues and they were well known to us at the time.  Savoy Brown had some success in the late 60s and early 70s.  And then we come to Ten Years After and guitar whiz Alvin Lee.  Their current release was Stonehenged, which sounds like the inspiration for Spinal Tap, but the band really didn't break out until its performance at Woodstock in August (that triple screen gimmick from the movie is really annoying), followed by a couple of hit albums before crashing in 1973-4.  The band's biggest hit was I'd Love To Change The World, with its delightfully ambiguous lyrics and meaning, from their 1971 album A Space In Time.

Civilized People

Another twitter account I enjoy is that of the British actor, Michael Warburton, which consists mostly of movie clips, many good-natured or humorous.  This clip is neither.  A memorable scene from The Dark Knight, the finest of superhero movies; thought provoking in every aspect, challenging all notions of means vs ends, of where one follows the rules and when one breaks them, and leaving it for us to decide. Heath Ledger is so unsettling and disturbing as the Joker because there is a grain of truth in much of what he says though it is surrounded by rot; you can see how a skilled manipulator operates.  I noticed that three times during the film the Joker describes the incident resulting in his facial disfiguration, and each time he tells a different tale.  He tells the tales to gain sympathy but he is only doing so to manipulate emotions; consistency is not important.  As the Michael Caine character says elsewhere in the film, "some men just want to watch the world burn".  The question for the rest of us is what do we do when faced with those people.

Other memorable lines from this scene:

"I'm not a monster, I'm just ahead of the curve"

"You have all these rules, and you think they'll save you"

The last brings to mind Anton Chigurh's question in No Country For Old Men, "if the rule you followed brought you to this, what use was the rule?".

“When the chips are down, these uh, these ‘civilised’ people will eat each other.”

THE DARK KNIGHT (2008)#HeathLedger #ChristopherNolan

pic.twitter.com/u59kqQKyAM

— Michael Warburton (@MichaelWarbur17) November 8, 2022

For a more upbeat Warburton tweet and a palate cleanser, here is Aretha Franklin from 1964, before she found commercial success after her 1966 move from Columbia to Atlantic Records.

 

ARETHA FRANKLIN

EVIL GAL BLUES (1964)

pic.twitter.com/KUIE3sHfN4

— Michael Warburton (@MichaelWarbur17) November 9, 2022

At The Fillmore East

 

A couple of years ago, the thoughtful THC Daughter surprised me with the program from the Fillmore East for the weekend of May 16-17, 1969.  The acts for that weekend were It's A Beautiful Day, Sweetwater, and headliners The Who, with the U.S premiere performances of their new album Tommy, which was released on the 17th.  My daughter tracked it down because I'd attended one of those shows - the early one on May 17 - but I had no recollection of ever seeing the program before.

The Fillmore East was located at 105 2nd Ave in New York City in the run down area known as the East Village.  Opening its doors in March 1968 and closing in June 1971 it was the premiere rock concert hall in the city, a counterpart to the Fillmore West in San Francisco, both operated with an iron hand by promoter Bill Graham.

The format was very different from concerts today.  Most of the time there were three acts on the bill and they played two sets each night for two different audiences.  You went to the early show or the late show.  I attended three concerts at the Fillmore and it was the early show each time because we had to take the train in from Norwalk, CT, arriving at Grand Central, and then taking the subway downtown.  Even going to the early show we didn't arrive back in Norwalk until at least 1 am.

I first attended the Fillmore on the last weekend of November 1968 - Jefferson Airplane with opening act Buddy Guy.  The Airplane was a much heavier sounding band live than on recordings and Buddy Guy was spectacular, coming off the stage and marching down one of the aisles, playing the guitar behind his back. The 86 year old Guy is embarking next year on his Damn Right Farewell Tour.

The last night of the Fillmore in June 1971 I went to see Albert King, J Geils Band, and The Allman Brothers (with the original lineup).  Going in, I was most interested in J Geils, and they did a terrific set, but the Allman Brothers were simply on a higher plane, particularly at the end, playing Hot 'Lanta, In Memory of Elizabeth Reed, and Whipping Post (here's a post I did about that night).

So, with that, let's take a peek inside this relic for a look at the music, art, and culture of the late 60s.

Announcing the release of The Youngbloods new album, Elephant Mountain.  I was already a fan of the band, owning their previous album Earth Music.  Elephant Mountain features their greatest song, Darkness, Darkness.

The Electric Circus was a smaller venue in the East Village.  If you like the blues you'll recognize many of these names like Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker (both of whom I saw perform), Rev. Blind Gary Davis, Big Mama Thorton, Slim Harpo, and Otis Rush.

 

Next up are three stores near the Fillmore; OM, Thulcandra "Holy Things for Your Head & Body", and Kasbah.  They came with the times, and when the times were over, so were they.

 An ad for Pinball Wizard, the first single off Tommy, already a hit in the U.S. 

Ah, the Village Gate, a renowned jazz club.  Imagine seeing a double bill of Richard Pryor and the Miles Davis Quartet!  Or Dizzy Gillespie and Theolonius Monk.  The Majestic Men's Store features a guy in a cape.  Capes were big then.  Okay, I'll fess up - I had a cape.  In the lower right is a mysterious ad with options to call The Scene or Steve Paul.  Paul was the owner of The Scene, a popular New York club as well as managing guitarist Johnny Winter.

 Speaking of which, here's Johnny Winter and his just released first album.  There was a big buzz about Johnny and he had a good run as a hero blues guitarist though his brother Edgar hit it bigger with 1973's Frankenstein.  I'm not sure how well the line "A White Flame Ignited by Black Blues" would play today.

 The magnificent Joe Cocker!  His debut album, With A Little Help From My Friends, came out in April 1969.  I still remember the first time hearing his cover of the Beatles song.  It was thrilling and amazing.  On Sgt Pepper the song was an enjoyable and catchy ditty sung with elan by Ringo.  In Cocker's hands, and in 3/4 time, transformed into a desperate plea for help.

 Never heard of the Silver Apples, apparently a 60s electronic music band.  I like the passive-aggressive promotional approach with an added touch of pretentiousness; "Silver Apples is not a sound one can jump right into, but rather takes cultivation. I personally have passed the "what the hell is that??" point and gotten to where I can listen and dig what they are saying . . . "

The Newport Jazz and Folk Festivals would take place in July, a month before Woodstock.  Look at the lineups!  Jazz featured Miles Davis, Gary Burton, Mothers of Invention, James Brown, Anita O'Day, Sun Ra, Jeff Beck, Roland Kirk, Jethro Tull, while at the Folk Festival you could see Van Morrison, Johnny Cash & June Carter, Everly Brothers, Joni Mitchell, Arlo Guthrie and Muddy Waters.  And look at the ticket prices!

 Sly & The Family Stone.  So much great music over a four year period before Sly's drug problem got the best of him.

 

Four stores in St Mark's Place which was Hippie Heaven.

 

Interesting combo on this page.  Village Oldies, "The Really Heavy Record Shop", with a photo that has nothing to do with its business (can't remember seeing anyone actually wearing that "dress"), along with an ad for the new Grateful Dead album, another commercial failure (deservedly) for the band.

WNEW FM.  That brings back good memories.  Find out why.

And now the lineup for the weekend.

 

The Who, The Who.  Best rock band I saw in concert.  I'd never heard anything like the sound this band generated.  I wrote in an previous post about their performance that night:

One of the best shows I've ever seen.  They opened with some of their older material, then ripped right through the entire Tommy album, and then started a wrap up.  It was astonishing, Keith Moon in constant motion on the drum kit, looking like he had no bones in his arms, Townshend windmilling on the guitar, and Entwhistle's thundering bass.

As the band and the audience grew more frenzied we noticed smoke in the theater.  Some type of announcement was made to exit the place but we ignored it.  Then we saw a guy in a suit wander onto the stage, grab a microphone and start to talk.  Roger Daltrey pinned his arms back and Townshend walked over, all the while continuing to play his guitar, and kicked the guy in the privates.  Actually, it sounds better when Daltrey tells it, which he does in his recently released autobiography, Thanks A Lot Mr Kibblewhite:

" . . . this bloke jumped up onto the stage and grabbed the microphone off me.  I grabbed it back and told him to fuck off, but he kept struggling.  As we were wrestling with it, I noticed Pete crossing the stage toward us, doing a Chuck Berry duck walk.  Perfectly on beat, he kicked the bloke in the balls, then I grabbed the mic, and we finished the song." 

The next thing I remember dozens of New York City policemen flooded down the two aisles, the side doors flew open, and they pushed us out along each row and onto the street.

It turned out the building next door caught fire and they were worried about the Fillmore catching fire.  We didn't care.

Daltrey and Townshend were arrested for assaulting the guy grabbing the mic, who turned out to be a plainclothes police officer.  

 

Sweetwater?  I remember absolutely nothing about them.

 

This band, which I'd never heard, played a gorgeous set, with soaring, graceful ballads from their debut album which would be released in June, like White Bird and Hot Summer Day, all illuminated by the electric violin of David LaFlamme. 

More coming in Part 2.

Moonlight On The Lake

I first encountered the work of English artist John Atkinson Grimshaw via the twitter account of Darrell Epp, which is full of fascinating and interesting cultural tidbits.  I so enjoy his use of light.